early versions and the Rabbins, probably “such as grow upon stony ground” (Bertheau). The explanation “threshing machines with stones or flints underneath them,” which was suggested by J. D. Michaelis and Celsius, and adopted by Gesenius, cannot be sustained.
Verses 8-9
The inhabitants of Pnuel on the north bank of the Jabbok (see at Gen 32:24.) behaved in the same churlish manner to Gideon, and for this he also threatened them: “If I return in peace,” i.e., unhurt, “I will destroy this tower” (probably the castle of Pnuel).
Verses 10-12
The Midianitish kings were at Karkor with all the remnant of their army, about fifteen thousand men, a hundred and twenty thousand having already fallen. Gideon followed them thither by the road of the dwellers in tents on the east of Nobah and Jogbeha; and falling upon them unawares, smote the whole camp, which thought itself quite secure, and took the two kings prisoners, after discomfiting all the camp. The situation of Karkor, which is only mentioned here, cannot be determined with certainty. The statement of Eusebius and Jerome (Onom. s. v. Καρκὰ, Carcar), that it was the castle of Carcaria, a day's journey from Petra, is decidedly wrong, since this castle is much too far to the south, as Gesenius (Thes. p. 1210) has shown. Karkor cannot have been very far from Nobah and Jogbeha. These two places are probably preserved in the ruins of Nowakis and Jebeiha, on the north-west of Ammân (Rabbath-ammon; see at Num 21:31). Now, as Burckhardt (Syr. p. 612) also mentions a ruin in the neighbourhood, called Karkagheisch, on the left of the road from Szalt to Ammân, and at the most an hour and a half to the north-west of Ammân, Knobel (on Num 32:42) is inclined to regard this ruin as Karkor. If this supposition could be proved to be correct, Gideon would have fallen upon the camp of the enemy from the north-east. For “the way of the dwellers in tents on the east of Nobah and Jogbeha” cannot well be any other than the way which ran to the east of Nobah and Jogbeha, past the most easterly frontier city of the Gadites, to the nomads who dwelt in the desert. באללים השּׁכוּני has the article attached to the governing noun, which may easily be explained in this instance from the intervening preposition. The passive participle שׁכוּן has an intransitive force (see Ewald, §149, a.). The verb החריד in the circumstantial clause acquires the force of the pluperfect from the context. When he had startled the camp out of its security, having alarmed it by his unexpected attack, he succeeded in taking the two kings prisoners.
