The people made him head and captain. — The people ratified the promise of the elders, and solemnly inaugurated him as both the civil and military leader of the Trans-jordanic tribes.
Uttered all his words. — It probably means that he took some oath as to the condition of his government.
Before the Lord in Mizpeh. — Some have supposed that this must mean that the oath was taken before the Tabernacle or Ark, or Urim and Thummim, because the phrase has this meaning elsewhere (Exodus 34:34; Joshua 18:8; and infra, Judges 20:26; Judges 21:2); — and consequently that the scene of this covenant must be the Western Mizpeh, in Benjamin (Joshua 18:26; 1Ma. 3:46, “for in Maspha was the place where they prayed aforetime in Israel”). There are, indeed, no limits to the possible irregularities of these disturbed times, during which the priests seem to have sunk into the completest insignificance. The Ark may therefore have been transferred for a time to Mizpeh, in Benjamin (Judges 20:1), as tradition says. But if that Mizpeh had been meant, it would certainly have been specified, since the Mizpeh of our present narrative (Judges 10:17) is in Gilead. Nor is it at all likely that the High Priest would have carried the sacred Urim into the disturbed and threatened Eastern districts. “Before Jehovah” probably means nothing more than by some solemn religious utterance or ceremony; and Mizpeh in Gilead had its own sacred associations (Genesis 31:48-49).