Judges 8:30

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

Gideon had seventy sons conceived from his body; for he had many wives.

World English Bible · Public Domain

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יְרֵכ֑וֹ

yârêk

H3409

“thigh · his”

Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct + Suffix, Personal, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular

Appears 34× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Genesis 24:2

Full BDB Definition

Origin: from an unused root meaning to be soft

TWOT: 916a

thigh, side, loin, base - thigh - outside of thigh (where sword was worn) - loins (as the seat of procreative power) - side (flank) (of object) - base

About this verse

These counts appear in no published source. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged text and Lemma’s own curated glosses. What Lemma adds →

11: words
9: distinct lemmas
Historical: section

Shared distinctive vocabulary

יְרֵכ֑וֹ thigh H3409 occurs in 32 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

3 verbs
4 nouns
2 adjectives
1 preposition
1 conjunction

Verb forms

הָיוּ֙ Qal · Perfect
יֹצְאֵ֖י Qal · Participle Active
הָ֥יוּ Qal · Perfect

Repetition

A word recurs within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:

הָיוּ֙ to be H1961 ×2

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 13 words from the Hebrew and 14 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — closely comparable.

A rough comparison of the two English renderings, which tokenize alike — not a word-level alignment.

Word counts can differ between the Hebrew and the Greek without any difference in meaning — e.g. the Hebrew direct-object marker אֵת has no separate Greek word, and Greek often adds the article ὁ.

In the original languages it is 11 Hebrew tokens and 15 Greek tokens — but the two are counted differently (Hebrew bundles its prefixes and suffixes into one token; the Greek is in lemma form), so that isn’t a like-for-like length.

Cross-references

Topical passages linked to Judges 8:30 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

Judges 9:2 Please speak in the ears of all the men of Shechem, Whether is better for you, that all the sons of Jerubbaal, who are seventy persons, rule over you, or that one rule over you? Remember also that I am your bone and your flesh.
Judges 9:5 He went to his father's house at Ophrah, and killed his brothers the sons of Jerubbaal, being seventy persons, on one stone: but Jotham the youngest son of Jerubbaal was left; for he hid himself.
Deuteronomy 17:17 Neither shall he multiply wives to himself, that his heart not turn away: neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold.
1 Kings 11:3 He had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines; and his wives turned away his heart.
Genesis 2:24 Therefore a man will leave his father and his mother, and will join with his wife, and they will be one flesh.
Genesis 7:7 Noah went into the ark with his sons, his wife, and his sons' wives, because of the waters of the flood.
Genesis 46:26 All the souls who came with Jacob into Egypt, who were his direct descendants, besides Jacob's sons' wives, all the souls were sixty-six.
Exodus 1:5 All the souls who came out of the Jacob's body were seventy souls, and Joseph was in Egypt already.

Judges 10:4 He had thirty sons who rode on thirty donkey colts, and they had thirty cities, which are called Havvoth Jair to this day, which are in the land of Gilead.
Judges 12:9 He had thirty sons; and thirty daughters he sent abroad, and thirty daughters he brought in from abroad for his sons. He judged Israel seven years.
Judges 12:14 He had forty sons and thirty sons' sons, who rode on seventy donkey colts: and he judged Israel eight years.
2 Samuel 3:2–5 To David were sons born in Hebron: and his firstborn was Amnon, of Ahinoam the Jezreelitess;
2 Samuel 5:13–16 David took him more concubines and wives out of Jerusalem, after he was come from Hebron; and there were yet sons and daughters born to David.
2 Kings 10:1 Now Ahab had seventy sons in Samaria. Jehu wrote letters, and sent to Samaria, to the rulers of Jezreel, even the elders, and to those who brought up [the sons of] Ahab, saying,
Malachi 2:15 Did he not make one, although he had the residue of the Spirit? Why one? He sought a godly seed. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth.
Matthew 19:5–8 and said, 'For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall join to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh?'

Ephesians 5:31–33 "For this cause a man will leave his father and mother, and will be joined to his wife. The two will become one flesh."

Cross-references courtesy of OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0).

Hebrew and Greek witnesses Masoretic Hebrew ↔ Greek Septuagint

The same verse in the two great witnesses to the Old Testament, shown verse-for-verse.

These are two independent witnesses, not word-aligned to each other, and the Septuagint is shown in lemma (dictionary) form.

Hebrew Judges 8:30 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וּלְגִדְע֗וֹן הָיוּ֙ שִׁבְעִ֣ים בָּנִ֔ים יֹצְאֵ֖י יְרֵכ֑וֹ כִּֽי נָשִׁ֥ים רַבּ֖וֹת הָ֥יוּ לֽוֹ

Gideon had seventy sons conceived from his body; for he had many wives.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Judges 8:30 Septuagint · lemma form

καί ὁ γεδεων εἰμί ἑβδομήκοντα υἱός ἐκπορεύομαι ἐκ μηρός αὐτός ὅτι γυνή πολύς εἰμί αὐτός

And Gedeon had seventy sons begotten of his body, for he had many wives.

LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) · Public Domain

Hebrew: Westminster Leningrad Codex (CC BY 4.0). Greek: Septuagint (public domain); English from LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) (Public Domain). How the Septuagint differs from the Hebrew →

Targum (Aramaic paraphrase)

The Targum is the ancient Jewish Aramaic paraphrase of the Hebrew Scriptures — an interpretive translation, not the Hebrew text itself. Onkelos (literal) and Pseudo-Jonathan (expansive) render the Torah, and Jonathan the Prophets. Coverage is partial: where no permissively-licensed English translation exists for a verse, only the Aramaic is shown. This is verse-level text, not a word-by-word alignment to the Hebrew.

