John Gill's Bible Commentary Ver. 8. And that year they vexed and oppressed the children of Israel , etc.] The Philistines on one side, and the children of Ammon on the other; meaning either that year in which Jair died, as Jarchi; or the first year they began to bring them into bondage, as R. Isaiah: “and from that year”, as Kimchi and Ben Melech, that they vexed and distressed them, they continued to vex and distress them eighteen years ; or, as Abarbinel interprets it, “with that year”, they vexed and oppressed them eighteen years, that is, so many more, or reckoning that into the number of them; and these eighteen years of their oppression are not to be reckoned into the years of Jair’s government, and as commencing from the fourth of it, as Bishop Usher, Lightfoot, and others; for it does not appear that there was any oppression in his days, but from the time of his death to the raising up of Jephthah a new judge: and the people oppressed by the children of Ammon during that time were all the children of Israel that were on the other side Jordan, in the land of the Ammonites, which is in Gilead ; even the tribes of Reuben and Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh.
Matthew Henry Commentary
Verses 6-9 - Now the threatening was fulfilled, that the Israelites should have n power to stand before their enemies, Le 26:17, 37. By their evil way and their evil doings they procured this to themselves.
Original Hebrew וירעצו7492 וירצצו7533 את853 בני1121 ישׂראל3478 בשׁנה8141 ההיא1931 שׁמנה8083 עשׂרה6240 שׁנה8141 את853 כל3605 בני1121 ישׂראל3478 אשׁר834 בעבר5676 הירדן3383 בארץ776 האמרי567 אשׁר834 בגלעד׃1568
