The Fallible · Synthetic · Study Bible
The Sign of the Fleece
Judges 6:33–40 — The Sign of the Fleece. Each verse below carries the full apparatus: the Berean Standard Bible, the vocalized original (tap any word), and a parsed breakdown of every term transcribed from the interlinear. Synthesized commentary, canonical threads, and the reading of Christ gather at the end, over the whole unit.
33Then all the Midianites, Amalekites, and other people of the east gathered together, crossed over the Jordan, and camped in the Valley of Jezreel.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
wə·ḵāl miḏ·yān wa·‘ă·mā·lêq ū·ḇə·nê- qe·ḏem ne·’es·p̄ū yaḥ·dāw way·ya·‘aḇ·rū way·ya·ḥă·nū bə·‘ê·meq yiz·rə·‘el
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-all-of Midian and-Amalek and-sons-of the-east were-gathered as-one; and-they-crossed-over, and-they-encamped in-the-valley-of Jezreel.
Where the English smooths the original
Crossing the fords near Bethshean, they were probably encamped, not in the broad part of the plain of Jezreel, but in the valley between Gilboa and Little Hermon. The word Jezreel means “God’s sowing.”
The Hebrew is, The Spirit of the Lord clothed Gideon; clothed him as a robe, to put honour upon him; clothed him as a coat of mail, to put a defence upon him. Those are well clad that are thus clothed.Benson's entry is headed Jdg 6:33-34 and treats both verses; this sentence belongs to his comment on the clothing of the Spirit in v. 34.
the valley of Jezreel ] Joshua 17:16 , Hosea 1:5 ; not the Great Plain west of Jezreel, but the broad, deep valley which descends eastwards from Jezreel down to the Jordan.Cambridge here contradicts Pulpit, who reads the same phrase as the great plain of Esdraelon. We record the disagreement rather than resolve it.
34So the Spirit of the LORD came upon Gideon, who blew the ram’s horn and rallied the Abiezrites behind him.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
wə·rū·aḥ Yah·weh lā·ḇə·šāh ’eṯ- giḏ·‘ō·wn way·yiṯ·qa‘ baš·šō·w·p̄ār wa·yiz·zå̄·ʿēq ’ă·ḇî·‘e·zer ’a·ḥă·rāw
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-Spirit-of YHWH clothed-herself-with Gideon; and-he-blew on-the-shofar, and-Abiezer was-shrieked-out after-him.
Where the English smooths the original
clothed, i.e., descended upon him, and laid itself around him as it were like a coat of mail, or a strong equipment, so that he became invulnerable and invincible in its might
This forcible figure is found also in 1Chronicles 12:18 ( Amasai); 2Chronicles 24:20 (Zechariah); Psalm 59:17 ; and in the New Testament, Luke 24:49 ( endusēsthe ) ; Galatians 3:27 ( enedusasthe Christon ) ; 1Peter 5:5 ( enkombōsasthe ) .Ellicott's chain of parallels is the sourced basis for the cross-Testament clothing thread below; note that the Greek verbs he cites are not etymologically related to the Hebrew, only semantically.
but a spirit of fortitude and courage, as the Targum; the Spirit of God filled him, or, as in the Hebrew text, "clothed" (y) him with zeal, strength, and might
35Calling them to arms, Gideon sent messengers throughout Manasseh, as well as Asher, Zebulun, and Naphtali, so that they came up to meet him.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
hū wa·yiz·zå̄·ʿēq ’a·ḥă·rāw šā·laḥ ū·mal·’ā·ḵîm bə·ḵāl mə·naš·šeh gam- šā·laḥ ū·mal·’ā·ḵîm bə·’ā·šêr ū·ḇiz·ḇu·lūn ū·ḇə·nap̄·tā·lî way·ya·‘ă·lū liq·rā·ṯām
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-messengers he-sent in-all-of Manasseh, and-it-also was-shrieked-out after-him; and-messengers he-sent in-Asher and-in-Zebulun and-in-Naphtali, and-they-went-up to-meet-them.
Where the English smooths the original
His own tribe, Manasseh, and the three northern tribes of Asher, Zebulon, and Naphtali hastened to join him. Issachar was probably unable to do so, because the Midianites were encamped in the heart of their country.
In Jdg 7:23 these tribes, with the exception of Zebulun, gather together after the battle: here Gideon summons them before . It is difficult to reconcile the two statements.Cambridge writes from a source-critical standpoint and treats the verse as an editorial insertion. We record the observed tension (Jdg 6:35 summons before the battle, Jdg 7:23 gathers after it) without adopting his reconstruction.
because these tribes were nearest to him, and so could soonest join with him; and were nearest the enemy also, Judges 6:33 , and therefore were most sensible of the calamity, and would in all reason be most forward to rescue themselves from it.
