Ver. 1. Beside the well of Harod.] That is, Of terror; [see 1 Samuel 28:1 29:1] so called from the fear that there surprised Gideon’s army, who seeing the multitude of their enemies, said, as Caesar did at Rubicon, Yet we may go back; and so they did. (Judges 7:3)
Ver. 2. Are too many.] They thought themselves too few, and therefore feared. God’s thoughts are not as man’s thoughts: he never complaineth of too few: but saith, as that general did to his fearful soldiers, How many reckon you me for? I alone am a whole army of men. (Isaiah 52:12) Lest Israel vaunt themselves.] Which yet they had small reason to do, everything considered. But God knoweth the vanity of men’s minds, and “needeth not that any should testify of man, for he knoweth what is in man.” (John 2:24,25) So bladder-like is the soul, that filled with the wind of vain glory, it grows great and swells in pride: but if pricked with the least pin of grief or fear, it shrivelleth to nothing. Mine own hand hath saved me.] Memet meis viribus servavi. Man is a self-ascribing creature. Ajax acknowledged no god but his sword. Sejanus sacrificed to himself. Polyphemus setteth up himself for the sole doer. The Caldeans sacrifice to their own net. (Habakkuk 1:16) Dio. Euripides.
Ver. 3. Let him depart.] Lest the rest be discouraged, for cowardice is catching. (Deuteronomy 20:8) Judas Maccabeus made the like proclamation. And there returned of the people twenty and two thousand.] Though they had been so long and so heavily oppressed, though now they had God’s promise of victory, and a fair opportunity put into their hands of recovering their ancient liberties, -which ought to have been as precious unto them as a drop of cold water would have been to the rich man in hell when he was so grievously tormented in those flames, -yet away they went, and deserted their brethren. So little trust is there to be put in the fickle and faithless multitude.
Ver. 4. The people are yet too many.] God is sometimes troubled with too much help, but never with too little. We are sometimes too soon, but he is never too late. And I will try them for thee there.] Heb., Eliquabo, I will melt them, and so separate the dross from the good ore. Cowards are the dross and offal of an army.
Ver. 5. That lappeth of the water, &c.] Iudicium strenuitatis et temperantice, saith Piscator: this was a sign of strength of body and temperance of mind, as the other posture was of weakness and greediness. Those are fit to follow the Lord, saith Diodat here, who for zeal to his service, do but taste the pleasures of the world as they pass along, without staying with them, only for necessity, and not for any constant delight they take in them. He which, with some of the Polonians, or with that dog Diogenes, lappeth water out of his hands, may nevertheless go forwards; as an Egyptian dog doth, when he lappeth the water of Nile in fear of a crocodile. Solin., cap. 20.
Ver. 6. Were three hundred men.] Methe mispar, a poor few. Many are called, but few are chosen. “ Rari quippe boni, numero vix sunt totidem quot Thebarum portae, vel divitis ostia Nili.’’—Juvenal. Sat. 13.
Ver. 7. By the three hundred men.] “They shall be holpen with a little help.” (Daniel 11:34) And why with a little? but that through weaker means may be seen God’s greater strength.
Ver. 8. And their trumpets.] Trumpets of rams’ horns, saith Josephus after the Septuagint. τας κερατινας.
Ver. 9. Get thee down unto the host.] This was a hard task, but he trusted in God, and devoured the difficulty, despised the danger. Επου τω Θεω, was the old rule among the wiser heathens, Be ruled by God.
Ver. 10. Go thou with Phurah thy servant.] Optimum solatium, sodalitium. Two is better than one. Christ sent out the seventy disciples by two and two. And himself took Peter, James, and John with him into the garden, where he was to begin his passion. This Phurah was but a servant; yet, for his faithfulness, he is renowned in God’s book, when many great monarchs, who strove by pyramids, palaces, arches, porches, and other monuments, to eternalise their memories, lie nevertheless obscured, or wrapt up in the sheet of shame.
Ver. 11. And thou shalt hear.] For further confirmation of thy faith. So low stoopeth the Lord to our meanness. Unto the outside of the armed men.] And if the strength of the army despond of the victory, what mayest thou think of the rest?
Ver. 12. Like grasshoppers.] See Judges 6:5. So were the Persians that came against Greece, under the conduct of Xerxes: but they were utterly discomfited. See many such examples of huge armies routed by small forces in Alex. ab Alexandro, Genial. dier., lib. vi. cap. 25.
Ver. 13. Behold, there was a man that told a dream.] So now-a-days, saith a divine, men dream their Midianitish dreams of errors, and tell it for gospel to their neighbours. This man told his dream to his fellow: but for no good to himself, yet to Gideon’s comfort: as Balaam, and afterwards Caiaphas, prophesied for the good of the Church. Behold, I dreamed a dream.] This dream was of God (Homer saith of some dreams that they are διοπεμπτα), and his fellow gave a right interpretation thereof. Wicked men may have common gifts. They read their own doom, but have not grace to repent, and make a holy use of it, as Mr Rough the martyr did, who not long before his apprehension, dreamed that he was carried forcibly to Bishop Bonnet, and that the bishop plucked off his beard, and cast it into the fire, saying these words, Now I may say I have a piece of a heretic burnt in mine house. All which fell out accordingly; and he looked upon it as a sweet mercy to be thus forewarned. And, lo, a cake of barley bread.] This cake represented the smallness and weakness of Gideon’s forces: the matter of it, barley bread, the meanness of Gideon’s person, little esteemed; the trundling of it down a hill, his impetuous falling upon the Midianites, who had robbed the Israelites of their better food, and made them glad to eat barley bread. And came unto a tent.] Ad tentorium omnium elgantissimum et fortissimum, unto a fair strong tent (for so much the notificative article ה implieth), which it utterly overturned, to note the routing and ruining of the army. Act. and Mon., 1843.
