Pieces. — Rather, shekels, which is the word normally understood in similar phrases (Judges 8:26). “Neither the citizens of Shechem nor the ignobly-ambitious bastard understood what true monarchy was, and still less what it ought to be in the commonwealth of Jehovah” (Ewald, ii. 389).
Out of the house of Baal-berith. — Like most temples in ancient days (e.g., that of Venus on Mount Eryx, the Parthenon, and that of Jupiter Latiaris), this served at once as a sanctuary, a fortress, and a bank. Similarly the treasures amassed at Delphi enabled the three Phocian brothers, Phayllus, Phalaekus, and Onomarchus, to support the whole burden of the sacred war (Diodor. xvi. 30; comp. Thuc. i. 121, 2:13). (Comp. also 1 Kings 15:18.)
Vain and light persons. — These are exactly analogous to the doruphoroi — a body-guard of spear-bearers, which an ambitious Greek always hired as the first step to setting up a tyranny (Diog. Laert. 1:49). We find Jephthah (Judges 11:3), and David (1 Samuel 22:2), and Absalom (2 Samuel 15:1), and Rezon (1 Kings 11:24), and Adonijah (1 Kings 1:5), and Jeroboam (2 Chronicles 13:7) doing exactly the same thing. Who these “vain” persons were is best defined in 1 Samuel 22:2. They were like the condottieri, or free-lances. The word vain (rikîm) is from the same root as Raca; it means vauriens. The word for “light persons” (pochazîm) occurs in Genesis 49:4 (applied to Reuben) and Zephaniah 3:4. It is from a root which means to boil over.