The Fallible · Synthetic · Study Bible
Gideon Defeats Zebah and Zalmunna
Judges 8:1–21 — Gideon Defeats Zebah and Zalmunna. 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.
1Then the men of Ephraim said to Gideon, “Why have you done this to us? Why did you fail to call us when you went to fight against Midian?” And they contended with him violently.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
’îš ’ep̄·ra·yim way·yō·mə·rū ’ê·lāw māh- had·dā·ḇār ‘ā·śî·ṯā haz·zeh lā·nū lə·ḇil·tî qə·rō·wṯ lā·nū kî hā·laḵ·tā lə·hil·lā·ḥêm bə·miḏ·yān way·rî·ḇūn ’it·tōw bə·ḥā·zə·qāh
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-said unto-him the-man-of Ephraim: “What the-word the-this thou-hast-done to-us, to-not-calling to-us when thou-wentest to-fight against-Midian?” And-they-contended with-him with-strength.
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They did chide with him sharply. —Literally, with force or violence, as in 1Samuel 2:16 , so that the Vulg. renders it, jurgantes fortiter, et prope vim inferentes, “strongly reproaching him, and almost treating him with violence.”
less from any dissatisfied longing for booty, than from injured pride or jealousy, because Gideon had made war upon the enemy and defeated them without the co-operation of this tribe, which was striving for the leadership.K&D's motive analysis (wounded primacy, not plunder) is inference from the text's own emphasis, not a datum the narrative states.
Thus early in the history Ephraim begins to assert itself. The want of unity among the tribes at this period is evident.
2But Gideon answered them, “Now what have I accomplished compared to you? Are not the gleanings of Ephraim better than the grape harvest of Abiezer?
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
way·yō·mer ’ă·lê·hem ‘at·tāh meh- ‘ā·śî·ṯî kā·ḵem hă·lō·w ‘ō·lə·lō·wṯ ’ep̄·ra·yim ṭō·wḇ miḇ·ṣîr ’ă·ḇî·‘e·zer
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-he-said unto-them: “What have-I-done now like-you? Are-not the-gleanings-of Ephraim better than-the-vintage-of Abiezer?”
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what I have done, in cutting off some of the fugitive common soldiers, is not to be compared with your exploit in destroying their princes; I began the war, but you have finished.
This last act of the whole tribe is more famous, than the whole enterprise of one man of one family.The Geneva gloss reads the proverb as a real ranking of deeds; Ellicott and Benson read it as courteous overstatement. The Hebrew alone will not decide between them.
A civil war with the great tribe of Ephraim would soon have turned Israel's victory into mourning.
3God has delivered Oreb and Zeeb, the two princes of Midian, into your hand. What was I able to do compared to you?” When he had said this, their anger against him subsided.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
’ĕ·lō·hîm ’eṯ- nā·ṯan ‘ō·rêḇ wə·’eṯ- zə·’êḇ śā·rê miḏ·yān bə·yeḏ·ḵem ’eṯ- ū·mah- yā·ḵō·lə·tî ‘ă·śō·wṯ kā·ḵem ’āz bə·ḏab·bə·rōw had·dā·ḇār haz·zeh rū·ḥām mê·‘ā·lāw rā·p̄ə·ṯāh
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“Into-your-hand God has-given the-princes-of Midian, Oreb and-Zeeb; and-what was-I-able to-do like-you?” Then slackened their-spirit from-upon-him, when-he-spoke the-word the-this.
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The Ephraimites had given vent to their passion in very wrong freedom of speech, a certain sign of a weak cause: reason runs low when chiding flies high.
Gideon’s good words were as victorious as his sword.”—Bp. Hall.Ellicott is quoting Bishop Joseph Hall; the epigram is Hall's, not Ellicott's own.
His mild and truly modest answer breathes the spirit of a great as well as good man, who was calm, collected, and self-possessed in the midst of most exciting scenes.
4Then Gideon and his three hundred men came to the Jordan and crossed it, exhausted yet still in pursuit.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
ḡiḏ·‘ō·wn ’ă·šer ’it·tōw ū·šə·lōš- mê·’ō·wṯ hā·’îš way·yā·ḇō hay·yar·dê·nāh ‘ō·ḇêr hū ‘ă·yê·p̄îm wə·rō·ḏə·p̄îm
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-came Gideon the-Jordan-ward — crossing-over he and-three hundred the-man who were-with-him — faint and-pursuing.
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Gideon's men were faint, yet pursuing; fatigued with what they had done, yet eager to do more against their enemies.
Thus our spiritual warfare must be prosecuted with what strength we have, though we may have but little. This is frequently the true Christian’s case: like Gideon and his men, he is faint, yet pursuing.Benson's application is devotional, not exegetical: the verse describes a military state, and the transfer to the Christian's inner conflict is the commentator's move, offered as such.
LXX. A and Luc. faint and hungry , perhaps a correction in view of the demand for bread in Jdg 8:5
5So Gideon said to the men of Succoth, “Please give my troops some bread, for they are exhausted, and I am still pursuing Zebah and Zalmunna, the kings of Midian.”
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way·yō·mer lə·’an·šê suk·kō·wṯ nā tə·nū- lā·‘ām ’ă·šer bə·raḡ·lāy kik·kə·rō·wṯ le·ḥem kî- hêm ‘ă·yê·p̄îm wə·’ā·nō·ḵî rō·ḏêp̄ ’a·ḥă·rê ze·ḇaḥ wə·ṣal·mun·nā‘ mal·ḵê miḏ·yān
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-he-said to-the-men-of Succoth: “Give, I-pray, rounds-of bread to-the-people who-are-at-my-feet, for faint are-they; and-I pursuing after Zebah and-Zalmunna, kings-of Midian.”