Ver. 14. This is nothing else save the sword of Gideon.] God spake through this fellow, as through a trunk, for Gideon’s confirmation. See Judges 7:13.
Ver. 15. The dream, and the interpretation thereof.] Heb., The breaking thereof. A metaphor from the breaking of a nut, to come at the kernel: or from a fowl’s beating the shell with her beak to get out the fish.
Ver. 16. A trumpet in every man’s hand.] As if there had been so many troops as were trumpets. By a like stratagem, Pompey overcame Mithridates in Asia. With empty pitchers, and lamps within the pitchers.] Hereunto the apostle seemeth to allude, when, speaking of the light of the gospel, he saith, “We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.” (2 Corinthians 4:7)
Ver. 17. Look on me, and do likewise.] He was sure of the victory, and yet giveth military precepts, and useth the means.
Ver. 18. The sword of the Lord, and of Gideon.] Domino et Gideoni; this was the word. Against Jehovah there was no fighting: and Gideon’s name was now grown terrible to them, as Scipio’s afterwards was to the Carthaginians, Hunniades’s to the Turks, &c. Tessera et symbolum fuit quo terrerent hostes, et ipsi se mutub cognoscerent. -Lav.
Ver. 19. In the beginning of the middle watch.] He took the advantage of the night, to beat up their quarters. Nox formidinem auxit. Night is full of error and terror.
Ver. 20. Blew the trumpets, and brake the pitchers.] By the sound of trumpets and shining of lamps out of earthen broken vessels, Gideon overcame his enemies: so Christ, by the trumpet of his word, and light of the gospel, carried through the world by weak instruments, hath confounded his enemies. (1 John 2:14) The sword of the Lord, and of Gideon.] Under the conduct of Germanus here in Britain, who came over from France to subdue the Pelagian heresy, which then prevailed amongst us, against a mighty army of Saxons and Picts, the Britains prevailed only by the three times pronouncing the word Hallelujah: which voice echoing and redoubling from the acclamation of his followers among the mountains, nigh to which the enemy had encamped, frightened them, and won the conquest: upon which it was called Victoria Halleluiatica. Arch. Ussher., De Britan. Eccles. Primord.
Ver. 21. And they stood every man in his place.] As if they had been trumpeters and torch bearers to a formidable army at the heels of them. And all the host ran, and cried, and fled.] Daunted and dismayed with that sudden sound and sight. Who then, can we think, shall be able to stand before that last terror, wherein the archangel’s trumpet shall sound, and the heavens shall pass away with a noise, and the elements shall be on flame about our ears? (2 Peter 3:10)
Ver. 22. And the Lord set every man’s sword against his fellow.] For being smitten by God with a spirit of giddiness, they took their friends for their foes: and, like those terrigenae fratres, they slaughtered one another in the place. See the like, 1 Samuel 14:15-20 2Ch 20:23. And the host fled to Bethshittah, &c.] Places unknown to us out of Scripture, save only Abelmeholah, which was in the half tribe of Manasseh within Canaan, (1 Kings 4:12) and so, likely, were the rest. But whithersoever they fled, in running from death they ran to it. This Abelmeholah was afterwards the habitation of the prophet Elisha. (1 Kings 19:16)
Ver. 23. And the men of Israel gathered themselves together.] Various of those doubtless that, as white livered soldiers, had deserted the army; and others that, for their sloth and intemperance, were not honoured so far by God as to break a pitcher or to bear a torch, are now got together to pursue a flying enemy, and to share in the spoil.
Ver. 24. And Gideon sent messengers.] As not willing to engross the glory of the victory to himself alone; which yet many in this case would have done. At the battle of Belgrade, where Mohammed the great Turk was defeated and driven out of the field, the chief doers were Capistranus the Pope’s legate, and Hunniades the general of the army. Both these wrote the history of that day’s work: and yet neither of them made any mention at all of the other; but each ascribed to himself the glory of the whole action: whereupon Aeneas Silvins crieth out, Ingens dulcedo gloriae: facilius contemnenda dicitur quam contemnitur. Glory is sweet, and not easily slighted.
Ver. 25. Oreb and Zeeb.] Oreb signifieth a raven. Zeeb, a wolf. “ Conveniunb rebus nomina saepe suis. ” Upon the rock Oreb, … at the wine press of Zeeb.] So these places were called, on this occasion: and God was just in it. These princes had forced Israel to hide in the rocks, and had robbed them of their provisions, and therefore fitly became examples of that rule, “ Per quod quis peccat, per idem punitur ipse. ”