Judges 6:3

3 So it was, whenever Israel had sown, Midianites would come up; also Amalekites and the 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.

---

FOOTNOTES:

F2 Antiqu. l. 5. c. 6. sect. 1.

Judges 6:3 In-Context

1 Then the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord. So the Lord delivered them into the hand of Midian for seven years,

2 and the hand of Midian prevailed against Israel. Because of the Midianites, the children of Israel made for themselves the dens, the caves, and the strongholds which are in the mountains.

3 So it was, whenever Israel had sown, Midianites would come up; also Amalekites and the people of the East would come up against them.

4 Then they would encamp against them and destroy the produce of the earth as far as Gaza, and leave no sustenance for Israel, neither sheep nor ox nor donkey.

5 For they would come up with their livestock and their tents, coming in as numerous as locusts; both they and their camels were without number; and they would enter the land to destroy it.