Matthew Henry on Judges 6:1-6
We have here, I. Israel's sin renewed: They did evil in the sight of the Lord, Jdg 6:1. The burnt child dreads the fire; yet this perverse unthinking people, that had so often smarted sorely for their idolatry, upon a little respite of God's judgments return to it again. This people hath a revolting rebellious heart, not kept in awe by the terror of God's judgments, nor engaged in honour and gratitude by the great things he had done for them to keep themselves in his love. The providence of God will not change the hearts and lives of sinners.
II. Israel's troubles repeated. This would follow of course; let all that sin expect to suffer; let all that return to folly expect to return to misery…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on Judges 6:2
made . . . dens . . . in the mountains and caves--not, of course, excavating them, for they were already, but making them fit for habitation.
John Gill on Judges 6:4
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,…
Read the whole note in the consoleKeil & Delitzsch on Judges 6:1-10
Renewed Apostasy of the Nation, and Its Punishment. - Jdg 6:1. As the Israelites forsook Jehovah their God again, the Lord delivered them up for seven years into the hands of the Midianites. The Midianites, who were descendants of Abraham and Keturah (Gen 25:2), and had penetrated into the grassy steppes on the eastern side of the country of the Moabites and Ammonites (see at Num 22:4), had shown hostility to Israel even in the time of Moses, and had been defeated in a war of retaliation on the part of the Israelites (Num 31). But they had afterwards recovered their strength, so that now, after an interval of 200 years, the Lord used them as a rod of chastisement for His rebellious people. I…
