Judges 6

Judges 6:1-10

Subdivision 4. (Judges 6:1-40; Judges 7:1-25; Judges 8:1-35; Judges 9:1-57; Judges 10:1-5.)The Midianite Test: the Church in relation to the world. The fourth subdivision gives us the Midianite oppression and the deliverance, with the failure of the deliverer himself, and its disastrous consequences, ending, however, in true and peaceful revival under Tola and Jair. The spiritual meaning, as we shall see, brings all this into a true unity. Israel sinks lower than ever before. Gideon also fails in the very hour of victory; and the reign of his son is a usurpation of Jehovah’s rights, begun in fratricide and closed in Divine judgment. Even in this way, the numerical structure vindicates itself; but there is much more than this. Midian, a son of Abraham by Keturah, is, as we have seen, in Genesis 25:1-34, in common with his other children, the witness and pledge of how the nations of the earth will find blessing at last in him. It is a picture of blessing, where Ishmael, as another son, comes in also as representing Israel themselves in the same millennial day. The history, however, both of Ishmael and Midian (as man’s history everywhere) speaks something very different from God’s grace. These two also are connected -in some sense, identified -in Scripture (Genesis 37:28; Judges 8:24), as we shall presently see. Midian in this way stands for the world, as its history has characterized it, and the name corresponds to this, meaning “strife.” “The corruption that is in the world” is “through lust” (2 Peter 1:4); and “whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts which war in your members?” (James 4:1.) And especially do the lusts in the members war against Christ, and thus against the Church of Christ. These Midianites -“Midian” is supposed by some to have real connection with the modern word “Bedouin” -were Arab raiders, wandering pillagers, locust-like devouring what they had no will to produce, as the story here shows; and this is what the world is when admitted into the professing church: it has no community of interest in it, but the reverse; the effect is mere desolation. The Israelites were forced by the Midianites into dens and caves and fastnesses; and so, literally, have the true followers of the Lord in the times of the world-church, when rule was ravage merely, and when the “produce of the land” -the heavenly fruits of life, and the seed of the word from which they spring -were the special objects of the spoilers’ pursuit. Notice, too, the connection with the Philistines, whose name we have seen is “wanderers,” and who are the type so near to this, of earthly men intruding into heavenly things. “Until thou come to Gaza” is no mere geographical limit. “Gaza formerly, as in later times, was the great bazaar of stolen wares, brought together there by the Bedouins from their expeditions.” (Cassel, in Lange’s Commentary.) Philistines would naturally league with Israel’s enemies, and typically are but another phase or aspect of the world-church. Other connections of the history here we shall find later in the story of Philistine-named Abimelech. With the Midianites Amalekites also throng into the land. Familiar as we are with what Amalek stands for (see Exodus 17:1-16, n), we have no difficulty in seeing that here we are plainly reminded how the world and the lusts of the flesh are found together. The children of the East -a general term for nameless marauders -represent, probably, the similarly nameless host of evils that follow in the train of those already named. No wonder Israel was “brought very low”; but they are brought thus to cry to God, and He comes in for them. A prophet is sent to put them in remembrance of what is indeed so plain and yet so easily forgotten -the secret of their present condition to be in their false gods. With us all, such desolation from the Lord’s hand means but this very thing, though it be in various ways disguised. (b) Thus brought to repentance, the deliverer is now found for them. This deliverer is Gideon, the son of Joash, a Manassite; and it is simple enough, though none the less needful to be insisted on, that in Manasseh, the spiritual pressing on after the heavenly goal, is to be found the rescue from the spirit of the world. Gideon is the son of Joash the Abiezrite; and Joash may most simply mean “the despairing one,” though taken generally, from the alternation of the two names in the case of two kings of the after-history, to be simply a contraction for Jehoash, a name of very different meaning. But even in their case, is it so sure that one name is but the contraction for the other? True reverence for the Word would assure us that even there there must be a reason for the difference, and therefore a corresponding difference of meaning. The change, one familiar with the style of Scripture would say, is a paronomasia, or slight change in the name, given for the very purpose of conveying a different thought. Even here, though the double form does not occur, Joash, the “despairing” -meaning self-despair -might well become a Jehoash, whom “Jehovah supports.” And