Judges 4:3

3 And the sons of Israel cried to the Lord; for Jabin had nine hundred iron chariots, full of weapons, sharp as scythes, and twenty years he oppressed Israel greatly. (And the Israelites cried to the Lord; for Jabin had nine hundred iron chariots, full of weapons, sharp as scythes, and for twenty years he greatly oppressed Israel.)

Judges 4:3 Meaning and Commentary

Judges 4:3

And the children of Israel cried unto the Lord
Because of their hard bondage, and begged deliverance from it, being brought to a sense of their sins, and humbled for them:

for he had nine hundred chariots of iron;
the same with the (armata) (to drepanhfora) , chariots which carried scythes at the side of them, fastened to the orbs of the wheels ^F24, and were on both sides; and in some stood out ten cubits ^F25 which running furiously among the infantry, cut them to pieces in a terrible manner; of which Cyrus had in his army at first but an hundred, afterwards increased to three hundred ^F26; and yet here a petty prince of Canaan had nine hundred of them; and which Josephus ^F1 has increased, beyond all belief, to the number of three thousand; which struck great terror into the Israelites, and who therefore durst not attempt to shake off his yoke, but cried to the Lord for help:

and twenty years he mightily oppressed the children of Israel;
as they increased their sins, and repeated their revolts, the Lord increased their oppressions, and continued them the longer; the first was only eight years, the next eighteen, and this twenty, and which was a very heavy one; the other being foreign princes that oppressed them, but this a Canaanitish king, an implacable enemy, and who doubtless used them the more severely for what they had done to his ancestors, killed his father or grandfather, burnt the city of Hazor, and destroyed the inhabitants of it in Joshua's time; and the servitude was the harder, and the more intolerable to the Israelites, that they were under a people whose land had been given them to possess, and whom they had expelled, and now were become subject to them.

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FOOTNOTES:

F24 Vid. Suidam in voce (drepanhfora) .
F25 Curtius, l. 4. c. 9, 12, 15. Liv. Hist. l. 37. c. 41.
F26 Xenophon. Cyropaedia, l. 6. c. 13.
F1 Antiqu. l. 5. c. 5. sect. 1.

Judges 4:3 In-Context

1 And the sons of Israel added to do evil in the sight of the Lord, after the death of Ehud. (And the Israelites did more evil before the Lord, after the death of Ehud.)

2 And the Lord betook them into the hands of Jabin, king of Canaan, that reigned in Hazor; and he had a duke of his host, Sisera by name; and he dwelled in Harosheth of heathen men. (And the Lord delivered them into the hands of Jabin, the king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor; and he had a leader of his army, who was named Sisera; and he lived in Harosheth of the heathen.)

3 And the sons of Israel cried to the Lord; for Jabin had nine hundred iron chariots, full of weapons, sharp as scythes, and twenty years he oppressed Israel greatly. (And the Israelites cried to the Lord; for Jabin had nine hundred iron chariots, full of weapons, sharp as scythes, and for twenty years he greatly oppressed Israel.)

4 And Deborah was a prophetess, the wife of Lapidoth, the which Deborah deemed the people of Israel in that time;

5 and she sat under a palm tree, that was called by her name, betwixt Ramah and Bethel, in the hill of Ephraim; and the sons of Israel went up to her at each doom. (and she sat under a palm tree, that was named after her, between Ramah and Bethel, in the hill country of Ephraim; and the Israelites went up to her for judgements.)