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Zebah means “a sacrifice,” perhaps one who had been consecrated by his parents to the gods of Midian. Zalmunna seems to mean “shadow of an exile,” or, according to Gesenius, “shelter is denied him”—an unintelligible name, but perhaps due to some unknown incident.
The Hebr. pronunciation of these Midianite names is intended to convey a contemptuous meaning, ‘Sacrifice,’ ‘Shadow (i.e. protection, Numbers 14:9 ) withheld,’ which of course was not the real one.
he did not desire them to leave their habitations and families, and join him in pursuing his and their enemies, or to furnish him and his men with arms; only to give them some provisions and that not dainties, but loaves of bread
6But the leaders of Succoth asked, “Are the hands of Zebah and Zalmunna already in your possession, that we should give bread to your army?”
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
śā·rê suk·kō·wṯ way·yō·mer hă·ḵap̄ ze·ḇaḥ wə·ṣal·mun·nā‘ ‘at·tāh bə·yā·ḏe·ḵā kî- nit·tên lā·ḥem liṣ·ḇā·’ă·ḵā
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-said the-princes-of Succoth: “Is-the-palm-of Zebah and-Zalmunna now in-thy-hand, that we-should-give to-thy-host bread?”
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an insolent as well as a time-serving reply. It was insolent because it implied a bitter taunt that Gideon was counting with confidence on a victory which they believed he would not gain; and it was time-serving, because living in the near neighborhood of the Midianite sheiks, they dreaded the future vengeance of those roving chiefs.
In these words there is not only an expression of cowardice, or fear of the vengeance which the Midianites might take when they returned upon those who had supported Gideon and his host, but contempt of the small force which Gideon had, as if it were impossible for him to accomplish anything at all against the foe; and in this contempt they manifested their utter want of confidence in God.
Because you have overcome a handful, do you think to have overcome the whole?
7“Very well,” Gideon replied, “when the LORD has delivered Zebah and Zalmunna into my hand, I will tear your flesh with the thorns and briers of the wilderness!”
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
lā·ḵên giḏ·‘ō·wn way·yō·mer Yah·weh ’eṯ- bə·ṯêṯ ze·ḇaḥ wə·’eṯ- ṣal·mun·nā‘ bə·yā·ḏî wə·ḏaš·tî ’eṯ- bə·śar·ḵem ’eṯ- qō·w·ṣê hab·bar·qo·nîm ham·miḏ·bār wə·’eṯ-
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-said Gideon: “Therefore, when-gives YHWH Zebah and-Zalmunna into-my-hand, then-I-will-thresh your-flesh with the-thorns-of the-wilderness and-with the-briers.”
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Notice in this verse the mixture of heroic faith and barbarous severity. It was this courage and faith ( Hebrews 11:32 ) which ennobled Gideon and made him an example for all time. The ruthlessness of the punishment which he threatened to inflict belongs to the wild times in which he lived, and the very partial spiritual enlightenment of an imperfect dispensationEllicott's framing — real faith (Heb 11:32) inside real barbarity, to be judged by the light Gideon had — is a value judgement of his own century as much as of Gideon's; it is offered here because it names the tension honestly rather than resolving it.
Gideon promises to trample their flesh together with thorns of the desert and briers , i.e. to lay them naked on a bed of thorns and tread them down
I will chastise or beat your naked bodies with thorny rods, even unto death.
8From there he went up to Penuel and asked the same from them, but the men of Penuel gave the same response as the men of Succoth.
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miš·šām way·ya·‘al pə·nū·’êl way·ḏab·bêr kā·zōṯ ’ă·lê·hem ’an·šê p̄ə·nū·’êl way·ya·‘ă·nū ’ō·w·ṯōw ka·’ă·šer ‘ā·nū ’an·šê suk·kō·wṯ
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-he-went-up from-there Penuel-ward, and-spoke unto-them like-this; and-answered him the-men-of Penuel as answered the-men-of Succoth.
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Penuel was also in the tribe of Gad, on the heights above the Jordan valley, on the southern bank of the Jabbok. The name means “face of God,” from Jacob’s vision ( Genesis 32:30 ).
A place not far from Succoth, and to which also Jacob gave name, from the Lord's appearing to him there face to face, Genesis 32:30 but here was nothing of God in this place now
9So Gideon told the men of Penuel, “When I return in triumph, I will tear down this tower!”
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gam- way·yō·mer lə·’an·šê p̄ə·nū·’êl lê·mōr bə·šū·ḇî ḇə·šā·lō·wm ’et·tōṣ ’eṯ- haz·zeh ham·miḡ·dāl
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-he-said also to-the-men-of Penuel, saying: “In-my-returning in-peace, I-will-break-down the-tower the-this.”
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A similar threat of retaliation for an insult is still used by the Arabs in the same district: ‘By God, when I come again in peace, nowhere but in the breast!’Cambridge's parallel is a nineteenth-century traveller's report (Schumacher), offered as cultural illustration, not as evidence about the text.
His confident anticipation of a triumphant return evinces the strength of his faith; and his specific threat was probably provoked by some proud and presumptuous boast, that in their lofty watchtower the Penuelites would set him at defiance.
If the strength of their citadel emboldened them to refuse food to Gideon’s fainting warriors, it would also have helped to protect them against the dreaded vengeance of Midian.
10Now Zebah and Zalmunna were in Karkor with their army of about fifteen thousand men—all that were left of the armies of the people of the east. A hundred and twenty thousand swordsmen had already fallen.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
wə·ze·ḇaḥ wə·ṣal·mun·nā‘ baq·qar·qōr ‘im·mām ū·ma·ḥă·nê·hem ka·ḥă·mê·šeṯ ‘ā·śār ’e·lep̄ kōl han·nō·w·ṯā·rîm mik·kōl ma·ḥă·nêh ḇə·nê- qe·ḏem mê·’āh wə·‘eś·rîm ’e·lep̄ ’îš šō·lêp̄ ḥā·reḇ wə·han·nō·p̄ə·lîm
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-Zebah and-Zalmunna were-in-Karkor, and-their-camps with-them, about-five-ten thousand — all the-ones-left of-all the-camp-of the-sons-of the-east; and-the-fallen were a-hundred and-twenty thousand man drawing sword.