36Then Gideon said to God, “If You are going to save Israel by my hand, as You have said,
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
giḏ·‘ō·wn way·yō·mer ’el- hā·’ĕ·lō·hîm ’im- yeš·ḵā mō·wō·šî·a‘ yiś·rā·’êl bə·yā·ḏî ’eṯ- ka·’ă·šer dib·bar·tā
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-Gideon said unto the-Elohim: “If-there-is-Thee saving Israel by-my-hand as-which Thou-hast-spoken —”
Where the English smooths the original
(p) This request proceeds not from infidelity, but that he might be confirmed in his calling.
There is something touching in Gideon's diffidence of himself, even now that he found himself at the head of a large force. The thought that he was "the least in his father's house" seems still to possess him, and he can hardly believe it possible that he is to save Israel. In his humility he craves a sign that he is indeed chosen and called.
The caution of Gideon, desirous of being assured that he really had a promise from God, does not imply doubts as to God's faithfulness or power to fulfill His promise. Of such doubts there is not a trace in Gideon's character. He is a worthy example of faith Hebrews 11:32 .
The divine patience and condescension were wonderfully manifested in reversing the form of the miracle. Gideon himself seems to have been conscious of incurring the displeasure of God by his hesitancy and doubts; but He bears with the infirmities of His people.JFB is the one voice in the brief that grants Gideon may actually have displeased God here; Geneva, Barnes, Gill and K&D all deny it. We print the minority reading beside them.
37then behold, I will place a fleece of wool on the threshing floor. If there is dew only on the fleece and all the ground is dry, then I will know that You are going to save Israel by my hand, as You have said.”
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
hin·nêh ’ā·nō·ḵî maṣ·ṣîḡ ’eṯ- giz·zaṯ haṣ·ṣe·mer bag·gō·ren ’im yih·yeh ṭal lə·ḇad·dāh wə·‘al- ‘al- hag·giz·zāh kāl- hā·’ā·reṣ ḥō·reḇ wə·yā·ḏa‘·tî kî- ṯō·wō·šî·a‘ yiś·rā·’êl bə·yā·ḏî ’eṯ- ka·’ă·šer dib·bar·tā
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“Behold, I am-setting the-shearing-of the-wool on-the-threshing-floor: if dew shall-be upon-the-fleece alone, and-upon all-the-land drought — then-I-shall-know that Thou-wilt-save Israel by-my-hand as-which Thou-hast-spoken.”
Where the English smooths the original
His petition for a sign was not the voice of unbelief or of doubt or of presumption, but in it spoke real, though struggling faith, seeking to be confirmed.
the shorn of the wool; i.e., the fleece, the wool that had been shorn off a sheep, and still adhered together as one whole fleece.
The very fact that this circumstance might be a purely natural result only shows the simple truthfulness of the narrative.Ellicott's argument cuts both ways: he uses the possible naturalness of the first sign as evidence the narrative is not invented. Barnes and K&D turn the same observation into the reason a second, reversed sign was needed.
Gideon has with him a fleece, perhaps his sheepskin cloak with the wool on it; he resolves to use it for the purposes of a ‘sign.’ No doubt he speaks with God in a dream.The dream is Cambridge's conjecture; the text says nothing of one.
38And that is what happened. When Gideon arose the next morning, he squeezed the fleece and wrung out the dew—a bowlful of water.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
ḵên way·hî- way·yaš·kêm mim·mā·ḥo·rāṯ way·yā·zar ’eṯ- hag·giz·zāh way·yi·meṣ min- ṭal hag·giz·zāh mə·lō·w has·sê·p̄el mā·yim
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-it-was so. And-he-rose-early on-the-morrow and-he-pressed the-fleece, and-he-wrung dew from-the-fleece — the-fulness-of the-bowl, water.
Where the English smooths the original
A bowl full of water. —The word used for bowl is sêphel, as in Judges 5:25 .
and wringed the dew out of the fleece, a bowl full of water; so that it appeared it had not only fallen on it, but it had taken in a large quantity of it; the word here used is the same as in Judges 5:25 ; see Gill on Judges 5:25 ; the Targum calls it a flagon.
So copiously had the dew fallen in the night upon the fleece that was exposed; whereas, as we may supply from the context, the earth all round had remained dry.K&D is candid that the dryness of the surrounding ground is supplied from the context, not stated in v. 38 itself.
