Judges 6:5

Translations

Modern

For the Midianites came with their livestock and their tents like a great swarm of locusts. They and their camels were innumerable, and they entered the land to ravage it.

Traditional

For they came up with their cattle and their tents, and they came as grasshoppers for multitude; for both they and their camels were without number: and they entered into the land to destroy it.

Literal

For they and their livestock and their tents would come up, and they would come as the fullness of the locust for multitude. And of them and their camels was no number, and they would enter the land to destroy it.

Latin

Ipsi enim et universi greges eorum veniebant cum tabernaculis suis, et instar locustarum universa complebant, innumera multitudo hominum et camelorum, quidquid tetigerant devastantes.

Original

Hebrew

English

For the Midianites came with their livestock and their tents like a great swarm of locusts. They and their camels were innumerable, and they entered the land to ravage it.

Notes

Judges 6:5

Camels, known since around 3000 BC, are often linked to eastern nomads and their raids. This might be one of the earliest records of camels in a large military force.

Judges 6:1–6

After forty years of peace, religious blending caused political instability, and roaming nomads forced the Israelites to live as fugitives.
The Midianites, once thought to be purely nomadic and based in northwest Arabia, are now known to have built cities and, for a time, controlled much of the Arabian Peninsula and southern Transjordan (the area east of the Jordan). They are joined by the Amalekites (who were earlier part of a Moabite coalition; see study note on Judges 3:12–13) and the mysterious people of the east (compare 1 Kings 4:30; Ezekiel 25:4, 10). The attacks were seasonal but very destructive.

Theme notes and profiles

Gideon

Events

Subjugation by Midian

Related verses

Judges 7:12
Now the Midianites, Amalekites, and all the other people of the east had settled in the valley like a swarm of locusts, and their camels were as countless as the sand on the seashore.
Judges 8:10
Now Zebah and Zalmunna were in Karkor with their army of about fifteen thousand men—all that were left of the armies of the people of the east. A hundred and twenty thousand swordsmen had already fallen.
Isaiah 60:6
Caravans of camels will cover your land, young camels of Midian and Ephah, and all from Sheba will come, bearing gold and frankincense and proclaiming the praises of the LORD.
Isaiah 13:20
She will never be inhabited or settled from generation to generation; no nomad will pitch his tent there, no shepherd will rest his flock there.
Jeremiah 49:29
They will take their tents and flocks, their tent curtains and all their goods. They will take their camels for themselves. They will shout to them: ‘Terror is on every side!’
Jeremiah 49:32
Their camels will become plunder, and their large herds will be spoil. I will scatter to the wind in every direction those who shave their temples; I will bring calamity on them from all sides,” declares the LORD.
Jeremiah 46:23
They will chop down her forest, declares the LORD, dense though it may be, for they are more numerous than locusts; they cannot be counted.
Psalm 83:4–12
…saying, “Come, let us erase them as a nation; may the name of Israel be remembered no more.”
Song of Solomon 1:5
I am dark, yet lovely, O daughters of Jerusalem, like the tents of Kedar, like the curtains of Solomon.
Judges 8:21
Then Zebah and Zalmunna said, “Get up and kill us yourself, for as the man is, so is his strength.” So Gideon got up and killed Zebah and Zalmunna, and he took the crescent ornaments from the necks of their camels.
1 Samuel 30:17
And David struck them down from twilight until the evening of the next day. Not a man escaped, except four hundred young men who fled, riding off on camels.

Glossary

Amalek, Amalekites Armageddon Asher (Tribe) Camel Caravan Gilead (Place) Judges, Book of Locusts Midian, Midianite Numbers, Book of

Topics

Armies: Compared to Grasshoppers Insects: Grasshopper Locust: Translated |Grasshopper| Midianites: Allowed to Oppress Israel Tent by the Midianites Tents were Used by all Eastern Nations The Amalekites with Midian, Oppressed Israel

Judges 6:5

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Translations

Original

Notes

Events

Related verses

Glossary

Topics