And the Lord sent Jerubbaal. — Again the speaker only names a few of the God-sent deliverers, just the most prominent of their great and famous heroes. Gideon was surnamed Jerubbaal out of scorn and derision for the Phœnician deity: “Let Baal then strive or contend with me, Gideon.”
Bedan. — This name does not occur in the record of the “judges.” We meet with it only in 1 Chronicles 7:17, as a name of one of the descendants of Machir the Manassite, but this Bedan of the Chronicles seems to have been a person of no importance. The LXX. and the Syriac, the two most ancient versions, read, instead of Bedan, Barak. The letters forming these two names in the Hebrew are very similar, and a scribe might easily have written the one for the other, and the mistake might well have been perpetuated — at least, this is probable. The famous Hebrew commentator, Rabbi D. Kimchi, suggests Bedan is written for Ben-Dan, the son of Dan the Danite. that is. Samson. The list of Hebrew heroes in Hebrews 11:32 noticeably connects Barak with Gideon and Jephthah. Wordsworth curiously prefers to leave the unknown name of Bedan in the hero catalogue, because he argues “that in this very obscurity of the name we have a confirmation of the genuineness of the speech. A forger would not have ventured to insert a name which occurs nowhere else.”
And Samuel. — The Syriac Version substitutes Samson for Samuel, finding, doubtless, a difficulty in the quotation of his own name by the speaker. But the other versions uniformly agree with the Hebrew text, and in truth Samuel could well cite himself a signal instance of God’s loving pity in sending deliverance, conscious as he was of his own high mission. No judge had accomplished such great things for the people, and none had received more general recognition. It was a most fitting name to bring in at the close of his list.