Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Judges 10:6
And the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the LORD, and served Baalim, and Ashtaroth, and the gods of Syria, and the gods of Zidon, and the gods of Moab, and the gods of the children of Ammon, and the gods of the Philistines, and forsook the LORD, and served not him.
6. again did that which was evil etc.] Cf. Jdg 2:11; Jdg 2:13, Jdg 3:7, Jdg 4:1, Jdg 6:1, Jdg 13:1; phrases of the Dtc. editor.
the gods of Syria Philistines ] i.e. of all the surrounding nations; cf. Jdg 2:12 Strictly speaking, the mention of ‘the gods of the Ammonites’ alone is appropriate to the narrative Jdg 10:17 to Jdg 11:33. The sentence appears to be a generalizing expansion from the hand of the latest editor, like the list of oppressors in Jdg 10:11.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
6 8. Introduction to the story of Jephthah
Apostasy followed by oppression, the cry for help by deliverance: such is the religious interpretation of the succeeding period given by the Dtc. editor in his accustomed manner. His phrases appear in Jdg 10:6-7, cf. Jdg 2:11; Jdg 2:13, Jdg 3:7 etc. This summary is much longer than usual, and resembles Jdg 2:6 to Jdg 3:6 in its general character and scope (see Introd. 2 b). The Dtc. editor seems to have expanded an earlier and shorter preface which is probably contained in Jdg 10:10-16, and shews signs of relationship with the source E. Jdg 10:6 b, Jdg 10:8 (in part), the end of Jdg 10:11 and the beginning of Jdg 10:12, appear to be still later expansions. It is surprising to find such a long introduction in the middle of the book; perhaps it was expanded, first by the Dtc. editor and then by a later hand, in order to cover not only the Ammonite, but the Philistine oppression, in fact all the remaining portion of the history. The last two verses (17 and 18) appear to be simply derived from the following chapter (as Jdg 8:33-35 from ch. 9), and intended to connect the passing reference to the Ammonite invasion in Jdg 10:7-8 with the more detailed narrative which follows.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
The gods of Syria – Or Aram. In the times of the Judges the various tribes of Aramites, or Syrians, were not compacted into one state, nor were they until after the time of Solomon. The national gods of these various Aramean tribes were probably the same; and their worship would be likely to be introduced into the trans-Jordanic tribes. It has been remarked that the Hebrew words for to divine, to practice magic, idolatrous priests, and other like words, are of Syrian origin. The Syriac ritual proved very attractive to king Ahaz 2Ki 16:10-12. For the national gods of the Zidonians, Moabites, Ammonites, and Philistines, see 1Ki 11:5, 1Ki 11:7,1Ki 11:33; 1Sa 5:2-5.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 6. And served Baalim] They became universal idolaters, adopting every god of the surrounding nations. Baalim and Ashtaroth may signify gods and goddesses in general. These are enumerated:
1. The gods of Syria; Bel and Saturn, or Jupiter and Astarte.
2. Gods of Zidon; Ashtaroth, Astarte or Venus.
3. The gods of Moab; Chemosh.
4. Gods of the children of Ammon; Milcom.
5. Gods of the Philistines; Dagon.
See 1Kg 11:33, and 1Sa 5:2. These are called gods because their images and places of worship were multiplied throughout the land.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
He shows how they grew worse and worse, and so ripened themselves for the ruin which afterward came upon them. Before they worshipped God and idols together; now they utterly forsake God, and wholly cleave to idols.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
6. the children of Israel did evilagain in the sight of the LordThis apostasy seems to haveexceeded every former one in the grossness and universality of theidolatry practised.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the Lord,…. After the death of the above judges they fell into idolatry again, as the following instances show:
and served Baalim, and Ashtaroth; as they had before,
[See comments on Jud 2:11] [See comments on Jud 2:13] and, besides these,
also the gods of Syria; their gods and goddesses, Belus and Saturn, Astarte and the Dea Syria, Lucian writes of:
and the gods of Zidon; the goddess of the Zidonians was Ashtaroth,
1Ki 11:5 and it seems they had other deities:
and the gods of Moab; the chief of which were Baalpeor and Chemosh,
Nu 25:3
and the gods of the children of Ammon, as Milcom or Molech,
1Ki 11:5
and the gods of the Philistines; as Dagon the god of Ashdod, Beelzebub the god of Ekron, Marnas the god of Gaza, and Derceto the goddess of Ashkalon:
and forsook the Lord, and served not him; not even in conjunction with the above deities, as Jarchi and others observe; at other times, when they worshipped other gods, they pretended to worship the Lord also, they served the creature besides the Creator; but now they were so dreadfully sunk into idolatry, that they had wholly forsaken the Lord and his worship at the tabernacle, and made no pretensions to it, but entirely neglected it.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
The third stage in the period of the judges, which extended from the death of Jair to the rise of Samuel as a prophet, was a time of deep humiliation for Israel, since the Lord gave up His people into the hands of two hostile nations at the same time, on account of their repeated return to idolatry; so that the Ammonites invaded the land from the east, and oppressed the Israelites severely for eighteen years, especially the tribes to the east of the Jordan; whilst the Philistines came from the west, and extended their dominion over the tribes on this side, and brought them more and more firmly under their yoke. It is true that Jephthah delivered his people from the oppression of the Ammonites, in the power of the Spirit of Jehovah, having first of all secured the help of God through a vow, and not only smote the Ammonites, but completely subdued them before the Israelites. But the Philistine oppression lasted forty years; for although Samson inflicted heavy blows upon the Philistines again and again, and made them feel the superior power of the God of Israel, he was nevertheless not in condition to destroy their power and rule over Israel. This was left for Samuel to accomplish, after he had converted the people to the Lord their God.
Israel’s Renewed Apostasy and Consequent Punishment – Jdg 10:6-18
As the Israelites forsook the Lord their God again, and served the gods of the surrounding nations, the Lord gave them up to the power of the Philistines and Ammonites, and left them to groan for eighteen years under the severe oppression of the Ammonites, till they cried to Him in their distress, and He sent them deliverance through Jephthah, though not till He had first of all charged them with their sins, and they had put away the strange gods. This section forms the introduction, not only to the history of Jephthah (Judg 11:1-12:7) and the judges who followed him, viz., Ibzan, Elon, and Abdon (Jdg 12:8-15), but also to the history of Samson, who began to deliver Israel out of the power of the Philistines (Judg 13-16). After the fact has been mentioned in the introduction (in Jdg 10:7), that Israel was given up into the hands of the Philistines and the Ammonites at the same time, the Ammonitish oppression, which lasted eighteen years, is more particularly described in Jdg 10:8, Jdg 10:9. This is followed by the reproof of the idolatrous Israelites on the part of God (Jdg 10:10-16); and lastly, the history of Jephthah is introduced in Jdg 10:17, Jdg 10:18, the fuller account being given in Judg 11. Jephthah, who judged Israel for six years after the conquest and humiliation of the Ammonites (Jdg 12:7), was followed by the judges Ibzan, Elon, and Abdon, who judged Israel for seven, ten, and eight years respectively, that is to say, for twenty-five years in all; so that Abdon died forty-nine years (18 + 6 + 25) after the commencement of the Ammonitish oppression, i.e., nine years after the termination of the forty years’ rule of the Philistines over Israel, which is described more particularly in Jdg 13:1, for the purpose of introducing the history of Samson, who judged Israel twenty years under that rule (Jdg 15:20; Jdg 16:31), without bringing it to a close, or even surviving it. It was only terminated by the victory which Israel achieved under Samuel at Ebenezer, as described in 1 Sam 7.
Jdg 10:6-8 In the account of the renewed apostasy of the Israelites from the Lord contained in Jdg 10:6, seven heathen deities are mentioned as being served by the Israelites: viz., in addition to the Canaanitish Baals and Astartes (see at Jdg 2:11, Jdg 2:13), the gods of Aram, i.e., Syria, who are never mentioned by name; of Sidon, i.e., according to 1Ki 11:5, principally the Sidonian or Phoenician Astarte; of the Moabites, i.e., Chemosh (1Ki 11:33), the principal deity of that people, which was related to Moloch (see at Num 21:29); of the Ammonites, i.e., Milcom (1Ki 11:5, 1Ki 11:33) (see at Jdg 16:23). If we compare the list of these seven deities with Jdg 10:11 and Jdg 10:12, where we find seven nations mentioned out of whose hands Jehovah had delivered Israel, the correspondence between the number seven in these two cases and the significant use of the number are unmistakeable. Israel had balanced the number of divine deliverances by a similar number of idols which it served, so that the measure of the nation’s iniquity was filled up in the same proportion as the measure of the delivering grace of God. The number seven is employed in the Scriptures as the stamp of the works of God, or of the perfection created, or to be created, by God on the one hand, and of the actions of men in their relation to God on the other. The foundation for this was the creation of the world in seven days. – On Jdg 10:7, see Jdg 2:13-14. The Ammonites are mentioned after the Philistines, not because they did not oppress the Israelites till afterwards, but for purely formal reasons, viz., because the historian was about to describe the oppression of the Ammonites first. In Jdg 10:8, the subject is the “children of Ammon,” as we may see very clearly from Jdg 10:9. “ They (the Ammonites) ground and crushed the Israelites in the same year, ” i.e., the year in which God sold the Israelites into their hands, or in which they invaded the land of Israel. and are synonymous, and are simply joined together for the sake of emphasis, whilst the latter calls to mind Deu 28:33. The duration of this oppression is then added: “ Eighteen years (they crushed) all the Israelites, who dwelt on the other side of the Jordan in the land of the Amorites, ” i.e., of the two Amoritish kings Sihon and Og, who (dwelt) in Gilead. Gilead, being a more precise epithet for the land of the Amorites, is used here in a wider sense to denote the whole of the country on the east of the Jordan, so far as it had been taken from the Amorites and occupied by the Israelites (as in Num 32:29; Deu 34:1: see at Jos 22:9).
Jdg 10:9 They also crossed the Jordan, and made war even upon Judah, Benjamin, and the house of Ephraim (the families of the tribe of Ephraim), by which Israel was brought into great distress. , as in Jdg 2:15.
Jdg 10:10-12 When the Israelites cried in their distress to the Lord, “ We have sinned against Thee, namely, that we have forsaken our God and served the Baals, ” the Lord first of all reminded them of the manifestations of His grace (Jdg 10:11, Jdg 10:12), and then pointed out to them their faithless apostasy and the worthlessness of their idols (Jdg 10:13, Jdg 10:14). , “ and indeed that, ” describes the sin more minutely, and there is no necessity to remove it from the text-an act which is neither warranted by its absence from several MSS nor by its omission from the Sept., the Syriac, and the Vulgate. Baalim is a general term used to denote all the false gods, as in Jdg 2:11. This answer on the part of God to the prayer of the Israelites for help is not to be regarded as having been given through an extraordinary manifestation (theophany), or through the medium of a prophet, for that would certainly have been recorded; but it was evidently given in front of the tabernacle, where the people had called upon the Lord, and either came through the high priest, or else through an inward voice in which God spoke to the hearts of the people, i.e., through the voice of their own consciences, by which God recalled to their memories and impressed upon their hearts first of all His own gracious acts, and then their faithless apostasy. There is an anakolouthon in the words of God. The construction which is commenced with is dropped at in Jdg 10:12; and the verb , which answers to the beginning of the clause, is brought up afterwards in the form of an apodosis with . “ Did I not deliver you (1) from the Egyptians (cf. Ex 1-14); (2) from the Amorites (cf. Num 21:3); (3) from the Ammonites (who oppressed Israel along with the Moabites in the time of Ehud, Jdg 3:12.); (4) from the Philistines (through Shamgar: see 1Sa 12:9, where the Philistines are mentioned between Sisera and Moab); (5) from the Sidonians (among whom probably the northern Canaanites under Jabin are included, as Sidon, according to Jdg 18:7, Jdg 18:28, appears to have exercised a kind of principality or protectorate over the northern tribes of Canaan); (6) from the Amalekites (who attacked the Israelites even at Horeb, Exo 17:8., and afterwards invaded the land of Israel both with the Moabites, Jdg 3:13, and also with the Midianites, Jdg 6:3); and (7) from the Midianites? ” (see Judg 6-7). The last is the reading of the lxx in Cod. Al. and Vat., viz., ; whereas Ald. and Compl. read , also the Vulgate. In the Masoretic text, on the other hand, we have Maon. Were this the original and true reading, we might perhaps think of the Mehunim, who are mentioned in 2Ch 26:7 along with Philistines and Arabians (cf. 1Ch 4:41), and are supposed to have been inhabitants of the city of Maan on the Syrian pilgrim road to the east of Petra ( Burckhardt, Syr. pp. 734 and 1035: see Ewald, Gesch. i. pp. 321, 322). But there is very little probability in this supposition, as we cannot possibly see how so small a people could have oppressed Israel so grievously at that time, that the deliverance from their oppression could be mentioned here; whilst it would be very strange that nothing should be said about the terrible oppression of the Midianites and the wonderful deliverance from that oppression effected by Gideon. Consequently the Septuagint ( ) appears to have preserve the original text.
