Judges 20:33

33. rose up … set themselves in array] The Israelites had taken up their position opposite Gibeah and then retired northwards (Jdg_20:30-32); now, apparently, after the feigned retreat they take up a second position at a further distance from Gibeah. But this is hardly the natural meaning of the words; rose up implies a new action (e.g. Jdg_20:19) rather than the repetition of a movement which had already begun. It is in fact difficult to fit Jdg_20:33 a into the context. May it then come from the A narrative, and form the sequel of Jdg_20:29? This would give us an allusion to the battle, which otherwise is missing from A: after the ambush was set round Gibeah (Jdg_20:29), the main army of Israel took up its position in Baal-tamar (Jdg_20:33 a). But the language of the verse does not inspire confidence in its originality (lit. the men of Israel rose up from his place!); on the other hand the mention of Baal-tamar may well be ancient. Perhaps we may describe this half-verse as an early addition. See further below.

Baal-tamar] Site unknown, but not far from Gibeah; Eusebius (OS 238, 75) declares that the name was surviving in the locality as Beth-tamar. Baal-tamar = B. of the palm-tree, a rare instance of the god Baal being associated with a tree; cf. Jer_2:27[63]. The palm was a symbol of Ashtoreth rather than of Baal.

[63] See Baudissin, Adonis u. Esmun (1911), p. 176. Winckler interprets differently, Baal is Tamar, i.e. Ishtar-Ashtoreth, the local deity possessing the attributes of god and goddess: Gesch. Israels ii. 98 ff.

brake forth] Elsewhere of the sea or a river, Job_38:8; Job_40:23, Eze_32:2; from the same root comes the name of the fountain at Jerusalem, Gihon the gusher. So here, of the Hers in wait bursting forth from ambush; as applied in this way to warfare the word is used in Aramaic. Cf. the parallel account from A in Jdg_20:37.

Maareh-geba] Supposed to mean the bare or open space of G., but probably a mistake for maarâb legeba, i.e. west of Geba, LXX. cod. A and mss., Vulgate; a late usage, 2Ch_32:30; 2Ch_33:14. Geba is either a mistake for Gibeah (as in Jdg_20:10), or more probably = Jeba‘, N.E. of Gibeah.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Jdg 20:33 And all the men of Israel rose up out of their place, and put themselves in array at Baaltamar: and the liers in wait of Israel came forth out of their places, [even] out of the meadows of Gibeah.

Ver. 33. Out of the meadows.] Or, Dens, as Pagnine and others render it.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Baal-tamar--a palm-grove, where Baal was worshipped. The main army of the confederate tribes was drawn up there.

out of the meadows of Gibeah--Hebrew, "the caves of Gibeah"; a hill in which the ambuscades lay hid.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 33. Put themselves in array at Baal-tamar] The Israelites seem to have divided their army into three divisions; one was at Baal-tamar, a second behind the city in ambush, and the third skirmished with the Benjamites before Gibeah.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(33) Put themselves in array at Baal-tamar.—This is either a detail added out of place (so that we might almost suppose that there has been some accidental transposition of clauses), or it means that when the Israelites in their pretended rout had got as far as Baal-tamar (“Lord of the Palm”) they saw the appointed smoke-signal of the ambuscade, and at that point rallied against their pursuers. What makes this probable is that Baal-tamar can only have derived its name from some famous, and therefore isolated, palm-tree. Now there was exactly such a palm tree—the well known “Palm of Deborah” (see Note on Jdg_4:5)—“between Ramah and Bethel,” and therefore at a little distance from the spot where the roads branch. The place was still called Bathamar in the days of Eusebius and Jerome. The Chaldee rendering, “in the plains of Jericho” (“the palm city,” Jdg_1:16), is singularly erroneous.

Out of the meadows of Gibeah.—The word maareh, rendered “meadows,” occurs nowhere else. Some derive it from arah, “to strip.” The LXX., not understanding it, render it as a name, Maraagabe, and in Cod. A (following a different reading), “from the west of Gibeah,” as also does the Vulg. Rashi renders it, “because of the stripping of Gibeah,” and Buxtorf, “after the stripping of Gibeah.” It is, however, clear that the words are in apposition to and in explanation of “out of their places:” The Syriac and Arabic understand maareh to mean “a cave” or “caves,” printing it maarah instead of maareh. Similarly the reading “from the west” only involves the change of a single letter (maarab). If the text be left unaltered, the “meadows” may have been concealed from the town by intervening rocks. In Isa_19:7 aroth mean “pastures.”

