Jdg 8:4-5
When he came to the Jordan with his three hundred men, who were exhausted with the pursuit, he asked the inhabitants of Succoth for loaves of bread for the people in his train. So far as the construction is concerned, the words from עבר to ורדפים form a circumstantial clause inserted as a parenthesis into the principal sentence, and subordinate to it: “When Gideon came to the Jordan, passing over he and the three hundred men ... then he said to the men of Succoth.” “Exhausted and pursuing,” i.e., exhausted with pursuing. The vav is explanatory, lit. “and indeed pursuing,” for “because he pursued.” The rendering πεινῶντες adopted by the lxx in the Cod. Alex. is merely an arbitrary rendering of the word רדפים, and without any critical worth. Gideon had crossed the Jordan, therefore, somewhere in the neighbourhood of Succoth. Succoth was upon the eastern side of the valley of the Jordan (Jos 13:27), not opposite to Bethshean, but, according to Gen 33:17, on the south side of the Jabbok (Zerka).