this, indeed, seems conveyed here, only after another manner: for Joash is “the Abiezrite;” and Abiezer means, as commonly given, “father of help,” or, more literally, “my father is help.” Certain it is that the true Abiezrite, or he who is able to trust thus confidently in God as his support, will be one weaned from self-confidence -from the thought of self-help. Gideon springs thus from Joash; and his name is almost identical with that of a Benjamite already interpreted (Numbers 1:11), Gideoni, “the cutter down.” The application made of it there is to the judgment of the flesh, which the more literal meaning, “my cutter down,” may, indeed, more precisely indicate. This links Gideon and Joash in thought very closely together; but Gideon is more general: it is “the cutter down;” and if this imply in the first place the judgment of man as fallen, in the light of God, we can clearly understand that this is power over the world necessarily, and that Gideon is thus the proper name of the deliverer from the hand of Midian. To Gideon the call is given in another mariner from that to any former judge. To him the angel of Jehovah appears -one who everywhere accepts the title, with all that belongs to it, of Jehovah Himself. Gideon the Manassite is thus shown the goal toward which the Christian Manassite runs. It is in the Lord’s presence alone that things take their true shape, and find their proper judgment. The angel appears sitting under the terebinth that was in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite. Elah, whether terebinth or oak, which is disputed, means, literally, a strong tree; Ophrah is generally taken as meaning “vigorous, nimble,” and so a “fawn”; but from another root may mean “crumbling,” akin to aphar, “dust.” The angel’s position may be thus another intimation of how, out of human weakness, strength is developed and maintained. This is what is clearly before us, all through Gideon’s history. He is found beating out wheat in a wine-press, to keep it out of the hands of the Midianites, and the angel salutes him with the words, “Jehovah is with thee, thou mighty man of valor.” And when he objects their present condition as proof that Jehovah had abandoned them, the angel further bids him, “Go in this thy strength, and thou shalt deliver Israel out of the clutch of Midian.” What is this “strength”? It is the apprehension of the Lord’s presence as this, -the consciousness that without Him there is none. This realized, the spiritual vision clears: God is seen as the soul’s one necessity, and clung to, whatever else must be given up; there comes real strength to stand in the face of a hostile world, or against the opposition of the people of God themselves; and to stand with God means victory. Then the glorious face of God is turned upon us, as is said here with regard to Gideon; and every one so energized finds his call in this to aid in the deliverance of His people from the enemy: “Go, and thou shalt deliver; have not I sent thee?” But it is easier to learn to answer to our name Jacob than it is to appropriate in simple faith that of Israel which God has given us; and so Gideon, mighty man of valor as he is yet to prove, shrinks from the place to which the voice of the Lord has called him, and opposes the very littleness which makes him a fit instrument in God’s hand, as an argument against this! “Ah, Lord,” he says, “wherewith shall I save Israel?” Why, with an ox-goad, as Shamgar once; or with a smooth stone from the brook, as David afterward. But it is not an inquiry merely as to the Lord’s will, although now he owns it to be the Lord that is thus speaking with him. Alas, little “I” can be great enough as an obstacle to faith, and assert itself how pertinaciously in the very presence of the grace of God! And so he goes on to talk about his family, and his own place in his father’s house. And how many are thus hindered from taking the place that God would give them by that littleness of theirs, which, after all, is of so much account! When shall we really learn that God’s great men are all little ones, only made great by His use of them? -and leave off this shameful idolatry of means which is so continually putting the creature into the place of God, to its own dishonor and the wreck of all that we can wreck? The Lord keeps to His grace, and Gideon must rise up to this: “Nay, but I will be with thee,” He says; and there is all that need be said. But Gideon’s doubts are not settled: is it, after all, Jehovah that talks with him? Yes; is there not, after all, such a thing as fanaticism? Can we not make mistakes? And how, then, shall we be sure, at any time, we are not making one? Dull enough, surely, we are, when that voice which there is not another like, can be heard with doubt in the soul that hears it! May we not learn by the connection, too, that it is just the making so much of man that makes God so little, and disables us from distinguishing the voice of God? His thoughts are not as our thoughts; yet we may refuse His thoughts because they are so unlike our own. And often, indeed, we do this. Gideon would prove, then, his visitor