Study Desk

Adonai said to Gid‘on, "There are too many people with you for me to hand Midyan over to them, because I don't want Isra'el to be able to boast against me, ‘We saved ourselves by our own strength.'

Adonai said to Gid‘on, "There are still too many people. Have them come down to the water, and there I will screen them for you. If I say of anyone, ‘This one is for you,' he will go with you; and if I say, ‘This one is not for you,' he won't go with you."

When I and everyone with me blow the shofar, then you blow your shofars all around the whole camp, and shout, "For Adonai and for Gid‘on!"

All three companies blew the shofars, broke the pitchers and held the torches in their left hands, keeping their right hands free for the shofars they were blowing; and they shouted, "The sword for Adonai and for Gid‘on!"

he captured a young man from Sukkot and asked him about the chiefs and leaders of Sukkot; he wrote down for him the names of seventy-seven of them.

Then he added, "But I have this request to make of you, that each of you would give me the earrings from the booty you have taken." For the enemy soldiers had worn gold earrings, like all the other tribes descended from Yishma‘el.

and they showed no kindness toward the family of Yeruba‘al, that is, Gid‘on, to repay them for all the good he had done for Isra'el.

"Please ask all the men of Sh'khem, ‘Which is better for you — that all seventy sons of Yeruba‘al rule over you, or that one person rule over you? And remember that I am your blood relative.'"

They also gave him seventy pieces of silver from the temple of Ba‘al-B'rit; and he used these to pay good-for-nothing thugs to follow him.

He went back to his father's house in ‘Ofrah and killed his brothers the sons of Yeruba‘al, all seventy of them, on a single rock, except for Yotam Yeruba‘al's youngest son, who stayed alive because he hid himself.

Then Yotam fled, making his way to Be'er, and he lived there for fear of Avimelekh his brother.

Avimelekh was chief over Isra'el for three years.

This came about so that the crime against the seventy sons of Yeruba‘al might be avenged and the responsibility for their bloody death be placed on Avimelekh their brother, who murdered them, and on the men of Sh'khem, who helped him kill his brothers.

This is how God paid back Avimelekh for the wrong he did to his father in murdering his seventy brothers.

God also repaid the men of Sh'khem for all the wrong they had done; on them came the curse of Yotam the son of Yeruba‘al.

For eighteen years, starting that year, they oppressed and persecuted all the people of Isra'el who lived beyond the Yarden, in the territory of the Emorim, in Gil‘ad.

Yiftach answered them, "If you bring me back home to fight the army of ‘Amon, and Adonai defeats them for me, I will be your head."

Then they walked through the desert, around the territory of Edom and the territory of Mo'av, past the east border of the territory of Mo'av, and pitched camp on the other side of the Arnon; but they did not cross the border into Mo'av, for the Arnon was the border of Mo'av.

You should just keep the territory your god K'mosh has given you; while we, for our part, will hold onto whatever Adonai our God has given us of the lands that belonged to others before us.

Isra'el lived in Heshbon and its villages, in ‘Aro‘er and its villages and in all the cities on the banks of the Arnon for three hundred years. Why didn't you take them back during that time?