Judges 7:15 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Judges 7:15
And it was so, when Gideon heard the telling of the dream, and the interpretation thereof, that he worshipped, and returned into the host of Israel, and said, Arise; for the LORD hath delivered into your hand the host of Midian.
to hear intelligently (often with implication of attent… · preposition + verb, qal infinitive construct
telling
מִסְפַּ֧רmis.Par
H4557
a number · noun, common masculine singular construct
dream
הַחֲל֛וֹםha.cha.Lom
H2472
a dream · definite article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
interpretation
שִׁבְר֖וֹshiv.Ro
H7667
a fracture · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
worshipped
וַיִּשְׁתָּ֑חוּvai.yish.Ta.chu
H7812
to depress · conjunction + verb, sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
returned
וַיָּ֙שָׁב֙vai.Ya.shov
H7725
to turn back (hence · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
host
מַחֲנֵ֣הma.cha.Neh
H4264
an encampment (of travellers or troops) · noun, common feminine singular construct
Israel
יִשְׂרָאֵ֔לYis.ra.'El
H3478
Jisrael · proper noun, a place name
said
וַיֹּ֣אמֶרvai.Yo.mer
H559
to say (used with great latitude) · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
Arise
ק֔וּמוּKu.mu
H6965
to rise (in various applications · verb, qal imperative, 2nd person masculine plural
LORD
יְהוָ֛הYah.weh
H3068
Jehovah · proper noun, a title
delivered
נָתַ֧ןna.Tan
H5414
to give · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person masculine singular
hand
בְּיֶדְכֶ֖םbe.yed.Khem
H3027
a hand (the open one (indicating power · preposition + noun, common both genders singular construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine plural
host
מַחֲנֵ֥הma.cha.Neh
H4264
an encampment (of travellers or troops) · noun, common feminine singular construct
Midian
מִדְיָֽןmid.Yan
H4080
Midjan · proper noun, a place name
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
2 Corinthians 10:4-6 (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;)
Genesis 24:48 And I bowed down my head, and worshipped the LORD, and blessed the LORD God of my master Abraham, which had led me in the right way to take…
Genesis 40:8 And they said unto him, We have dreamed a dream, and there is no interpreter of it. And Joseph said unto them, Do not interpretations belong…
Genesis 24:26-27 And the man bowed down his head, and worshipped the LORD.
Genesis 41:11 And we dreamed a dream in one night, I and he; we dreamed each man according to the interpretation of his dream.
Judges 4:14 And Deborah said unto Barak, Up; for this is the day in which the LORD hath delivered Sisera into thine hand: is not the LORD gone out befor…
2 Chronicles 20:18-19 And Jehoshaphat bowed his head with his face to the ground: and all Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem fell before the LORD, worshipping…
Exodus 4:30-31 And Aaron spake all the words which the LORD had spoken unto Moses, and did the signs in the sight of the people.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Judges 7:9-15
Gideon's army being diminished as we have found it was, he must either fight by faith or not at all; God therefore here provides recruits for his faith, instead of recruits for his forces.
I. He furnishes him with a good foundation to build his faith upon. Nothing but a word from God will be a footing for faith. He has this as full and express as he can desire, Jdg 7:9. 1. A word of command to warrant the action, which otherwise seemed rash and indiscreet, and unbecoming a wise general: Arise, get thee down with this handful of men unto the host. 2. A word of promise to assure him of the success, which otherwise seemed very improbable: I have delivered it into thy hand; it is all thy own. Th…
when Gideon heard the telling of the dream, and the interpretation . . . he worshipped--The incident originated in the secret overruling providence of God, and Gideon, from his expression of pious gratitude, regarded it as such. On his mind, as well as that of his followers, it produced the intended effect--that of imparting new animation and impulse to their patriotism.
