John Gill Commentary Judges 6:11

"And the angel of Jehovah came, and sat under the oak which was in Ophrah, that pertained unto Joash the Abiezrite: and his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the winepress, to hide it from the Midianites." — Judges 6:11 (ASV)

And there came an angel of the Lord
This was not the prophet before mentioned, as Ben Gersom thinks, but an angel of God, as expressed, and not a created one, but the Angel of Jehovah's presence, the Word and Son of God, and who is expressly called Jehovah himself, (Judges 6:14Judges 6:23Judges 6:24)

and sat under an oak ;
or stayed there a while, as Kimchi interprets it, seeing, according to his observation, angels are not said to sit, but stand:

which was in Ophrah, that pertains to Joash the Abiezrite ;
which shows that this Ophrah is different from a city of this name in the tribe of Benjamin, (Joshua 18:23) for the oak that was in it, under which the angel sat, belonged to Joash an Abiezrite, a descendant of Abiezer, son of the sister of Gilead, who was the son of Machir the son of Manasseh, (Joshua 17:2) (1 Chronicles 7:17 1 Chronicles 7:18 1 Chronicles 7:14) , it is called by Josephus ^F8 Ephra, and by Jerom ^F9 Ephrata:

and his son Gideon threshed wheat by the winepress, to hide it from the Midianites ;
lest they should take it away, and bereave his father's family of their sustenance, as they were wont to do, wherever they could find it;

and all circumstances attending this affair were on this account; he threshed it himself, this he chose to do, and not trust his servants, lest it should be discovered;

and he beat the wheat out with a staff, that it might be more silently done, and not with oxen, which was the usual way of treading out corn, who, bellowing ^F11 , would discover it; and this was done not on a threshing floor, but where a winepress stood, where there could be no suspicion of such work being doing.

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FOOTNOTES:

• F8: Antiqu. l. 5. c. 6. sect. 5, 7.
• F9: De loc. Heb. fol. 90. K.
• F11: Vid. Homer. Iliad. 20. ver. 495, 496, 497.