Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Judges 20:33
And all the men of Israel rose up out of their place, and put themselves in array at Baal-tamar: and the liers in wait of Israel came forth out of their places, [even] out of the meadows of Gibeah.
33. rose up set themselves in array ] The Israelites had taken up their position opposite Gibeah and then retired northwards ( Jdg 20:30-32); now, apparently, after the feigned retreat they take up a second position at a further distance from Gibeah. But this is hardly the natural meaning of the words; rose up implies a new action (e.g. Jdg 20:19) rather than the repetition of a movement which had already begun. It is in fact difficult to fit Jdg 20:33 a into the context. May it then come from the A narrative, and form the sequel of Jdg 20:29? This would give us an allusion to the battle, which otherwise is missing from A: after the ambush was set round Gibeah ( Jdg 20:29), the main army of Israel took up its position in Baal-tamar ( Jdg 20:33 a). But the language of the verse does not inspire confidence in its originality (lit. the men of Israel rose up from his place!); on the other hand the mention of Baal-tamar may well be ancient. Perhaps we may describe this half-verse as an early addition. See further below.
Baal-tamar ] Site unknown, but not far from Gibeah; Eusebius ( OS 238, 75) declares that the name was surviving in the locality as Beth-tamar. Baal-tamar = B. of the palm-tree, a rare instance of the god Baal being associated with a tree; cf. Jer 2:27 [63] . The palm was a symbol of Ashtoreth rather than of Baal.
[63] See Baudissin, Adonis u. Esmun (1911), p. 176. Winckler interprets differently, Baal is Tamar, i.e. Ishtar-Ashtoreth, the local deity possessing the attributes of god and goddess: Gesch. Israels ii. 98 ff.
brake forth ] Elsewhere of the sea or a river, Job 38:8; Job 40:23, Eze 32:2; from the same root comes the name of the fountain at Jerusalem, Gihon the gusher. So here, of the Hers in wait bursting forth from ambush; as applied in this way to warfare the word is used in Aramaic. Cf. the parallel account from A in Jdg 20:37.
Maareh-geba ] Supposed to mean the bare or open space of G., but probably a mistake for maarb l e geba, i.e. west of Geba, LXX. cod. A and mss., Vulgate; a late usage, 2Ch 32:30; 2Ch 33:14. Geba is either a mistake for Gibeah (as in Jdg 20:10), or more probably = Jeba‘, N.E. of Gibeah.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Baal-tamar is only mentioned here. It took its name from some palm-tree that grew there; perhaps the same as the palm-tree of Deborah, between Ramah and Bethel Jdg 4:5, the exact locality here indicated, since the highway Jdg 20:31 along which the Israelites enticed the Benjamites to pursue them, leads straight to Ramah, which lay only a mile beyond the point where the two ways branch off.
The meadows of Gibeah – The word rendered meadow is only found here. According to its etymology, it ought to mean a bare open place, which is particularly unsuitable for an ambush. However, by a change in the vowel-points, without any alteration in the letters, it becomes the common word for a cavern.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 33. Put themselves in array at Baal-tamar] The Israelites seem to have divided their army into three divisions; one was at Baal-tamar, a second behind the city in ambush, and the third skirmished with the Benjamites before Gibeah.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Out of their place; where they had disposed themselves, that they might fall upon the Benjamites, when they were drawn forth to a sufficient distance from their city, and when they were pursuing that party, mentioned Jdg 20:30.
Came forth out of their places, to execute what was agreed upon, even to take Gibeah, and burn it, as they actually did, Jdg 20:37.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
33. Baal-tamara palm-grove,where Baal was worshipped. The main army of the confederate tribeswas drawn up there.
out of the meadows ofGibeahHebrew, “the caves of Gibeah”; a hillin which the ambuscades lay hid.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And all the men of Israel rose up out of their place,…. The main body of the army, which fled before Benjamin, when they were come to a proper place, stopped, and rose up out of it, and stood in their own defence:
and put themselves in array at Baaltamar; drew up in a line of battle at that place, facing their enemies, in order to engage with them: this place the Targum calls the plains of Jericho, that being the city of palm trees, which Tamar signifies; and so Jarchi interprets it; but these are too far off; it must be some place near Gibeah. Jerom w speaks of a little village in his time in those parts, called Bethamari, and may be thought to be this same place; perhaps in the times of the old Canaanites here was a grove of palm trees, in which Baal was worshipped, from whence it had its name:
and the liers in wait of Israel came forth out of their places, even out of the meadows of Gibeah; or plain of Gibeah, as the Targum; for as the city was built on a hill, at the bottom of it were a plain and fine meadows of grass, and here an ambush was placed at some little distance from the city; and when the army of the Benjaminites were drawn off from it, in pursuit of Israel, these came forth and placed themselves between them and the city.