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When they had reached this distant point they probably felt secure. Karkor means, “a safe enclosure,” and the Vulg., regarding it as an ordinary noun, renders it, “where Zebah and Zalmunna were resting.”
These words have the appearance of an attempt to bring the present narrative into harmony with the account of the panic and flight in Jdg 7:22-25 . The exaggerated numbers recall those of Numbers 31 (overthrow of Midian)Cambridge's source-critical suspicion of the numbers is one reading among several in this brief; Gill and Benson take the figures straight. The ⚙ layer takes no side.
Zebah and Zalmunna seem to have fled nearly due east to Karkor, which was probably an enclosure of some kind
11And Gideon went up by way of the caravan route east of Nobah and Jogbehah, and he attacked their army, taking them by surprise.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
giḏ·‘ō·wn way·ya·‘al haš·šə·ḵū·nê ḇā·’o·hā·lîm de·reḵ miq·qe·ḏem lə·nō·ḇaḥ wə·yā·ḡə·bo·hāh way·yaḵ ’eṯ- ham·ma·ḥă·neh wə·ham·ma·ḥă·neh hā·yāh ḇe·ṭaḥ
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-went-up Gideon by-the-way-of the-tent-dwellers, east of-Nobah and-Jogbehah, and-he-smote the-camp; and-the-camp was secure.
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He seems to have taken a wide circuit, through some nomad district, leaving the main road, which runs through Nobah and Jogbehah, so as once more to make up for his inferior numbers
being now got safe over Jordan, and a great way from the place of battle; and, probably, supposing Gideon’s men, to be so tired with their hard service, and the great slaughter which they had made, that they would have neither strength nor will to pursue them so far.
He went by the wilderness where the Arabians dwelt in tents.
12When Zebah and Zalmunna fled, Gideon pursued and captured these two kings of Midian, routing their entire army.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
ze·ḇaḥ wə·ṣal·mun·nā‘ way·yā·nū·sū way·yir·dōp̄ ’a·ḥă·rê·hem way·yil·kōḏ ’eṯ- šə·nê mal·ḵê miḏ·yān ’eṯ- ze·ḇaḥ wə·’eṯ- ṣal·mun·nā‘ he·ḥĕ·rîḏ wə·ḵāl ham·ma·ḥă·neh
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-fled Zebah and-Zalmunna, and-he-pursued after-them, and-he-captured the-two kings-of Midian, Zebah and-Zalmunna; and-all the-camp he-made-to-tremble.
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In Psalm 83:13-14 , we, perhaps, find a reminiscence of the precipitancy of their flight, “like a wheel,” i.e., like a winged, rolling seed, and like stubble before a hurricane
The two kings were the first to fly; Gideon contented himself with capturing them, and letting the rest break away in panic.
Rather, as in the margin, he terrified. Those who were not killed in the first onslaught, when "he smote the host," were so terrified that they fled without further resistance, and many probably escaped, as all Gideon's efforts were directed to the capture of the two kings.
13After this, Gideon son of Joash returned from the battle along the Ascent of Heres.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
giḏ·‘ō·wn ben- yō·w·’āš way·yā·šāḇ min- ham·mil·ḥā·māh mil·ma·‘ă·lêh he·ḥā·res
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-returned Gideon son-of-Joash from-the-battle, from-the-ascent-of the-Heres.
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The translation of the words is doubtful, because of the rarity of the word rendered "sun" (חרס cheres). Many suppose it to be the name of a mountain pass, and render it from the ascent of Heres.
The Chaldee, which has been followed by the Rabbins and Luther, has rendered it "before sunset," in utter opposition to the rules of the language
The Seventy, the Syriac, and Arabic versions take החרס , hechares, here rendered sun, for the name of a placeBenson reports the versional evidence and then argues against it, preferring the sun-reading; the excerpt gives his report, and his own conclusion runs the other way.
14There he captured a young man of Succoth and interrogated him. The young man wrote down for him the names of the seventy-seven leaders and elders of Succoth.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
way·yil·kāḏ- na·‘ar mê·’an·šê suk·kō·wṯ way·yiš·’ā·lê·hū way·yiḵ·tōḇ ’ê·lāw ’eṯ- šiḇ·‘îm wə·šiḇ·‘āh ’îš śā·rê wə·’eṯ- zə·qê·ne·hā suk·kō·wṯ
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-he-caught a-youth from-the-men-of Succoth and-questioned-him; and-he-wrote-down for-him the-princes-of Succoth and-her-elders, seventy and-seven man.
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The knowledge of writing must have been widely spread even at this early period.
The written (see the margin) list would enable Gideon to punish the guilty and spare the innocent people. Succoth was governed by a sanhedrim or council of seventy elders
and in this Gideon showed great wisdom, and strict justice; being desirous to punish only the delinquents, and not the innocent with the wicked, the people with their rulersGill's reading of Gideon's justice is a defence of him; Cambridge's note on v. 17 calls the same sequence vindictive. Both stand in this brief.
15And Gideon went to the men of Succoth and said, “Here are Zebah and Zalmunna, about whom you taunted me, saying, ‘Are the hands of Zebah and Zalmunna already in your possession, that we should give bread to your weary men?’”
