Judges 8:21

Jdg 8:21 Then Zebah and Zalmunna said, Rise thou, and fall upon us: for as the man [is, so is] his strength. And Gideon arose, and slew Zebah and Zalmunna, and took away the ornaments that [were] on their camels’ necks.

Ver. 21. Rise thou, and fall upon us.] For thou wilt quickly despatch us; and we will die with honour.

“ Hoc tamen infaelix miseram solabere mortem,

Aeneae magni dextra cadis. ” - Virg. Aeneid., lib. x.

For as the man is, so is his strength.] This they speak with an undaunted spirit, as it may seem, which is not always a sign of a good cause, but sometimes of a dedolent and desperate disposition, as we may see in many of Satan’s martyrs.

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.

Jdg 8:21. Rise thou, and fall upon us — They thought it better to die by the hand of Gideon, who was as eminent for his strength as his dignity, and would despatch them with more speed than a stripling could.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Meaning, that they would be rid out of their pain at once, or else to have a valiant man to put them to death.

Or, collars.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Verse 21. Then Zebah and Zalmunna said, Rise, thou, and fall upon us] It was disgraceful to fall by the hands of a child; and the death occasioned by the blows of such a person must be much more lingering and tormenting. Some have even employed children to despatch captives. Civilis, a Roman knight, headed a revolt of the Gauls against Rome, in the year of the city 824. Of him Tacitus says, Hist. lib. iv., c. 61: Ferebatur parvulo filio quosdam captivorum sagittis jaculisque puerilibus figendos obtulisse: "He is said to have given to his little son some prisoners, as butts to be shot at with little darts and arrows." This was for their greater torment and dishonour; and to inure his child to blood! Could any thing like this have been the design of Gideon?

The ornaments that were on their camels' necks.] The heads, necks, bodies, and legs of camels, horses, and elephants, are highly ornamented in the eastern countries, and indeed this was common, from the remotest antiquity, in all countries. Virgil refers to it as a thing long before his time, and thus describes the horses given by King Latinus to the ambassadors of AEneas. - AEn. lib. vii., ver. 274.

Haec effatus equos numero pater eligit omni.

Stabant tercentum nitidi in praesepibus altis:

Omnibus extemplo Teucris jubet ordine duci

Instratos ostro alipedes pictisque tapetis.

Aurea pectoribus demissa monilia pendent:

Tecti auro fulvum mandunt sub dentibus aurum.

"He said, and order'd steeds to mount the band:

In lofty stalls three hundred coursers stand;

Their shining sides with crimson cover'd o'er;

The sprightly steeds embroider'd trappings wore,

With golden chains, refulgent to behold:

Gold were their bridles, and they champ'd on gold."

PITT.

Instead of ornaments, the Septuagint translate τουςμηνισκους, the crescents or half-moons; and this is followed by the Syriac and Arabic. The worship of the moon was very ancient; and, with that of the sun, constituted the earliest idolatry of mankind. We learn from Jdg 8:24 that the Ishmaelites, or Arabs, as they are termed by the Targum, Syriac, and Arabic, had golden ear-rings, and probably a crescent in each; for it is well known that the Ishmaelites, and the Arabs who descended from them, were addicted very early to the worship of the moon; and so attached were they to this superstition, that although Mohammed destroyed the idolatrous use of the crescent, yet it was universally borne in their ensigns, and on the tops of their mosques, as well as in various ornaments.

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

(21) Rise thou, and fall upon us.—They deprecated the pain and shame of falling by the irresolute hands of a boy.

For as the man . . . his strength.—Deu_33:25. “As thy days, so shall thy strength be.”

Ornaments.—Saharonim, “little moons,” crescent-shaped ornaments of gold and silver, still in common use to decorate animals. Isa_3:18, “round tires like the moon.” “Niveo lunata monilia dente” (Stat. Theb. ix. 689). After one of his battles Mohammed found a slain camel adorned with these lunulœ and with strings of emeralds. The Roman senators (for another reason) wore silver crescents on their shoes.

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

21. The chiefs reply with undaunted spirit like true sons of the desert: as the man is, so is his strength, i.e. a man has a man’s strength (Moore); but the word so is not expressed in the terse Hebrew.

crescents] lit. moons, metal ornaments worn not only by the kings but by their camels, Jdg_8:26, and by the women of Jerusalem, Isa_3:18. The name is not Israelite, nor is it the ordinary word for ‘moon’; it is related to the old Aramaic name of the moon-god (sahar).

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.

Then Zebah and Zalmunna said, rise thou and fall upon us,.... Since they must die, they chose rather to die by the hand of so great a man and valiant a commander as Gideon, which was more honourable than to die by the hand of a youth:

for as the man is, so is his strength; signifying, that as he was a stout able man, he had strength sufficient to dispatch them at once, which his son had not, and therefore they must have died a lingering and painful death: wherefore as they consulted their honour, so their ease, in desiring to die by the hand of Gideon:

and Gideon arose, and slew Zebah and Zalmunna; nor was it unusual in those early times for great personages, as judges and generals, to be executioners of others, as were Samuel and Benaiah, Sa1 15:33.

and took away the ornaments that were on their camels' necks; the Targum calls them chains, as in Jdg 8:26 no doubt of gold; so the horses of King Latinus (b) had golden poitrels or collars hanging down their breasts. They were, according to Jarchi, Kimchi, and Ben Gersom, in the form of the moon; see Isa 3:18 some have thought that these were worn in honour of Astarte, or the moon, the goddess of the Phoenicians, from whom these people had borrowed that idolatry.

(b) Virg. Aeneid. l. 7. v. 278.

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

The ornaments - See marg. and compare Isa 3:18. The custom of adorning the necks of their camels with gold chains and ornaments prevailed among the Arabs so late as the time of Mahomet.

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

Age. They beg that they may die in a more speedy and noble manner. Tacitus (Hist. iv.) observes, "it was reported that Civilis exposed some of the Roman captives to his little son, in order that he might fix his arrows and javelins in their bodies." --- Ornaments. Most interpreters understand "crescents." The veneration of the Arabs for the moon, the celestial Venus, or Alilat, is well known. The Turks still make use of this sign, as Christians employ the cross on their standards, temples, &c. Men and women anciently wore on their necks or forehead ornaments of the same nature, as these camels did, Isaias iii. 18. Latinus adorned his horses in the most splendid manner. Virgil, Æneid vii: Aurea pectoribus demissa monilia pendent. Caligula decorated with extravagance his famous horse Incitatus, on which he designed to confer the consulate. (Suetonius) --- In Egypt the camels are sometimes painted yellow, and hung with a variety of little bells. (Vaneb.)

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).

As the man is, so is his strength: thou excellest him, as in age and stature, so in strength; and it is more honourable, as well as easy, to dig by the hands of a valiant man.

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

21. As the man… his strength — As the boy is not a man, so he has not the strength to execute this order.

Ornaments — Or, little moons; crescent-shaped ornaments, hung often, as here, upon the necks of camels, and also (compare Jdg_8:26; Isa_3:18) upon the necks of men and women.

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

The ornaments. Literally, little moons, crescent-shaped ornaments of gold and silver, which as well as "chains" (ver. 26) were hung as ornaments on their camels" necks. (cf. Jud_1:5:30) It would seem from ver. 26 that the kings themselves also wore these ornaments; and in Isa_3:18 they are enumerated among the articles of female attire round tires like the moon, A.V

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

So is his strength - Thou excellest him, as in age and stature, so in strength; and it is more honourable to die by the hands of a valiant man.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

Crescent chains. Lunettes in old French, moonshaped, made of gold.

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.