39Then Gideon said to God, “Do not be angry with me; let me speak one more time. Please allow me one more test with the fleece. This time let it be dry, and the ground covered with dew.”
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
giḏ·‘ō·wn way·yō·mer ’el- hā·’ĕ·lō·hîm ’al- yi·ḥar ’ap·pə·ḵā bî wa·’ă·ḏab·bə·rāh ’aḵ hap·pā·‘am nā- raq- hap·pa·‘am ’ă·nas·seh bag·giz·zāh nā yə·hî- ḥō·reḇ ’el- hag·giz·zāh lə·ḇad·dāh hā·’ā·reṣ yih·yeh- kāl- wə·‘al- ṭāl
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-Gideon said unto the-Elohim: “Let-not burn Thy-nostril against-me, and-let-me-speak only this-once. Let-me-test, I-pray, only this-once with-the-fleece: let-there-be, pray, drought to-the-fleece alone, and-upon all-the-ground let-there-be dew.”
Where the English smooths the original
The word rendered “anger” is literally nose. The Hebrew language is very picturesque in its metaphors, and “anger” is so often expressed by the dilatation of the nostrils, that “nose” became a graphic term for anger, as it is to this day in many Eastern languages.
I will speak but this once ] recalls the language of Abraham in Genesis 18:32 J. The dew would naturally soak the fleece more than the rocky threshing-floor; so Gideon asks for a sign still more extraordinary.
Which was more difficult and preternatural than the former instance, because if there be any moisture, such bodies as fleeces of wool are most likely to drink it up.
he was conscious to himself that it showed great presumption and boldness in him to repeat his request, and that it had the appearance of great diffidence and distrust in him
40And that night God did so. Only the fleece was dry, and dew covered the ground.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
ha·hū bal·lay·lāh ’ĕ·lō·hîm way·ya·‘aś kên lə·ḇad·dāh wə·‘al- hag·giz·zāh way·hî- ḥō·reḇ ’el- ṭāl hā·yāh kāl- hā·’ā·reṣ
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-Elohim did so in-that night: and-there-was drought to-the-fleece alone, and-upon all-the-ground there-was dew.
Where the English smooths the original
What cause we sinners of the Gentiles have, to bless the Lord that the dew of heavenly blessings, once confined to Israel, is now sent to all the inhabitants of the earth!
Many interpreters observe, that all this is an emblem of the different case and state of the Jews and Gentiles under the different dispensations; that whereas under the former dispensation the Jews partook of the divine favour only, and of the blessings of grace, and enjoyed the words and ordinances with which they were watered, when the Gentiles all around them were like a barren wildernessGill reports the reading as the consensus of "many interpreters" rather than asserting it himself; the continuation of his sentence draws a supersessionist conclusion about the Jews being "entirely destitute" that we do not adopt.
Similarly St. Ambrose ( De Sp. Sanct, Prol. in 1) sees in the fleece full of dew the Hebrew nation hiding the mystery of Christ within itself, and in the dry fleece that mystery extended to all the world, but leaving the Hebrew nation dry. It would be equally possible to give a mystic significance to the threshing-floor, as a type of the universal Church ( Matthew 3:12 , &c.). But these allegoric applications of simple narratives are, to say the least, precariousEllicott records the patristic allegory and then disowns it in the same breath. We keep both halves deliberately: the ancient reading and the warning against it belong together.
(q) By which he was assured that it was a miracle of God.
The verse-by-verse work is done. What follows gathers the whole unit. All three layers below are machine-generated (⚙). Weigh them; they have no authority.
AI synthesis — woven from the public-domain voices above and the original text; generated and fallible.
The chapter turns without warning from one man smashing an altar to an international army on the move. Midian, Amalek and the בְּנֵי־קֶ֖דֶם (bᵉnê-qedem, “sons of the east”) are נֶאֶסְפ֣וּ — a Niphal, gathered — and יַחְדָּ֑ו, as one unit. Ellicott and Gill agree on the prosaic motive: this is the annual raid, timed to the harvest, “to fetch away the increase of the earth, as they had done for some years past” (Gill). Barnes marks what has changed: “But the Israelites, instead of hiding in dens and caves… now rally around their leader.”
