Judges 7:20

According to the command which they had received (Jdg 7:17), the other two tribes followed his example. "Then the three companies blew the trumpets, broke the pitchers, and held the torches in their left hands, and the trumpets in their right to blow, and cried, Sword to the Lord and Gideon! And they stood every one his place round about the camp," sc., without moving, so that the Midianites necessarily thought that there must be a numerous army advancing behind the torch-bearers. וגו ויּרץ, "and the whole army ran," i.e., there began a running hither and thither in the camp of the enemy, who had been frightened out of their night's rest by the unexpected blast of the trumpets, the noise, and the war-cry of the Israelitish warriors; "and they (the enemy) lifted up a cry (of anguish and alarm), and caused to fly" (carried off), sc., their tents (i.e., their families) and their herds, or all their possessions (cf. Jdg 6:11; Exo 9:20). The Chethibh יניסוּ is the original reading, and the Keri ינוּסוּ a bad emendation.

This chapter presents us with Gideon in the field, commanding the army of Israel, and routing the army of the Midianites, for which great exploit we found in the former chapter how he was prepared by his converse with God and his conquest of Baal. We are here told, I. What direction God gave to Gideon for the modelling of his army, by which it was reduced to 300 men (Jdg 7:1, Jdg 7:8). II. What encouragement God gave to Gideon to attack the enemy, by sending him secretly into their camp to hear a Midianite tell his dream (Jdg 7:9-15). III. How he formed his attack upon the enemy's camp with his 300 men, not to fight them, but to frighten them (Jdg 7:16-20). IV. The success of this attack; it put them to flight, and gave them a total rout, the disbanded forces, and their other neighbours, then coming in to his assistance (Jdg 7:21-25). It is a story that shines very brightly in the book of the wars of the Lord.