Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadJohn Kitto Morning Bible Devotions: June 16
Today is: Friday, April 26th, 2024 (Show Today's Devotion)
Select a Day for a Devotion in the Month of June: (Show All Months)
Jdg_7:16 to Jdg_8:17
Never, surely, before or since, did a general lead three hundred men against a hundred and thirty-five thousand, with only a trumpet in one hand, and a pitcher containing a lighted torch in the other. His object, however, was not to fight them, but to frighten them—or rather to raise into a panic the fears of him, which he knew that they already entertained. He divided the men into three equal bodies, each of which, in the darkness of the night, silently approached the enemy’s camp in a different quarter. At a given signal, they all threw down their pitchers with a loud crash, raised their torches on high, blew their trumpets, and shouted “the sword of the Lord and of Gideon.” The soldier had interpreted the barley cake to be no other than “the sword of Gideon.” The hero adopts that as his war-cry; but, with becoming piety, he avoids, even in a war-cry, to claim the glory for his own sword, by introducing the name of the Lord. As the enemy dreaded his name he could not withhold that; but he added another name; the dread name of Jehovah, which the remembrance of ancient judgments rendered still more terrible to them. The result of this fearful din on all sides, with the sudden glare of torches upon the margin of the camp, had precisely the effect which Gideon had calculated. In being thus suddenly awakened from their sleep it seemed to the Midianites that they were surrounded on all sides by enemies who had perhaps come from distant parts in aid of Gideon—the crash of the pitchers seemed to them as the noise of chariots—so many trumpets must imply the presence of a vast host—the glare of light must have led to the impression that the camp had been already set on fire in different parts. In the terror and the confusion they therefore fell foul of one another, and fought and slew as an enemy every one whom they encountered. To estimate this effect, it is to be remembered that the camp must have extended for many miles, and that the light of the torches must have appeared as a distant glare, but not an enlightening blaze, to all but those on the outskirts of the camp. And even if they had given light—which they could not—to all the host, there were not such distinctions of dress between the parts of the variously composed host, or between them and the enemy, as might enable them, in the confusion, to distinguish friend from foe. There was hence a frightful slaughter, without the Israelites striking a blow. Then followed a tumultuous flight; but by this time the country was roused, and the fugitives found enemies at every turn. The men who had been sent away the day before, probably also rendered good service this day upon the flying host. They were still out in arms, for it is not likely that many of them had yet reached their homes, or had, indeed, hastened to withdraw from the neighborhood; for they were not of the number which had claimed exemption on the ground of being “faint-hearted.” The passes of the Jordan were also seized, at the request of Gideon, by the Ephraimites, who, although offended at not having been at first called into action, forbore not to obey, for the public good, the man by whom they deemed themselves slighted. Thus it came to pass, that of all the vast host not more than fifteen thousand were able to make good their escape to the land beyond the Jordan, under the conduct of two of their princes, Zebah and Zalmunna. Gideon was not minded that even these should escape, and he crossed after them, being joined in this pursuit by the Ephraimites, who brought him the heads of two kings, Oreb and Zeeb, of the allied host, whom they had slain. They could not, however, refrain from complaining warmly of the manner in which they—proud as they were, and important as they deemed themselves—had been overlooked at the outset. The incident is worth noticing, as marking an early indication of the pretensions of this great tribe to a leading place in the nation. Had the movement commenced in the great rival tribe of Judah, or had the leader been any other than of their own kindred tribe of Manasseh, they would not perhaps have been so easily pacified by the soft answer with which Gideon turned away their wrath. He knew the arrogant temper of this tribe, and soothed their wounded vanity by magnifying their exploits in comparison with his own.
The pursuit beyond the Jordan reveals an important fact, that a lack of sympathy had already grown up between the tribes separated by that river. For when Gideon applied at two towns on his way for refreshment for his weary troops; he was refused by both with insult. He stayed not to argue or punish, but threatened what he would do on his return. Still displaying his ingenious inventiveness, he does not, like a one-idead warrior, threaten to destroy them, or to burn their cities—but he tells the men of Succoth that he will humble their chief men with the scourge, and that with a new kind of scourge—“the thorns and briers of the wilderness.” The offence of the men of Peniel was precisely the same, but he does not threaten to scourge them. No: he will “break down this tower”—the tower which was the strength and ornament of the place, and in which they trusted. He performed both promises to the letter, and perhaps something beyond, when he returned soon after victorious, with the two kings as his prisoners. He not only pulled down the tower of Peniel, but “slew the men of the city;” and it is not clear that he did not subject the men of Succoth to the same doom, after having dealt with them according to his threat. He might have done it, indeed, in the execution of his threat; for there was an ancient punishment in which death was inflicted by laying the naked bodies of the offenders under a heap of thorns, briers, and prickly bushes, and then drawing over them threshing sledges and other heavy implements of husbandry. A remark in connection with this subject, which we made some years ago, has often since been quoted: Note: Pictorial Bible, on Jdg_8:16. “In northern nations, where the body is completely covered, the idea of such punishments with thorns on the naked person, seems a far-fetched device; but in the East, where the clothing leaves much more of the person exposed, and where, in consequence, men are constantly lacerating their skins in passing through thickets, the idea of such laceration is always kept present to the mind, either by the actual experience of the suffering, or by the constant observation of it. Thus tearing the flesh with thorns comes to be a familiar idea of penal infliction, and as such, is still popularly mentioned in the East as among the punishments which evil-doers deserve, or will obtain, not only in this life but in the life to come.”