Where they camp is disputed. Pulpit insists on “the great plain of Esdraelon… eight hours in length from east to west”; Cambridge flatly denies it — “not the Great Plain west of Jezreel, but the broad, deep valley which descends eastwards” — and the noun עֵ֥מֶק (H6010, “a vale”) leans Cambridge’s way. What neither disputes is the name. Ellicott: “The word Jezreel means ‘God’s sowing.’” ⚙ The reader who knows that etymology hears the whole verse differently: the locusts of vv. 3–5 have pitched their camp in God’s own seed-field, in harvest, and the deliverance about to begin will begin on a threshing-floor.
Every commentator in the brief stops at the same verb. לָבְשָׁ֖ה (lâbash, H3847) is not “came upon” but clothed — and the grammar has the feminine rûaḥ as subject with Gideon as the marked direct object. Benson: “The Spirit of the Lord clothed Gideon; clothed him as a robe, to put honour upon him; clothed him as a coat of mail, to put a defence upon him.” K&D: the Spirit “laid itself around him as it were like a coat of mail… so that he became invulnerable and invincible in its might.” Cambridge glosses it “put on as a garment” and traces the metaphor into Syriac, where Ignatius is called “God-clad.” Ellicott lists the company: Othniel, Jephthah, Samson, Amasai, Zechariah — and then, without pausing, Luke 24:49 and Galatians 3:27.
⚙ The English idiom reverses the direction of the Hebrew. “The Spirit came upon Gideon” leaves Gideon the one who is acted upon and remains himself. “The Spirit clothed herself with Gideon” makes Gideon the garment. Gill rightly refuses to call this prophecy — “not the spirit of prophecy, as Maimonides… but a spirit of fortitude and courage” — but courage is not the whole of it. The man who in v. 36 will ask whether God really intends to save by his hand has, in v. 34, already been worn like armour.
What follows is all summons. The horn is blown, and Abiezer וַיִזָּעֵ֥ק — a Niphal of zâʻaq, “to shriek from anguish or danger.” K&D translates the passive honestly: “Abiezer let itself be summoned after him.” The same passive verb recurs of Manasseh in v. 35, invisible in English. Then מַלְאָכִים֙ go out — the identical noun the chapter used for the angel under the oak. Ellicott is glad of Asher: “This time Asher did not linger on the sands of Accho”; Barnes adds that Issachar “was probably unable to do so, because the Midianites were encamped in the heart of their country.” Cambridge, alone among them, will not smooth the seam: the same tribes gather after the battle in Jdg 7:23, and “it is difficult to reconcile the two statements.”
At v. 36 the divine name changes and does not change back. Through the call narrative the text said YHWH and the angel of YHWH; from here to v. 40 it says only הָאֱלֹהִ֑ים. Cambridge records the datum and assigns the passage to “a work of the Elohist school,” adding that in order of time these verses are “parallel, not subsequent, to Jdg 6:11-24” — since “after the revelation of the Angel, it is strange that Gideon should have demanded a second sign.” ⚙ One need not accept the source reconstruction to notice that the observation is exegetical before it is critical: the man bargaining for proof does not use the covenant name he was given.
His words are stranger than the English lets on. יֶשְׁךָ֞ מוֹשִׁ֧יעַ is “if-there-is-Thee saving” — the existence-particle with a suffix, then a Hiphil participle of yâshaʻ (H3467, “properly, to be open, wide or free”), the very form that yields the noun saviour. And the sentence is bracketed at both ends by כַּאֲשֶׁ֥ר דִּבַּֽרְתָּ, “as Thou hast spoken.” Maclaren makes that the defence of the whole request: “Prayers that begin and end with ‘as Thou hast spoken’ are not likely to be repulsed.”
The commentators divide on Gideon’s soul. Geneva: “This request proceeds not from infidelity, but that he might be confirmed in his calling.” Barnes goes further — “Of such doubts there is not a trace in Gideon’s character” — and appeals to Hebrews 11:32. Poole says it was partly for his soldiers’ sake. JFB dissents: “Gideon himself seems to have been conscious of incurring the displeasure of God by his hesitancy and doubts; but He bears with the infirmities of His people.” K&D takes the middle ground with Seb. Schmidt, that the faith was real but “not placed above or away from the conflict of the flesh by which it was tested.” ⚙ We print the disagreement rather than adjudicate it. The text itself supplies only one piece of evidence about Gideon’s conscience, and it is in v. 39: he opens with an apology about God’s nostril.
