Judges 6:1-8

Oppression and Confrontation

6:1 The Israelites did evil in the Lord’s sight, ¹  so the Lord turned them over to ²  Midian for seven years. 6:2 The Midianites ³  overwhelmed Israel. ⁴  Because of Midian the Israelites made shelters ⁵  for themselves in the hills, as well as caves and strongholds. 6:3 Whenever the Israelites planted their crops, ⁶  the Midianites, Amalekites, and the people from the east would attack them. ⁷  6:4 They invaded the land ⁸  and devoured ⁹  its crops ¹⁰  all the way to Gaza. They left nothing for the Israelites to eat, ¹¹  and they took away ¹²  the sheep, oxen, and donkeys. 6:5 When they invaded ¹³  with their cattle and tents, they were as thick ¹⁴  as locusts. Neither they nor their camels could be counted. ¹⁵  They came to devour ¹⁶  the land. 6:6 Israel was so severely weakened by Midian that the Israelites cried out to the Lord for help.

6:7 When the Israelites cried out to the Lord for help because of Midian, 6:8 he ¹⁷  sent a prophet ¹⁸  to the Israelites. He said to them, “This is what the Lord God of Israel says: ‘I brought you up from Egypt ¹⁹  and took you out of that place of slavery. ²⁰ 

[6:1]  ¹ tn Heb “in the eyes of.”

[6:1]  ² tn Heb “gave them into the hand of.”

[6:2]  ³ tn Heb “the hand of Midian.”

[6:2]  ⁴ tn Heb “The hand of Midian was strong against Israel.”

[6:2]  ⁵ tn Or possibly “secret storage places.” The Hebrew word occurs only here in the Hebrew Bible.

[6:3]  ⁶ tn Heb “Whenever Israel sowed seed.”

[6:3]  ⁷ tn Heb “Midian, Amalek, and the sons of the east would go up, they would go up against him.” The translation assumes that וְעָלוּ (vÿ’alu) is dittographic (note the following עָלָיו, ’alayv).

[6:4]  ⁸ tn Heb “They encamped against them.”

[6:4]  ⁹ tn Heb “destroyed.”

[6:4]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “the crops of the land.”

[6:4]  ¹¹ tn Heb “They left no sustenance in Israel.”

[6:4]  ¹² tn The words “they took away” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[6:5]  ¹³ tn Heb “came up.”

[6:5]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “numerous.”

[6:5]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “To them and to their camels there was no number.”

[6:5]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “destroy.” The translation “devour” carries through the imagery of a locust plague earlier in this verse.

[6:8]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “the Lord”; the proper name has been replaced by the pronoun (“he”) in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[6:8]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “a man, a prophet.” Hebrew idiom sometimes puts a generic term before a more specific designation.

[6:8]  ¹⁹ tc Some ancient witnesses read “from the land of Egypt.” מֵאֶרֶץ (me’erets, “from the land [of]”) could have been accidentally omitted by homoioarcton (note the following מִמִּצְרַיִם [mimmitsrayim, “from Egypt”]).

[6:8]  ²⁰ tn Heb “of the house of slavery.”