Judges 6:3

3 Whenever the Israelites planted seeds, the Midianites, Amalekites, and other easterners would invade.

Judges 6:3 Meaning and Commentary

Judges 6:3

And so it was, when Israel had sown
Their land, and it was grown up, and near being ripe, or quite; for the Midianites gave them no disturbance in the winter, and during seedtime, when they came out of their lurking holes, and manured their land, and sowed it:

that the Midianites came up;
into the land of Canaan, from the other side Jordan, where their country lay, and which it seems lay lower than the land of Israel:

and the Amalekites, and the children of the east:
the former were implacable enemies of Israel, and on every occasion would join other nations in oppressing them; and the children of the east were Arabians, as Josephus ^F2 expressly affirms:

even they came up against them;
all these three sorts of people in a confederacy.

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FOOTNOTES:

F2 Antiqu. l. 5. c. 6. sect. 1.

Judges 6:3 In-Context

1 The Israelites did things that the LORD saw as evil, and the LORD handed them over to the Midianites for seven years.

2 The power of the Midianites prevailed over Israel, and because of the Midianites, the Israelites used crevices and caves in the mountains as hidden strongholds.

3 Whenever the Israelites planted seeds, the Midianites, Amalekites, and other easterners would invade.

4 They would set up camp against the Israelites and destroy the land's crops as far as Gaza, leaving nothing to keep Israel alive, not even sheep, oxen, or donkeys.

5 They would invade with their herds and tents, coming like a swarm of locusts, so that no one could count them or their camels. They came into the land to destroy it.