Matthew Henry on Judges 8:29–end
We have here the conclusion of the story of Gideon. 1. He lived privately, Jdg 8:29. He was not puffed up with his great honours, did not covet a palace or castle to dwell in, but retired to the house he had lived in before his elevation. Thus that brave Roman Who was called from the plough upon a sudden occasion to command the army when the action was over returned to his plough again. 2. His family was multiplied. He had many wives (therein he transgressed the law); by them he had seventy sons (Jdg 8:30), but by a concubine he had one whom he named Abimelech (which signifies, my father a king), that proved the ruin of his family, Jdg 8:31. 3. He died in honour, in a good old age, when he h…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on Judges 8:28
MIDIAN SUBDUED. (Jdg 8:28)
Thus was Midian subdued before the children of Israel--This invasion of the Arab hordes into Canaan was as alarming and desolating as the irruption of the Huns into Europe. It was the severest scourge ever inflicted upon Israel; and both it and the deliverance under Gideon lived for centuries in the minds of the people (Psa 83:11).
Next: Judges Chapter 9
John Gill on Judges 8:35
Neither showed they kindness to the house of Jerubbaal, namely Gideon,.... But, on the contrary, great unkindness and cruelty, slaying his seventy sons, as related in the following chapter:
according to all the goodness which he had showed unto Israel; in exposing his life to danger for their sake, in delivering them out of the hands of their oppressors, in administering justice to them, in protecting them in their civil and religious liberties, and leaving them in the quiet and peaceable possession of them.
Keil & Delitzsch on Judges 8:33–end
Jdg 8:33-35 form the introduction to the history of Gideon's sons.
Jdg 8:33
After Gideon's death the Israelites fell once more into the Baal-worship which Gideon had rooted out of his father's city (Jdg 6:25.), and worshipped Baal-berith as their God. Baal-berith, the covenant Baal (equivalent to El-berith, the covenant god, Jdg 9:46), is not Baal as the god of covenants, but, according to Gen 14:13, Baal as a god in covenant, i.e., Baal with whom they had made a covenant, just as the Israelites had their faithful covenant God in Jehovah (see Movers, Phniz. i. p. 171). The worship of Baal-berith, as performed at Shechem according to Jdg 9:46, was an imitation of the worship of Jehovah, an ad…