Targum Jonathan Prophets (Joshua–Malachi)

וּלְגִדְעוֹן הֲווֹ שַׁבְעִין בְּנִין נַפְקֵי יַרְכֵיהּ אֲרֵי נְשִׁין סַגִיאִין הֲוָאָה לֵיהּ:

(no public-domain English translation for this verse)

Targum Jonathan — Aramaic: “Mikraot Gedolot” (public domain). English: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “London "Chaldee Paraphrase," 1871” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.

Commentary

Notes on Judges 8:30 from classic Christian and Jewish commentators (each source and its license shown beneath its notes). The classic Christian expositions comment on the surrounding passage and are grouped to its opening verse, so a note may address several verses; the Jewish commentaries on the Tanakh (Rashi and others) are per-verse, so they appear only where the commentator wrote on this verse.

Lemma curates 59 commentaries, every one of them public domain or Creative Commons licensed, each selected and text-cleaned for this edition rather than reprinted as found. About our sources →

Trapp's Complete Commentary

John Trapp

Jdg 8:30 And Gideon had threescore and ten sons of his body begotten: for he had many wives.

Ver. 30. Of his body begotten.] Heb., Going out of his thigh, in which there are veins, say anatomists, that go along to the genitals, and convey thither the matter for the seed of generation. Hence that expression of Abraham to his servant, {Gen 24:2} "Put thine hand under my thigh," out of which is to come the Messiah, "and swear," &c. So Gen 47:29; Gen 46:26.

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.

Geneva Bible (1599)

Geneva Bible translators

Hebrew, which came out of his thigh.

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

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(30) Threescore and ten sons.—According to Oriental fashion, no account is taken of his daughters.

He had many wives.—It is clear that Gideon was a king in all but name. This is the most magnificent, but the least honourable, period of his career. In Deu_17:17 it had been said of the future king, “Neither shall he multiply wives to himself. . . . neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold.” Polygamy was only adopted on a large scale by rulers (Jdg_10:4; Jdg_12:9).

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

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne

30. of his body begotten] Only again in Gen_46:26 (‘which came out of his loins’) and Exo_1:5 P, cf. Gen_35:11 P. The more sons a man had, the greater his importance, cf. Jdg_10:4, Jdg_12:9.

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.

John Gill's Exposition

And his concubine that was in Shechem,.... Which was not an harlot, but a secondary or half wife; such were generally taken from handmaids, and of the meaner sort, and were not in such esteem as proper wives, had not the management of household affairs, only a share in the bed, and their children did not inherit. This concubine of Gideon's seems not to have been taken into his house at all, but lived at Shechem, perhaps in her father's house, and here Gideon met with her when he went to Shechem as a judge to try causes; her name, according to Josephus (l), was Druma:

she also bare him a son; as his other wives did; perhaps all the children he had were sons, and this was one over and above the seventy, and not to be reckoned into that number:

whose name he called Abimelech: which signifies, "my father a king"; which he gave him either in memory of the offer made him to be king of Israel, or through foresight of what this son of his would be; or he might be moved to it by the mother from pride and vanity, and which name might afterwards inspire the young man to be made a king, as he was; and the account given of his name is because of the narrative of him in the following chapter.

(l) Antiqu. l. 5. c. 7. sect. 1.

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

Whedon's Commentary on the Bible

Daniel D. Whedon

30. Many wives — So to the crime of sacrilege he added that of polygamy.

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

The Pulpit Commentary

Vers. 30-32. Gideon had threescore and ten sons, etc. This notice helps us to fill up the picture of Gideon"s state after the Midianitish victory, lie had indeed nobly refused the kingdom, as a Pericles would have refused to be tyrant of Athena But he did not return to poverty and obscurity, as L. Q. Cincinnatus, in the Roman legend, returned to his plough after his victory over the Volsciana He was judge over Israel for forty years, with a household and a harem like a great prince, living in his paternal city, with the ephod set up there, himself the centre round which the powers of Church and State gathered; directing the affairs of his country, both civil and ecclesiastical, with eminent success, so that the country was at peace for forty years (a peace as long as that which followed the battle of Water-leo), and the detestable Baal-worship was effectually suppressed. And having lived in wealth and honour, he died in peace, and was buried in the sepulchre of his father at Ophrah in a good old age. He remains to us as one of the most remarkable characters of the Old Testament, not indeed without faults and blemishes, and not wholly unspoiled by prosperity, but still a great man, and an eminent servant of God.

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

Lesson kit

Teaching starters — assembled from the data on this page, not authored interpretation. Every prompt links to the verse data it draws on. Edit before teaching.

Judges, in the Historical, opens this verse with 11 words (9 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is yârêk (“thigh”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

The word yârêk carries the sense “thigh.” How does it shape the verse?
How does Genesis 24:2, which shares the word «thigh», read alongside this verse?
What does the repetition of “to be” (2× in this one verse) do in this verse?
These translations render this verse differently. What is at stake in choosing one wording over another?
«הָיוּ֙» is a Qal Perfect verb. How does that grammatical form shape the action described?
Compare how Trapp's Complete Commentary and Geneva Bible (1599) read this verse. Where do they agree or differ?

Things to notice

This verse counts 11 Hebrew ↔ 15 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 12 words in this verse.
“to be” occurs 2× in this single verse.
9 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 11 words in this verse.