Jdg 10:13 Instead of thanking the Lord, however, for these deliverances by manifesting true devotedness to Him, Israel had forsaken Him and served other gods (see Jdg 2:13).
Jdg 10:14-16 Therefore the Lord would not save them any more. They might get help from the gods whom they had chosen for themselves. The Israelites should now experience what Moses had foretold in his song (Deu 32:37-38). This divine threat had its proper effect. The Israelites confessed their sins, submitted thoroughly to the chastisement of God, and simply prayed for salvation; nor did they content themselves with merely promising, they put away the strange gods and served Jehovah, i.e., they devoted themselves again with sincerity to His service, and so were seriously converted to the living God. “ Then was His (Jehovah’s) soul impatient ( , as in Num 21:4) because of the troubles of Israel; ” i.e., Jehovah could no longer look down upon the misery of Israel; He was obliged to help. The change in the purpose of God does not imply any changeableness in the divine nature; it simply concerns the attitude of God towards His people, or the manifestation of the divine love to man. In order to bend the sinner at all, the love of God must withdraw its helping hand and make men feel the consequences of their sin and rebelliousness, that they may forsake their evil ways and turn to the Lord their God. When this end has been attained, the same divine love manifests itself as pitying and helping grace. Punishments and benefits flow from the love of God, and have for their object the happiness and well-being of men.
Jdg 10:17-18 These verses form the introduction to the account of the help and deliverance sent by God, and describe the preparation made by Israel to fight against its oppressors. The Ammonites “ let themselves be called together, ” i.e., assembled together ( , as in Jdg 7:23), and encamped in Gilead, i.e., in that portion of Gilead of which they had taken possession. For the Israelites, i.e., the tribes to the east of the Jordan (according to Jdg 10:18 and Jdg 11:29), also assembled together in Gilead and encamped at mizpeh, i.e., Ramath-mizpeh or Ramoth in Gilead (Jos 13:26; Jos 20:8), probably on the site of the present Szalt (see at Deu 4:43, and the remarks in the Commentary on the Pentateuch, pp. 180f.), and resolved to look round for a man who could begin the war, and to make him the head over all the inhabitants of Gilead (the tribes of Israel dwelling in Perea). The “ princes of Gilead ” are in apposition to “ the people.” “The people, namely, the princes of Gilead,” i.e., the heads of tribes and families of the Israelites to the east of the Jordan. “ Head ” is still further defined in Jdg 11:6, Jdg 11:11, as “ captain,” or “ head and captain.”
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| Israel Oppressed by the Ammonites. | B. C. 1161. |
6 And the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the LORD, and served Baalim, and Ashtaroth, and the gods of Syria, and the gods of Zidon, and the gods of Moab, and the gods of the children of Ammon, and the gods of the Philistines, and forsook the LORD, and served not him. 7 And the anger of the LORD was hot against Israel, and he sold them into the hands of the Philistines, and into the hands of the children of Ammon. 8 And that year they vexed and oppressed the children of Israel: eighteen years, all the children of Israel that were on the other side Jordan in the land of the Amorites, which is in Gilead. 9 Moreover the children of Ammon passed over Jordan to fight also against Judah, and against Benjamin, and against the house of Ephraim; so that Israel was sore distressed.
While those two judges, Tola and Jair, presided in the affairs of Israel, things went well, but afterwards,
I. Israel returned to their idolatry, that sin which did most easily beset them (v. 6): They did evil again in the sight of the Lord, from whom they were unaccountably bent to backslide, as a foolish people and unwise. 1. They worshipped many gods; not only their old demons Baalim and Ashtaroth, which the Canaanites had worshipped, but, as if they would proclaim their folly to all their neighbours, they served the gods of Syria, Zidon, Moab, Ammon, and the Philistines. It looks as if the chief trade of Israel had been to import deities from all countries. It is hard to say whether it was more impious or impolitic to do this. By introducing these foreign deities, they rendered themselves mean and despicable, for no nation that had any sense of honour changed their gods. Much of the wealth of Israel, we may suppose, was carried out, in offerings to the temples of the deities in the several countries whence they came, on which, as their mother-churches, their temples in Israel were expected to own their dependence; the priests and devotees of those sorry deities would follow their gods, no doubt, in crowds into the land of Israel, and, if they could not live in their own country, would take root there, and so strangers would devour their strength. If they did it in compliment to the neighbouring nations, and to ingratiate themselves with them, justly were they disappointed; for those nations which by their wicked arts they sought to make their friends by the righteous judgments of God became their enemies and oppressors. In quo quis peccat, in eo punitur–Wherein a person offends, therein he shall be punished. 2. They did not so much as admit the God of Israel to be one of those many deities they worshipped, but quite cast him off: They forsook the Lord, and served not him at all. Those that think to serve both God and Mammon will soon come entirely to forsake God, and to serve Mammon only. If God have not all the heart, he will soon have none of it.
II. God renewed his judgments upon them, bringing them under the power of oppressing enemies. Had they fallen into the hands of the Lord immediately, they might have found that his mercies were great; but God let them fall into the hands of man, whose tender mercies are cruel. He sold them into the hands of the Philistines that lay south-west of Canaan, and of the Ammonites that lay north-east, both at the same time; so that between those two millstones they were miserably crushed, as the original word is (v. 8) for oppressed. God had appointed that, if any of the cities of Israel should revolt to idolatry, the rest should make war upon them and cut them off, Deut. xiii. 12, c. They had been jealous enough in this matter, almost to an extreme, in the case of the altar set up by the two tribes and a half (Josh. xxii.) but now they had grown so very bad that when one city was infected with idolatry the next took the infection and instead of punishing it, imitated and out-did it; and therefore, since those that should have been revengers to execute wrath on those that did this evil were themselves guilty, or bore the sword in vain, God brought the neighbouring nations upon them, to chastise them for their apostasy. The oppression of Israel by the Ammonites, the posterity of Lot, was, 1. Very long. It continued eighteen years. Some make those years to be part of the judgeship of Jair, who could not prevail to reform and deliver Israel as he would. Others make them to commence at the death of Jair, which seems the more probable because that part of Israel which was most infested by the Ammonites was Gilead, Jair’s own country, which we cannot suppose to have suffered so much while he was living, but that part at least would be reformed and protected. 2. Very grievous. They vexed them and oppressed them. It was a great vexation to be oppressed by such a despicable people as the children of Ammon were. They began with those tribes that lay next them on the other side Jordan, here called the land of the Amorites (v. 8) because the Israelites had so wretchedly degenerated, and had made themselves so like the heathen, that they had become, in a manner, perfect Amorites (Ezek. xvi. 3), or because by their sin they forfeited their title to this land, so that it might justly be looked upon as the land of the Amorites again, from whom they took it. But by degrees they pushed forward, came over Jordan, and invaded Judah, and Benjamin, and Ephraim (v. 9), three of the most famous tribes of Israel, yet thus insulted when they had forsaken God, and unable to make head against the invader. Now the threatening was fulfilled that they should be slain before their enemies, and should have no power to stand before them,Lev 26:17; Lev 26:37. Their ways and their doings procure this to themselves; they have sadly degenerated, and so they come to be sorely distressed.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
Double Servitude, vs. 6-9
The present passage indicates that the Israelites largely had become polytheistic in worship more than ever before. The Lord was utterly forsaken by most, and the condition of the people was called evil in the sight of the Lord. They went back to the Baal gods and Astarte goddesses they were serving when the Lord allowed Midian to oppress them, and from whom they had been delivered in the time of Gideon. this time they were worshiping the gods of every country around them. There were the Syrians on the north, Zidon on the northwest, Moab on the southeast, Ammon on the east, and the Philistines on the west. The only nation bordering them not mentioned is Edom.
In His anger at their apostasy and His judgment for it the Lord sent a double servitude, allowing them to be oppressed from east and west at the same time. They were shattered and crushed between their oppressors the first year, and the condition continued for eighteen full years. Particularly was the oppression of Ammon severe. These people were in the east, and the two and a half tribes there especially suffered, but the Ammonites boldly crossed over the Jordan and oppressed the western tribes also. Judah, Benjamin, and Ephraim, which lay closest to the river were objects of the Ammonite invasion.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
Jephthah of Gilead Jdg. 10:6 to Jdg. 12:7
Israel Humiliated Jdg. 10:6-18
6 And the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the Lord, and served Baalim, and Ashtaroth, and the gods of Syria, and the gods of Zidon, and the gods of Moab, and the gods of the children of Ammon, and the gods of the Philistines, and forsook the Lord, and served not him.
7 And the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel, and he sold them into the hands of the Philistines, and into the hands of the children of Ammon.
8 And that year they vexed and oppressed the children of Israel: eighteen years, all the children of Israel that were on the other side Jordan in the land of the Amorites, which is in Gilead.
9 Moreover the children of Ammon passed over Jordan to fight also against Judah, and against Benjamin, and against the house of Ephraim; so that Israel was sore distressed.
10 And the children of Israel cried unto the Lord, saying, We have sinned against thee, both because we have forsaken our God, and also served Baalim.
11 And the Lord said unto the children of Israel, Did not I deliver you from the Egyptians, and from the Amorites, from the children of Ammon, and from the Philistines?
12 The Zidonians also, and the Amalekites, and the Maonites, did oppress you; and ye cried to me, and I delivered you out of their hand.
13 Yet ye have forsaken me, and served other gods: wherefore I will deliver you no more,
14 Go and cry unto the gods which ye have chosen; let them deliver you in the time of your tribulation.
15 And the children of Israel said unto the Lord, We have sinned: do thou unto us whatsoever seemeth good unto thee; deliver us only, we pray thee, this day.
16 And they put away the strange gods from among them, and served the Lord: and his soul was grieved for the misery of Israel.
17 Then the children of Ammon were gathered together, and encamped in Gilead. And the children of Israel assembled themselves together, and encamped in Mizpeh.
18 And the people and princes of Gilead said one to another, What man is he that will begin to fight against the children of Ammon? he shall be head over all the inhabitants of Gilead.
5.
What kinds of gods did the surrounding nations serve? Jdg. 10:6
Once again, the pagan gods of Israels neighbors are grouped under the heading of Baalim and Ashtaroth. Baalim is the masculine plural form of Baal and stands for all the male deities which these people worshiped. Ashtaroth is the feminine plural form of the root for the name of the goddess Astarte and signifies a host of female deities whom Israels neighbors worshiped. The Assyrians, the Zidonians, the Moabites, the Ammonites, and the Philistines all had their favorite gods and goddesses. Some were national deities; some were symbols of fertility; and the multiplicity indicates the unending deviations and perversions into which men fall when they turn their backs from the revealed way of God.
6.
Who oppressed Israel in these days? Jdg. 10:7-9
The Philistines living along the west coast of Palestine are singled out for notice as leaders in the attacking and oppressing of Israel. They were not alone in their harassment of Gods people. The Ammonites who lived on the extreme eastern border across the Jordan River are also mentioned as those who troubled Israel in this time of apostasy. These two nations brought trouble out of which God delivered Israel under the hands of two of the best known judges, Jephthah and Samson. As a result, this passage of Scripture forms something of an introduction to the forthcoming judges. It is noted especially that the oppression of the Ammonites was so severe that they did not confine their attacks to the tribes living east of the Jordan, but crossed over the Jordan River to fight against Judah, Benjamin and Ephraim. Beset on the east and on the west, Israel was really sore distressed.
