Commentaria in Judices
Chapter 8
1. And the men of Ephraim said to him: What is the meaning of this that thou wouldst do, so as not to call us when thou wentest to fight against Madian? And they chid him sharply, and almost offered violence. 2. And he answered them: What could I have done like to that which you have done? Is not a bunch of grapes of Ephraim better than the vintages of Abiezer? 3. The Lord hath delivered into your hands the princes of Madian, Oreb and Zeb: what could I do like unto that which you have done? And when he had said this, their spirit was appeased, with which they swelled against him. 4. And when Gedeon was come to the Jordan, he passed over it with the three hundred men that were with him: and they were so weary that they could not pursue them that fled. 5. And he said to the men of Soccoth: Give, I beseech you, bread to the people that is with me, because they are very faint: that we may pursue Zebee and Salmana, the kings of Madian. 6. The princes of Soccoth answered: Perhaps the palms of the hands of Zebee and Salmana are in thy hand, and therefore thou demandest that we should give bread to thy army. 7. And he said to them: When the Lord therefore shall have delivered Zebee and Salmana into my hands, I will thresh your flesh with thorns and briers of the desert. 8. And going up from thence he came to Phanuel: and he spoke to the men of that place in like manner. And they also answered him as the men of Soccoth had answered. 9. So he said to them also: When I shall return a conqueror in peace, I will break down this tower. 10. Now Zebee and Salmana were at rest with all their army: for fifteen thousand men were left of all the troops of the eastern people, and a hundred and twenty thousand fighting men that drew the sword were slain. 11. And Gedeon went up by the way of them that dwelt in tents on the east side of Nobe and Jegbaa, and smote the camp of the enemies, who were secure, and suspected no harm. 12. And Zebee and Salmana fled: and Gedeon pursued after them, and took them, having thrown all their army into disorder.
13. And returning from the battle before the sun was up, 14. he took a boy of the men of Soccoth: and he asked him the names of the princes and ancients of Soccoth, and he described seventy-seven men. 15. And he came to Soccoth, and said to them: Behold Zebee and Salmana, concerning whom you upbraided me, saying: Perhaps the palms of the hands of Zebee and Salmana are in thy hands, and therefore thou demandest that we should give bread to the men that are weary and have fainted. 16. So he took the ancients of the city, and thorns of the desert and briers, and with them he tore in pieces and threshed the men of Soccoth. 17. The tower also of Phanuel he beat down, and slew the men of the city. 18. And he said to Zebee and Salmana: What manner of men were they whom you slew in Thabor? They answered: They were like thee, and one of them like the son of a king. 19. He answered them: They were my brethren, the sons of my mother: as the Lord liveth, if you had saved them, I would not kill you. 20. And he said to Jether his firstborn: Arise, and kill them. But he drew not his sword: for he was afraid, because he was yet a boy. 21. And Zebee and Salmana said: Do thou rise, and fall upon us: because according to the age is the strength of a man. Gedeon arose, and slew Zebee and Salmana: and he took the ornaments and bossettes, wherewith the necks of the kings’ camels are wont to be adorned. 22. And all the men of Israel said to Gedeon: Rule thou over us, and thy son, and thy son’s son: because thou hast delivered us from the hand of Madian. 23. And he said to them: I will not rule over you, neither shall my son rule over you, but the Lord shall rule over you. 24. And he said to them: I desire one petition of you: Give me the earrings of your spoil. (For the Ismaelites were accustomed to wear golden earrings.) 25. They answered: We will give thee most willingly. And spreading a mantle on the ground, they cast upon it the earrings of the spoil. 26. And the weight of the earrings that he requested was a thousand seven hundred sicles of gold, besides the ornaments, and jewels, and purple raiment, which the kings of Madian were wont to use, and besides the golden chains of the camels. 27. And Gedeon made an ephod thereof, and put it in his city Ephra. And all Israel committed fornication with it, and it became a ruin to Gedeon, and to all his house. 28. But Madian was humbled before the children of Israel, neither could they lift up their necks any more: but the land rested for forty years, during which Gedeon ruled. 29. So Jerobaal the son of Joas went, and dwelt in his own house: 30. and he had seventy sons, who came out of his thigh, for he had many wives. 31. And his concubine, that he had in Sichem, bore him a son called Abimelech. 32. And Gedeon the son of Joas died in a good old age, and was buried in the sepulchre of his father Joas in Ephra, of the family of Ezri. 33. But after Gedeon was dead, the children of Israel turned away, and committed fornication with Baalim. And they made a covenant with Baal, that he should be their god: 34. and they remembered not the Lord their God, who delivered them out of the hands of all their enemies round about. 35. Neither did they show mercy to the house of Jerobaal Gedeon, according to all the good things he had done to Israel.
1. AND THE MEN OF EPHRAIM SAID TO HIM, ETC., CHIDING HIM SHARPLY.—For the Ephraimites were arrogant on account of their tribe, because it had been preferred by Jacob to the tribe of Manasses, from which Gedeon came. They therefore chide him because he had not called them to the war, especially since the Ephraimites were joined to the Manassites by a closer bond of kinship than to the other tribes, because Ephraim and Manasses, the fathers of these tribes, were the immediate sons of Joseph, who was the brother of Juda, Ruben, Gad, and the rest, from whom the other eleven tribes descended. For Joseph, one of the twelve Patriarchs, established not one tribe, like his other brothers, but two.
2. AND HE ANSWERED THEM: WHAT COULD I HAVE DONE LIKE WHAT YOU HAVE DONE?—who, pursuing the fugitives, slew a great many of the Madianites at the Jordan, almost beyond number, and their princes Oreb and Zeb, as was said from the preceding chapter, verse 24. Gedeon said this wisely, so as to quiet the quarrel with a modest and gentle reply, according to that saying: “A mild answer breaketh wrath,” Prov. 15:4.
Gedeon therefore teaches here that an adversary’s pride and contention are appeased by nothing more than by humbling yourself before him, praising him, and preferring him to yourself. He who does this is wise and magnanimous. For Philemon truly says in the Ecdicazomenos: “Nothing is more agreeable, he says, nor more worthy of a learned man, than to be able to bear with one who reviles.” And Ovid, book 3 of the Tristia:
The greater a man is, the more easily his anger is appeased, and a generous mind admits gentle impulses.
Hence Josephus, book 5, chap. 8, says: “More,” he says, “did this gentle answer of Gedeon profit than the Madianite victory.”
IS NOT THE CLUSTER OF EPHRAIM BETTER THAN THE VINTAGES OF ABIEZER?—This is a proverb with the same meaning, as the Chaldee explains: the weakest of the tribes of Ephraim are more excellent than the strongest of my family of Abiezer. Or rather, as if to say: The few persons slain by the Ephraimites, namely Oreb and Zeb, the princes of Madian, are to be valued more than all the Madianites whom we Manassites slew. Third, and best, Gedeon metaphorically calls his own victory a vintage, and the rest of the victory a gleaning, that is, the grapes that are gathered after the vintage: as if to say: My victory was like a vintage gathering grapes from a full vineyard, for thus I slew and threw into confusion all the camp of Madian; but your pursuit, in which you followed and slew them as they fled from me in disorder, was like a gleaning after the vintage, that is, after the victory; yet this gleaning of yours is worth more than my victory, both because you slew the very princes of Madian, and because you cut down very many of the common soldiers. So Arias, Abulensis, and others.