Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Judges 3:30
So Moab was subdued that day under the hand of Israel. And the land had rest fourscore years.
30. was subdued ] Similarly in the conclusions to the other stories, Jdg 4:23, Jdg 8:28, Jdg 11:33 ; 1Sa 7:13. The expression, which seems to form a more integral part of the narrative proper than the rest of the recurring phrases, “may mark the portions due to the pre-Deuteronomic compiler,” Driver, Introd. , p. 167. The rest of the verse certainly belongs to the framework; cf. Jdg 3:11 note.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
The land – i. e. that portion of it which had suffered from the oppression of Moab, probably Benjamin and Ephraim chiefly (see Jdg 3:11).
In judging of the nature of Ehuds act there are many considerations which must greatly modify our judgment. Acts of violence or cunning, done in an age when human society applauded such acts, when the best men of the age thought them right, and when men were obliged to take the law into their own hands in self-defense, are very different from the same acts done in an age when the enlightened consciences of men generally condemn them, and when the law of the land and the law of nations give individuals adequate security. We can allow faith and courage and patriotism to Ehud, without being blind to those defective views of moral right which made him and his countrymen glory in an act which in the light of Christianity is a crime. It is remarkable that neither Ehud nor Jael are included in Pauls list in Heb 11:32.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 30. The land had rest fourscore years.] This is usually reckoned from the deliverance under Othniel, that being a term from which they dated every transaction, as in other cases they dated from the exodus, from the building of Solomon’s temple, c., and as other nations did from particular events: the ROMANS, from the building of the city the MOHAMMEDANS, from the Hijreh, or flight of Mohammed to Medina; the CHRISTIANS, from the birth of Christ, &c., &c. But see the preface, and the different chronological schemes there mentioned.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
How these are to be understood, see Poole “Jdg 3:11“. Instead of eighty, some copies read eight years.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
So Moab was subdued that day under the hand of Israel,…. Or the Moabites were broken, as the Targum, that is, their forces in the land of Israel; for the land of Moab itself was not subdued and brought into subjection to the Israelites; but they were so weakened by this stroke upon them, that they could not detain the Israelites under their power any longer:
and the land had rest fourscore years; eighty years, which, according to Ben Gersom, are to be reckoned from the beginning of their servitude, and that the rest properly was but sixty two years, and so both rest and servitude were eighty years, as R. Isaiah; and, according to Abarbinel, the rest was from the death of Othniel; and our Bishop Usher o reckons this eightieth year from the former rest restored to it by Othniel; but others p are of opinion that there were several judges at a time in several parts of the land, and that the land was at rest in one part when there was war in another; and so that at this time it was only the eastern part of the land that had rest, while the western parts were distressed by the Philistines, and the northern parts by Jabin king of Canaan, as in Jud 3:31.
o Annal. Vet. Test. p. 42. p Marsham. Canon. Chron. p. 306, 307. Patrick in loc. Vid. Lampe Eccl. Hist. l. 1. c. 5. p. 21, 22.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Thus Moab was subdued under the hand of Israel, and the land had rest for eighty years.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
(30) The land.Meaning, probably, the southern tribes.
Fourscore years.The LXX. add, And Ehud judged them till he died. Josephus (Antt. v. 5, 1) seems to have read eight years.
As to the moral aspect of the assassination committed by Ehud, it is only necessary to say that while his courage, and capacity, and readiness to sacrifice himself, if need be, for the deliverance of his country were thoroughly noble, the act by which he achieved his end was unjustifiable. To quote his example in defence of the principle of assassination is a gross abuse of Scripture. Those who defend the murder do so by assuming that the Divine call to Ehud to deliver his people sanctioned and possibly even suggested the means by which it was accomplished. But such methods of inferential exegesis undermine the very bases of morals. It is not in the least surprising that, when adopted, they are liable to the grossest abuse, and made to cover the most horrible crimes. Thus, when Jacques Clement asked whether a priest might kill a tyrant, he was told that it was not a mortal sin, but only an irregularity; and when Pope Paul V. heard of the murder of Henry IV. by Ravaillac, he said, The God of nations did this, because he was given over to a reprobate mind. If it has been always true that
The devil can quote Scripture for his purpose,
he has done so not rarely by the lips of those who have professed to teach it. Worse than the dagger, says Prof. Cassel, is such doctrine.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
‘ So Moab was subdued that day under the hand of Israel. And the land had rest for eighty years.’
The Moabites no longer came to cause trouble to Israel, for they were busy with the succession and had lost a good number of their finest troops. They also recognised that something had happened to restore the strength of Israel, so that they were no longer a sitting target.
The eighty year rest is twice the previous forty year rest, just as the subjugation had been for eighteen years rather than eight. It represents forty intensified. God was showing double favour to His people. There was a double waiting and a double period of testing, and two generations of rest from the Moabites. In reading Judges we can tend to overlook these long periods of wellbeing. But they occurred non-the-less.
The subjugation by Moab may well have partly taken place while the subjugation of the other tribes under Cushan-rishathaim was going on and through part of their period of rest, for this was in another part of Israel and had probably been limited to the three tribes.
Perhaps Moab had stopped at Jericho because they did not want to face the army of Cushan-rishathaim, for tribute rendered those who paid it the right to protection, and thus Israel would have had a right of protection.
We note also that the next major crisis took place when Ehud was dead (Jdg 4:1). And meanwhile Shamgar was active against the Philistines in the west (Jdg 3:31). This suggests a shorter period than ‘eighty years’. But that was surely because those events took place in another part of Israel, mainly in the plains in the west where chariots were effective. Jericho and Transjordan in the east were unaffected. Their rest from war continued for two generations.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
This Shamgar was the third of the Judges which judged Israel. We have but a short account of him. But even this is as a Deliverer. As he rescued Israel from the Philistines, I am inclined to think the seat of his government lay south, and not to the east, on the banks of Jordan, as the situation of Ehud`s must have been. It is probable that Shamgar’s deliverance of Israel was suddenly effected, as the weapon by which he wrought it should seem to intimate. What instruments are too weak when the Lord commissions them! Rams horns can blow down the walls of Jericho, and the foolishness of preaching turn men from darkness to light, when the Lord gives the word. Jos 6:20 ; 1Co 1:21 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Jdg 3:30 So Moab was subdued that day under the hand of Israel. And the land had rest fourscore years.
Ver. 30. And the land had rest fourscore years. ] That is, To the end of fourscore years, reckoning from the death of Othniel.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
years. The Septuagint adds “until he died”.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
And the land: Jdg 3:11, Jdg 5:31
Reciprocal: Jos 14:15 – And the land Jdg 8:28 – forty years Jdg 11:26 – three hundred 2Sa 8:2 – he smote 1Ch 18:2 – He smote 2Ch 14:6 – for the land Neh 9:28 – did evil again Act 9:31 – the churches
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Jdg 3:30. The land had rest fourscore years Not the whole land of Israel, but the eastern part of it, which had thus shaken off the yoke of Moab. For in the mean time the Philistines invaded the western parts, as it here follows, and were repulsed by Shamgar; and Jabin afflicted the northern, as it follows in the next chapter.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
3:30 So Moab was subdued that day under the hand of Israel. And the {k} land had rest fourscore years.
(k) Meaning, the Israelites.