Judges 8:4-21

The pursuit on the east of Jordan

This section is clearly not the continuation of the verses which immediately precede (see p. 68); if its antecedents are to be found in the foregoing narrative at all, we may suppose that after the panic and flight described in Judges 7:16-22, the main body of the Midianites escaped across the Jordan, and with their camels (Judges 8:21; Judges 8:26) easily outstripped their pursuers, insomuch that the men of Succoth and Penuel (Judges 8:6; Judges 8:8), and they themselves (Judges 8:11), believed that they were safely out of Gideon's reach. On the other hand, it must be admitted that the section itself presupposes a raid into Gideon's own district, where his brothers were murdered (Judges 8:18), rather than the panic and flight described in Judges 7:16-22; possibly, therefore, we have here a fragment from some independent source. In Judges 8:10 b there seems to be an attempt made to harmonize the narrative with what has gone before.