7.
When had Israel been delivered from the Sidonians? Jdg. 10:12
God reminded Israel of her past glorious history. The glory had been theirs because God Himself had delivered them from their many oppressors. They well knew how they had been brought out of Egypt and delivered from the slavery in Egypt. The Amorites were the Canaanites, and under Joshua they had been victorious over thrity-one different kings of the Canaanites. The Ammonites had oppressed Israel along with the Moabites in the time of Ehud (Jdg. 3:12 ff.). The Philistines had been vanquished by Shamgar (Jdg. 3:31). The Amalekites had attacked Israel at Horeb (Exo. 17:8 ff.) and God had wrought a great victory as the people were first led to battle by Joshua. The Midianites were the oppressors whom Gideon had driven out of the land (Judges 6, 7). We never read specifically of the Israelites having been attacked by the Sidonians, This is probably a reference to the war which was brought on by the northern Canaanites under Jabin, since Sidon appears to have had some kind of principality or protectorate over the northern Canaanites (Jdg. 18:7; Jdg. 18:28). Deborah and Barak had brought deliverance on one occasion from these people, and earlier Joshua had defeated the northern coalition of kings who attacked from the same area.
8.
Why was Israel told to go and cry to other gods? Jdg. 10:14
When God saw that the people of Israel had turned their backs on Him, He chided them for serving other gods. At the same time he reminded them that He had cared for them as a father cares for his children. In sarcasm He told them to, Go and cry unto the gods which you have chosen; let them deliver you in the time of your tribulation (Jdg. 10:14). This kind of an injunction put Israels condition in the kind of perspective which they could understand. They knew, when they stopped and thought about it, that no other god could deliver them. They had forsaken God, and God was forsaking them.
9.
What was the meaning of Israels confession? Jdg. 10:15
When the children of Israel realized the desperate plight into which they had fallen, they made a confession of their sin. In the simplest terms they couched it by saying only, We have sinned. At the same time they threw themselves completely upon the mercy of God. They asked Him to do unto them whatever seemed good unto Him. Their only petition was that God would deliver them from the oppressors who were besieging them.
10. Why was Gods soul grieved? Jdg. 10:16
The people of Israel tore down the idols which they had erected. They changed their ways and began to worship God in the manner which He had prescribed. When God saw this kind of complete about-face on the part of His people, it is said, His soul is grieved for the misery of Israel. Their misery was not only the oppression brought on them by the Philistines and the Ammonites, but it was a misery of soul which had brought about their repentance. Of course, this kind of statement is anthropomorphic. The writer has put Gods feelings in the form of mens feelings. After all, man is made in the image of God; and he can understand his Maker best when Gods ways are described in mans language.
11.
Where was Israels camp? Jdg. 10:17
The Ammonites assembled in the part of Gilead which they had possessed. The Israelites assembled and encamped at Mizpeh. This cannot be the Mizpeh of Samuel of a later time (1Sa. 7:12; 1Sa. 7:16), but was probably Ramath mizpeh (Jos. 13:26; Jos. 20:8). This spot was on the site of the modern Es salt. This was the Mizpeh which commemorated the parting of Jacob and Laban (Gen. 31:49).
12.
Why did Israel look for someone to begin the fight? Jdg. 10:18
It was imperative for the Israelites to assemble in order to challenge the Ammonites, who had gathered in Gilead. At the same time, they were not prepared for battle; because they did not have a recognized leader. When Tola judged, it was said that he arose to defend Israel (Jdg. 10:1); but in this case there was no one to rise to the occasion. It was necessary for the people through their recognized leaders, their princes, to select one to be their captain or head. Until they had such a recognized leader, it was impossible for them to make a united effort against their oppressors.
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
(6) Did evil again.Literally, added to do evil: joining new sins to their old ones, as the Vulg. paraphrases it (Jdg. 2:11; Jdg. 3:7, &c).
Served Baalim, and Ashtaroth.Jdg. 2:19. Seven kinds of idols are mentioned, in obvious symmetry with the seven retributive oppressions in Jdg. 10:11-12.
The gods of Syria.Heb. Aram. (See Gen. 35:2; Gen. 35:4.) Manasseh seems to have had an Aramean concubine (1Ch. 7:14), who was mother of Machir. Of Syrian idolatry we hear nothing definite till the days of Ahaz (2Ki. 16:10; 2Ki. 16:12):
Thammuz came next behind,
Whose annual wound in Lebanon allured
The Syrian damsels to lament his fate
In amorous ditties all a summers day.Par. Lost, 1
The gods of Zidon.1Ki. 11:5. As Milton borrowed his details from the learned Syntagma de Diis Syris of Selden, we cannot find better illustration of these allusions than in his stately verse:
Ashtoreth, whom the Phoenicians cali
Astarte, queen of heaven, with crescent horns,
To whose bright image nightly by the hour
Sidonian virgins paid their vows and songs, Id.
The gods of Moab.1Ki. 11:7.
Chemosh, the obscene dread of Moabs sons.
From Areer to Nebo, and the wild
Of southmost Abarim . . .
Peor his other name.Id.
The gods of the children of AmmonLev. 18:21; 1Ki. 11:7.
First Moloch, horrid king. . . . Him the Ammonite
Worshipped in Rabba and his watery plain,
In Argob and in Basan, to the stream
Of utmost Arnon.Id.
The gods of the Philistines.1Sa. 5:2; 1Sa. 16:23.
One
Who mourned in earnest when the captive ark
Maimed his brute image; head and hands lopt off
In his own temple on the grunsel edge,
Where he fell flat and shamed his worshippers.
Dagon his namesea-monsterupwards man
And downwards fish.Id.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
PHILISTINE AND AMMONITE OPPRESSION, Jdg 10:6-9.
6. Did evil again This apostasy, as appears from what follows respecting the number of false gods they worshipped, was of a most aggravating character.
Baalim, and Ashtaroth See note on chap. Jdg 2:13.
Gods of Syria These are nowhere in Scripture mentioned by name.
Gods of Zidon The peculiar forms of the Baal and Asherah worship as practiced among the Phenicians. Compare 1Ki 11:33. This worship was, in its principles, common among several of the surrounding nations, but each nation seems to have given it some peculiar modification of its own.
Gods of Moab Among whom Chemosh was the principal deity. Num 21:29; 1Ki 11:33.
Gods of Ammon Particularly the abominable Moloch, the fire-god, to whom human sacrifices were offered. 1Ki 11:7.
Gods of the Philistines Dagon, the fish-god. Compare chap. Jdg 16:23. Here we have the mention of seven classes of gods to whose worship Israel had turned, thus filling up the measure of a sevenfold idolatry. This seems more execrable still when we compare with it the seven deliverances of Jehovah mentioned in Jdg 10:11-12. They had seemed to choose a new idol for every deliverance.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
God’s Fifth Lesson – The Rise of the Ammonites and Its Consequences – Jephthah as Judge of Israel ( Jdg 10:6 to Jdg 12:7 ).
The Sins of Israel and the Oppression of Ammon ( Jdg 10:6-16
Jdg 10:6
‘ And the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the Lord, and served the Baalim, and the Ashtaroth, and the gods of Aram (Syria), and the gods of Zidon, and the gods of Moab, and the gods of the children of Ammon, and the gods of the Philistines, and forsook Yahweh and did not serve him.’
These gods would include Ashtoreth (of Zidon – 1Ki 11:5; 1Ki 11:33), Baal-peor and Chemosh (of Moab – Num 21:29; Num 25:3 ; 1Ki 11:7; 1Ki 11:33), Melek (Molech, Milcom – of Ammon – Lev 18:21; 1Ki 11:5 ; 1Ki 11:7; 1Ki 11:33), and Dagon and Baalzebub (of the Philistines – Jdg 16:23; 1Sa 5:2-7; 2Ki 1:2-3). Molech was particularly known as a god requiring human sacrifice (Lev 18:21; Lev 20:2-5; 2Ki 23:10; Jer 32:35).
From this it is apparent that a large part of the people were now seeking different gods in different parts of the country. This was to ‘forsake’ Yahweh. They no doubt kept up some formal observance of His requirements but they found the other gods more exciting and stimulating, and less demanding, and they could see them and be awed. It may also be that in some cases, such as the Philistines, Ammon and Moab, they were required to worship these gods because of the pressure from their oppressors.
Note that the number of gods mentioned is seven. This was in order to incorporate into the idea all the gods of all the nations, for seven is the number of divine completeness.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Ammonite Oppression and Deliverance by Jephthah The story of Jephthah’s leadership over Israel during the period of the Judges offers readers one of the most amazing stories to deal with in the Holy Scriptures. This judge made a vow unto the Lord that resulted in the offering of his daughter as a burnt sacrifice unto the Lord. Yet, the great victory that the Lord gave him in defeating the Ammonites won him recognition in the “Hall of Faith” found in Heb 11:1-40. Jephthah is listed with a number of other judges because he demonstrated tremendous faith in God (Heb 11:32-34).
Heb 11:32-34, “And what shall I more say? for the time would fail me to tell of Gedeon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthae; of David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets: Who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, Quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens.”
Haddon Robinson says this story teaches us that “God overlooks ignorance, but not unbelief.” [22]
[22] Haddon W. Robinson, “The Story of Jephthah: Judges 11,” Expository Homiletical Conference, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, Hamilton, Massachusetts, 14 October 2011.
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
The Oppression of the Philistines and Amorites
v. 6. And the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the Lord, v. 7. And the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel, v. 8. And that year, v. 9. Moreover, the children of Ammon passed over Jordan to fight also against Judah, v. 10. And the children of Israel, v. 11. And the Lord said unto the children of Israel, v. 12. The Zidonians also, v. 13. Yet ye have forsaken Me and served other gods; wherefore I will deliver you no more. v. 14. Go and cry unto the gods which ye have chosen; let them deliver you in the time of your tribulation. v. 15. And the children of Israel, v. 16. And they put away the strange gods, v. 17. Then the children of Ammon were gathered together and encamped in Gilead, v. 18. And the people and princes of Gilead,
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
EXPOSITION
Jdg 10:6
Did evil again. We may conclude that Tola and Jair had used their influence to maintain the worship of Jehovah; but at their death idolatry broke out with more virulence than ever. Not only were the many altars of Baal and Ashtoreth honoured, as in former times, but new forms of idol-worship, according to the rites of all the neighbouring nations, were introduced among them. The gods of Syria, i.e. Aram, who are not usually named, but whose worship is spoken of (2Ch 28:23), and whose altar attracted the attention of Ahaz (2Ki 16:10), and one of whom was Rimmon (2Ki 5:18); the gods of the Zidonians, Baal and Ashtoreth, probably with rites somewhat differing from those of Canaan; Chemosh, the god of the Moabites; Milcom or Moloch, the god of the children of Ammon; and Dagon, the god of the Philis-tinesall were worshipped, while the service of Jehovah was thrust aside (see 1Ki 11:5-7).
Jdg 10:7
The anger of the Lord, etc. See Jdg 2:13, Jdg 2:14. Into the hands of the Philistines. Probably the same Philistine domination as is described more fully in the history of the judgeship of Samson (chs. 13-16.). But now the writer confines his attention first to the oppression of the Ammonites.
Jdg 10:8
That year. It does not appear clearly what particular year is meant. Jarchi explains it as the year in which ,air died. It may mean the very year in which the idolatries spoken of in Jdg 10:6 were set up, so as to mark how closely God’s chastisement followed the apostasy from him. They, i.e. the children of Ammon. Eighteen years. The same length as that of the Moabite servitude (Jdg 3:18). The land of the Amorites, i.e. the territory of Sihon king of the Amorites, and Og the king of Bashan (Num 32:33). In Gileadin its widest acceptation, including, as in Deu 34:1; Jos 22:9, Jos 22:13, Jos 22:15; Jdg 20:1, the whole country held by the Amorites on the east of Jordan, and given to Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh. But in its narrower and stricter sense Gilead was bounded on the north by Bashan proper, and on the south by the Mishor, or plain of Medeba, which lay between the valley of Heshbon and the river Arnon, thus excluding that part of the territory of Reuben from Gilead (see Jos 13:9-11). Originally, as we learn from Jdg 11:13-22, the territory bounded by the Arnon on the south, by the Jabbok on the north, by the wilderness on the east, and by the Jordan on the west, had belonged to Moab, but the Amorites had taken it from them before the conquest of Sihon by the Israelites.