John Gill on Judges 7:15
And it was so, when Gideon heard the telling of the dream, and the interpretation thereof,.... Or, "the breaking of it" (g); the dream itself being like something closed up and sealed, and the interpretation of it was like the breaking of a seal, and discovering what is hid under it; or like a nut, the kernel of which cannot be come at till the shell is broken:
that he worshipped; bowed his head with an awful reverence of God and a sense of his divine Majesty, and worshipped him by sending an ejaculatory prayer and praise to him; and so the Targum,"and he praised''praised God for this gracious encouragement he had given, the assurance of victory he now had; for he saw clearly the hand of Go…
I think it will not be amiss if we consider at greater length this war of the Madianites, which was intentionally introduced by the Prophet in comparison with the coming of the Lord. For in the book of Judges Gedeon is described as having fought against the Madianites. When he was bringing forth the multitude of the army to war, he was ordered by a Divine admonition, to remove from the conflict of battle all whom on coming to the water he beheld drinking the water with bended knees. And the result was, that only three hundred men remained, who had drunk the water in their hands, standing. With these he proceeds to the battle, and he equipped them not with arms, but with trumpets, lamps, and pitchers. For, as is there written, they placed the lighted lamps in the pitchers, and held their trumpets in their right hand, but their pitchers in their left, and on coming close to their enemies, they sounded with the trumpets, they brake the pitchers, the lamps appeared: and their enemies alarmed on one hand with the sound of the trumpets, and on the other by the glittering of the lamps, were turned to flight. Why then is it that such a battle is brought forward by the Prophet, and why is victory in that battle compared to the coming of our Redeemer? Did the Prophet intend to point out to us that that victorious battle under the command of Gedeon was a type of the coming of our Redeemer? Such deeds were doubtless there wrought, which, the more they exceed the usual mode of fighting, are the less removed from the mystery of prophecy. For who ever went forth to battle with pitchers and lamps? Who, when going against arms, ever abandoned his arms? These things would have been truly absurd to us, had they not been terrible to the enemies. But we have learned by the evidence of the victory itself, not to regard these things which were done as of little account. Gedeon, therefore, coming to the battle, signifies to us the coming of our Redeemer, of Whom it is written; Lift up, O princes, your gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of Glory shall come in. Who is this King of Glory? The Lord strong and mighty. The Lord mighty in battle. He prophesied of our Redeemer, not only by his doings, but also by his name. For Gedeon is interpreted 'going about in the womb.' For our Lord embraces all things by the power of His majesty, and yet He came, through…
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Divination — Of false prophets (Deut. 18:10, 14; Micah 3:6, 7, 11), of necromancers (1 Sam. 28:8), of the Philistine priests and diviners (1 Sam. 6:2), of Balaam (Josh. 13:22). Three kinds of divination are…
Dream — God has frequently made use of dreams in communicating his will to men. The most remarkable instances of this are recorded in the history of Jacob (Gen. 28:12; 31:10), Laban (31:24), Joseph…
Esdraelon — The Greek form of the Hebrew “Jezreel,” the name of the great plain (called by the natives Merj Ibn Amer; i.e., “the meadow of the son of Amer”) which stretches across Central Palestine from the…
Harod — Palpitation, a fountain near which Gideon and his army encamped on the morning of the day when they encountered and routed the Midianites (Judg. 7). It was south of the hill Moreh. The present ‘Ain…
Dreams · The ancients: Put great faith in — The ancients: Put great faith in
Pitcher · Used by Gi — Used by Gi
Trumpet · By Gi — By Gi
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
When therefore he had heard the dream related and interpreted, he worshipped, praising the Lord with joy, and returned to the camp to attack the enemy without delay. He then divided the 300 men into three companies, i.e., three attacking columns, and gave them all trumpets and empty pitchers, with torches in the pitchers in their hands. The pitchers were taken that they might hide the burning torches in them during their advance to surround the enemy's camp, and then increase the noise at the time of the attack, by dashing the pitchers to pieces (Jdg 7:20), and thus through the noise, as well as the sudden lighting up of the burning torches, deceive the enemy as to the strength of the army.…
The recounting of the dream. The story of the dream.7 מִסְפַר, generally translated as “number”, is interpreted here as “story”. "The retelling of the dream and its interpretation."8This is Targum Yonasan’s translation.
And its interpretation [lit. "its sale"]. The goods exchanged for it,9According to the literal interpretation, “sale”. or its interpretation.
