Judges 8:25

25 "We will willingly give them," they answered. So they spread a garment, and each threw into it an earring he had taken as booty.

Judges 8:25 Meaning and Commentary

Judges 8:25

And they answered, we will willingly give them
Or, "in giving we will give" ^F4; give them with all their hearts, most freely and cheerfully:

and they spread a garment, and did cast therein every man the earrings
of his prey;
every man one, which would amount to no more than three hundred; though perhaps those who joined in the pursuit might take many more, or otherwise the weight of them would not amount to what in the next verse they are said to weigh.

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FOOTNOTES:

F4 (Ntn Nwtn) "dando dabimus", Pagninus, Montanus.

Judges 8:25 In-Context

23 Gideon said to them, "I will not rule over you, and my son will not rule over you; the Lord will rule over you."

24 Then Gideon said to them, "Let me make a request of you; each of you give me an earring he has taken as booty." (For the enemy had golden earrings, because they were Ishmaelites.)

25 "We will willingly give them," they answered. So they spread a garment, and each threw into it an earring he had taken as booty.

26 The weight of the golden earrings that he requested was one thousand seven hundred shekels of gold (apart from the crescents and the pendants and the purple garments worn by the kings of Midian, and the collars that were on the necks of their camels).

27 Gideon made an ephod of it and put it in his town, in Ophrah; and all Israel prostituted themselves to it there, and it became a snare to Gideon and to his family.