Jdg 10:9
The children of Ammon, etc. It would seem that at this time the king of the children of Ammon was also king of the Moabites, since he laid claim (Jdg 11:13, Jdg 11:24) to the land which had once belonged to Moab. If we may trust the king of the Ammonites’ statement, the object of the war was to recover that land, and he carried the war across the Jordan into the territory of Judah and Ephraim in order to compel the Israelites to give it up.
Jdg 10:11
Did not I deliver you, etc. These references to former deliverances are of great historical value, and not the least so as they allude to events of which the existing records give no account, or a very imperfect one. They show the existence of a real history in the background of that which has been preserved in the Bible (see Jdg 8:13, note). From the Egyptians, as related at large in the Book of Exodus; from the Amorites, as related in Num 21:21-35; from the children of Ammon, who were confederate with the Moabites under Ehud, as we learn from Jdg 3:13; from the Philistines, as is briefly recorded in Jdg 3:31.
Jdg 10:12
The Zidonians also. This allusion is not clear; it may mean the subjects of Jabin king of Canaan, as the northern Canaanites are called Zidonians in Jdg 18:7; and this agrees with the order in which the deliverance from the Zidonians is here mentioned, next to that from the Philistines, and would be strengthened by the conjecture that has been made, that Harosheth (Jdg 4:2) was the great workshop in which the tributary Israelites wrought in cutting down timber, etc. for the Phoenician ships; or it may allude to some unrecorded oppression. The Amalekites, who were in alliance with the Midianites (Jdg 6:3, Jdg 6:33), as previously with the Moabites (Jdg 3:13) and with the Canaanites (Jdg 4:14), and whose signal defeat seems to have given the name to the mount of the Amalekites (Jdg 12:15). The Maonites. It is thought by many that the true reading is that preserved in the Septuagint, viz; the Midianites, which, being the greatest of all the foes of Israel, could scarcely be omitted here (see Jdg 6:1-40; Jdg 7:1-25; Jdg 8:1-35.). If Maonites or Maon is the true reading, they would be the same people as the Mehunim, mentioned 2Ch 26:7 (Maon, sing; and Meunim, plur.).
Jdg 10:16
And they put away the strange gods. Here at length were “the fruits meet for repentance,” and “the returning to the Lord their God;” the intended result of the severe but loving correction (see Homiletics, Jdg 6:25-32). Cf. Gen 35:2; 1Sa 7:3, in which passages, as here, the phrase the strange gods is the correct rendering; not, as in the margin, gods of strangers. The Hebrew phrase here rendered his soul was grieved occurs Num 21:4; Jdg 16:16; Zec 11:2; it means was impatientliterally, was shortened, i.e. he could bear it no longer. A somewhat similar description of the Divine relenting is contained in the beautiful passage Hos 11:7-9.
Jdg 10:17
This verse ought to begin the new chapter. The preliminary matter of Israel’s sin, of their oppression by the Ammonites, of their repentance and return to the God of their fathers, and of God’s merciful acceptance of their penitence and prayer, was concluded in the last verse. The history of their deliverance by Jephthah begins here. And the children of Ammon, etc; i.e. they encamped, as they had done during the previous seventeen years, in Gilead, either to carry off the crops or to wring tribute from the people, or in some other way to oppress them, expecting no doubt to meet with tame submission as before. But a new spirit was aroused among the Israelites. By whatever channel the bitter reproach in Jdg 10:11-14 had been convey. ed to them, probably by the same channel, whether angel, or prophet, or high priest, had an answer of peace come to them on their repentance, and so they were roused and encouraged to resistance. As a first step, they encamped in Mizpeh (see Jdg 11:11, Jdg 11:29, Jdg 11:34). Mizpeh, or Mizpah of Gilead, is probably the same as Mizpah in Gilead where Laban and Jacob parted (Gen 31:25, Gen 31:49); as Ramoth-Mizpeh (Jos 13:26), called simply Ramoth in Gilead (Jos 20:8; 1Ch 6:80); and as the place well known in later Israelite history as Ramoth-Gilead (1Ki 4:13; 1Ki 22:3, 1Ki 22:6), situated in the tribe of Gad, and a strong place of much importance. It was the place of national meeting for the whole of Gilead. Mizpah means the watch-tower, and would of course be upon a height, as the name Ramoth-Mizpeh, the heights of Mizpeh, also shows. It almost always preserves its meaning as an appellative, having the article prefixed, ham-mizpah, which is its usual form; only once ham-mizpeh (Jos 15:38), and Mizpeh (Jos 11:18; Jdg 11:29; 1Sa 22:3), and once Mizpah (Hos 5:1). Whether Mizpeh in Jdg 20:1-3 is the same will be considered in the note to that passage. The modern site is not identified with certainty; it is thought to be es-Salt.
Jdg 10:18
Gilead. See note to Jdg 10:8. The people and princes. There is no and in the Hebrew. It is perhaps better, therefore, to take the words in apposition, as meaning, And the assembly of the chiefs of Gilead. The first step was to find a competent leader, and they agreed to appoint such an one, if he could be found, as their permanent head and captain.
HOMILETICS
Jdg 10:6-18
The Ethiopian’s unchanged skin.
Among the invaluable lessons of Holy Scripture, not the least valuable is the insight given by its histories into the true nature of the human heart. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked,” is the prophet’s description of the heart of man, and the history of the Israelites is a signal illustration of its truth. We are apt to think that if we had passed through the waters of the Red Sea, and seen Mount Sinai on a blaze, and eaten the manna from heaven, and drank the water out of the stony rock, and been led to victory by a Joshua, a Barak, a Deborah, or a Gideon, we never could have forgotten such signal mercies, could never have been unfaithful to the gracious Author of them, could never have preferred the vain idols of the heathen to the living God. Still more do we think that if we had seen the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth, had heard his wondrous words and seen his mighty works, or had been witnesses of his cross and passion, and talked with him after his resurrection, we should not be the worldly, lukewarm disciples we now are But we are wrong in thinking so. The image of the human heart reflected in the history of the Israelite people is a more true and faithful one than that portrayed by our own self-love. And that image is one of the depraved human will constantly deflecting from rectitude, constantly drawn aside from truth and godliness by the power of selfish affections and corrupt lusts; occasionally, as it were, turned back toward God, either by strong influences from without, as stirring events, heavy chastisements, striking deliverances, powerful examples, faithful warnings; or by strong emotions from within, as fear, or gratitude, or hope; but as soon as these influences begin to cool, regularly returning to their old habit of thinking and acting, and falling back into their own evil ways. The particular kind of sins to which the heart is most prone varies indeed in different ages of the world, and with the different conditions of the human society. With the Israelites it was idolatry. The fascination of the heathen idols was incredibly strong. In spite of reason, in spite of experience, often of the most bitter kind, they were attracted to the rites of heathenism by the strongest sympathies of their own perverse hearts. While they shrunk from the lofty obligations of the holy service of God, they abandoned themselves with willingness of mind to the base servitude of the idols, consenting to their shameful requirements, and gloating in their abominable rites. The desire to be like the nations, the influence of example all around them, the mysterious power of superstition, the agreement between their sensual hearts and the sensual rites of idolatry, were forces steadily turning them away from God, and constantly prevailing over the temporary influences which from time to time had moved them to repentance. But it is just the same with other kinds of sin which strike their roots deep into the hearts of men, and find a ready consent in the diseased moral conditions of those hearts. For a moment perhaps their power may be weakened by some opposite force, but, unless the fountain of the will is really renewed and sweetened by the indwelling Spirit of God, the same spectacle will be exhibited, as in the case of the Israelites, of the character which had been forced back returning surely and steadily to its natural bent; of the old influences of pride, selfishness, and lust resuming their former sway; and of the previous tastes, and manners, and ways of life being restored to their old supremacy. And it will be found that neither reason, nor experience, nor common sense, nor even self-interest, are able to prevent this. The Ethiopian cannot change his skin, nor the leopard his spots. No more can they do good that are accustomed to do evil (Jer 13:23). The evil bent of a corrupt nature will ever be towards evil. It is the knowledge of the evil that is in us, and the consequent distrust of ourselves, which is the first real step towards a lasting change. Not till this evil is experimentally felt do the two great doctrines of the gospel, atonement for sin by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, and regeneration by the Holy Spirit of God, assume real significance and value in our eyes. When it is known and felt, the inestimable blessing of forgiveness of sin is known and valued too. So is the all-sufficient grace of the Holy Ghost. Then too comes watchfulness against the deceit and treachery of the heart; then a steady striving against sin; then a firm resolution not to open the heart to the subtle influences of sin, but rather to crucify the flesh with its affections and lusts; and so what was impossible to unassisted nature becomes an actuality through God’s all-sufficient grace. The Ethiopian skin is transformed to a holy whiteness, the leopard’s spots are done away, the corrupt heart is renewed in holiness after the image of God, and the old man becomes a new creature in Christ Jesus the Lord.
HOMILIES BY A.F. MUIR
Jdg 10:6
Recurring habits of evil.
The external. “peace and order do not break the entail of evil habit”they continued to do evil.“
I. OBSERVANCE OF EXTERNAL DECENCIES OF LIFE IS NO SAFEGUARD AGAINST INBRED DEPRAVITY. Only the hearty love and service of God. Probably the “whoring after other gods” began beneath the cloak of an orthodox worship. For a certain time material prosperity may consist with religious laxity.
II. BESETTING SINS, UNREPENTED OF, ASSUME MORE AGGRAVATED PHASES. Like the man out of whom the devil had been cast, which, returning from the “dry places,” and finding his heart “empty, swept, and garnished,” “bringeth seven other devils,” etc. It was an idolatrous confusion; there could be no rationale of these systems, harmonising them with the conscience, or even with one another. All sense of raceness has deserted Israel. It plunges heedlessly into a sea of obscurity and filth.M.
Jdg 10:7-10
Immediate and effectual retribution.
I. IN THE PUNISHMENT INFLICTED THE CALAMITY WAS CLEARLY CONNECTED WITH THE SIN.
1. The sin committed is at once followed by penalty.
2. The punishment lasts whilst the transgression is unrepented of.
3. The seducers become the instruments of punishment.
II. THE UNHELPFULNESS OF IDOLATRY WAS EXPOSED. The Ammonites, whose unholy practices they had copied, take advantage of their weakness, and pitilessly despoil and harass them. The tender mercies of the wicked are cruel. Of all the gods they had served, Baal, Molech, Astarte, etc; not one could deliver them. Only Jehovah can hear, and to him they are at last driven. Even Gileadthe heroic landis rendered helpless before the despised Ammon, as if to show that real bravery is a moral quality. And the old “fear of Israel” which kept the heathen nations back was gone. The Ammonites wax bold, and cross the Jordan even into Judah.M.
Jdg 10:10-14
God answering hardened transgressors.
He seems to deny the petition. Is this capricious? There is surely not only cause for it, but a purpose working through it.
I. THE AIM OF THE SEVERITY IS TO AWAKEN TRUE REPENTANCE. Inconvenience, discomfort, distress, humiliation may all be felt without true repentance. The latter arises from sorrow for and haired of sin as sin.
II. THIS IS SECURED by
1. An appeal to memory of manifold deliverances and mercies.
2. Holding the sinner under the yoke of his own choosing when he no longer chooses it.
3. The temporary horror and despair of rejection. “I will deliver you no more.”M.
Jdg 10:15, Jdg 10:16
Works meet for repentance.
A wonderful summary; an evangelical anticipation.
I. IN WHAT THESE CONSIST.
1. Heartfelt sorrow and confession of sin.
2. Absolute yielding of oneself into the hands of God.
3. Forsaking the sins that have deceived and destroyed.
4. Serving Jehovah with new obedience and zeal.
II. How THESE APPEAL TO THE MIND OF GOD. “His soul was grieved for (literally, endured no longer) the misery of Israel.” The alternate hardening and melting of God’s soul an accommodation to man’s conceptions and feelings; yet with a reality corresponding to them in the Divine nature. They have a disciplinary effect, and their succession is impressive. So God “repents.” To our heavenly Father the proofs of our sincerity are an irresistible petition. He welcomes the first signs of true repentance, and leads it forth into saving faith. The truly repentant were never yet rejected. In working this repentance in their minds he began to answer their prayer even whilst rejecting it.M.
