A thousand and seven hundred shekels of gold. — About seventy pounds of gold. This would imply a very large number of nose-rings or earrings (Genesis 24:22), and therefore a slaughter of many leading Midianites. It is analogous to the “three bushels of knights’ rings” which Mago carried to Carthage, and emptied upon the floor of the Carthaginian Senate, after the massacre of the Romans at Cannae (Liv. xxiii. 12).
Beside ornaments. — Rather, beside the golden crescents (Judges 8:21). Gideon seems to have gratified his love of vengeance, as goel, before he thought of booty.
And collars. — Marg., sweet jewels. Rather, and the eardrops (netiphoth, Isaiah 3:19). Wellsted, in his Travels in Arabia, says that the Arab women are accustomed to load themselves and their children with earrings and ornaments, of which he sometimes counted as many as fifteen on each side.
Purple raiment. — Comp. Exodus 25:4.