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
way·yā·ḇō ’el- ’an·šê suk·kō·wṯ way·yō·mer hin·nêh ze·ḇaḥ wə·ṣal·mun·nā‘ ’ă·šer ḥê·rap̄·tem ’ō·w·ṯî lê·mōr hă·ḵap̄ ze·ḇaḥ wə·ṣal·mun·nā‘ ‘at·tāh bə·yā·ḏe·ḵā kî nit·tên lā·ḥem hay·yə·‘ê·p̄îm la·’ă·nā·še·ḵā
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-he-came unto the-men-of Succoth and-said: “Behold Zebah and-Zalmunna, with-whom ye-reproached me, saying: ‘Is-the-palm-of Zebah and-Zalmunna now in-thy-hand, that we-should-give to-thy-men the-weary bread?’”
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The addition of these words enhances the guilt of these elders, though the exhaustion of Gideon’s force may have seemed to them a reason for alarm, lest their pursuit should end in rout.
to expose their vile ingratitude the more, that they should refuse them a few loaves of bread, who were faint and weary in the service of them.
Gideon then reproached the elders with the insult they had offered him ( Judges 8:6 ), and had them punished with desert thorns and thistles.
16Then he took the elders of the city, and using the thorns and briers of the wilderness, he disciplined the men of Succoth.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
way·yiq·qaḥ ’eṯ- ziq·nê hā·‘îr wə·’eṯ- qō·w·ṣê hab·bar·qo·nîm ham·miḏ·bār wə·’eṯ- bā·hem ’êṯ way·yō·ḏa‘ ’an·šê suk·kō·wṯ
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-he-took the-elders-of the-city, and the-thorns-of the-wilderness and-the-briers, and-he-made-them-know with-them, the-men-of Succoth.
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The meaning seems to be that Gideon dragged thorns and teasels over their prostrate bodies, i.e. carded them; a form of torture well known in antiquity.
It is, however, very probable that the true reading is he threshed or tore
In refusing Gideon the succour which he demanded for the troops employed to save the state, they rendered themselves guilty of a species of rebellion; they sinned against the laws of humanity; they joined insult to their crueltyBenson is quoting and endorsing Dr Dodd's defence of the severity; the excerpt is the prosecution's case, and Cambridge on v. 17 states the case against.
17He also pulled down the tower of Penuel and killed the men of the city.
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wə·’eṯ- nā·ṯāṣ miḡ·dal pə·nū·’êl way·ya·hă·rōḡ ’eṯ- ’an·šê hā·‘îr
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And the-tower-of Penuel he-tore-down, and-he-slew the-men-of the-city.
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Gideon’s revenge strikes us as vindictive. In return for some jeering words he treated these towns, which no doubt contained many of his own countrymen, with a barbarity which is altogether absent from his execution of the Midianite kingsCambridge and K&D, both printed here, reach opposite verdicts on the same two verses. Neither is the machine's; the reader should weigh them against the text.
The punishment inflicted by Gideon upon both the cities was well deserved in all respects, and was righteously executed.
Perhaps the rulers; who, it is likely, had possession of the tower or citadel, and so could tyrannize over the people. Gideon killed the great men, and beat down their towers, but did not injure the inhabitants.
18Next, Gideon asked Zebah and Zalmunna, “What kind of men did you kill at Tabor?” “Men like you,” they answered, “each one resembling the son of a king.”
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
way·yō·mer ’el- ze·ḇaḥ wə·’el- ṣal·mun·nā‘ ’ê·p̄ōh hā·’ă·nā·šîm ’ă·šer hă·raḡ·tem bə·ṯā·ḇō·wr kā·mō·w·ḵā ḵə·mō·w·hem way·yō·m·rū ’e·ḥāḏ kə·ṯō·’ar bə·nê ham·me·leḵ
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-he-said unto Zebah and-unto Zalmunna: “Where the-men whom ye-slew at-Tabor?” And-they-said: “As-thou, as-they — one like-the-form-of the-sons-of the-king.”
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Evidently this colloquy is only related in a shortened form, and Gideon’s enquiry is rather a taunt or an expression of grief ( Job 17:15 ), to show them that he now meant to act as the goel, or blood-avenger of his brothers.
It is better to take the words of Gideon, Where are the men whom ye slew at Tabor? as an upbraiding of them for the murder of his brethren, and a threat that where they were their murderers would soon be.Pulpit here argues directly against K&D's rendering of ’êyphôh; both readings are printed in this unit so the disagreement stays visible.
we learn that these kings had put the brothers of Gideon to death, and apparently not in open fight; but they had murdered them in an unrighteous and cruel manner.
The chiefs do not hesitate to boast of victims so distinguished.
19“They were my brothers,” Gideon replied, “the sons of my mother! As surely as the LORD lives, if you had let them live, I would not kill you.”
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
hêm ’a·ḥay way·yō·mar bə·nê- ’im·mî Yah·weh ḥay- lū ha·ḥă·yi·ṯem ’ō·w·ṯām lō hā·raḡ·tî ’eṯ·ḵem
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-he-said: “My-brothers, sons-of my-mother they. Living-is YHWH — if ye-had-let-them-live, I-would-not slay you.”
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That is, uterine brothers; but, in all countries where polygamy prevails, "the son of my mother" implies a closeness of relationship and a warmth of affection never awakened by the looser term
On Gideon as next of kin fell the duty of avenging his brothers’ blood; cf. 2 Samuel 3:27 ; 2 Samuel 3:30 ; 2 Samuel 14:7 ; 2 Samuel 21:5-6 . The execution was a judicial act, even an act of religious obligation.
We all came from the same womb: therefore I will be revenged.The Geneva gloss states the motive as revenge without qualification, where Cambridge and Henry frame the same act as the legal duty of the goel; the note is printed as the sixteenth-century editors wrote it.
