Richtere 1:7

7 Toen zeide Adoni-Bezek: Zeventig koningen, met afgehouwen duimen van hun handen en van hun voeten, waren onder mijn tafel, de kruimen oplezende; gelijk als ik gedaan heb, alzo heeft mij God vergolden! En zij brachten hem te Jeruzalem, en hij stierf aldaar.

Richtere 1:7 Meaning and Commentary

Judges 1:7

And Adonibezek said
To the men of Judah, after his thumbs and toes were cut off, his conscience accusing him for what he had done to others, and being obliged to acknowledge he was righteously dealt with:

threescore and ten kings, having their thumbs and their great toes cut
off;
that is, by him, or by his orders, whom he had conquered and made captives; according to Josephus ^F7, they were seventy two; the number may be accounted for by observing, that in those times, as appears by the preceding book, every city had a king over it; and besides, these seventy kings might not be such who had had the government of so many cities, but many of them such who had reigned successively in the same city, and had fallen into the hands of this cruel and tyrannical king, one after another, and their sons also with them might be so called: and these he says

gathered [their meat] under my table:
were glad to eat of the crumbs and scraps which fell from thence, and might in their turns be put there at times for his sport and pleasure, and there be fed with the offal of his meat, as Bajazet the Turk was served by Tamerlane, who put him into an iron cage, and carried him about in it, and used him as his footstool to mount his horse, and at times fed him like a dog with crumbs from his table ^F8:

as I have done, so God hath requited me;
whether he had any knowledge of the true God, and of his justice in dealing with him according to his deserts, and had a real sense of his sin, and true repentance for it, is not certain; since the word for God is in the plural number, and sometimes used of Heathen deities, as it may be here by him; however, the righteous judgment of God clearly appears in this instance:

and they brought him to Jerusalem;
to that part of Jerusalem which belonged to the tribe of Judah; see ( Joshua 15:8 Joshua 15:63 ) ; here they brought him alive, and dying, buried him, as Josephus ^F9 says; which might be their view in carrying him thither, perceiving he was a dying man; or they had him thither to expose him as a trophy of victory, and as an example of divine justice:

and there he died:
whether through grief and vexation, or of the wounds he had received, or by the immediate hand of God, or by the hands of the Israelites, is not said; neither are improbable.

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FOOTNOTES:

F7 Antiqu. l. 5. c. 2. sect. 2.
F8 Such dogs are called (trapezhev kunev) , in Homer. Iliad. 23. ver. 173. & Odyss. 17. ver. 227.
F9 Antiqu. l. 5. c. 2. sect. 2.

Richtere 1:7 In-Context

5 En zij vonden Adoni-Bezek te Bezek, en streden tegen hem; en zij sloegen de Kanaanieten en de Ferezieten.

6 Doch Adoni-Bezek vluchtte; en zij jaagden hem na, en zij grepen hem, en hieuwen de duimen zijner handen en zijner voeten af.

7 Toen zeide Adoni-Bezek: Zeventig koningen, met afgehouwen duimen van hun handen en van hun voeten, waren onder mijn tafel, de kruimen oplezende; gelijk als ik gedaan heb, alzo heeft mij God vergolden! En zij brachten hem te Jeruzalem, en hij stierf aldaar.

8 Want de kinderen van Juda hadden tegen Jeruzalem gestreden, en hadden haar ingenomen, en met de scherpte des zwaards geslagen; en zij hadden de stad in het vuur gezet.

9 En daarna waren de kinderen van Juda afgetogen, om te krijgen tegen de Kanaanieten, wonende in het gebergte, en in het zuiden, en in de laagte.