2. What have I done now to you? The received text says “like you,” but many manuscripts show “to” (literally, “in” or “against”). An error in copying may have been triggered by “what could I have done like you” in verse 3.

Are not the gleanings of Ephraim’s grapes better than the vintage of Abiezer? Gideon now exhibits a new skill as a leader—the shrewd use of persuasive rhetoric. The Ephraimites had been resentful because Gideon did not summon them to fight in the first stage of the conflict with Midian. He responds with a pointed aphorism that would have spoken to any viticulturist: Ephraim, having been responsible for the capture and execution of Oreb and Zeeb, is so much superior to Gideon’s clan, Abiezer, that the stray grapes it leaves behind in the harvest are better than what Abiezer actually harvests in the vineyard.

5. the Midianite kings. It is improbable that Midian would have more than one king, so the term appears to be used loosely here to mean “leader.”

6. Is the palm of Zebah and Zalmunna already in your hand. Given the extended period during which the Israelites were painfully vulnerable to the Midianites, the town elders don’t really believe that Gideon will subdue this enemy, and so, in fear of Midianite retribution, they do not want to offer him aid. Amit proposes that the palm is mentioned because of a practice, attested among the Egyptians, of slicing off the palms of a defeated enemy.

7. I will harrow your flesh with the thorns. This fierce declaration—the literal sense of the Hebrew verb used is “thresh”—and of the matching one to the elders of Penuel is less a matter of personal vengeance than of military justice: the failure to give provisions to an army that is in desperate need is an act of treason and will be punished as such.

11. the road of the tent dwellers. These would be encampments of nomads (still evident in the Jordan Valley)—Gideon is heading into desert country.

thought itself secure. “Thought itself” is merely implied in the Hebrew.

14. the lad wrote down for him the notables and the elders of Succoth. The captive boy is constrained to be an informer. Though it is likely that literacy at this moment in the history of Israel was limited to a privileged elite, the writer evidently assumed that it was sufficiently widespread that he could attribute the skill of writing to a random lad seized by Gideon.

15. give bread to your famished men. Gideon, in his verbatim repetition of the words of the notables, adds a single telling word, “famished,” which was used by the narrator but not by them, and changes “army” to “men.” That is to say: to famished fighting men you were brazen enough to deny food.

16. harrowed with them the men of Succoth. Given that he goes on to kill the elders of Penuel, we may infer that the same fatal result is achieved at Succoth by the harrowing—a slow and painful death. In the Masoretic Text, the verb used appears to mean “cause to know” (hence the bizarre King James Version, in which Gideon “taught” the elders with thorns and thistle). The Septuagint shows “harrowed” (a difference of one consonant in the Hebrew), which is the likely reading.

18. They were just like you, like princes in their features. The Midianite kings imagine that they are flattering Gideon, but in divulging the family resemblance, they pronounce their own death sentence. By the ethic of family blood vengeance, he now feels obliged to kill them.

19. my mother’s sons. And not the sons of any other of my father’s wives. The connection, then, with Gideon is a strong one because these were not merely half brothers.

20. Jether his firstborn. Blood vengeance is a family affair, and so Gideon wants his firstborn to carry out the sentence. He may also want to toughen him to killing, which is, in a sense, the family business.

he was afraid. He was afraid, of course, not of the captive (and probably fettered) kings but of the act of stabbing them.

21. You rise and stab us, for as the man, so is his valor. Killing is a grown man’s business for both sides in the martial code of this story. They also may assume that a proven warrior like Gideon will finish them off with one swift blow.

the crescent ornaments. This detail is proleptic of the agreement to which he comes with his men.

23. I will not rule over you nor will my son rule over you. The LORD will rule over you. This emphatic repetition of their proposal that he establish a dynasty reflects an ideology circulating in premonarchic Israel, and which will still be maintained by the prophet Samuel. The vehicle of the LORD’s rule is the spirit, or charisma, with which He invests the ad hoc leaders of Israel.

24. And Gideon said to them. This repetition of the formula for introducing dialogue without an intervening response from the second party in the dialogue indicates that they are baffled, or perhaps even angered, by his refusal to accept their offer of kingship. Gideon realizes that he now has to propose something to placate or reassure them, but what he proposes proves to be disastrous.

rings. These are earrings or nose-rings, not rings worn on the finger.

as they were Ishmaelites. Ishmaelite and Midianite are often interchangeable terms. These semi-nomadic folk were evidently known for wearing golden ornaments.

27. Gideon made them into an ephod. The clear allusion in this episode is to Aaron’s fashioning the Golden Calf from the golden ornaments that he collects from the Israelites. In other contexts, the ephod is a priestly breastplate or an oracular device. The latter function may come into play here. In any case, the declaration that Israel “went whoring after it” clearly indicates it was treated as a sacred icon to be worshipped instead of God.

31. Abimelech. This name, which had some general currency (see Genesis 20), incorporates the element melekh, “king,” the very role that Gideon rejected when it was offered but that this reprobate son will try to arrogate for himself. Although Gideon himself dies in ripe old age, retribution, perhaps for making the ephod, overtakes his offspring through the malefic agency of Abimelech.