The staging is deliberate. גִּזַּ֥ת הַצֶּ֖מֶר is “the shearing of the wool” — K&D: “the wool that had been shorn off a sheep, and still adhered together as one whole fleece” — and Ellicott corrects the painters who make it a whole sheepskin after the Vulgate’s vellus lanae. It is laid on the גֹּ֑רֶן, the threshing-floor, “made even,” open to the sky (Barnes). Morning comes and Gideon does not simply look: וַיָּ֖זַר (zûwr, “to press together”, a verb in only three verses) and וַיִּ֤מֶץ (mâtsâh, “to suck out”). He wrings the evidence dry — מְל֥וֹא הַסֵּ֖פֶל, a bowlful, in a bowl-word that occurs twice in Scripture. Ellicott names the other occurrence: “sêphel, as in Judges 5:25” — Jael’s lordly bowl.
Then the request is reversed, and the commentators agree on why. Poole: the second sign “was more difficult and preternatural than the former instance, because if there be any moisture, such bodies as fleeces of wool are most likely to drink it up.” Barnes and Benson say the same; K&D concedes the first sign “was not quite a certain one, since wool generally attracts the dew.” Ellicott turns the concession into an argument for the narrative’s honesty, quoting Bacon on sailors who hung fleeces over the side and “crushed fresh water out of them in the morning.” JFB sees in the reversal the point of the whole thing: “The divine patience and condescension were wonderfully manifested in reversing the form of the miracle.”
On meaning, the brief holds three readings side by side. K&D, following O. v. Gerlach, makes the fleece Israel: the first sign that God “would once more give strength to His people from on high, and withdraw it from the nations,” the second that He “manifested himself even in the weakness and forsaken condition of His people, while the nations were flourishing all around.” Gill reports the older allegory as the view of “many interpreters”: the wet fleece is Israel under the law, the wet ground the Gentiles under the gospel. Ellicott attributes it to Ambrose — and then refuses it: “these allegoric applications of simple narratives are, to say the least, precarious.” Maclaren stays closest to the text: “The main point is that the fleece is to be made different from the soil around it.”
⚙ Read the two signs together and they are not one sign done twice. They are a single statement made in both directions, and the hinge-word is לְבַדָּ֔הּ (lᵉbaddāh, from bad, H905, “properly, separation”). Wet alone; then dry alone. What is proved is not that God can send dew — every Israelite knew that — but that God can separate, that He can make one thing differ from everything touching it on every side. Maclaren saw this and said it plainly: the fleece is “to be a proof of God’s power to endow with characteristics not derived from, and resulting in qualities unlike, the surroundings.” Henry and Benson ask the same question in the language of the battlefield: could God distinguish between a small fleece of Israel and the vast floor of Midian?
⚙ And that is the question Gideon actually has. He is one clan in a valley filled with a coalition that arrived יַחְדָּ֑ו, as one. He has been told he will save Israel by his hand, and his hand is the only implausible thing in the sentence. So he asks for the smallest possible demonstration of the only attribute that matters to him: that the God who is over the whole ground can treat one patch of it differently. Chapter 7 will answer the same question at scale, when thirty-two thousand become three hundred.
⚙ There is a harder honesty in the text that the allegorists tend to cover. In v. 39 Gideon uses אֲנַסֶּ֤ה (nâsâh, H5254) — he asks leave to test God, the one verb Deuteronomy 6:16 forbids toward God, and he knows it, which is why he opens by asking that God’s nostril not grow hot. Gill’s distinction is the best defence available: not the power of God, but the will of God, and whether now was the time. Yet what the narrative reports is not a rebuke. It reports וַיַּ֧עַשׂ אֱלֹהִ֛ים כֵּ֖ן — “and God did so” — in the plainest verb Hebrew has, without a wonder-word anywhere near it. Our fallible reading is that the restraint is the point: God answers the test without dignifying it as a triumph of faith, and the text lets both facts stand unresolved. That is a mercy we should be slower to systematise than Ambrose was.
⚙ One line to test, and it is not a verse of Scripture but our own: “The Spirit did not come upon Gideon. The Spirit put Gideon on — and the garment asked for proof that it would fit.”
The Spirit did not come upon Gideon. The Spirit put Gideon on — and the garment asked for proof that it would fit.
AI-generated connections. Each carries a verification badge with a recorded basis; contested links are flagged.
The vessel Gideon fills is a סֵּ֖פֶל (çêphel, H5602, “a basin, as deepened out”), and the word occurs in only one other verse in all of Scripture: Judges 5:25, where Jael brings Sisera milk “in a lordly bowl” and then drives a peg through his temple. Ellicott marks the link at v. 38 (“The word used for bowl is sêphel, as in Judges 5:25”), and Gill and K&D both cross-reference the same verse. ⚙ Within four chapters the Book of Judges uses this rare vessel twice: once, filled by a woman, to lull an enemy commander into his death; once, filled from a fleece by God, to steady a commander who cannot yet believe he is one. The Verifier scores Judges 5:25 the strongest candidate in the unit.