Jdg 10:17, Jdg 10:18
Faith restoring courage and might.
I. BY PROMOTING THE UNITY OF GOD‘S PEOPLE. The worship of Jehovah is the uniting and inspiring principle. All other worship disunites and weakens. The very site of their camp was instinct with solemn, Divine associations.
II. ENABLING THEM TO FACE RESOLUTELY THE GREATEST TROUBLES OF LIFE. Israel is in the field against Ammon, a circumstance full of meaning. When the Spirit of God enters a man he looks upon difficulties with a new resolution. It enables him “to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing, end them.”
III. RENDERING THEM WILLING TO ACCEPT THE LEADER GOD SHALL INDICATE. It is no lusting after a king now. The only King is Jehovah. But a leader and judge is sought. So the true Christian will reverence and follow all who are inspired and appointed by God.M.
HOMILIES BY W.F. ADENEY
Jdg 10:10
From God to Baal.
I. MAN MUST HAVE SOME RELIGION. If God is forsaken, Baal is followed. The soul cannot endure a void. This temple must always have some deity in it. If the higher religion is rejected, a lower superstition will take the place of it. The decay of the national religion of old Rome was accompanied by the adoption of strange Oriental cults, and by the spread of a religion of magic. Modern scepticism gives birth to extraordinary forms of superstitionreligions of nature, of humanity, of spiritualism. Accordingly, the effort to attain freedom by escaping from the restraints of Christianity is a delusion, and ends only in the bondage of some lower influence. The soul must have some master, and if it rebels against God it will serve Baal, mammon, the world, the flesh, or the devil. True liberty is only found in willing obedience, in the submission of love, in sympathy with the mind of God, in delighting in his law. Perfect freedom of will arises from perfect harmony between our will and God’s will, so that we gladly desire what he requires (Psa 40:8).
II. SIN HAS TWO LEADING FEATURES, A POSITIVE AND A NEGATIVE. It is forsaking God and serving Baalim; omission and commission. The tendency is to regard one of these two much to the neglect of the other. Over-scrupulous people are very sensitive about the minutest act of positive wrong, but sometimes indifferent in regard to the neglect of duty. Energetic people often make the opposite mistake, and show great anxiety to do good service, while they are not sufficiently careful to avoid hasty acts of a questionable character. These two sides of sin are closely connected. Devotion to God is the great safeguard to purity; when this grows cold the soul is open to the attack of temptation, leading to direct transgression. On the other hand, positive sin is poison to religious faith. The commission of evil deeds inclines us to the omission of duties. Impurity paralyses zeal. We cannot serve God while we are serving Baalim.
III. CONDUCT ALWAYS TENDS TO RUN INTO EXTREMES. We serve God or Baalim, light or darkness, good or evil. There is no middle course. There appears to be more variety, gradation, and mixed character in life than is allowed for in Scripture (e.g. 1Jn 3:8-10). But life is only yet beginning to develop, its true nature will be seen in eternity. Two seeds may look much alike, and the first sprouts from them may not be very dissimilar, yet the gardener who knows the natural history of the plants, judging by their whole growth, may pronounce them to be very different. In this early growth of the soul’s life on earth, the great question is, What tendencies does it show? The twilight of sunrise looks very like the twilight of sunset, yet the one is the prophecy of day and the other the portent of night. Two streams which flow from one watershed are at first near together, yet if one is running east and the other west, they may come at last to be divided by a whole continent, and to end in two separate oceans. We must be moving in one or other of two directions. The question is, Are we going to the light or from the light, to God or from God? The tendency determines the character of the life, and this must be justly estimated by the full issues involved in the tendency, not by the present early stages of it. Thus we are all children of the light or children of the darkness, ripening into saintly servants of God or corrupting into wretched slaves of sin.A.
Jdg 10:13, Jdg 10:14
The test of trouble.
I. WE ALL NEED A REFUGE FOR TROUBLE. Life is so mixed that even to the happiest it is full of disappointments and anxieties. Though it may be smooth at present, we know that it cannot continue so for ever. The storm must fall at some time on every soul that is making the voyage of life. “Man is born to trouble” (Job 5:7). The self-assurance that suffices us in prosperity will not be enough when the tribulation comes. Some refuge every soul must then seek.
II. THE GREAT REFUGE FOR TROUBLE IS IN RELIGION. This is not the sole function of religion. It is also a light, an inspiration, an authority. But all men who have a religion turn to it as their supreme haven when the storms drive. We are naturally religious. Instinctively we look upif not to the light, then to the darkness, the mystery, the unknown above us.
III. THE VALUE OF RELIGION IS TESTED BY ITS EFFICACY AS A REFUGE IN TROUBLE. The breakwater is tested by the storm; the armour is tried by the combat; the medicine is proved by the disease; the consolation is revealed by the distress. If the lamp of our religion will only burn while the sun of prosperity shines, and goes out when the night of adversity closes in, it is worthless. Men make gods of their pleasures, their business, their science. What can the husk of old pleasures do in the “winter of discontent,” when no new pleasure can be evoked? What will the idols money, fame, knowledge avail in the agony of the wreck of a life’s hopes, in the mystery of death and eternity? How foolish to be engrossed in pursuits which will leave us destitute in the hour of our greatest need!
IV. IF WE HAVE NOT SUBMITTED TO THE TRUE RELIGION IN PROSPERITY WE HAVE NO RIGHT TO EXPECT TO ENJOY THE REFUGE OF IT IN ADVERSITY. There are men who postpone attention to the claims of Christ till the time of trouble, and find no way to him when they most need him. They will “make their peace with God” on their death-bed. But this is not so easy as they suppose. Apart from the wickedness and insult to God which such conduct implies, it is also the height of folly, and is based on a complete misconception of the first elements of true religion. It is true that God is willing to receive us whenever we honestly return to him in repentance; but
(1) the selfish terror of approaching calamity is not repentance;
(2) genuine repentance, involving a change of desire, is not easily created by selfish fear;
(3) it is not well that men should too readily escape from all the consequences of their sins.A.
Jdg 10:15, Jdg 10:16
Repentance.
I. REPENTANCE INVOLVES CONFESSION OF SIN. The people admit their guilt to themselves and declare it frankly to God.
1. We must confess sin. We cannot turn from sin till we are conscious of sin. God will not forgive our sin till we confess our guilt. These two things, the self-knowledge and the self-revelation before God, which are implied in confession, must be found in true repentance. Pride would simply forget the past, but this cannot be forgotten till it is forgiven, nor forgiven till it is confessed (1Jn 1:9).
2. The confession must be to God; because
(1) it is against God that sin is committed;
(2) he alone can forgive sin;
(3) we have no warrant for believing that he delegates this Divine prerogative to any human deputy.
II. REPENTANCE INVOLVES SUBMISSION TO GOD. No repentance is complete which does not involve self-renunciation. This is necessary,
(1) because, since sin arises from self-will and rebellion against the will of God, the return from sin must be marked by a return to obedience;
(2) because the penitent is conscious of his utter ill desert, and of his absolute dependence on the mercy of God, so that he dares claim nothing but what God may think fit to give him, and knows that at the worst this can be no harder than what he merits; and
(3) because repentance involves the admission that while we were sinful and foolish in forsaking God, he was always good to us, and will never do for us anything short of what is best. Repentance thus recognises again the despised fatherhood of God, and willingly trusts to his grace.
III. REPENTANCE INVOLVES PRACTICAL AMENDMENT. The children of Israel put away the strange gods from among them, and served the Lord. If repentance is genuine it will show itself in conductit will bring forth fruits (Mat 3:8). This does not imply
1. That we must complete the reformation of our own lives before God will forgive us, because
(1) that is impossible (Jer 13:23); and
(2) the very object of the gospel is to do thisi.e. to save us from our sins (Act 3:26).
2. Neither does it imply that any measure of reformation will be regarded as penance, as sacrifice, as a meritorious work securing forgiveness, since the essence of forgiveness lies in its freeness. But it implies that the genuineness of repentance must be tested by its effects. Repentance is not a mere feeling of grief; it is not seated in the emotions, but in the will. It is a change of desire, and the wish to do better. This is active, and must manifest itself in conduct. The conduct will be twofold:
(1) the giving up of old evil ways, and
(2) the commencement of the service of God.
IV. REPENTANCE IS FOLLOWED BY TOKENS OF GOD‘S MERCY. When the people repented God could no longer endure their misery. He never willingly afflicts (Lam 3:33). He only waits for our repentance to show his compassion. It is possible then because
(1) there is no longer the necessity for continued chastisement;
(2) the justice and righteousness of God no longer require him to look upon us in wrath; and
(3) we shall not be injured by the kindness which fails upon us in our humiliation, but rather healed and strengthened for a better life by the influence of God’s love.A.
Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary
SEVENTH SECTION
the oppression of the midianites. jephthah, the judge of the vow
__________________
Renewed apostasy and punishment. Awakening and repentance.
Jdg 10:6-16
6And the children [sons] of Israel did evil again [continued to do evil] in the sight of the Lord [Jehovah], and served [the] Baalim, and [the] Ashtaroth, and the gods of Syria [Aram], and the gods of Zidon, and the gods of Moab, and the gods of the children [sons] of Ammon, and the gods of the Philistines, and forsook the Lord [Jehovah], and served not Him. 7And the anger of the Lord [Jehovah] was hot [kindled] against Israel, and he sold [delivered] them into the hands of the Philistines, and into the hands of the children [sons] of Ammon. 8And that year they vexed and oppressed the children [sons] of Israel eighteen years,3 all the children of Israel that were on the other side Jordan in the land of the Amorites, 9which is in Gilead. Moreover, the children [sons] of Ammon passed over [the] Jordan, to fight also against Judah, and against Benjamin, and against the house of Ephraim: so that Israel was sore distressed.4 10And the children [sons] of Israel cried unto the Lord [Jehovah], saying, We have sinned against thee, both [namely], because we have forsaken our God, and also [omit: also; read: have] served [the] Baalim. 11And the Lord [Jehovah] said unto the children [sons] of Israel, Did not I deliver you from the Egyptians [from Mizraim, i. e. Egypt], and from the Amorites, from the children [sons] of Ammon, and from the Philistines?5 12The Zidonians also [And when the Sidonians], and the Amalekites, and the Maonites did oppress you; [,] and ye cried to me, and [then] I delivered you out of their hand. 13Yet ye have forsaken me, and served other gods: wherefore I will deliver you no more. 14Go and cry unto the gods which ye have chosen; let them deliver you in the time of your tribulation [distress]. 15And the children [sons] of Israel said unto the Lord [Jehovah], We have sinned: do thou unto us whatsoever seemeth good unto thee; deliver us only, we pray thee, this day. 16And they put away the strange gods from among them, and served the Lord [Jehovah]: and his soul was grieved for [endured no longer] the misery of Israel.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
[1 Jdg 10:8Dr. Cassel translates this clause as follows (reading , instead of , see the Commentary below): And they vexed and plagued the sons of Israel, as this year, eighteen years long, etc. The better way is to repeat the idea of the verbs after eighteen years, thus: And they broke and crushed the sons of Israel in that year; eighteen years did they oppress all the sons of Israel who were beyond the Jordan, etc. and come from the same root, and are synonyms used to strengthen the idea.Tr.]
[2 Jdg 10:9.Literally: and it became exceedingly strait to Israel, cf. Jdg 2:15. On the use of the fem. gender (, from ) in impersonal constructions, see Green, Gram., 243, 3.Tr.]
[3 Jdg 10:11.For Dr. Cassels rendering of this verse, see the comments on it. The sentence is anacoluthic in the original; the construction being changed at the beginning of the next verse.Tr.]
