And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the
Lord,
&c.] After the death of Deborah and Barak, during whose life
they kept to the pure worship of God, and who, perhaps, lived
pretty near the close of the forty years' rest, or of the twenty
years from their victory over Jabin; but they dying, the children
of Israel fell into idolatry, for that that was the evil they did
appears from ( Judges 6:10 ) , even
worshipping the gods of the Amorites:
and the Lord delivered them into the hand of Midian seven
years:
this was not the Midian where Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses,
lived, which lay more southward, but that which joined to Moab,
and was more eastward. This people had been destroyed by the
Israelites in the times of Moses, in their way to the land of
Canaan, ( Numbers 31:1
) wherefore they might bear them a grudge, and now took the
opportunity to revenge themselves on them, God permitting them so
to do for their sins; and though the destruction of this people
by Israel was very general, yet as some of them might make their
escape, and afterwards return to their own land, and this being
about two hundred years ago, might, with others joining them,
repeople their country by this time, and become strong and
powerful.