Judges 9:17

17 for my father fought for you and risked his life to deliver you from the hand of Midian,

Judges 9:17 Meaning and Commentary

Judges 9:17

For my father fought for you
In the valley of Jezreel, and at Karkor, where with three hundred men he routed and destroyed an army of 135,000:

and adventured his life far:
which, according to our version, may seem to have respect to his going over Jordan, and following the Midianites, fleeing into their country, and fighting them at Karkor, at a great distance from his native place; but the phrase in the original text is, "he cast away his life afar" ^F5, made no account of it, exposed it to the greatest danger; or, as the Targum,

``he delivered his life as it were to destruction:''

and delivered you out of the hand of Midian;
from the oppression and bondage of the Midianites, under which they had laboured seven years.

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FOOTNOTES:

F5 (dgnm wvpn ta Klvyw) "et projecit animam suam a louge", Pagninus; "vel eminus", Montanus; so Junius & Tremellius, Piscator.

Judges 9:17 In-Context

15 But the thornbush replied, ‘If you really are anointing me as king over you, come and find refuge in my shade. But if not, may fire come out of the thornbush and consume the cedars of Lebanon.’

16 Now if you have acted faithfully and honestly in making Abimelech king, if you have done well by Jerubbaal and his family, and if you have done to him as he deserves—

17 for my father fought for you and risked his life to deliver you from the hand of Midian,

18 but you have risen up against my father’s house this day and killed his seventy sons on a single stone, and you have made Abimelech, the son of his maidservant, king over the leaders of Shechem because he is your brother—

19 if you have acted faithfully and honestly toward Jerubbaal and his house this day, then may you rejoice in Abimelech, and he in you.