EXEGETICAL AND DOCTRINAL
Jdg 10:6. And the sons of Israel continued to do the evil in the sight of Jehovah. Sin and forgiveness are the hinges of all history; especially of the history of Israel, including in that term the spiritual Israel of modern times. They follow each other like night and morning. As soon as the prayers and faith of a great man cease from among the people, and the earth is heaped over his grave, the new generation breaks loose, like an unrestrained youth. After Jairs death, idolatry spreads far and wide. Israel plays the harlot, in the east with Aram, in the west with the Phnicians, in the southeast with Moab and Ammon, in the southwest with the Philistines. Those gods are named first, whose people have already oppressed Israel, and have been turned back by men of God. First, the Baalim and Ashtaroth, whose service Gideon especially, the Jerubbaal, overthrew (Jdg 6:25); next, the gods of Aram, whose king was defeated by the hero Othniel; then, the gods of Zidon, the mention of whomsince Zidon, the metropolis, stood for all Phnicia, i. e. Canaanreminds us of the victory of Deborah and Barak over Jabin, king of Canaan; and finally, the gods of Moab, smitten by Ehud. Israel served these gods, although they were unable to stand before the eternal God. And beside these, it now also serves the gods of the Ammonites and Philistines. These also will first cause it to experience oppression; but then, though only after long penance, become the occasion of divine displays of grace and mercy to Israel. In truth, this young Israel serves all gods, except only the living and the true. It runs after every superstition, every delusion, every sensual gratification, every self-deception, but forgets the truth and peace of God. It seeks false friends, and forsakes the true.
Jdg 10:7-10. And He delivered them into the hand of the Philistines, and into the hand of the sons of Ammon. As far as their sufferings and conflicts with the western nations are concerned, these are related subsequently under the history of Samson. The chastisement which they experience by means of Ammon, leads the way. This falls especially upon the people east of the Jordan, the neighbors of Ammon; and the enervating and weakening effects of sin and unbelief become clearly manifest in the fact that one of the most valiant of the Israelitish tribes, Gilead, the home, as it were, of heroes, is not able successfully to oppose the enemy. Israel is pressed, plagued, plundered; as in the first year,6 so through eighteen years (for read ). The inflictions to which they were obliged to submit one year, the spoliation of their harvests, the plundering of their villages, the imposition of tribute, are repeated year after year, eighteen times. The manifest weakness of Israel, the dismemberment of the nation, so that one tribe finds no help from any other (Jdg 12:2), emboldens the oppressor. Ammon passes over the Jordan, and attacks Israel in the heart of its most powerful tribes, without meeting resistance. But how came Israel into such a condition of disruption? Whence this inability to unite its forces against the overbearing enemy? This question has already been answered in Jdg 10:6. The people has forsaken the one God, and worships many idol gods. Falling away from the national faith, it has fallen into the disintegration of egoism. The tribes are divided by their special idols, their respective evil consciences, and by local selfishness. Only one thing is common to all,despondency and powerlessness; for the ideal spirit of the theocratic people, the source of union and courage, is wanting. Hence, after long distress, they all share in a common feeling of repentance. They come now to the tabernacle, long neglectedfor while attending at near and local idol temples, they have forgotten to visit the House of Godand say: we have sinned.
Jdg 10:11-12. And Jehovah said to the sons of Israel, Not from Mizraim (Egypt), and from the Amorite, from the sons of Ammon, and from the Philistines! It is the Priest who answers the people, in the name of God, through Urim and Thummim, as in Jdg 1:1. It has been observed that in Jdg 10:6 seven different national idols are enumerated as having been served by Israel, and that in Jdg 10:11-12 seven nations are named, out of whose hand Israel had been delivered. The number seven is symbolical of consummation and completion. All false gods, whom Israel has foolishly served, are included with those that are named in Jdg 10:6, from the northeast and southeast, the northwest and southwest. Such, undoubtedly, is likewise the sense of Jdg 10:11-12. To Israels prayer for deliverance from Amnion in the land of the Amorite, and from the Philistines, God replies, reproachfully: that Israel bears itself as if it had sinned for the first time, and asked deliverance in consideration of its repentance. But, says God, from of old I have liberated you from all the nations that surround you,from Egypt first, and from every nation that troubled youeast, west, north, and south,in turn. The voice of God speaks not in the style of narrative, but in the tone of impassioned discourse. Under general descriptions, it comprehends, with rhetorical vigor, special occurrences. It introduces the Ammonites, Philistines, and Amorites, immediately after Egypt, because these nations are now in question. Have I not already, since your exodus from Egypt, given you peace, even from these very Philistines (Exo 13:17), Ammonites (Num 21:24), and Amorites (Num 21:21 ff )? Thereupon, the discourse passes over into another construction; for from the ancient part it turns now to events of more recent times. In those early times, when Moses led you, you saw no oppression, but only victory. Later, when Zidonians, Amalekites, and Maonites oppressed you, I helped you at your cry. All three names indicate only in a general way, the quarters from which the more recent attacks had come. Since Joshuas death, Israel had experienced only one attack from the north and northeast, all others had come from the east and southwest. That from the north, was the act of Jabin, king of Canaan. It is true, that in the narrative of Baraks victory, the name Zidonians does not occur; but Zidon is in emphatic language the representative, the mother as she is called, of Phnicia, i. e. Canaan. In a like general sense do Amalek and Maon here stand for those eastern tribes from whose predatory incursions Israel had suffered; for Amalek, the earliest and most implacable enemy of Israel, assisted both Midian and Moab in their attacks. Thus also, the mention of Maon becomes intelligible. Modern expositors (even Keil) consider the Septuagint reading (Midian) to be the correct one. We cannot adopt this view; for this reason, if no other, that difficult readings are to be preferred to plain ones. Maon is the name of the southeastern wilderness, familiar to us from Davids history. The name has evidently been preserved in the Maon of Arabia Petra (cf. Ritter, xiv. 1005). Amalek and Maon represent the Bedouin tribes, who from this quarter attacked Israel. Every point from which Israel could be assailed has thus been included; for the first three nations, Philistines, Ammonites, and Amorites, range from the southwest to the northeast, just as the other three, Zidonians, Amalekites, and Maonites, reach from the northwest to the southeast.
Jdg 10:13-16. Go, and cry unto the gods which ye have chosen. From all nations, says the voice of God, have I liberated you. It has been demonstrated to you that I am your true Deliverer, and that all the tribes round about you are your enemies, especially when they perceive that you have forsaken Me. Every part of your land teaches this lesson; and yet you apostatize always anew. I have chosen you without any merit on your part, to be a great nation, and you have left Me; go, therefore, in this your time of need, and get you help from the idol gods whom you have chosen in my place. This answer cuts the sharper, because the idols to whose service Israel apostatized, were identical with the very nations by whom they were oppressed. For every idol was national or local in its character. God speaks here with a sorrow like that of a human father who addresses an inconsiderate child. Nothing but a sharp goad of reprehension and threatening will drive it to serious and thorough consideration. But though inconsiderate, it nevertheless continues to be a child. The father, though for the present he disown it, cannot in good earnest intend to abandon it altogether. And, in truth, Israel did not miscalculate. When they not only confessed their sins, but even without any visible assistance, imitated Gideon, and in faith removed their idol altars, the anger of their Father was at an end. The phrase , elsewhere employed of men (cf. Num 21:4, where the people find the way of the wilderness too long), is here applied with artless beauty to Israels tender Father. His soul became too short for the misery of Israel, i. e. the misery of the penitent people endured too long for Him. He could no longer bring himself to cherish anger against them. The love of God is no rigid human consistency: it is eternal freedom. Mans parental love is its image, albeit an image obscured by sin. The parable of the Prodigal Son, especially, gives us some conception of the wonderful inconsistency of God, by which after chastisement He recalls the penitent sinner to himself. Nothing but the freedom of Gods loveever right as well as freesecures the worlds existence. Loveas only God loves; love, which loves for Gods sake; love, that pardons the penitent offender seven and seventy times,is true consistency. Put away the strange gods, and the withered stock will become green again. This Israel experiences anew, and first in Gilead.
This notice, however brief, of the removal of all strange gods, and of Israels return to Jehovah, is the necessary, intimately connected, introduction to the narrative of the deeds of Jephthah. It is indispensable to the understanding of his victory and suffering. It explains, moreover, why in the narrative concerning him, only the name Jehovah appears. It teaches us to consider the nature and measure of that life in which God, once lost but found again, reigns and rules.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Apostasy and Repentance. Neither Deborahs jubilant song of triumph, nor Gideons exulting trumpet notes, could secure succeeding generations of Israel against renewed apostasy. It reappeared even after a season of quiet piety. But equally sure was the coming of divine judgments. They came from all sides, in ever-growing severity and magnitude. The gods of the heathen brought no help,for they were nothing; and yet for their sake had Israel betrayed its living God. Then Israel began seriously to reflect. They not merely wept, they did works of true repentance. And whenever, by prayer and actions, they call upon their merciful God, He, like a tender father, cannot withstand them. He hears and answers.
Not so do men act toward each other; and yet they are called on to walk in the footsteps of Christ. What wonder that men find their kindness ill requited, when God experiences a similar treatment! But how then dare they cherish anger, when besought for reconciliation! If God was moved, how can we remain untouched? And yet grudge-bearing is a characteristic against which even pious Christians bear no grudge. The sinless God forgives, and gives ever anew,and witnesses of God, men of theological pursuits, cherish ill-will and rancor for years!
How well, my friend, in God thou livest,
Appears from how thy debtor thou forgivest.
Starke: Men are very changeable and inconstant, and prone to decline from the right way; neither sufficiently moved by kindness, nor influenced by punishment.The same: True repentance consists not in words but in deeds.Lisco: Israel confesses its guilt and ill-desert and gives itself wholly up to Gods will and righteous chastening; yet, full of faith, asks for merciful, albeit unmerited, deliverance.Gerlach: That the Lord first declares that He will no longer help Israel, afterwards, however, takes compassion on them and makes their cause his own, is a representation which repeats itself frequently in the Old Testament. Each of its opposite elements is true and consistent with the other, as soon as we call to mind that God, notwithstanding his eternity and unchangeableness, lives with and loves his people in time, and under human forms and conditions.
Footnotes:
[3][Jdg 10:8Dr. Cassel translates this clause as follows (reading , instead of , see the Commentary below): And they vexed and plagued the sons of Israel, as this year, eighteen years long, etc. The better way is to repeat the idea of the verbs after eighteen years, thus: And they broke and crushed the sons of Israel in that year; eighteen years did they oppress all the sons of Israel who were beyond the Jordan, etc. and come from the same root, and are synonyms used to strengthen the idea.Tr.]
[4][Jdg 10:9.Literally: and it became exceedingly strait to Israel, cf. Jdg 2:15. On the use of the fem. gender (, from ) in impersonal constructions, see Green, Gram., 243, 3.Tr.]
[5][Jdg 10:11.For Dr. Cassels rendering of this verse, see the comments on it. The sentence is anacoluthic in the original; the construction being changed at the beginning of the next verse.Tr.]
[6][On this translation, see note 1 under Textual and Grammatical. Dr. Cassel evidently takes this year, to mean the first year of the oppression. Others (Usher, Bush, etc.) make it the last year both of the oppression and of Jairs life. But this is altogether unlikely. Hitherto, apostasy and servitude have always followed the death of the Judge. If the present case were an exception, the narrator would certainly have noted it as such. The use of the word this, would perhaps be quite plain, if we could have a glance at the sources from which the narrator here draws.Tr.]
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
Let the Reader, while he reads this sad account of the defection of Israel, call to mind the melancholy state of nature void of grace, in all ages. What a tender expostulation is that of God by the prophet, in the view of it. Jer 2:11-12 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Jdg 10:6 And the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the LORD, and served Baalim, and Ashtaroth, and the gods of Syria, and the gods of Zidon, and the gods of Moab, and the gods of the children of Ammon, and the gods of the Philistines, and forsook the LORD, and served not him.
