over the innumerable army of the foe. Having been called by the Lord to be the deliverer and judge of Israel, it was Gideon's duty to punish the faithless cities.
Verses 18-21
After punishing these cities, Gideon repaid the two kings of Midian, who had been taken prisoners, according to their doings. From the judicial proceedings instituted with regard to them (Jdg 8:18, Jdg 8:19), we learn that these kings had put the brothers of Gideon to death, and apparently not in open fight; but they had murdered them in an unrighteous and cruel manner. And Gideon made them atone for this with their own lives, according to the strict jus talionis. איפה, in Jdg 8:18, does not mean where? but “in what condition, of what form, were the men whom he slew at Tabor?” i.e., either in the city of Tabor or at Mount Tabor (see Jdg 4:6, and Jos 19:22). The kings replied: “As thou so they” (those men), i.e., they were all as stately as thou art, “every one like the form of kings' sons.” אחד, one, for every one, like אחד אישׁ in 2Ki 15:20, or more frequently אישׁ alone. As the men who had been slain were Gideon's own brothers, he swore to those who had done the deed, i.e., to the two kings, “As truly as Jehovah liveth, if ye had let them live I should not have put you to death;” and then commanded his first-born son Jether to slay them, for the purpose of adding the disgrace of falling by the hand of a boy. “But the boy drew not his sword from fear, because he was yet a boy.” And the kings then said to Gideon, “Rise thou and stab us, for as the man so is his strength,” i.e., such strength does not belong to a boy, but to a man. Thereupon Gideon slew them, and took the little moons upon the necks of their camels as booty. “The little moons” were crescent-shaped ornaments of silver or gold, such as men and women wore upon their necks (see Jdg 8:26, and Isa 3:18), and which they also hung upon the necks of camels-a custom still prevalent in Arabia (see Schröder, de vestitu mul. hebr. pp. 39, 40, and Wellsted, Reisen in Arab. i. p. 209).
Verses 22-23
Gideon's Remaining Acts, and Death. - Jdg 8:22, Jdg 8:23. As Gideon had so gloriously delivered Israel from the severe and long oppression on the part of the Midianites, the Israelites offered him an hereditary crown. “The men of Israel” were hardly all the twelve tribes, but probably only the northern tribes of the western part of the land already mentioned in Jdg 6:35, who had suffered the most severely from the Midianitish oppression, and had been the first to gather round Gideon to make an attack upon the foe. The temptation to accept the government of Israel was resisted