with an offering, and significantly brings him Abraham’s offering of an ephah -that is, three measures -of flour; but Abraham’s gift is of fine flour; and instead of Abraham’s calf he brings a kid. Though less full a type than that in Genesis, Gideon’s offering still speaks of Christ. And on the angel’s part here there is more reserve than there, but still acceptance. At his direction it is placed upon the rock; and the angel touching it with his staff, it goes up in fire as an accepted offering. Then the angel himself departs: there is not power for sustained communion, as in Abraham’s case; yet Christ, as Representative of His people, accepted in sacrifice upon the cross, is declared the ground upon which God can be with them in delivering them. And this is the true assurance of competence for the Gideons of any generation. He is assured now that he has seen the angel of Jehovah face to face, yet fears on that account, till quieted by His word, that he will not die. There is, indeed, for us ever in the apprehension of the Lord’s presence the apprehension also of the sentence passed upon the flesh; and here is the ability for all right walk, and energy for the warfare to which we are called. “Now mine eye seeth Thee, therefore I abhor myself.” And Christ crucified is the affirming of this sentence and for deliverance from ourselves, that “crucified with Christ” we may yet live, -no longer we, but Christ living in us. (c) Gideon, therefore, builds an altar, and calls it Jehovah-shalom, -“Jehovah is peace.” It is not merely that there is peace with God, nor would this be the expression for it, for Jehovah is already the covenant name. No; but Jehovah is peace: it is found in Him; He has produced and bestowed it: from all fear whatever the soul takes shelter in Himself. And this being so, the altar itself is now a challenge of the idols; Jehovah’s altar cannot abide in company with Baal’s, nor Israel’s deliverance be accomplished with a divided faith. Thus it was on the same night, the night of the day in which Jehovah had appeared, that Jehovah bade him throw down Baal’s altar, and cut down the asherah, -a pillar of wood, the symbol of the Ashtaroth worship with which that of Baal was conjoined, -and, building an altar to Himself on the top of the stronghold (to which they were accustomed to retire from the face of the Midianites), to offer upon it his father’s second bullock with the wood of the asherah he had cut down. Not to be interrupted by the unbelief of those around, he did it by night, and the next morning the challenge to Baal was apparent. Thus “to faith” Gideon had to “add virtue,” -the boldness needed by every good soldier of Christ; and this boldness is God’s means to awaken and embolden others, so that Joash, his father, steps into the ranks. To the cry for his son to be put to death, he answers that the pleader for Baal deserves that: it is for Baal himself to avenge the insult, -a sarcasm which smites down at once the opposition, and leaves to Gideon the title of idol-challenger, “Let Baal contend!” In the strife that is beginning, the very existence of the man of faith is a sign of victory already achieved, a pledge of one to come. (2) The enemy now appears, and we are called to see, in the present section, the steps toward deliverance. There has to be preparation on Israel’s part, as is evident; and the separation of those whom God can use in the accomplishment of this. Gracious He is, but none the less careful as to the associations of those who are His instruments, to whom He incrusts the honor of His name. (a) The Midianites and their confederates spread themselves in the valley of Jezreel. We have already seen who these are, and for what they stand in the divine vocabulary. The Spirit of Jehovah now endues Gideon; for no mere wisdom or might of man is sufficient in this contest, and only in dependence are we safe. He blows the trumpet, and first Abiezer, and then all Manasseh, are gathered after him. The fitness of Manasseh for this place is apparent in Gideon, himself a Manassite. The world can only be overcome by him whose goal is beyond it; and this we have abundantly seen is what Manasseh represents. Asher, the “happy,” Zebulon, the “dweller in relationship,” and Naphtali, the “struggler” who overcomes, follow after Manasseh, and the Israelites’ army of victory is gathered. (b) But Gideon is not yet fully prepared, and urges upon the Lord his desire for a sign. He puts a fleece of wool upon the threshing-floor, and finds it in the morning wet with dew when all the ground is dry around. And again, at his further request, these conditions are reversed, and while all the ground is wet with dew, the fleece is dry. The fleece of the shorn sheep is the figure of forlorn Israel, which is to be filled with the dew of God’s blessing amid the drought upon the heathen around. But then this also may be of God, the while His mercies are refreshing the nations around, Israel for her sins may be left dry. This is, in either case, no mere natural occurrence: it is in His favor that there is life; He hideth His face, and we are troubled.

