Judges 8:15

And he came unto the men of Succoth, and said, Behold Zebah and Zalmunna, with whom ye did upbraid me, saying, Are the hands of Zebah and Zalmunna now in thine hand, that we should give bread unto thy men that are weary?

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(15) That are weary.—The addition of these words enhances the guilt of these elders, though the exhaustion of Gideon’s force may have seemed to them a reason for alarm, lest their pursuit should end in rout.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

8:13-17 The active servants of the Lord meet with more dangerous opposition from false professors than from open enemies; but they must not care for the behaviour of those who are Israelites in name, but Midianites in heart. They must pursue the enemies of their souls, and of the cause of God, though they are ready to faint through inward conflicts and outward hardships. And they shall be enabled to persevere. The less men help, and the more they seek to hinder, the more will the Lord assist. Gideon's warning being slighted, the punishment was just. Many are taught with the briers and thorns of affliction, who would not learn otherwise.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The written (see the margin) list would enable Gideon to punish the guilty and spare the innocent people. Succoth was governed by a sanhedrim or council of seventy elders (compare Numbers 11:16), with perhaps seven others of superior rank called princes.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

14. he described—wrote the names of the seventy princes or elders. It was from them he had received so inhospitable a treatment.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

No text from Poole on this verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And he came unto the men of Succoth,.... Entered the city, and bespoke the inhabitants of it in the following manner:

and said, behold, Zebah and Zalmunna, with whom ye did upbraid me; as not in his hands, and never would be, he being with his three hundred men an unequal match to them with 15,000; but he had taken them, and brought them with him, and perhaps spared them for this very reason, to let them see they were in his hands, and now calls upon them to behold them with their own eyes, concerning whom they had flouted and jeered him:

saying, are the hands of Zebah and Zalmunna now in thy hand, that we should give bread unto thy men that are weary? he delivers their own express words, which he had carefully observed and laid up in his memory, for their greater conviction and confusion; only adds the character of his men, that they were "weary", to expose their vile ingratitude the more, that they should refuse them a few loaves of bread, who were faint and weary in the service of them.

Geneva Study Bible

And he came unto the men of Succoth, and said, Behold Zebah and Zalmunna, with whom ye did upbraid me, saying, Are the hands of Zebah and Zalmunna now in thine hand, that we should give bread unto thy men that are weary?

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 15. - The men of Succoth. Meaning the princes and elders. Judges 8:15

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Gideon then reproached the elders with the insult they had offered him (Judges 8:6), and had them punished with desert thorns and thistles. "Men of Succoth" (Judges 8:15 and Judges 8:16) is a general expression for "elders of Succoth" (Judges 8:16); and elders a general term applied to all the representatives of the city, including the princes. אתי חרפתּם אשׁר, with regard to whom ye have despised me. אשׁר is the accusative of the more distant or second object, not the subject, as Stud. supposes. "And he taught the men of Succoth (i.e., caused them to know, made them feel, punished them) with them (the thorns)." There is no good ground for doubting the correctness of the reading ויּדע. The free renderings of the lxx, Vulg., etc., are destitute of critical worth; and Bertheau's assertion, that if it were the Hiphil it would be written יודע, is proved to be unfounded by the defective writing in Numbers 16:5; Job 32:7.