20So he said to Jether, his firstborn, “Get up and kill them.” But the young man did not draw his sword; he was fearful because he was still a youth.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
way·yō·mer lə·ye·ṯer bə·ḵō·w·rōw qūm hă·rōḡ ’ō·w·ṯām han·na·‘ar wə·lō- šā·lap̄ ḥar·bōw kî yā·rê kî ‘ō·w·ḏen·nū nā·‘ar
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-he-said to-Jether his-firstborn: “Arise, slay them.” And-not-drew the-youth his-sword, for he-feared, for still-he a-youth.
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These marks of savage life are painful to contemplate in such a man as Gideon. But it is well for us to be made aware how the best and greatest men cannot rise above the manners and received maxims of their agePulpit's closing illustration in this entry reaches for Victorian imperial examples; the principle quoted here stands on its own and that framing is not endorsed.
Robertson Smith compares the choice of young men as sacrificers in Exodus 24:5 , and illustrates from the custom of the Saracens who charged lads with the slaying of their captivesRobertson Smith's ritual explanation is a nineteenth-century comparative proposal, offered by Cambridge as a question, not a finding.
but there was perhaps a ferocity, as well as majesty in their countenances, which made the young man timorous and fearful.
21Then Zebah and Zalmunna said, “Get up and kill us yourself, for as the man is, so is his strength.” So Gideon got up and killed Zebah and Zalmunna, and he took the crescent ornaments from the necks of their camels.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
ze·ḇaḥ wə·ṣal·mun·nā‘ way·yō·mer qūm ū·p̄ə·ḡa‘- bā·nū ’at·tāh kî ḵā·’îš gə·ḇū·rā·ṯōw giḏ·‘ō·wn way·yā·qām way·ya·hă·rōḡ ’eṯ- ze·ḇaḥ wə·’eṯ- ṣal·mun·nā‘ way·yiq·qaḥ ’eṯ- haś·śa·hă·rō·nîm ’ă·šer bə·ṣaw·wə·rê ḡə·mal·lê·hem
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-said Zebah and-Zalmunna: “Arise thou and-fall-upon us, for as-the-man so-his-might.” And-arose Gideon and-slew Zebah and-Zalmunna; and-he-took the-crescents which were-on the-necks-of their-camels.
Where the English smooths the original
Saharonim, “little moons,” crescent-shaped ornaments of gold and silver, still in common use to decorate animals.
They thought it better to die by the hand of Gideon, who was as eminent for his strength as his dignity, and would despatch them with more speed than a stripling could.
some have thought that these were worn in honour of Astarte, or the moon, the goddess of the Phoenicians, from whom these people had borrowed that idolatry.Gill reports this as an opinion of others (“some have thought”), not as his own conclusion; Cambridge's independent note on the Aramaic moon-god sahar is the stronger evidence for the name's pagan background, and neither source claims Gideon knew it.
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 unit opens not with Midian but with Israel suing Israel. וַיְרִיבוּן (rîb, H7378) is the verb of formal dispute, and it is aimed at a brother; בְּחָזְקָה adds force to the suit. Ellicott, reading the Vulgate's jurgantes fortiter, et prope vim inferentes, hears a quarrel “almost treating him with violence.” K&D judges the motive to be “injured pride or jealousy… this tribe, which was striving for the leadership,” expressly not greed for booty; Cambridge is cooler and broader — “Thus early in the history Ephraim begins to assert itself. The want of unity among the tribes at this period is evident.” Gideon's reply is a proverb built from two harvest nouns: the rare plural עֹלְלוֹת, gleanings, the poor man's leftovers, against בָּצִיר, the full vintage. Geneva reads the proverb as a true ranking (“This last act of the whole tribe is more famous, than the whole enterprise of one man of one family”); Ellicott reads it as noble overstatement, Gideon “setting an example of the spirit which is content to suffer wrong.” Poole and Benson agree on the substance: “I began the war, but you have finished.” Henry supplies the moral the Hebrew does not state — “envy is best removed by humility… reason runs low when chiding flies high.” The narrator himself claims only this much: רָפְתָה רוּחָם, their wind went slack. Not that they repented; that the rope loosened.
Across the Jordan the deliverer becomes a beggar. The two participles of v. 4, עֲיֵפִים וְרֹדְפִים, hold exhaustion and momentum in the same breath; Cambridge records that LXX A and Lucian read “faint and hungry,” which Cambridge itself judges “perhaps a correction in view of the demand for bread in Jdg 8:5.” Gideon's request is deliberately small — כִּכְּרוֹת לֶחֶם, round flat loaves, for the men at his feet — and Gill stresses that he did not requisition but entreat: “only to give them some provisions and that not dainties, but loaves of bread.” The refusal is framed as a proverb of contempt: is the palm (כַּף) of Zebah and Zalmunna already in your hand (יָד)? Ellicott confesses the idiom's exact force is lost to us. JFB names the reply “insolent as well as a time-serving,” and K&D reads beneath the cowardice to “their utter want of confidence in God.” Geneva's gloss puts it as a jeer: “Because you have overcome a handful, do you think to have overcome the whole?” Two towns answer identically, and their names indict them: Succoth, booths, named (Ellicott, Gill) for the shelters Jacob built at Genesis 33:17; Penuel, face of God, named for the night Jacob was renamed. Gill's one line is the whole movement's verdict — “here was nothing of God in this place now.”
