Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary

Punishment of the Towns of Succoth and Pnuel, and Execution of the Captures Kings of Midian. Jdg 8:13-14 Gideon returned victorious from the war, החרס מלמעלה, "from by the ascent (or mountain road) of Hecheres," a place in front of the town of Succoth, with which we are not acquainted. This is the rendering adopted by the lxx, the Peshito, and the Arabic; but the rest of the early translators have merely guessed at the meaning. 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; for although cheres is a word used poetically to denote the sun, מעלה cannot mean the setting of the sun. Aquila and Symmachus, on the other hand, confound חרס with הרים. - Gideon laid hold of a young man of the people of Succoth, and got him to write down for him the princes and elders (magistrates and rulers) of the city, - in all seventy-seven men. ויּכתּב ויּשׁאלהוּ is a short expression for "he asked him the names of the princes and elders of the city, and the boy wrote them down." אליו, lit. to him, i.e., for him. Jdg 8:15-16 Gideon then reproached the elders with the insult they had offered him (Jdg 8:6), and had them punished with desert thorns and thistles. "Men of Succoth" (Jdg 8:15 and Jdg 8:16) is a general expression for "elders of Succoth" (Jdg 8:16); and elders a general term applied to all the representatives of the city, including the princes. אתי חרפתּם אשׁר, with regard to whom ye have despised me. אשׁר is the accusative of the more distant or second object, not the subject, as Stud. supposes. "And he taught the men of Succoth (i.e., caused them to know, made them feel, punished them) with them (the thorns)." There is no good ground for doubting the correctness of the reading ויּדע. The free renderings of the lxx, Vulg., etc., are destitute of critical worth; and Bertheau's assertion, that if it were the Hiphil it would be written יודע, is proved to be unfounded by the defective writing in Num 16:5; Job 32:7. Jdg 8:17 Gideon also inflicted upon Pnuel the punishment threatened in Jdg 8:9. The punishment inflicted by Gideon upon both the cities was well deserved in all respects, and was righteously executed. The inhabitants of these cities had not only acted treacherously to Israel as far as they could, from the most selfish interests, in a holy conflict for the glory of the Lord and the freedom of His people, but in their contemptuous treatment of Gideon and his host they had poured contempt upon the Lord, who had shown them to be His own soldiers before the eyes of the whole nation by the victory which He had given them over the innumerable army of the foe. Having been called by the Lord to be the deliverer and judge of Israel, it was Gideon's duty to punish the faithless cities. Jdg 8:18-21 After punishing these cities, Gideon repaid the two kings of Midian, who had been taken prisoners, according to their doings. From the judicial proceedings instituted with regard to them (Jdg 8:18, Jdg 8:19), 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. And Gideon made them atone for this with their own lives, according to the strict jus talionis. איפה, in Jdg 8:18, does not mean where? but "in what condition, of what form, were the men whom he slew at Tabor?" i.e., either in the city of Tabor or at Mount Tabor (see Jdg 4:6, and Jos 19:22). The kings replied: "As thou so they" (those men), i.e., they were all as stately as thou art, "every one like the form of kings' sons." אחד, one, for every one, like אחד אישׁ in Kg2 15:20, or more frequently אישׁ alone. As the men who had been slain were Gideon's own brothers, he swore to those who had done the deed, i.e., to the two kings, "As truly as Jehovah liveth, if ye had let them live I should not have put you to death;" and then commanded his first-born son Jether to slay them, for the purpose of adding the disgrace of falling by the hand of a boy. "But the boy drew not his sword from fear, because he was yet a boy." And the kings then said to Gideon, "Rise thou and stab us, for as the man so is his strength," i.e., such strength does not belong to a boy, but to a man. Thereupon Gideon slew them, and took the little moons upon the necks of their camels as booty. "The little moons" were crescent-shaped ornaments of silver or gold, such as men and women wore upon their necks (see Jdg 8:26, and Isa 3:18), and which they also hung upon the necks of camels-a custom still prevalent in Arabia (see Schrder, de vestitu mul. hebr. pp. 39, 40, and Wellsted, Reisen in Arab. i. p. 209).