Judges 6:3

3 For whenever the Israelites planted crops, the Midianites and ¹the Amalekites and ²the people of the East would come up 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 The people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, and the LORD gave them into the hand of Midian seven years.

2 And the hand of Midian overpowered Israel, and because of Midian the people of Israel made for themselves the dens that are in the mountains and the caves and the strongholds.

3 For whenever the Israelites planted crops, the Midianites and the Amalekites and the people of the East would come up against them.

4 They would encamp against them and devour the produce of the land, as far as Gaza, and leave no sustenance in Israel and no sheep or ox or donkey.

5 For they would come up with their livestock and their tents; they would come like locusts in number--both they and their camels could not be counted--so that they laid waste the land as they came in.

Cross References

• 1. Judges 3:13
• 2. ver. 33; Judges 7:12; Judges 8:10; Genesis 29:1; 1 Kings 4:30; Job 1:3