Judges 5:25
basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexeme H5602 çêphel, in 2 verses total (Judges 5:25 and Judges 6:38) — the rarest possible verbal link short of a hapax; no quotation is claimed in either direction, only the shared rare noun, and Ellicott, Gill and K&D each name the parallel independently
וַיָּ֖זַר (zûwr, H2115, “to press together, tighten”) occurs in only three verses of the Hebrew Bible. At Job 39:15 it is the foot that may crush the ostrich’s abandoned eggs; at Isaiah 1:6 it is the nation’s wounds that have not been pressed out, bound up or softened with oil. ⚙ The shared motif is compression applied to a fragile thing to get something out of it, or to fail to. K&D identifies the form in Judges (“יזר from זוּר”) but draws no such parallel, and we claim none beyond the lexeme: this is a rare-word resonance, not an allusion. It does colour the scene — Gideon does not read the sign, he wrings it.
Isaiah 1:6 · Job 39:15
basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexeme H2115 zûwr (in 3 vv) — genuinely rare, but the three contexts share only the physical act of pressing; downgraded from verbal because no source in the brief and no feature of either text claims literary dependence
Hosea 13:3 gathers, in one verse, three of this unit’s lexemes: גֹּ֑רֶן (gôren, H1637, threshing-floor), טַל (ṭal, H2919, dew) and שָׁכַם (shâkam, H7925, to rise early) — the dew that rises early and is gone, and the chaff driven from the threshing-floor. Ellicott sends the reader from Gideon’s floor to Hosea 13:3 directly. ⚙ The overlap sharpens the sign by contrast: in Hosea the dew and the floor are figures of what vanishes; in Judges 6 the dew on the floor is the one thing that stays long enough to be wrung into a bowl. Hosea 1:5 and 2:22 hold the other half of the pairing — the Valley of Jezreel, whose name Ellicott renders “God’s sowing,” used by the prophet first for judgment and then for replanting.
Hosea 13:3 · Hosea 1:5
basis: Verifier: three shared Hebrew lexemes with Hosea 13:3 — H1637 gôren (in 37 vv), H2919 ṭal (in 30 vv), H7925 shâkam (in 64 vv); none rare individually, so the link is the co-occurrence of the motif-cluster, not a quotation. Hosea 1:5 is added on Ellicott's and Cambridge's own citation of it for the Valley of Jezreel, not on a Verifier basis
חֹ֔רֶב (chôreb, H2721, “drought or desolation”) is a noun of only fifteen verses, and almost all the rest are prophetic sentences on land: Jeremiah 50:38 on Babylon’s waters, Zephaniah 2:14 on Nineveh, Haggai 1:11 calling drought on grain and new wine, Isaiah 61:4 on the ruins to be rebuilt, Isaiah 4:6 and 25:4 on the shelter from it. Genesis 31:40 puts it in Jacob’s mouth for what he bore in Laban’s service — drought by day, frost by night, sleep fled from his eyes. ⚙ Gideon asks for this word to fall on all the land and then on one fleece. He is, without knowing it, borrowing the prophets’ vocabulary of desolation and asking God to aim it like a lamp.
Genesis 31:40 · Isaiah 4:6 · Haggai 1:11 · Zephaniah 2:14
basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexeme H2721 chôreb (in 15 vv) across all four references, each scoring 0.20 in the candidate list — a rare-ish noun, but the link is a shared register of desolation rather than any quotation or dependence, so tiered structural rather than verbal
Ellicott, at v. 34, runs the line himself: לָבְשָׁ֖ה clothes Othniel, Jephthah, Samson, Amasai and Zechariah, and then — “in the New Testament, Luke 24:49 (endusēsthe); Galatians 3:27 (enedusasthe Christon); 1 Peter 5:5 (enkombōsasthe).” K&D independently cites Luke 24:49 on the same word; Cambridge adds Romans 13:14. ⚙ The link is real and it is old, but it must be tiered honestly: lâbash (H3847) and endyō are different languages and cannot share a Strong’s number, so nothing here is a verbal link in the technical sense. What can be said is that the Septuagint and the New Testament use the clothing metaphor for the same transaction, and that three independent commentators in this brief make the connection without prompting. In Judges the Spirit puts a man on; in Luke the disciples are told to wait to be clothed with power; in Galatians the believer puts Christ on. The direction reverses, and that reversal is worth more attention than the similarity.
