Judges 8:30

30 Gideon had seventy sons of his own, ^[a] since he had many wives.

Judges 8:30 Meaning and Commentary

Judges 8:30

And Gideon had seventy sons of his body begotten
Not after his victories, for it is plain he had children before; mention is made of Jether, his firstborn, as a youth able to draw a sword, and slay with it, ( Judges 8:20 ) but this was the number of all his sons, both before and after, and a large number it was; and the phrase "of his body begotten", or "that went out of his thigh" is used to show that they were his own sons, begotten in wedlock, and not sons that he had taken into his family by adoption, or that he was father-in-law to, having married a woman or women that had sons by a former husband; but these were all his own:

for he had many wives;
which, though not agreeable to the original law of marriage, was customary in those times, and even with good men, and was connived at; and this is a reason accounting for his having so many sons.

Judges 8:30 In-Context

28 In this way Midian was subdued before the Israelites and did not raise its head again. So the land had rest for forty years in the days of Gideon,

29 and he—Jerubbaal son of Joash—returned home and settled down.

30 Gideon had seventy sons of his own, since he had many wives.

31 His concubine, who dwelt in Shechem, also bore him a son, and he named him Abimelech.

32 Later, Gideon son of Joash died at a ripe old age and was buried in the tomb of his father Joash in Ophrah of the Abiezrites.

Footnotes

• [a] Hebrew who came from his own loins