Judges 8:34

And the children of Israel remembered not the LORD their God, who had delivered them out of the hands of all their enemies on every side:

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(34) Remembered not the Lord their God.—According to Judges 9:46, they looked on Baal as their Elohim, and forgot that Jehovah was the one God. There was always this tendency to syncretism, as a half-way step towards idolatry. Zephaniah (Judges 1:5) mentions them “that swear by the Lord, and that swear by Malcham” (i.e., Moloch), and the Samaritans “feared the Lord and served their own gods” (2Kings 17:33).

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

8:29-35 As soon as Gideon was dead, who kept the people to the worship of the God of Israel, they found themselves under no restraint; then they went after Baalim, and showed no kindness to the family of Gideon. No wonder if those who forget their God, forget their friends. Yet conscious of our own ingratitude to the Lord, and observing that of mankind in general, we should learn to be patient under any unkind returns we meet with for our poor services, and resolve, after the Divine example, not to be overcome of evil, but to overcome evil with good.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Turned again - Doubtless Gideon himself had no doubt prepared the way for this apostacy by his unauthorized ephod. The Law of Moses, with its strict unity of priesthood and altar, was the divinely-appointed and only effectual preservative from idolatry.

Baal-bereth - The god of covenants or sworn treaties, corresponding to the Zeus Orkius of the Greeks. The center of this fresh apostacy was at Shechem.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

Jud 8:28. Midian Subdued.

28. Thus was Midian subdued before the children of Israel—This invasion of the Arab hordes into Canaan was as alarming and desolating as the irruption of the Huns into Europe. It was the severest scourge ever inflicted upon Israel; and both it and the deliverance under Gideon lived for centuries in the minds of the people (Ps 83:11).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

No text from Poole on this verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And the children of Israel remembered not the Lord their God,.... Or, as the Targum, the worship of the Lord their God; they forgot him, and forsook him, which showed base ingratitude:

who had delivered them out of the hands of their enemies on every side; not only out of the hands of Midian, but all other nations round about them, as Edom, Moab, Ammon, &c. not one attempting to oppress them.

Geneva Study Bible

And the children of Israel remembered not the LORD their God, who had delivered them out of the hands of all their enemies on every side:

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Judges 8:34

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

In this relapse into the worship of Baal they not only forgot Jehovah, their Deliverer from all their foes, but also the benefits which they owed to Gideon, and showed no kindness to his house in return for all the good which he had shown to Israel. The expression Jerubbaal-Gideon is chosen by the historian here, not for the purely outward purpose of laying express emphasis upon the identity of Gideon and Jerubbaal (Bertheau), but to point to what Gideon, the Baal-fighter, had justly deserved from the people of Israel.