To recognize His hand in all conditions, however opposite, -to own everywhere His power and sway: this is the secret of wisdom, and of strength no less. For the acts of His throne are not arbitrary. He is no mere personal fate, but righteous and holy in all His dealings, and desiring to be understood by His people, however men in their wanderings from Him may misconceive the One upon whom they have turned their back. (c) With his faith refreshed, Jerubbaal, the challenger of the idols, who is thus Gideon, the “cutter-down,” rises up early, with all the people with him, and encamps opposite the enemy by the spring of trembling (Harod). And there, right in the presence of the vast host of Midian he is made by God to dismiss more than two thirds of his small army (at its best not a fourth part of the number of their adversaries), and that in obedience to a law of Deuteronomy. And what a humiliation and distress that 22,000 Israelites, come out expressly to battle, should on the plea of fear turn their backs upon their leader and his diminished force! But the design was not merely to get rid of the faint-hearted: for God’s hand to be manifest as He meant it to be, ten thousand men were still too many. At the word of the Lord they are brought down to the water, and tested there by their manner of drinking. Three hundred, instead of bowing down on their knees for a leisurely draught, merely, as in haste, lap the water from their hand. They are true Manassites, pressing on to what is before them; and “by the three hundred men that lapped will I save you,” is the Lord’s word to Gideon; “and let all the people go, every man to his place.” They do not seem to be sent home, however, but to their tents, as not needed for the battle that was before them. (d) The Lord recognizes, however, the strain of all this upon Gideon’s faith, and Himself tenderly proposes now a means of encouragement. This the enemy themselves were to furnish. Going down with Phurah, his servant, to the outskirts of the camp, he arrives just in time to hear one of the men interpret to his comrade a dream. The dreamer had seen a round cake of common barley-bread roll against the tent and overthrow it; and his comrade interprets it of “the sword of Gideon, the son of Joash, a man of Israel, into whose hand God has given Midian and all the camp.” “Bread” and a “sword” seem most incongruous figures; and yet they are both figures of the word of God; and barley bread -bread of the poorest kind -may in this case either speak of it according to the estimation of its despisers, or more probably of even its simplest and lowest truths. For what more than these are needed as against Midian and Amalek; that is, the world and the lusts of the flesh, as here making inroad into the Church of God? (3) (a) And now we come to realized deliverance, in which the hand of the Lord is most manifestly seen. The means of victory are so clearly interpreted for us by the apostle (2 Corinthians 4:4-12) that it is hardly possible to go astray, while it is true, and nowise strange, that the type is transcended by the antitype. The light, the earthen vessel, and the shining forth of the light, are sufficient points of resemblance; and while in the New Testament these are not looked at in connection with the discomfiture of the Church’s enemies, but in the building up of the Church itself, these things are not so far apart as to prevent very easy and, indeed, instructive comparison and connection with one another. To build up the Church aright is impossible without freeing it from the domination of the world: how could Israel be built up in the midst of Midianite devastation? Nor will the Church, if not built up, be long free from a foreign yoke. The demonic rulers of this world rule it by darkness (Ephesians 6:12).