Ver. 6. And the children of Israel did evil again, ] viz., After Jair’s death. Great is the loss of a good magistrate. Israel now did worse than ever; they did proficere in peius, as the apostle hath it. 2Ti 3:13 Now they affect a , such as the heathens round about them then had, and such as Socrates, an honest pagan, derided, and in despite of them swore by an oak, a goat, a dog, as holding these better gods than those. Cicero, albeit in his book, De Natura Deorum, he set forth the vanity of all those heathenish deities, yet in his oration for Flaccus he saith, that it became not the majesty of the Roman empire to worship one god only; they must have a multiplicity of gods, for reasons of state. But this was to speak and do evil things as they could. Jer 3:5 Meanwhile they “forsook the Lord, and served not him,” as it followeth in this verse. For when it was sometimes disputed among the Romans, – in the council using to deify great men, – whether Christ, having done many wonderful works, as Pilate witnessed before Tiberius, should be received into the number of the gods, and his image put in the Pantheon, the historian saith, that at length it was carried in the negative, for these two reasons: first, Because he persuaded poverty, and chose poor men; secondly, Because he had but few worshippers. Accordingly Peter Martyr giveth these two reasons here why the Israelites went so a whoring after these false gods of the several neighbour nations: (1.) Because they so flourished in wealth and honour, when themselves were so poor and contemptible; (2.) Because the worship of the true God was so severe, but the heathenish superstition licentious and pleasing to flesh and blood.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
5. Fifth Declension: Under the Philistines and Ammon. Jephthah, Ibzan, Elon, and Abdon
CHAPTER 10:6-18
1. The great declension (Jdg 10:6-9)
2. Their cry and the Lords answer (Jdg 10:10-14)
3. Confession and self-judgment (Jdg 10:15-18)
This is the greatest declension yet. They did evil again, served Baalim, Ashtaroth, the gods of Syria, Zidon, Moab, Ammon and the Philistines. They were then sold by the Lord into the hands of the Philistines and into the hands of the children of Ammon. Ammon has rightly been taken to typify rationalism in every form and the wicked doctrines, the denials of the faith, which follow in its train. Christian Science, Russellism, higher criticism, Seventh Day Adventism, Unitarianism and a host of other isms are of the Ammonite tribe. The Philistines typify ritualism. Like Ammon and the Philistines, these two enemies distress sorely the people of God from all sides. Then they cried unto Him and confessed their sins, and Jehovah reminded them of all His goodness in past deliverances and threatened them that He would not deliver them. Go and cry unto the gods which ye have chosen; let them deliver you in the time of your tribulation. But when they continued to plead and to confess, when they put away the strange gods, when they began to serve Him again, though He had denied their first cry–His soul was grieved for the misery of Israel. What a compassionate Lord He is! Then they gathered together and encamped at Mizpah–the watchtower.
Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)
am 2817, bc 1187, An, Ex, Is, 304
did evil: Jdg 4:1, Jdg 6:1, Jdg 13:1, am 2799, bc 1205, An, Ex, Is, 286
Baalim: Jdg 2:11-14, Jdg 3:7, 2Ch 28:23, Psa 106:36
the gods of Zidon: 1Ki 11:5, 1Ki 11:7, 1Ki 11:33, 1Ki 16:31, 2Ki 17:16, 2Ki 17:29-31, 2Ki 23:13
the gods of the Philistines: Jdg 16:23, 1Sa 5:2, 2Ki 1:2, 2Ki 1:3, Jer 2:13, Eze 16:25, Eze 16:26
Reciprocal: Gen 19:38 – children Deu 7:4 – so will Deu 13:6 – which thou Deu 31:16 – forsake me Jos 23:15 – so shall Jdg 2:13 – served 1Sa 7:3 – put away 2Ki 22:17 – have forsaken Neh 9:26 – they were Psa 78:58 – with Jer 23:27 – as Jer 32:23 – but Eze 16:15 – and playedst Eze 16:28 – General Eze 27:16 – Syria Hos 2:13 – the days Hos 11:2 – they sacrificed Amo 2:4 – after Act 21:3 – Syria
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Subdivision 5. (Jdg 10:6-12.)
Sowing and reaping: the Ammonite raids.
The story of Jephthah and his successors comes in the fifth place among these captivities and deliverances; and where all show so strongly the divine government that is over all, it might seem little likely that this should specialize the lesson. Yet it seems really to do so when -and perhaps only when -we bring in the spiritual to interpret the literal. For if Ammon be typically what we have taken it to be, then we can see clearly how the Church, in its departure from God, sows in its own unbelief the seed of every heresy; or, to keep more strictly to the Lord’s illustration, how when men sleep the enemy sows his tares. The Word neglected and despised, opens the way for every perversion of it. And this is righteous retribution.
But from first to last in this subdivision, the lesson seems especially enforced that as the sowing so is the reaping. Look at the Ephraimites in proof, where their own taunt is returned upon them to the full, as well as their harshness.
(1) Again the story is repeated of Israel’s departure from God, and their chastening by the hand of those after whose gods they had gone. Indeed, the gods of every nation round had now their worship, and Jehovah alone is deprived of His. He sells them, therefore, again into the hands of the Philistines and of the Ammonites at once. The Ammonite scourge is spoken of in the section now before us; the Philistine bondage is not broken until we reach the book of Samuel, although Samson, as prophesied of him, begins the deliverance (Jdg 13:5).
The Ammonites depict, as we have found reason to believe (Deu 2:19, sq. n.), what the tares” do in the second parable of the thirteenth of Matthew, the fruit of the seed of Satan’s sowing within the limits of the kingdom of heaven. The good seed is the word of God, and the product of it the children of the kingdom; but the word of God is not what Satan sows, but some corruption of the truth, and the fruit of this is in errorists of multiple forms. This interpretation is confirmed as to the Ammonites by the fact that we find them not content with the subjugation of Israel: they claim, on the ground of their own title to it, to take away the land. From Ammon to Jabbok, the kingdom of Sihon formerly, now the inheritance of Reuben and of Gad, they contend that Israel had robbed firm of all this when they came out of Egypt; and they ask plainly for its restoration. Thus it is plain would heresy take away the portion of the people of God. And it is noteworthy that it is the land east of the Jordan which they openly demand, though, in fact, making this a vantage-ground for their attack upon the tribes across the river.
Now Sihon’s kingdom we have taken to be the dominion of reason, which faith (Reuben) is to reconstitute and hold; and here is commonly where error begins the attack. Even in its superstitious forms it will be found to have its root in rationalism”: the word of God is displaced from its authority, as we see in Romanism. Hence we find Jephthah quoting the Word against the king of the Ammonites: much of what he says being simply a quotation from the book of Numbers. The word of God has, indeed, given faith secure title to the whole province of reason, which rationalistic error has ever proved itself incompetent to hold, soon losing it to the Amorites, the infidel “talkers” against God. This is Jephthah’s plea, in fact, against Ammon, that they had so lost it to Sihon before Israel had gained possession, and that from Sihon, in fact, Israel had wrested it. Faith is ever and only the fullest reason and the word of God it is that is alone able to make the whole field of reason a fruitful and goodly portion. If we do not hold it, we expose Judah, Benjamin, and Ephraim, to the Ammonite attack, and open a way to the loss of all heavenly blessings. “If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not,” says the Son of God Himself, “how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things?”
Of how much importance is it to insist upon this, today! Scripture is true and trustworthy every where, or it is to be trusted nowhere. Let us take our stand boldly there, if we would retain anything of what God has given to us. And away with the unbelieving thought that Scripture is not meant to teach us science! Let us rather say that it is meant to teach whatever it does teach. It is light, not darkness; truth, and only truth; the soul of reason; the illumination of all it touches.
And here the name of the deliverer seems to be most significant. Jephthah is a word we have had already: it is the Jiphtah of Jos 15:43, and the Jiphtah-[el] of Jos 19:14; Jos 19:27. It means “he opens,” and in the first place we have taken it as applying to Christ opening the heavenly places for us; in the others, to God’s opening -El being added -whether of spiritual truth, or of the heart to receive it. How simply does this show us the deliverer from the children of Ammon, whether we may apply it to Scripture as opening truth, or Christ as the subject of Scripture, and the true light everywhere. These things are practically one, and in closest relation to what we have just been saying. “Scripture opens” -is truth, is science, puts Sihon’s king into the hand of faith. To maintain it thus is true deliverance from Ammonite heresy; while thus our portion in the land is covered from attack -Judah, Benjamin, Ephraim, are made secure from every inroad of this kind.
Jepththah, too, is a Gileadite, and thus a Manassite. His being made head of Gilead figures largely, as we see, in the deliverance. It is only he who goes on in the truth, making progress in the acquisition of the divine treasure, who can preserve from the Ammonite raider the treasure of the past. But as a Manassite also, let us remember, he enters into the things that are beyond, the heritage across Jordan also, and connects it with the inheritance on this side. He who in the spiritual reality can hold these things together is the true deliverer from the raids of the Ammonite.
(4) As to Jephthah’s vow, there seem haste and failure in it, but surely not the human sacrifice that many have imagined. Most recent commentators agree in this, and believe that his daughter was simply consecrated to God, to live an unmarried life, as verses 37-39 seem plainly to show. There is not a word about death in her case, save what is supposed to be involved in the 31st verse, “I will offer it up a burnt-offering.”* But Jephthah’s words to the king of Ammon show him to be acquainted with the law; and by the law such an offering was forbidden as an abomination. (Lev 18:21, etc.) No altar could have been found for it; no priest would have performed it; and the two months of mourning on the mountains would have given ample time for the news of the contemplated sacrifice to have spread far in Israel. To suppose that under the circumstances he could have been ignorant of the law, or that, knowing it, he could have had such a passion to sacrifice the daughter he loved, as in the face of it to persevere in offering to Jehovah an abomination that He hated, seems incredible enough. Everything is against the perpetration of such a crime; and the Hebrew certainly allows the translation of or “instead of” and I will offer it.” “The great Jewish commentators of the Middle Ages,” says Edersheim, “have, in opposition to the Talmud, pointed out that these two last clauses are not identical. It is never said of an animal burnt-offering that it should be to Jehovah, -for the simple reason that as a burnt-offering it is such. But where human beings are offered to Jehovah, there the expression is used, as in the case of the first-born among Israel and of Levi (Num 3:12-13). But in these cases it has never been suggested that there was actual human sacrifice.” He urges, as do others: “If the loving daughter had devoted herself to death, it is next to incredible that she should have wished to have spent the two months of life conceded to her, not with her broken-hearted father, but in the mountains with her companions.”
{*The same word as translated elsewhere “burnt-offering,” but the idea of burning is not necessarily implied. Solomon’s “ascent by which he went up to the house of Jehovah” (1Ki 10:5) is the same word: it means “what ascends,” and it seems well to avoid here the unnecessary difficulty connected with the use of the common English term. (See the Notes.)}
After all, the word does not actually mean, in Hebrew, “burnt-offering,” but simply an “offering that ascends” -all ascends -to God. And this makes a great difference. Jephthah did not pledge himself that the offering should be burnt, though that were the way in which an animal sacrifice would “ascend.” I have felt a necessity, therefore, of omitting this word from the translation. It is probably all that is really needed to avoid the difficulty.
In any case the history remains a witness to and against the terrible legality of the human heart which could thus shadow the joy of such a deliverance at the moment of its being granted. Such vowing is now expressly forbidden by our Lord: “Ye have heard that it was said to them of old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths; but I say unto you, Swear not at all.” God’s will needs not man’s will to supplement, but only to obey, it. To undertake obedience all uncalled for is only to subject one’s self to bondage to one’s own infirmity.
As tested, however, by the consequences of his vow, Jephthah, though smitten to the heart, abides the test, and proves his loyalty to Jehovah, a loyalty shared to the full by his noble daughter. Not even her name is inscribed upon the record here, but she fully takes her place among the great historic women of Israel.
(5) We have still to speak of the Ephraimite outrage and its chastisement. It is a more violent repetition of their conduct toward Gideon, but which meets in this case a terrible retribution. The pride of Ephraim is typically an admonition for us, -a much-needed one. How readily does “fruitfulness” get spoiled by the blight of self-complacency! -and what sore rebukes does it necessitate for us, that we may be delivered from that which was the condemnation of the devil! (1Ti 3:6). Their taunting words as to the Gileadites became true to the letter as to themselves when they became, indeed, “fugitives of Ephraim among the Manassites,” who, alas, do not spare them. The quarrels of brethren are, of all, the severest: in proportion to the closeness of the ties sundered is the bitterness aroused: civil strife is proverbially the most uncivil.
