Jdg 7:2-3
The army of the Israelites amounted to 32,000 men (Jdg 7:4), but that of the Midianites and their allies was about 135,000 (Jdg 8:10), so that they were greatly superior to the Israelites in numbers. Nevertheless the Lord said to Gideon, “The people that are with thee are too many for me to give Midian into their hands, lest Israel vaunt themselves against me, saying, My hand hath helped me.” רב followed by מן is to be understood as a comparative. Gideon was therefore to have a proclamation made before all the people: “Whosoever is fearful and despondent, let him turn and go back from Mount Gilead.” The ἁπ. λεγ. צפר, judging from the Arabic, which signifies to plait, viz., hair, ropes, etc., and the noun צפירה, a circle or circuitous orbit, probably signifies to twist one’s self round; hence in this instance to return in windings, to slink away in bypaths. The expression “from Mount Gilead,” however, is very obscure. The mountain (or the mountains) of Gilead was on the eastern side of the Jordan; but the Israelitish army was encamped in or near the plain of Jezreel, in the country to the west of the Jordan, and had been gathered from the western tribes alone; so that even the inadmissible rendering, Let him turn and go home to the mountains of Gilead, would not give any appropriate sense. The only course left therefore is either to pronounce it an error of the text, as Clericus and Bertheau have done, and to regard “Gilead” as a mistake for “Gilboa,” or to conclude that there was also a mountain or mountain range named Gilead by the plain of Jezreel in western Palestine, just as, according to Jos 15:10, there was a mountain, or range of mountains, called Seir, in the territory of Judah, of which nothing further is known. The appeal which Gideon is here directed to make to the army was prescribed in the law (Deu 20:8) for every war in which the Israelites should be engaged, and its general object was to fortify the spirit of the army be removing the cowardly and desponding. But in the case before us the intention of the Lord was to deprive His people of all ground for self-glorification. Hence the result of the appeal was one which Gideon himself certainly did not expect, - namely, that more than two-thirds of the soldiers gathered round him - 22,000 men of the people - turned back, and only 10,000 remained.