So Gideon, and the hundred men that were with him, came unto the outside of the camp in the beginning of the middle watch; and they had but newly set the watch: and they blew the trumpets, and brake the pitchers that were in their hands.
Gideon ... come ... in the beginning of the middle watch. In the early period of their history the Israelites divided the night into three watches (Psalms 63:6; Psalms 90:4), the first watch extending until midnight (Lamentations 2:19), the middle watch from midnight until cock-crowing, and the morning until sunrise (Exodus 14:24).
They blew the trumpets ... The sudden blaze of the held-up lights, the loud echo of the trumpets, and the shouts of Israel-always terrible (Numbers 23:21), and now more terrible than ever by the use of such striking words-broke through the stillness of the midnight air; the sleepers started from their rest; not a blow was dealt by the Israelites, but the enemy ran tumultuously, uttering the wild, discordant cries peculiar to the Arab race. They fought indiscriminately, not knowing friend from foe. The panic being universal, they soon precipitately fled, directing their flight down to the Jordan, by the foot of the mountains of Ephraim, to places known as the 'house of the acacia' and 'the meadow of the dance.'