Gideon takes the desert road past Nobah and Jogbehah and falls on a camp that thought itself בֶטַח, secure. Ellicott: “He seems to have taken a wide circuit… so as once more to make up for his inferior numbers.” Cambridge treats the round figures of v. 10 with open suspicion, calling them “an attempt to bring the present narrative into harmony with the account of the panic and flight in Jdg 7:22-25.” Then the text turns from Midian to Israel again, and turns hard. A נַעַר — a boy — is seized and made to write the seventy-seven names; Cambridge takes this as evidence that “the knowledge of writing must have been widely spread even at this early period,” and Barnes and Gill both read the list as an instrument of justice, sparing the innocent (Gill: “being desirous to punish only the delinquents”). What follows is disputed at the level of the consonants. The Masoretic text of v. 16 reads וַיֹּדַע, “he made known / he taught”; Barnes calls it “a false reading, for he threshed,” Pulpit proposes yadash for yadah, Cambridge emends with LXX B and A, and K&D alone defends the received text — “There is no good ground for doubting the correctness of the reading.” The judgement of the act divides the same way. K&D: “well deserved in all respects, and… righteously executed.” Cambridge, flatly opposite: “Gideon's revenge strikes us as vindictive… a barbarity which is altogether absent from his execution of the Midianite kings.” Pulpit hears in v. 7 “a fierce and vindictive spirit,” and sets against it the prayer from the cross. The brief contains no ruling between them, and neither does this commentary.
Only here does the reader learn why Gideon crossed a river to finish a war. אֵיפֹה (v. 18) normally means where?; K&D insists it here asks “in what condition, of what form,” while Pulpit refuses to bend a common word and reads it as an upbraiding — “Where are the men whom ye slew at Tabor?… a threat that where they were their murderers would soon be.” The kings answer with a courtier's compliment (Ellicott hears Priam in Iliad iii. 170), and it convicts them. Gideon's reply is the disclosure: אַחַי בְּנֵי־אִמִּי, “my brothers, the sons of my mother.” JFB: “in all countries where polygamy prevails, ‘the son of my mother’ implies a closeness of relationship… never awakened by the looser term, ‘brother.’” Cambridge draws the legal consequence: “On Gideon as next of kin fell the duty of avenging his brothers' blood… The execution was a judicial act, even an act of religious obligation.” Then the oath חַי־יְהוָה, and the order to a boy who cannot draw his sword. Cambridge notes Robertson Smith's parallel of Saracen lads charged with slaying captives; Pulpit simply calls these “marks of savage life… painful to contemplate in such a man as Gideon.” The kings die asking for a man's hand rather than a boy's — כִּי כָאִישׁ גְּבוּרָתוֹ — and the last image is loot: crescents cut from camels' necks, which Gill (following Jarchi and Kimchi) suspects were worn for the moon-goddess. Nineteen verses later that gold becomes an ephod, and Israel goes whoring after it. The narrator does not say so here. He only lets Gideon pick it up.
⚙ This is the tool's own fallible reading, offered to be tested. Judges 8:1–21 is built on a single question asked three times: whose hand is it in? Gideon answers it correctly once — “into your hand God has given the princes of Midian” (v. 3) — and on that answer the civil war does not happen. Succoth answers it wrongly: is their palm already in your hand? meaning, show us a victory we can bank before we risk a loaf. And Gideon, having once refused the credit, spends the rest of the chapter collecting it: a list of seventy-seven names, a threshing floor, a broken tower, a dead city, a boy ordered to kill, and gold in his fist. The text never says he sinned. It also never says the LORD spoke to him again. From the tearing down of his father's altar in chapter 6 to the ephod later in chapter 8, the sword of the LORD and of Gideon slowly becomes the sword of Gideon. Read under Sola Scriptura, the sober warning is not that Gideon was a hypocrite — Hebrews 11:32 names him among the faithful and this reading does not withdraw that — but that a man may win the war God gave him and lose, quietly, verse by verse, the hand he won it with. The two towns were wrong to withhold bread from the men at his feet. It does not follow that everything done to them afterwards was the judgement of God rather than the appetite of a victor; K&D says it was, Cambridge says it was not, and the narrator declines to referee. Where the ⚙ layer must guess, it guesses that the narrator's silence here is the same silence he keeps over the ephod: a withholding of praise that the careful reader is meant to notice.
A man can carry a victory God gave him all the way to a place where he no longer needs God to give him anything. (⚙ synthesis — not a verse of Scripture.)
AI-generated connections. Each carries a verification badge with a recorded basis; contested links are flagged.
Psalm 83, pleading against a confederacy of nations, reaches back for a precedent and names all four Midianite chiefs of Judges 7–8 in two lines: Oreb and Zeeb, Zebah and Zalmunna. The Verifier confirms three shared lexemes, and two of them are among the rarest proper nouns in the canon — זְאֵב (Zᵉʼêb, H2062) stands in only three verses in all of Scripture, עֹרֵב (ʻÔrêb, H6159) in four. Ellicott independently hears the Psalm behind this chapter's flight scene, reading Psalm 83:13-14 as “a reminiscence of the precipitancy of their flight.” Cambridge notes the Psalm's naming of the kings against the different pairing in Judges 7:25. This is a verbal link in the strict sense: the Psalmist is quoting the Judges tradition's own names back to God as grounds for a plea.
Psalm 83:11 · Judges 7:25
basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H2062 Zᵉʼêb (in 3 vv), H6159 ʻÔrêb (in 4 vv), H2078 Zebach (in 9 vv). Two rare proper nouns plus the royal name, all four chiefs of this narrative recited together in one petition — a deliberate citation of this event, not a coincidence of common vocabulary.
Gideon's route east of Jordan runs through two towns that Genesis named. Ellicott and Gill both derive סֻכּוֹת from the booths Jacob built for his cattle at Genesis 33:17, and Ellicott derives פְּנוּאֵל from “face of God, from Jacob's vision (Genesis 32:30).” The Verifier records the shared lexeme H5523 with Genesis 33:17 and with Joshua 13:27, which places Succoth in Gad; H6439 Penuel is shared with 1 Kings 12:25, where Jeroboam refortifies it — Cambridge notes its tower “may have commanded the Jabbok ford,” which is likely the very tower Gideon breaks down. The link is real and lexical, but what it carries is thematic, not a quotation: a town named for shelter withholds shelter, and a town named for God's face shows none. Gill states it without ornament: “here was nothing of God in this place now.”