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And there came against Gibeah ten thousand chosen men out of all Israel,.... Which, according to Ben Gersom, were the liers in wait; and came from the south, as the Targum says:

and the battle was sore; not between those liers in wait, and the Benjaminites, but between those at Baaltamar, and them who set themselves in battle array against them, and they fought stoutly on both sides:

but they knew not that evil was near them; that there was an ambush laid, by which they were in great danger; they knew nothing of the 10,000 men that were now come out against Gibeah, and were between them and that.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Baal-tamar is only mentioned here. It took its name from some palm-tree that grew there; perhaps the same as the “palm-tree of Deborah, between Ramah and Bethel” Jdg 4:5, the exact locality here indicated, since “the highway” Jdg 20:31 along which the Israelites enticed the Benjamites to pursue them, leads straight to Ramah, which lay only a mile beyond the point where the two ways branch off.

The meadows of Gibeah - The word rendered “meadow” is only found here. According to its etymology, it ought to mean a “bare open place”, which is particularly unsuitable for an ambush. However, by a change in the vowel-points, without any alteration in the letters, it becomes the common word for “a cavern”.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Baalthamar, the plain of Jericho; (Chaldean) or rather a village in the vicinity of Gabaa, which Eusebius calls Besthamar.

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Out of their place; where they had disposed themselves, that they might fall upon the Benjamites, when they were drawn forth to a sufficient distance from their city, and when they were pursuing that party, mentioned Jdg 20:30.

Came forth out of their places, to execute what was agreed upon, even to take Gibeah, and burn it, as they actually did, Jdg 20:37.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

33. All the men of Israel rose up out of their place — These were the main forces of the army, while those mentioned in Jdg_20:30 were probably a lesser body of men, several thousand, perhaps, whose object was to draw the Benjamites off from Gibeah. When they fled and the Benjamites pursued them, then this vast army, called all the men of Israel because they comprised the vast majority of the Israelitish warriors, rose up and marched to action.

Baal-tamar — A place near Gibeah, mentioned also by Eusebius, but not now known.

Meadows of Gibeah — Some interpreters, after the Septuagint, take the Hebrew words Maareh gaba as a proper name; others, after the Syriac, render it cave of Geba. These renderings come from the idea that a meadow or plain would be unsuitable for an ambush; but the plain around Gibeah may have afforded numerous hiding places; and then, as Keil well says, “There is no necessity to understand the words as signifying that the treeless country formed the actual hiding-place of the ambush; but that when the men broke from their hiding-place, they came from the treeless land toward the town.”

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Rose up out of their place. The narrative is singularly obscure and broken, and difficult to follow. But the meaning seems to be, that when the Israelite army had reached Baal-tamar in their flight, they suddenly stopped and formed to give battle to the pursuing Benjamites. And at the same time the liers in wait came out from their ambushment and placed themselves in the rear of the Benjamites on the direct road to Gibeah. Baal-tamar, a place of palm trees. The site has not been identified, but may possibly, or probably, be the same as the palm tree of Deborah, between Ramah and Bethel. (Jud_1:4:5) The meadows of Gibeah, Hebrew, Maareh-Geba, may very likely have been, as the Septuagint takes it, a proper name, denoting some locality outside Gibeah (here called Geba) where the ambush was concealed. The meaning of the word maareh is thought to be a bare tract of ground without trees something like a heath or common. It may have had pits, or deep depressions, where the ambush would be hid both from the city itself and from the high road, or other facilities for concealment.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Baal Tamar. The plain of Yericho.

Poured. Extended themselves, as in "He shall draw the Yardein into his mouth," "You drew me from the womb."

Maareh Gev'ah. From a narrow pass, the "nakedness," nakedness. or exposed overlook of Givas Binyomin; its uncovered part from which it was defenseless against conquest, as in, "You have come to gaze at the nakedness of the land."

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.