John Gill Commentary Judges 6

And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord ,
&c.] After the death of Deborah and Barak, during whose life they kept to the pure worship of God, and who, perhaps, lived pretty near the close of the forty years' rest, or of the twenty years from their victory over Jabin; but they dying, the children of Israel fell into idolatry, for that that was the evil they did appears from (Judges 6:10) , even worshipping the gods of the Amorites:

and the Lord delivered them into the hand of Midian seven years :
this was not the Midian where Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses, lived, which lay more southward, but that which joined to Moab, and was more eastward. This people had been destroyed by the Israelites in the times of Moses, in their way to the land of Canaan, (Numbers 31:1) wherefore they might bear them a grudge, and now took the opportunity to revenge themselves on them, God permitting them so to do for their sins; and though the destruction of this people by Israel was very general, yet as some of them might make their escape, and afterwards return to their own land, and this being about two hundred years ago, might, with others joining them, re-people their country by this time, and become strong and powerful.

And the hand of Midian prevailed against Israel
They were too strong for them, and overcame them, and brought them into subjection to them, and no wonder, when the Lord delivered them into their hand:

and because of the Midianites ;
because of their usage of them, their manner of coming upon them yearly, and pillaging and plundering their substance, as after related:

the children of Israel made them dens which are in the mountains ;
the word for "dens" has the signification of light in it, and are so called either by an antiphrasis, because they were dark, or, as Kimchi thinks, because they had a window at the top of them, which let in the light

and caves, and strong holds ;
the caves were for the poorer sort, and the strong holds for the richer to retire to with their goods; though, according to Jarchi, the latter were no other than fences they made in woods, by cutting down trees, and setting them round about them, perhaps much the same as the thickets, (1 Samuel 13:6) .

FOOTNOTES:

• F1: but Ben Gersom conjectures they were torches, which gave a great light, and when they that held them saw from the mountains the Midianites, by these torches they made a signal to the Israelites to take care and hide themselves and their substance:

And so it was, when Israel had sown
Their land, and it was grown up, and near being ripe, or quite; for the Midianites gave them no disturbance in the winter, and during seedtime, when they came out of their lurking holes, and manured their land, and sowed it:

that the Midianites came up ;
into the land of Canaan, from the other side Jordan, where their country lay, and which it seems lay lower than the land of Israel:

and the Amalekites, and the children of the east :
the former were implacable enemies of Israel, and on every occasion would join other nations in oppressing them; and the children of the east were Arabians, as Josephus ^F2 expressly affirms:

even they came up against them ;
all these three sorts of people in a confederacy.

FOOTNOTES:

• F2: Antiqu. l. 5. c. 6. sect. 1.

And they encamped against them
Formed a camp, from whence they sent out parties to plunder the people; or they were fixing their tents among them,'' as the Vulgate Latin version; and so the Targum, ``they dwelt by them,'' or fixed their habitations by them; for they seem not to have come as a regular army, but as a sort of banditti to pillage, and plunder, and destroy the fruits of the earth; and the Midianites and Arabians dwelt in tents chiefly.

and destroyed the increase of the earth ;
the corn and grass before they were well ripe, and fit to cut down; this they did, and gave it to their cattle, and the rest they carried off:

till thou come unto Gaza ;
a principality of the Philistines, which lay in the western part of Canaan, on the shore of the Mediterranean sea; so that as these people came out of the east, and entered the eastern part, they went through the whole land from east to west, cutting down all the fruits of the earth for forage for their cattle:

and left no sustenance for Israel ;
nothing to support life with, cutting down their corn and their grass, their vines and olives, so that they had nothing to live upon:

neither sheep, nor ox, nor ass ;
not anything for those creatures to live upon, nor did not leave any of them, but carried them all away.

For they came up with their cattle, and their tents
Brought their flocks and their herds with them, to eat up the increase of the earth, and their tents, which they pitched and removed from place to place, for the convenience of feeding their cattle, and while they cut down the fruit of the earth everywhere, which serves to confirm the sense of the Targum and Vulgate Latin version of (Judges 6:5)

and they came as grasshoppers for multitude ;
or "as locusts" ^F3 , they were like them for their number, and for devouring all they came to:

and their camels were without number ;
which they brought with them, to load and carry off their plunder they could not eat. Midian was a place famous for camels and dromedaries, (Isaiah 60:6) and so Arabia, the people of which joined the Midianites in this expedition; of whom Leo Africanus says ^F4 , that they reckon of their riches and possessions by their camels; wherefore if anyone speaks of the riches of such a prince or nobleman, he says that he is possessed of so many camels, and not of so many thousands of pieces of gold, see (Job 1:3)

and they entered into the city to destroy it ;
this was their sole view. In suchlike manner as this did Alyattes king of the Lydians make war with the Milesinns, as Herodotus ^F5 relates; which passage Grotius has quoted at large.

FOOTNOTES:

• F3: (hbra ydk) "tanquam locustae", Pagninus, V. L. Tigurine version, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator.
• F4: Descriptio Africae, l. 9. p. 745.
• F5: Clio, sive, l. 1. c. 17.