Genesis 33:17 · Joshua 13:27 · 1 Kings 12:25
basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H5523 Çukkôwth (in 16 vv) with Genesis 33:17 and Joshua 13:27; H6439 Pᵉnûwʼêl (in 8 vv) with 1 Kings 12:25. The shared words are place names, so the verbal contact is real but carries no quotation; the irony of the names is the commentators' observation (Ellicott, Gill, Cambridge) and the ⚙ layer's reading, not a claim of literary dependence.
Israel's very first encampment after leaving Rameses was called Succoth (Exodus 12:37; 13:20), and from it they went out into the מִדְבָּר, the wilderness. The Verifier finds both lexemes shared with this unit. These are almost certainly different places — the Exodus Succoth lies in Egypt, this one east of Jordan — and no geographical identity is claimed here. What the shared name does is set two scenes of bread beside each other: at the first Succoth, God feeds a people who cannot feed themselves; at this Succoth, a people who can feed the LORD's soldiers refuse. The contrast is the ⚙ layer's, offered as a reading and not as a source-critical claim.
Exodus 12:37 · Exodus 13:20 · Numbers 33:6
basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H5523 Çukkôwth (in 16 vv) and H4057 midbâr (in 257 vv). The lexeme is shared but the referent almost certainly is not — this is a link of name and motif only, deliberately not tiered verbal.
The word Gideon uses for the loaves he begs is כִּכָּר (kikkâr, H3603), “a circle” — a round flat loaf, as Ellicott notes (“The loaves are round cakes, ciccar”). The same noun names the round Plain of the Jordan, and 1 Kings 7:46 with its parallel 2 Chronicles 4:17 places Solomon's bronze foundry precisely there: “in the plain (kikkār) of Jordan… between Succoth and Zarethan.” The Verifier confirms all three shared lexemes. The ground that would not yield a circle of bread to three hundred exhausted men later yields the pillars and the sea of the house of God. That last sentence is ⚙ reading; the lexical overlap is sourced.
1 Kings 7:46 · 2 Chronicles 4:17
basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H3383 Yardên (in 164 vv), H5523 Çukkôwth (in 16 vv), H3603 kikkâr (in 55 vv). A genuine three-word overlap anchored on a single locality; the theological contrast drawn from it is synthesis, not citation.
Verse 11 navigates by two towns that the Torah records being taken and built in the Transjordan settlement: Jogbehah, built by Gad (Numbers 32:35), and Nobah, who took Kenath and called it after his own name (Numbers 32:42). The Verifier shows both names are extremely rare — each stands in only two verses in the whole canon. K&D and Ellicott both work the geography from these two points, and the modern identifications remain unsettled (Cambridge: “Nobah… has been identified… with Ḳanawât… but this is much too far north”). The link matters because the map is a roll call: the very clans whose inheritance Gideon is marching through are the ones whose towns deny him bread.
Numbers 32:35 · Numbers 32:42
basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H3011 Yogbᵉhâh (in 2 vv) and H5025 Nôbach (in 2 vv), plus H3920 lâkad (in 112 vv) with Numbers 32:42. Both lexemes are rare enough to justify a verbal tier on frequency alone, but they are place names in a route description with no quotation in either direction, so the tier is deliberately held at structural.
Verse 13 hangs on two words, מִלְמַעֲלֵה הֶחָרֶס. The Verifier pairs it with Judges 1:35, where חֶרֶס (Chereç, H2776) is a mountain in the Danite territory — a lexeme found in only two verses. But the reading is genuinely contested. Barnes: “The translation of the words is doubtful, because of the rarity of the word rendered ‘sun’… Many suppose it to be the name of a mountain pass.” K&D follows LXX, Peshito and Arabic in taking it as a place and calls the Chaldee's “before sunset” rendering “in utter opposition to the rules of the language”; Benson defends the sun-reading against Houbigant; Pulpit defends the AV. Because the very identity of the word is disputed, so is the link: this thread is flagged, not confirmed.
Judges 1:35
basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexeme H2776 Chereç (in 2 vv) — rare, which would ordinarily support a verbal tier. It is flagged instead because the sources dispute whether ḥeres in Judges 8:13 is a proper noun at all (LXX/Peshito/Arabic/K&D: place name; Chaldee, Rabbins, Luther, Benson: the sun), so the shared lexeme may be an artefact of the lexicon's parsing choice rather than a real onomastic link.
Hebrews 11:32 names Gideon first in its rapid list of judges who “through faith subdued kingdoms.” Ellicott invokes it precisely here, at the most violent verse in the unit: “It was this courage and faith (Hebrews 11:32) which ennobled Gideon and made him an example for all time,” while in the same breath refusing to approve “the ruthlessness of the punishment which he threatened to inflict.” No shared-lexeme basis is possible: Hebrews is Greek and this is Hebrew, so no Strong's number can be held in common, and the epistle quotes no words from Judges 8. The link is a canonical verdict on a person, not a verbal echo, and it is tiered accordingly.
Hebrews 11:32
basis: Cross-Testament (Greek↔Hebrew): shared Strong's numbers are impossible by definition, and Hebrews quotes no wording from this unit. The basis is the epistle's explicit naming of Gideon among the faithful, recorded and applied to this verse by Ellicott. Never a verbal tier.
AI-generated reading; weigh it against the text.