w De loc. Heb. fol. 89. I.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
(33) Put themselves in array at Baal-tamar.This is either a detail added out of place (so that we might almost suppose that there has been some accidental transposition of clauses), or it means that when the Israelites in their pretended rout had got as far as Baal-tamar (Lord of the Palm) they saw the appointed smoke-signal of the ambuscade, and at that point rallied against their pursuers. What makes this probable is that Baal-tamar can only have derived its name from some famous, and therefore isolated, palm-tree. Now there was exactly such a palm treethe well known Palm of Deborah (see Note on Jdg. 4:5)between Ramah and Bethel, and therefore at a little distance from the spot where the roads branch. The place was still called Bathamar in the days of Eusebius and Jerome. The Chaldee rendering, in the plains of Jericho (the palm city, Jdg. 1:16), is singularly erroneous.
Out of the meadows of Gibeah.The word maareh, rendered meadows, occurs nowhere else. Some derive it from arah, to strip. The LXX., not understanding it, render it as a name, Maraagabe, and in Cod. A (following a different reading), from the west of Gibeah, as also does the Vulg. Rashi renders it, because of the stripping of Gibeah, and Buxtorf, after the stripping of Gibeah. It is, however, clear that the words are in apposition to and in explanation of out of their places: The Syriac and Arabic understand maareh to mean a cave or caves, printing it maarah instead of maareh. Similarly the reading from the west only involves the change of a single letter (maarab). If the text be left unaltered, the meadows may have been concealed from the town by intervening rocks. In Isa. 19:7 aroth mean pastures.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
33. All the men of Israel rose up out of their place These were the main forces of the army, while those mentioned in Jdg 20:30 were probably a lesser body of men, several thousand, perhaps, whose object was to draw the Benjamites off from Gibeah. When they fled and the Benjamites pursued them, then this vast army, called all the men of Israel because they comprised the vast majority of the Israelitish warriors, rose up and marched to action.
Baal-tamar A place near Gibeah, mentioned also by Eusebius, but not now known.
Meadows of Gibeah Some interpreters, after the Septuagint, take the Hebrew words Maareh gaba as a proper name; others, after the Syriac, render it cave of Geba. These renderings come from the idea that a meadow or plain would be unsuitable for an ambush; but the plain around Gibeah may have afforded numerous hiding places; and then, as Keil well says, “There is no necessity to understand the words as signifying that the treeless country formed the actual hiding-place of the ambush; but that when the men broke from their hiding-place, they came from the treeless land toward the town.”
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Jdg 20:33 a
‘And all the men of Israel rose up out of their place, and put themselves in array at Baaltamar.’
These men who ‘rose up out of their place’ were probably a large force lying in ambush. As the fleeing Israelites came towards them, followed by the exultant Benjaminites, they rose up and drew up in battle formation at Baaltamar, a place on the route. (Tamar means ‘palm tree’). Possibly it was a grove of palm trees where Baal worship had been prominent.
Jdg 20:33 b
‘And the liers in wait of Israel broke out from their place, even from Maareh-geba (‘the meadow of Gibeah’ – see Jdg 20:10 for Gibeah as Geba).’
Totally unknown to the Benjaminites a hidden force began to advance on Gibeah from the rear. The writer is building up the picture of the battle as it progressed.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Jdg 20:33 And all the men of Israel rose up out of their place, and put themselves in array at Baaltamar: and the liers in wait of Israel came forth out of their places, [even] out of the meadows of Gibeah.
Ver. 33. Out of the meadows. ] Or, Dens, as Pagnine and others render it.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
meadows. Probably = forest.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
rose up: Jos 8:18-22
put themselves: There appear to have been three divisions of the Israelitish army: one at Baal-tamar – which was situated, says Eusebius, near Gibeah a second behind the city in ambush; and a third, who skirmished with the Benjamites before Gibeah.
Reciprocal: Jos 8:4 – lie in wait 2Sa 17:9 – he is hid 2Ch 13:14 – looked back