The inheritance of the saints is in light (Colossians 1:12), and their armor also is “the armor of light” (Romans 13:12). But that armor is not a mere wholly outside thing: it is light that is in the face of Christ Jesus, -objective there, indeed, but which is received into the believer’s heart, and received not simply for personal joy and blessing, but “for shining forth” (2 Corinthians 4:6, Gk). “The glory of God that is in the face of Jesus Christ,” has nothing to express it in the type here: we could scarcely expect it; but there is no other light for the Christian: there would not be even torchlight without this. That the light is in an “earthen vessel” is abundantly plain. This treasure is enshrined in mere humanity with its manifest infirmity, liable to suffering and to death. But this, too, has its design, says the apostle: it is “that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of man.” This is in the very line of truth that the story of the Lord’s man of might enforces here. And yet the vessel, like the pitchers of the three hundred, tends indeed to shroud and bury the light so as to prevent its shining. What is needed, then, that the purpose of God may be fulfilled in this way? How plainly we see the spiritual requirement ruling here, for the vessel to be broken that the light may shine! And so the apostle dwells upon the afflictions of the Christian, always bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our body; for we who live are alway delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake, that the life also of Jesus may be made manifest in our mortal flesh." Thus it is light shining forth in life that is spoken of here; and this life not that of nature merely, but Christ our life, which, the more the outward man is consumed, becomes the more lustrous, the more convincingly of God. When the world has invaded the Church, and Israel is scattered in dens and caves, this light may be little seen. Its display will always be the confusion of Midian and its overthrow, accomplished as it must and will be by the voice of the trumpet, once so effective in the destruction of Jericho. The light and the trumpet -the testimony of the Word and the testimony of the life this is the double testimony which is true, and so effective, and which is the destruction of the world-church. Face to face with it, the mere godless profession, self-condemned, dies by its own hand. (b) Hardly is victory achieved, and the fruits of it remain yet largely to be gathered, when opposition shows itself on the part of Israel themselves. Ephraim is now called to take part in the contest, and they respond and gain a decisive battle, taking two princes of Midian -Oreb and Zeeb, the “Raven” and the “Wolf,” -and bringing their heads to Gideon, on the other side of Jordan. There is, indeed, a place for Ephraim in such a contest as this, though it is not the first place. The spiritual meaning again illumines the history; and the names of the princes slain would seem to show them to represent only the ruder and lower of Israel’s -or the Church’s -enemies; indeed, according to the plain word, “princes,” and not “kings.” But Ephraim is notorious also for pride, and it is that very first place that they fain would have. They contend vehemently with their deliverer, because they were not called when he went to fight Midian, and are only appeased by Gideon’s unpretending humility, who refers all to God, if in his eyes, in fact, Ephraim’s gleanings seem more than Abiezer’s vintage. Thence he goes on to meet scornful refusal of even necessary food for his famishing company from the Israelite towns of Succoth and Penuel. But he does not pause for the retribution with which he threatens them: “faint though pursuing,” they press on. (c) Of the completion of the deliverance from Midian little can be yet said. Much depends here upon the names, the meaning of some of which is hard to determine. Zebah means “sacrifice”; Zalmunna apparently “shadow [shelter?] withheld.” Karkor, from a root “to dig,” expresses deep, soft, level ground" (Fausset) -generally is given as “deep ground;” Jogbehah, “elevation,” or, “it is exalted;” Nobah, “barking.” The scoffers of Succoth and Penuel meet their threatened judgment after Midian. (4) Gideon’s career, so bright and prosperous hitherto, ends yet, alas, in sudden and disastrous failure. What worm has been at the root of all this beauteous development, that collapse should be so immediate upon success? There must surely be in it deep lessons of utter self-distrust, that we are called to learn, lessons that so to learn would save us from how much, perhaps, of painful experience, much like that of the elders of Succoth, taught as with the thorns and briars of the wilderness, the fruit of the curse which has come through sin. One test, and that a severe one, Gideon successfully resists. The people bid him rule over them, and would establish royalty in his family among them; but he declines so promptly as effectually to prevent any repetition of the offer: “I will not rule over you,” he says, “neither shall my son rule over you: Jehovah shall rule over you.” There it is plain he speaks out of the depth of strong conviction and loving obedience. And though God Himself had spoken permissively of a king for Israel some time in the future, Gideon had known too much of his own weakness, too much of the people with whom he had to do, and too well the Lord’s abundant care and interest in