⚙ The killing of Zebah and Zalmunna is not, in the text's own logic, a battlefield execution. Gideon says he would have spared them as prisoners — “if you had let them live, I would not kill you” — and kills them only because of אַחַי בְּנֵי־אִמִּי, “my brothers, the sons of my mother.” Henry states the office plainly: “Gideon acted as the avenger of blood, being the next of kin to the persons slain.” Ellicott names him “the goel, or blood-avenger of his brothers,” and Cambridge insists “the execution was a judicial act, even an act of religious obligation,” citing Numbers 35's law of the redeemer. JFB explains why the phrase sons of my mother is loaded: it names a closeness “never awakened by the looser term, ‘brother.’” The whole Levitical figure of the gōʼēl — the kinsman near enough to redeem, to buy back, to avenge — is read across the church's history as finding its term in Christ, who, as Hebrews 2:14 has it, shared in flesh and blood precisely because the children did, and so could act as one of them. Gideon can avenge his mother's sons because he is one of them; he cannot give them back. The one who shares our flesh in order to redeem does both.
Numbers 35:12 · Hebrews 2:14-17 · Ruth 4:4-6
⚙ The two participles of v. 4, עֲיֵפִים וְרֹדְפִים, have been read devotionally for centuries. Henry: “It is many a time the true Christian's case, fainting, and yet pursuing… But he betakes himself to that Divine strength, in the faith of which he began his conflict, and by the supply of which alone he can finish it in triumph.” Benson: “like Gideon and his men, he is faint, yet pursuing.” Both are applications, and both are named as such. The redemptive-historical point the text will bear is narrower and harder: Gideon's three hundred are faint because the pursuit is longer than their strength, and their commander must beg bread he is refused. Isaiah's word about the LORD who “does not faint or grow weary,” and who gives power to the faint, stands over the scene as its contrast rather than its parallel. And the prayer Pulpit sets against Gideon's threat — “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” — marks the distance between a deliverer who threshes the Israelites who failed him and a deliverer who does not. The application to the believer's warfare is the commentators'; the contrast is the machine's, and it is offered to be tested.
Isaiah 40:28-31 · Hebrews 12:1-3 · Luke 23:34
⚙ This reading is novel and marked so. Twice in this unit the LORD's soldiers ask for bread from their own people and are turned away on a calculation of risk: show us the victory first, and then we will feed you. JFB calls the refusal “heartless and disgraceful in people who were of Israelitish blood”; Benson's outrage is blunter — “Were these Israelites! Surely they were worshippers of Baal, or in the interest of Midian.” Henry, on vv. 13-17, draws the line that makes the figure possible: these are “Israelites in name, but Midianites in heart.” If there is a Christward shape here it is in the pattern, not in a prophecy: a deliverer, in the middle of the work of deliverance, hungry among the people he is delivering, asking for bread and being told to prove himself first. The Gospels record the demand for a sign before belief, and record a King who identifies himself with the hungry who were given nothing. The Judges text makes no such claim and no apostle draws this line; the pattern is the ⚙ layer's and should be weighed as that.
Matthew 25:41-45 · John 6:30-35
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. Several verses in this unit are textually unsettled, and the synthesis above marks each place rather than choosing silently. (1) 8:13: מִלְמַעֲלֵה הֶחָרֶס is read as a place name (“from the ascent of Heres”) by LXX, Peshito, Arabic, K&D, Barnes and Cambridge, and as a time (“before the sun was up,” or even “before sunset”) by the Chaldee, the Rabbins, Luther, Benson and Pulpit. K&D calls the Chaldee rendering impossible “in utter opposition to the rules of the language.” The thread built on this verse is flagged for that reason. (2) 8:16: the Masoretic וַיֹּדַע (“he made known, taught”) is emended to wayyādosh (“he threshed”) by Cambridge with LXX B and A, by Pulpit, and by Barnes (“Thought to be a false reading”); Ellicott notes the Vulgate's double rendering. K&D alone defends the received consonants. The literal rendering above keeps the Masoretic text and the divergence note records the dispute. (3) 8:4: LXX A and Lucian read “faint and hungry” for “faint and pursuing”; Cambridge and K&D both treat this as a secondary correction, K&D calling it “without any critical worth.”
Lexicon. בַּרְקֳנִים (H1303, 8:7, 8:16) is a hapax legomenon; Ellicott records that the LXX merely transliterated it and that Rabbi Tanchum could not say what plant was meant, and Cambridge concedes “its exact sense is unknown.” English versions print “briers” with more confidence than the evidence carries. The force of the proverb in 8:6 (כַּף in יָד) is likewise unrecovered: Ellicott says plainly, “what the exact shade of meaning is in this proverbial expression we do not know.”
Geography. Karkor, Nobah, Jogbehah, Heres and the precise sites of Succoth and Penuel are all unlocated or contested; Pulpit's “We must await some further light before we can decide the exact position of Succoth” is the honest state of it, and K&D's Karkagheisch identification is explicitly conditional in his own words (“If this supposition could be proved to be correct”). No synthesis above depends on any of these being settled.
Numbers. Cambridge treats the 120,000 fallen and the 15,000 remnant of 8:10 as a harmonising addition with “exaggerated numbers,” noting that the phrase “that drew sword” characteristically accompanies large figures. Gill and Benson take the figures at face value, and Gill notes Josephus gives 18,000. The ⚙ layer takes no position; the figures are reported as the text gives them.
Sources. Every commentary excerpt above is public-domain and quoted verbatim by anchor, never paraphrased. Where two named sources contradict each other — most sharply K&D (“well deserved in all respects, and… righteously executed”) against Cambridge (“Gideon's revenge strikes us as vindictive”) on 8:16-17 — both are printed and neither is silently preferred. The ⚙ synthesis, including the sola reading, the pullquote, and the third Christ entry, is fallible machine work and is marked as such wherever it goes beyond what the brief supplies.
✦ = 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)