Jdg 5:31 31 a So shall all Thine enemies perish, O Jehovah!
But let those who love Him be like the rising of the sun in its strength.
This forms the conclusion of the song. כּן, so, refers to the whole of the song: just in the same manner as Sisera and his warriors. The rising of the sun in its strength is a striking image of the exaltation of Israel to a more and more glorious unfolding of its destiny, which Deborah anticipated as the result of this victory. With the last clause, “And the land had rest forty years” (cf. Jdg 3:11, Jdg 3:30; Jdg 8:28), the account of this event is brought to a close. 2. The Times of Gideon and His Family, and of the Judges Tola and Jair - Judges 6-10:5
In this second stage of the period of the judges, which did not extend over an entire century (only ninety-five years), Israel was only punished for its apostasy from the Lord, it is true, with a seven years’ oppression by the Midianites; but the misery which these enemies, who allied themselves with Amalekites and other Arabian hordes, brought upon both land and people, so far surpassed the pressure of the previous chastisements, that the Israelites were obliged to take refuge from the foe in ravines, caves, and strongholds of the mountains. But the more heavily the Lord punished His rebellious nation, the more gloriously did He set forth His nearness to help, and also the way which would lead to a lasting peace, and to true deliverance out of every trouble, in the manner in which He called and fitted Gideon to be its deliverer, and gave him the victory over the innumerable army of the hostile hordes, with only 300 chosen warriors. But the tendency to idolatry and to the worship of Baal had already become so strong in Israel, that even Gideon, that distinguished hero of God, who had been so marvellously called, and who refused the title of king when offered to him from genuine fidelity to the Lord, yielded to the temptation to establish for himself an unlawful worship, in a high-priestly ephod which had been prepared for his use, and thus gave the people an occasion for idolatry. For this reason his house was visited with severe judgments, which burst upon it after his death, under the three years’ reign of his son Abimelech; although, notwithstanding the deep religious and moral depravity which was manifested in the doings of Abimelech, the Lord gave His people rest for forty-five years longer after the death of Abimelech under two judges, before He punished their apostasy with fresh hostile oppressions.
The history of Gideon and his family is related very fully, because the working of the grace and righteousness of the faithful covenant God was so obviously displayed therein, that it contained a rich treasure of instruction and warning for the church of the Lord in all aGes. The account contains such an abundance of special notices of separate events and persons, as can only be explained on the supposition that the author made use of copious records which had been made by contemporaries and eye-witnesses of the events. At the same time, the separate details do not contain any such characteristic marks as will enable us to discover clearly, or determine with any certainty, the nature of the source or sources which the author employed. The only things peculiar to this narrative are the use of the prefix שׁ for אשׁר, not only in reports of the sayings of the persons engaged (Jdg 6:17), but also in the direct narrative of facts (Jdg 7:12; Jdg 8:26), and the formula לבשׁה יהוה רוּח (Jdg 6:34), which only occurs again in 1Ch 12:18; 2Ch 24:20. On the other hand, neither the interchange of ha-Elohim (Jdg 6:36, Jdg 6:39; Jdg 7:14) and Elohim (Jdg 6:40; Jdg 8:3; Jdg 9:7, Jdg 9:9,Jdg 9:13, Jdg 9:23, Jdg 9:56-57) with Jehovah, nor the use of the name Jerubbaal for Gideon (Jdg 6:32; Jdg 7:1; Jdg 8:29; Jdg 9:1-2, Jdg 9:5,Jdg 9:16, Jdg 9:19, Jdg 9:24, Jdg 9:28), nor lastly the absence of the “theocratical pragmatism” in Judg 9, contains any proof of the nature of the source employed, or even of the employment of two different sources, as these peculiarities are founded upon the contents and materials of the narrative itself.