Israel, to entertain for a moment the thought of anticipating this. Yet in the same breath, it would seem, in which he rejects the kingship, he stretches forth his hand to take the priesthood: for nothing short of this can be meant by the use to which he puts the gifts which he now solicits from them, being the rings of the spoil. They had, it is added, golden rings, because they were Ishmaelites. The identification of these with the Midianites has been before noticed: they were Ishmaelites as men of strife, according to their name not by descent, of course, but by habit. As warlike nomads it was natural for them to carry much of their wealth upon their persons. The use of all this gold shows clearly that it is a high priestly ephod that Gideon makes, not as intending to dispute the office with the high priest at Shiloh; and yet apparently claiming equal rank with his. But what could lead a man like Gideon into such a course? That view is surely correct which finds this in a false interpretation of his past experience. He had actually offered sacrifice, as we remember, at Ophrah by the Lord’s command; and there the altar he had raised still stood. It is simple that for this he was providing according to the Mosaic ritual, God having, as he might judge, already ordained him to this office: a plausible, and yet false, inference from a real experience. We need not wonder to hear that this became a snare to Gideon and his house, nor that all Israel went whoring after it. We can find in it what the generations of an after-dispensation have but too faithfully repeated, and thus types written for our admonition. God had appointed but one high priest for Israel, and the ordinary priesthood was confined to the same line, the family of Aaron. The essence of this priesthood was that they were mediators for the people, and, by sacrifice, a special, peculiar link between the people and God: in this way alone could they draw near to God. For us as Christians all this is changed. In Christianity people and priests are one, and on this account the special priesthood has passed away. We are no longer at a distance, but brought nigh: the effectual sacrifice has been offered once for all -as on the day of atonement, by the High Priest alone, who has thereupon, as for a moment Israel’s high priest did, gone into the sanctuary, but a heavenly one, there to make intercession for us in the presence of God. The rent veil, the throned High Priest, the universal priesthood of the people of God, are essential characteristics of the period in which, through grace, we live. But the Church has failed, and not proved able to retain for herself the apprehension of this grace. Mingled with and sunk into the world, the shadows of the past have been allowed to darken the light into which the goodness of God had introduced her. Distance has again come in between the people of God and God, the knowledge of the efficacy of the work of Christ has become obscured, and as a result the Jewish system, in the disguise of Christian names and forms, is found today firmly entrenched in the midst of Christendom. The old priesthood of a distinctive class, modified in various ways, is fully reinstated, and even exaggerated in the Romish and kindred ritualistic systems: an invasion of Christ’s office in the direction of what Gideon’s failure seems to point to typically in no uncertain way. He had, indeed, been commanded to build an altar to Jehovah, and even to offer sacrifice upon it: and this was really putting him in a priestly place. But his sacrifice does not seem to have the mediatorial character which attached to the Aaronic priesthood, but to be rather eucharistic, or intended to vindicate the Lord’s claim to the worship of Israel in opposition to Baal, whose altar had just been overthrown. Gideon’s sacrifice, therefore, though in form such as that offered by the Aaronic priesthood, seems really different, and to approach in intent more truly to the “sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving” of the Christian man. But the ephod -clearly high-priestly -speaks far otherwise; the high-priest being manifestly the representative of the nation before God; and Israel going whoring after it, intimates how they understood it. Its being made with the spoils of victory -of which it would remain a perpetual trophy -may show how in Christendom, as faith lessened and grew rare, the very piety of individuals tended to put them into a place which, from being foremost, came to be official and representative. The ordinary Christians became the secular, the laity, dropped back into the old distance, needing a continually greater work to bring them nigh, until an official priesthood intruded upon the work of Christ without rebuke, and the process of Judaizing became as complete as may be seen in Romanism. We need not wonder, then, to find this a snare to Gideon and his house, nor soon an Abimelech proceeding from the loins of Jerubbaal, the deliverer. This we are now called to consider. 