Judges 6:3

3 For it was when Israel had sown, that the Midianites would come up with the Amalekites and the sons of the east and go against them.

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 Then the sons of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the LORD ; and the LORD gave them into the hands of Midian seven years.

2 The power of Midian prevailed against Israel. Because of Midian the sons of Israel made for themselves the dens which were in the mountains and the caves and the strongholds.

3 For it was when Israel had sown, that the Midianites would come up with the Amalekites and the sons of the east and go against them.

4 So they would camp against them and destroy the produce of the earth as far as Gaza, and leave no sustenance in Israel as well as no sheep, ox, or donkey.

5 For they would come up with their livestock and their tents, they would come in like locusts for number, both they and their camels were innumerable ; and they came into the land to devastate it.

Footnotes

• [a] Lit "go up"