Luke 24:49 · Galatians 3:27 · Romans 13:14 · 1 Chronicles 12:18
basis: Cross-Testament (Hebrew↔Greek): no shared Strong's number is possible and none is claimed. Basis is the shared clothing metaphor for Spirit-endowment, attested in the brief by Ellicott (Luke 24:49, Gal 3:27, 1 Pet 5:5), K&D (Luke 24:49), and Cambridge (Rom 13:14). The Hebrew-internal half of the chain — 1 Chronicles 12:18 and 2 Chronicles 24:20, both cited by Ellicott, K&D and Cambridge — does share H3847 lâbash
Ellicott, commenting on v. 37, notes that at Psalm 72:6 in the Prayer Book version — “He shall come down like the rain into a fleece of wool” — “the Hebrew word is the same as here, and the ancient version takes it in the same sense (LXX., epi plokon; Vulg., in vellus).” That reading made Psalm 72:6 the standard liturgical bridge between Gideon’s fleece and the coming of the King. ⚙ But Ellicott himself immediately withdraws the support: “perhaps the true sense is there ‘mown grass,’ as in Amos 7:1 (mowings).” Modern versions follow the mown-grass reading. We flag the thread rather than drop it, because the ancient versions genuinely read it the other way, and because a devotional tradition of real weight was built on a rendering the same commentator calls doubtful. Note also that Psalm 72:6 uses gêz, not the gizzâh (H1492) of Judges 6 — related roots, not the same lexeme, and the Verifier did not return the verse as a candidate.
Psalm 72:6 · Amos 7:1
basis: Contested. Ellicott asserts the Hebrew word is 'the same as here' and cites LXX epi plokon and Vulgate in vellus, then in the same sentence prefers 'mown grass' (cf. Amos 7:1). The Verifier returned no shared-lexeme basis for Psalm 72:6 in this unit. The provenance of the fleece-reading is ancient but the lexical claim behind it is disputed by the very source that reports it
AI-generated reading; weigh it against the text.
⚙ The decisive verb of this unit is a garment-verb. לָבְשָׁ֖ה (lâbash, H3847) with rûaḥ as subject and Gideon as marked object says that the Spirit clothed herself with the man. Benson: “clothed him as a robe, to put honour upon him; clothed him as a coat of mail, to put a defence upon him.” K&D: “laid itself around him… so that he became invulnerable and invincible in its might.” Ellicott carries the same figure into the New Testament without argument, as though the connection needed none: Luke 24:49, Galatians 3:27, 1 Peter 5:5. Cambridge adds Romans 13:14 and the Syriac “God-clad.”
⚙ The reversal is the gospel of it. In Judges the Spirit takes up a frightened farmer as armour for a night’s work and lays him down again; the judge is a garment, worn and set aside, and Judges 8 will show how little the garment was changed by the wearing. In Galatians the believer puts on Christ — the direction runs the other way, and what is worn is not a man but the Son, and it is not laid aside. This reading is as old as the commentators who make it and is offered as theirs, not ours; the observation about the reversed direction is ours, and fallible.
Judges 6:34 · Luke 24:49 · Galatians 3:27 · Romans 13:14
The figural reading of the double sign is ancient. Ellicott reports it: “St. Ambrose (De Sp. Sanct, Prol. in 1) sees in the fleece full of dew the Hebrew nation hiding the mystery of Christ within itself, and in the dry fleece that mystery extended to all the world.” Gill records it as the common view of “many interpreters.” Henry reaches it devotionally rather than allegorically: “What cause we sinners of the Gentiles have, to bless the Lord that the dew of heavenly blessings, once confined to Israel, is now sent to all the inhabitants of the earth!” K&D and O. v. Gerlach give the sober version, in which the fleece is Israel in her present weakness and the second sign teaches “that the Lord manifested himself even in the weakness and forsaken condition of His people, while the nations were flourishing all around.”
⚙ Two cautions belong with it, and both come from inside the brief. Ellicott, having reported Ambrose, dismisses the method: “these allegoric applications of simple narratives are, to say the least, precarious.” And Gill’s version ends where we will not follow, in the claim that the Jews are now “entirely destitute” of the blessing — a conclusion Romans 11 does not permit and which the sign itself does not require, since in the second night the dew fell on all the ground and not on a different patch. ⚙ What the text will bear is Henry’s point and no more: the covering favour, once concentrated, is afterward spread. Whether the fleece in the first sign is Israel is a reading; that the God of the sign can separate and can also spread is what the two nights actually demonstrate.