2. Very briefly indeed we have now the account of Jephthah’s successors. As the quiet for twenty-five years after his death was doubtless the result of his victory, so also do they seem to represent, in their names and connection, the consequences spiritually. We have scarcely anything except names here; so that, if these are meaningless, the history as a whole can be little else. Any escape from such a conclusion -any light where otherwise all must be darkness cannot then but be welcome.
(1) There are three successors, the first two of whom are Zebulonites; the third apparently an Ephraimite. Of Ibzan himself we have only the fact of his being a Bethlehemite. This Bethlehem is not that of Judah, but the one named in Joshua (19: 15) as belonging to Zebulon. Of course it has the same significance. Ibzan is said to mean “labor,” “great labor.” This is from the near-akin Chaldee. If from the Hebrew directly, then we must decide for “white,” perhaps “shining.” Taking the first, and remembering that Jephthah speaks of “opening” the truth, “labor” in the “place of bread” seems nearly and naturally connected as a consequence. On, the other hand, “white,” the common symbol of purity, is no less natural; and more suitable, perhaps, in the place in which he stands here, first in succession. Sanctification is by the truth, and that satisfaction for the soul which “bread” -the “bread of life” -denotes, is a main element in sanctification. That he is a Zebulonite is quite in keeping; and the ties that we find spoken of as binding him with others may well imply the spiritual links that form where the word of God is felt in power and spread abroad. He is a fitting successor; then, to Jephthah.
(2) Elon, the “oak,” comes next, implying strength as the product of life and growth. Growth by the truth fits well the second place, -Elon being again a Zebulonite. Nothing else is recorded of him but that he judged Israel ten years and was buried in Ajalon.
(3) The third judge is Abdon, “service,” the son of Hillel, “praising,” a Pirathonite, or dweller in “freedom,” -thoughts which are too coherent and too easily understood in their connection by every Christian heart to need either expansion or insisting on. That Pirathon is in Ephraim connects again liberty with fruitfulness; and “in the mount of the Amalekites” may refer to some past victory over them, or at least to a possession of the land on their part which no longer existed. In the whole of this the spirit of consecration speaks, and that is doubtless the truth presented here. The free service which is the fruit of praise has succeeded to the old Amalekite misrule of “lusts that war in the members”: and this, with what has been brought before us in the judges preceding Abdon, gives us well the fruit of such victories as those of Jephthah typify, -for us the victories of the Word of truth.
Fuente: Grant’s Numerical Bible Notes and Commentary
JEPHTHAH AND HIS VOW
OPPRESSION EAST AND WEST (Jdg 10:6-18)
The story of these verses suggests that preceding the deliverance of Gideons time (chap. 6). There seem, indeed, to have been no such widespread idolatry and iniquity in Israel before, and for eighteen years the nation suffered at the hands of the Ammonites on the east and the Philistines on the west (Jdg 10:8). The Ammonites were very bold and pressed their conquests across the Jordan (Jdg 10:9).
The repentance of Israel (Jdg 10:10) seems to have been genuine for there is no cloaking of their sin, and yet Jehovah would put in the plow deeper (Jdg 9:11-14). Just how the communication of these verses was made the record says not. It may have been gathered in substance from the providences in the case, or it may have come directly through the high priest; probably the latter. Nevertheless, when they are ripe for mercy the mercy comes (Jdg 10:15-16). The ripeness is shown in their putting away sin, and making their backs bare for the punishment, whatever it may be, Do anything you will to us, O Lord, but send deliverance. When the sinner in the present dispensation gets into this place of surrender, help through Christ is not long delayed. Compare the close of Romans 7 with the opening verses of the next chapter in that epistle.
JEPHTHAH THE DELIVERER (Jdg 11:1-11)
Jephthah was low-born and had a hard time of it (Jdg 11:1-3). He was at the head of a band of outlaws, with a history not unlike David at one time; but he was a gallant leader and his innings have come at last (Jdg 11:4-11). Notice that Jephthah was not without a knowledge of God as shown in Jdg 11:9 and Jdg 11:11, so that with all his roving habits and his life of plundering on his enemies, the Ammonites perhaps, he may have been more godly and loyal than the people who cast him out.
THE AMBASSAGE TO AMMON (Jdg 11:12-28)
The record of these verses is self-explanatory, and is noticeable, first, for Ammons false assumption based on an untrue interpretation of history (Jdg 11:12-13); second, Jephthahs acquaintance with Israels past, pointing to the accuracy with which the records were kept, notwithstanding the long period of turmoil since Mosess day (Jdg 11:14-22); and third, his abounding faith in Jehovahs power in the premises (Jdg 11:23-27).
JEPHTHAHS VOW (Jdg 11:29-40)
The vow of Jephthah is celebrated for its awfulness and, like others, we have tried to explain it in some other than its literal sense, but the effort has not brought satisfaction. We can understand why he made it, because it was a custom with heathen chieftains on the eve of battle to promise their gods oblations or booty; and also because vows were practiced by the Israelites and approved of God, as we saw in Leviticus 27 and other scriptures, although, of course, not vows of this kind. Jephthah lived beyond the Jordan, far from the tabernacle, and on the borders of a heathen country, where human sacrifices were common. It was, too, a time of great spiritual declension in Israel. All these things are to be considered, and yet why did he do it, and why did God permit it, abhorrent to Him as it must have been, if it absolutely occurred? We might as well ask the old question, Why did God permit sin? We can say nothing in answer, but simply wait. There are many mysteries to try our faith and patience. One thing is certain, it furnishes an awful lesson against rash and hasty vows.
It is but just to add that the other view of this matter is that Jephthah consecrates his daughter to a life of virginal service. This indeed would have been a serious sacrifice to him as it ended his hopes as the head of his line, inasmuch as she was his only child. It also deprived her of the crown of motherhood. Jdg 11:39-40 are thought to offer justification of this life of service view.
CLOSE OF JEPHTHAHS CAREER (Jdg 12:1-7)
Ephraim shows the same jealous spirit in this case as in the earlier time of Gideon. They wanted the glory without earning it, and, although Jephthah dealt with them almost as tactfully as his predecessor, the issue was different (Jdg 12:1-3).
Jdg 12:6 shows the test by which the escaping Ephraimite was discovered. Shibboleth means a stream, and sibboleth a burden. The appropriateness in the demand that they pronounce the first word is that they were trying to pass the fords of Jordan. The Ephraimites had a dialect peculiarity that identified them anywhere.
QUESTIONS
1. How long was Israel in bondage at this time and to what peoples?
2. How does she testify her sincere repentance?
3. Have you examined the passages in Romans?
4. Give the early history of Jephthah.
5. Give evidences of his reverence for Jehovah.
6. Give the story of Jephthahs debate with Ammon.
7. Give the story of his vow.
8. Give the story of the word shibboleth.
Fuente: James Gray’s Concise Bible Commentary
Israel then began to serve the Baals and Ashtoreths of the nations around them. God allowed the Philistines and Ammonites to conquer his disobedient children and oppress them for eighteen years. When they cried out to God to deliver them, he told them he had delivered them in the past but they had gone to serve other gods. He told them to ask those gods to deliver them. This apparently caused them to realize their mistake and they put away the false gods they had been serving. God could not stand their misery any longer and prepared a man to deliver them ( Jdg 10:6-18 ).
Fuente: Gary Hampton Commentary on Selected Books
Jdg 10:6. Israel served the gods of Syria They added to their former idolatries the worship of new gods, particularly those of Syria, which were Bel, or Baal, Astarte, Dagon, Moloch, Thammuz. And the gods of Zidon The supreme gods of the Sidonians were Baal and Ashtaroth: but it is likely they had more, such as Asaroth, Asarim, Asarah. And the gods of Moab The principal of which was Chemosh, 1Ki 11:7. And the gods of the children of Ammon The chief of which was Milcom, (1Ki 11:5,) where Ashtaroth is mentioned as the goddess of the Sidonians. And the gods of the Philistines They had more, it seems, besides Dagon, but their names are not mentioned in Scripture. And forsook the Lord They grew worse and worse, and ripened themselves for ruin. Before, they worshipped God and idols together: now they forsake God, and wholly cleave to idols.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Jdg 10:6-18. Introduction to the Story of Jephthah.In this section we see the hand of D, and hear the recurrent notes of sin, suffering, repentance, and deliverance.
Jdg 10:7. The reference to the Philistines seems to be out of place, unless the section is meant to serve as an introduction to Samsons as well as Jephthahs exploits.
Jdg 10:8. Text faulty: eighteen years should probably stand at the end of Jdg 10:7, and Jdg 10:8 should perhaps read and they vexed and oppressed the children of Israel that were beyond Jordan, the rest being a gloss.
Jdg 10:11. Moore thinks that all the proper names after the Egyptians have been added by the latest editor. Maonites may survive in Maan, seven hours from Petra; some read Midianites with LXX (mg.).
Jdg 10:17 f. A mere editorial summary of Judges 11.
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
E. The fifth apostasy 10:6-12:15
In view of Israel’s continuing and worsening apostasy, God turned His people over to the discipline of the Ammonites, whom Jephthah finally defeated, and the Philistines. He also used three other judges during this period: Ibzan, Elon, and Abdon.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
1. Renewed oppression 10:6-7
The Israelites’ return to apostasy brought discipline from two different directions at the same time. In the east the Ammonites oppressed Israel, while in the west God raised up the Philistines.
"The acuter [sic] pressure at this stage came from the Ammonites who were crueller [sic] in nature and more predatory in their methods than the Philistines (cf. 1Sa 11:1-2)." [Note: Cundall and Morris, pp. 138-39.]
These verses really introduce the judgeships of Jephthah, Ibzan, Elon, Abdon, and Samson (Jdg 10:8 to Jdg 16:31). Another possibility is that since the introductory formula in these verses is not strictly a sequence indicator, the judgeship of Jephthah may have overlapped Gideon’s somewhat.
". . . it is possible that Ammon took advantage of the terror brought on by the Midianite raids of Gideon’s day to do some raiding of their own." [Note: Washburn, p. 422.]
The Baals and the Ashtaroth (Asherim, Jdg 10:6) were the Canaanite deities. The Lord did not give us the names of the gods of Syria (Aram) that lay to the northeast of Israel in the Old Testament. In Sidon, a town in Phoenicia to Israel’s northwest, Ashtoreth, the consort of Baal, was a chief deity (1Ki 11:5). In Moab, to the east and south, Chemosh was the main god (1Ki 11:33). The Ammonites worshipped Molech (1Ki 11:7), also called Milcom (1Ki 11:5; 1Ki 11:33). Dagon was the main idol in Philistia (Jdg 16:23). These "watchdog" gods were believed to guard and favor their own particular territories. [Note: Lewis, p. 62.] Jdg 10:6-7 give us the last and longest list of Israel’s sins.
The only contiguous neighbor of Israel’s that did not have a negative influence on the chosen people during the period of the judges, as far as the text reveals, was Edom. However, since about 300 years of history expired in the Judges Period, it is likely that the Edomites also opposed the Israelites.
"The spiritual trends observed in Israel at this time did not merely reflect syncretism, but in many cases involved the total abandonment of the worship of Jehovah in favor of other national deities." [Note: Davis and Whitcomb, p. 120.]
Note the correspondence between seven groups of pagan gods (Jdg 10:6) and seven oppressing nations (Jdg 10:11), further suggesting completeness.
"The description of Yahweh’s response to Israel’s spiritual defection confirms our suggestion that in the narrator’s mind the nation’s Canaanization is coming to a climax. First, for the first time since Jdg 3:8 the text mentions God’s anger as the emotion behind his selling the Israelites into the hands of the enemies. Second, for the first time the narrator notes that Yahweh had handed his people into the power of two different nations-the Philistines and the sons of Ammon." [Note: Block, Judges . . ., pp. 344-45.]
Notice how much more diversified Israel’s idolatry had become. The Israelites were now worshipping foreign gods as well as the gods of Canaan. Furthermore they abandoned the worship of Yahweh. This situation was a new low for them in Judges.
The text reveals that the Philistines and the Ammonites began to oppress Israel simultaneously from the west and the east respectively. The writer proceeded to narrate the Ammonite account first (Jdg 10:8 to Jdg 12:7) and then the Philistine (Jdg 13:1 to Jdg 16:31).