2. Abimelech (“my hither [was] king”) in his name, carries us back to the Philistines. It was that of their kings, and speaks, as we saw in Genesis, of that successional claim in the world-church, the falsehood of which he so plainly represents. His succession is from one who refused power when offered him, and he makes it good by treachery and murder of those who stood in his way. His typical connection with his father’s ephod is easy to be seen, and confirms the application of the whole history here. Israel had once again lapsed into idolatry, and taken Baal-berith to be their god. The words mean “lord of the covenant,” which may be simply equivalent to “covenant-lord,” and may go beyond this. The worship of Baal was at least a sign of covenant with the Canaanites, whose god he was, and the history here gives manifest proof of alliance with the heathen. The “men of Hamor, the father of Shechem,” are known and in estimation among them (Judges 9:28); and the word for “lords” (baale), unusual in Hebrew, is “often found in the Phoenician dialect.” It is applied, says Fausset, “to the men of Gibeah (Judges 20:5), and the Canaanite citizens of Jericho (Joshua 24:11), and to the men of Keilah (1 Samuel 23:11-12). The continual recurrence of this word (ver. 2, 6, 7, 18, 20, 23, 24, 25, 26, 39, 46, 47, 51) can hardly be accidental; it probably alludes to the majority of them being Canaanites, and connects with the Phoenician Baal-worship of Canaan” -Baalites, as it were. In this way, also, the name Jerubbaal is so often harped upon. Baal-worship and intermixture with the Canaanites are certainly found at their worst in the story of crime and bloodshed following here. Idolatry and the reign of Abimelech are thus connected, as in the dispensational fulfillment; and Shechem, at the very spot where the law of Jehovah was proclaimed, is now the center of apostasy. (1) The sources of his power are plainly that he is half Canaanite, half Israelite, son of Gideon on the one side, though son of the bondwoman on the other. He is, in this respect, another Ishmael; and with the same typical meaning that the apostle (Galatians 4:1-31) gives to the former one. How plainly we have in him, then, the Jewish-Christian-Pagan abomination that has arisen in the bosom of Christianity to lord it over the Israel of God. Naturally his way must be prepared by the extermination of Jerubbaal’s true successors, although a remnant escapes into hiding at Beer, the “well,” -a good place for God’s refugees, -in the person of Jotham, who yet is able to make heard his testimony against the usurper. Jotham (“Jehovah is perfect”) bears in his name the character of a true witness. The Shechemites, with shameless audacity, gather at the stone set up by Joshua, to make the fratricide Abimelech king; and there Jotham appeals to them from Gerizim in the fable of the trees. The tendency of man’s heart is to make another king than God, to put leaders in His place, and thus to destroy the use and blessing for which the olive, the fig, the vine, the various gifts of God, are given. But just those who are really worthiest will most surely refuse to leave their spheres of happy service, their sweetness, and their fruit, to go to “wave over,” -to flutter idly in the wind over the trees. Thus royalty comes naturally to the thorn-bush, which need give up nothing, but which has thus nothing in its gift but thorns, -such as, indeed, the men of Succoth were taught with. But worse would come than this, -the fire of God’s wrath, which, from this side and from that, would destroy both king and people. (2) The Jothams are seldom listened to; and the men of Shechem and Abimelech go on to the end of which they have been warned. Three years pass, and the prediction is fulfilled: the people of Shechem act treacherously toward Abimelech, and Abimelech wars against and destroys Shechem. This is all described with a fullness of detail which shows that there is much more in it than the concerns of a petty Israelitish city; yet as little more than this do the commentators treat it. Nor can we expect that full light upon it all should be acquired at once. But taking Abimelech as depicting in brief the growth and catastrophe of Romish power in Christendom, we may perhaps see in Gaal, the son of Ebed, the “loathing” bred of “servitude,” which is but indeed the translation of his name, and which incites the nations to cast off their allegiance to him whom they first lifted into power. Well may the descendants of the “wild ass” (Hamor) rebel against so harsh a yoke as they had put their necks into!

But it is another matter to escape from it; and Zebul (which looks like Zebulon, but a little clipped), whose character throughout is that of craft, and who is Abimelech’s officer to retain the city in obedience, may easily represent the apparent sanctity wherewith a power like that of Rome so well knows how to enforce its claims. Look but a little closer, and the ambiguity begins to appear. Zebul is nearly allied to Jezebel, still more evidently to Beelzebul,* -being identical, indeed, with the last part of this name, and thus may be really “dung,” as it is there.
It is not the power that makes Abimelech that can unmake him. He prevails against Shechem, only to perish by a woman’s hand at Thebez.* Here the millstone reminds us of Babylon’s overthrow, where, in Revelation 18:21, the symbol of the Old Testament prophet is taken up by the New. In these Babylon herself is figured by the millstone, as the hard and merciless grinder of God’s wheat. In the story in Judges, the millstone is the cause of Abimelech’s destruction; yet these two things are almost one: it is character that brings destruction from God; and the woman’s hand, what is it but the Church of God whose cries have gone up to God, and who in this way brings the punishment? The mill-stone and the woman’s hand are thus really complementary thoughts that perfect the application.
