And Gideon said. — Notice in this verse the mixture of heroic faith and barbarous severity. It was this courage and faith (Hebrews 11:32) which ennobled Gideon and made him an example for all time. The ruthlessness of the punishment which he threatened to inflict belongs to the wild times in which he lived, and the very partial spiritual enlightenment of an imperfect dispensation (Matthew 5:21; Matthew 19:8; Acts 17:30). It is no more to be held up for approval or imitation than his subsequent degeneracy; while, at the same time, Gideon must, of course, be only judged by such light as he had.
I will tear your flesh. — Rather, as in the margin, I will thresh (LXX., aloçso, which is better than the other reading, kataxano, “will card”; Vulg., conteram). It has usually been supposed that they were scourged with thorns, which would be terrible enough; but the verb here used is stronger, and seems to imply that they were “put under harrows” after thorns and briers had been scattered over them. That Gideon should inflict a retribution so awful cannot be surprising if we remember that David seems to have done the same (2 Samuel 12:31; 1 Chronicles 20:3; Amos 1:3). In this case, however, the torture was more terrible, because it was inflicted not on aliens, but on Israelites. It must be borne in mind that every man is largely influenced by the spirit of the age in which he lives, and that in the East to this day there is (1) far greater indifference than there is in Europe to the value of human life, and (2) far greater insensibility to the infliction of pain; so that the mere mention of punishments inflicted, even in this century, by such men as Djezzar and Mehemet Ali makes the blood run cold. It was only by slow degrees that (as we can trace in the writings of their prophets and historians) the Jews learnt that deeper sense of humanity which it was certainly the object of many precepts of the Mosaic Law to inspire. The defections of Succoth and Penuel were even worse than that indifference of Meroz which had called forth the bitter curse of Judges 5:23.
With the thorns of the wilderness. — These thorns (kotsim) are again mentioned in Hosea 10:8. Rabbi Tanchum could not explain what plant was meant. It is not impossible (as Kimchi suggests) that the form of the punishment was suggested by another wild play on words; for Succoth (סֻכּוֹת), though it means “booths,” suggests the idea of “thorns” (סכות),
Briers. — This word, barkanim, which the LXX. merely transliterate, occurs nowhere else. The Rabbis rightly understood it of thorny plants which grow among stones. Some modern Hebraists explain it to mean harrows formed of flints, deriving it from an obsolete word, barkan, “lightning” (see on Judges 4:6), and so meaning “pyrites.” In that case we must suppose that the elders were laid on some open area, and harrows set with flints driven over them.