Judges 6:37-40 · Hosea 14:5 · Micah 5:7 · Romans 11:11-12
Gideon’s question uses מוֹשִׁ֧יעַ (mō·wō·šî·a‘), the Hiphil participle of yâshaʻ (H3467, “properly, to be open, wide or free”) — the form that elsewhere stands as the noun môshîaʻ, “saviour.” He asks whether God is presently the one saving Israel by his hand, and the honest force of the question is that he is not sure the hand belongs in the sentence. Barnes nevertheless puts him in Hebrews 11:32, “a worthy example of faith” — and the Epistle does list him there, among those who “out of weakness were made strong.”
⚙ The redemptive-historical line the judges open is that God saves by a hand He has to persuade a man to lend. Every deliverer in the book is wrung out like the fleece and every one of them fails afterward; Gideon’s own ephod in chapter 8 is the proof. ⚙ That a Saviour would come whose name is built from this same root yâshaʻ, and who needed no sign because He needed no persuading, is a connection no commentator in this brief draws in these terms, and we mark it as our own inference rather than received exposition. The typology of the judges as figures of Christ is ancient; this particular lexical framing of it is not.
Judges 6:36 · Hebrews 11:32-34 · Nehemiah 9:27
The biblical text is the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain (CC0). Hebrew/Greek text, transliteration, morphology and Strong’s are transcribed from the Berean interlinear (CC0) + Strong’s lexicons (PD); the literal renderings, divergence notes, word notes and all synthesis are this tool’s own work (⚙) — fallible; verify them.
Named voices, quoted verbatim from public-domain works:
Text. Base text BSB (CC0); Hebrew surface forms, transliteration, Strong’s numbers and parsing from the Berean interlinear as supplied in the brief. Two places where the interlinear and the English translation diverge are worth naming rather than hiding: at Judges 6:35 the word order of the interlinear (pronoun, verb, then šā·laḥ) does not track the BSB clause order, and at 6:38 the interlinear marks word 11 with a placeholder rather than a gloss; the literal renderings above follow the Hebrew forms and their parses, not the English word order. Several words in 6:37, 6:39 and 6:40 are given in the interlinear as “. . .” because BSB renders them by position rather than word-for-word; these have been restored in the literals from their own lexical entries.
Sources. All twelve commentators in the brief are quoted: Ellicott, Benson, Henry, Barnes, JFB, Poole, Gill, Geneva, Cambridge, Pulpit, K&D and Maclaren. Every excerpt is a contiguous substring of a single entry, resolved by code from anchors; nothing is stitched, modernised or paraphrased. Henry’s entry is a single block covering 6:33–40 and is therefore quoted once, at 6:40. Benson’s comment on the clothing of the Spirit appears under the heading Jdg 6:33-34 and is quoted at 6:33 for that reason, though it treats v. 34. JFB’s entry is repeated verbatim under several verses in the source; we quote it once.
What is uncertain. (1) The location: Pulpit reads “the valley of Jezreel” as the great plain of Esdraelon, Cambridge flatly denies it. Unresolved. (2) “They came up to meet them” (6:35) — Cambridge says the Midianites, Pulpit and K&D say Gideon and the Abiezrites. The Hebrew plural suffix permits both. (3) The extent of “all Manasseh” — Poole and Benson include the trans-Jordan half, K&D and Gill exclude it. (4) Cambridge’s source-critical framing of vv. 36–40 (an Elohist narrative, chronologically parallel to vv. 11–24) is reported as his view, not adopted; the underlying datum — that the covenant name YHWH does not occur from v. 36 to v. 40 — is verifiable in the interlinear above and stands on its own. (5) Gideon’s spiritual state divides the sources sharply, with JFB alone holding that he incurred divine displeasure; we have printed the dissent rather than harmonise it. (6) The Psalm 72:6 fleece thread is flagged because Ellicott’s own lexical claim for it is withdrawn within the same paragraph.
Machine layer. Everything marked ⚙ — the literal renderings, the divergence notes, the word notes, the sola reading, the thread bodies and the christological readings — is fallible synthesis built on the sourced material above, and is offered to be tested against it. Where a claim is ours and not a commentator’s, we have said so in the line itself.
✦ = human, public-domain source, quoted and named. ⚙ = machine synthesis, to be verified. Flagged cross-references are left visible on purpose — the verifier working in the open. “Search the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” (Acts 17:11)