3. Tola and Jair, following Abimelech, are in most marked and significant contrast with him. No warlike deeds are recorded of them: Israel seems to have enjoyed the most entire peace during the forty-five years of their united judgeship. Absolutely nothing is recorded of Tola except his descent, the place of his residence and burial, and the length of time during which he judged Israel. Of Jair personally even less is given; but the fact is noticed of his thirty sons who all attained to dignity in Israel. Out of these few and apparently not very important items we are to gather whatever spiritual lessons they can furnish. That it is a flourishing period for the nation is quite consistent with there being but little history. Man’s record is largely one of sorrows and crimes; and men whose names are written in large letters across the page get mostly their place there through either their own sins or those of others. Of these men their names are their sufficient witness, evidently because they answer to them: they are what they profess to be. Of each it is said that “he arose,” and of Tola that he “arose to save Israel,” -more, perhaps, by what he was than by what he did; but the words mark, evidently, a resurrection time in Israel; the words “there arose after Abimelech to save Israel,” seem to connect also in some way the previous section with the present; in what manner we may shortly learn. (1) The name of Tola has already been before us, as that of the head of a family in Issachar, to which tribe the present Tola also belongs. His name is that of the crimson “worm,” the coccus of the oak, which yielded the “scarlet” or crimson employed in the tabernacle. The cry of the twenty-second psalm, “I am a worm, and no man,” indicates the self-chosen humiliation of the blessed victim. The name Tola here, as that of the judge in Israel, shows at once the most striking contrast with Abimelech. It is lowly self-surrender, not self-exaltation, that marks this man of Issachar, a tribe which speaks to us also, as we have seen, of practical walk. He is the son of Puah, “utterance,” who is himself the son of Dodo, “his beloved.” Thus out of the consciousness of divine love in the soul comes the “utterance” which in the practical life becomes self-surrender to God.

The Shamir in Mount Ephraim, in which he dwells, though different from that which we have before had,which was in Judah (Joshua 15:48), should speak as that does of unchangeableness; yet not in God as in the Judean city, but rather, as its place in Ephraim would imply, of human character. If such were, indeed, that of Tola, it is easy to understand the twenty-three years’ revival under his judgeship. But is not this a prophetic glance on to the time when not Israel only, but the whole world, shall know the blessing of the rule of the incorruptible judge, of whom we cannot but have been reminded in this picture, and of whom we know that He transcends it? The reign of the thorn-bush has been all that yet man has seen, and the result of his choice of rulers will be nothing else until the Abimelechs have received their judgment. Then, indeed, the time of revival shall come with the presence of the Risen One, once crowned with the thorn, and now with glory forever. If Tola be a type, of whom else can he be a type but this? He who has “learned obedience by the things that He hath suffered,” shall yet bring to obedience, and thus to blessedness in the time to which we hasten. Who but He can do this? (2) Jair, the Gileadite, seems now to confirm this witness. His name, “enlightener,” is only to be applied in any full way to Him who is the One Light of men. And that he is the Gileadite may speak of the “heap of witness” (see Joshua 13:1-33 n.) which Jair’s burial would seem to remind us of being buried in Camon (the place of resurrection) the grave that could not hold Him. The thirty sons on thirty ass-colts, with their thirty cities, is in this case also plain. “They rode,” says Cassel, not merely as men of quality, -the usual explanation, -but as chiefs, governors, and judges. It was peculiar to such persons especially, that they made use of the ass, as the animal of peace. Their very appearance on this animal was expressive of their calling -to reconcile and pacify. The sons of Jair judged their thirty cities." The Lord’s own riding into Jerusalem, and His parable of the pounds (Luke 19:1-48) show us very simply the application here. Of the havvoth Jair, or “Jair’s lives,” we have spoken before (Joshua 13:11, n.). Tola and Jair are thus the twofold witnesses of Him to whom yet the disorder of man’s rule will give way, though it will be still and truly man’s, the kingdom of the Sou of man. For the Son of man cometh in the clouds of heaven, and henceforth they “shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending [in attendance] on the Son of man.”