SEV Biblia, Chapter 8:21
Entonces dijeron Zeba y Zalmuna: Levántate tú, y mátanos; porque como es el varón, tal es su valentía. Y Gedeón se levantó, y mató a Zeba y a Zalmuna; y tomó las planchas que sus camellos traían al cuello.
Clarke's Bible Commentary - Judges 8:21
Verse 21. Then Zebah and Zalmunna said, Rise, thou, and fall upon us] It was disgraceful to fall by the hands of a child; and the death occasioned by the blows of such a person must be much more lingering and tormenting. Some have even employed children to despatch captives. Civilis, a Roman knight, headed a revolt of the Gauls against Rome, in the year of the city 824. Of him Tacitus says, Hist. lib. iv., c. l11: Ferebatur parvulo filio quosdam captivorum sagittis jaculisque puerilibus figendos obtulisse: "He is said to have given to his little son some prisoners, as butts to be shot at with little darts and arrows." This was for their greater torment and dishonour; and to inure his child to blood! Could any thing like this have been the design of Gideon? The ornaments that were on their camels' necks.] The heads, necks, bodies, and legs of camels, horses, and elephants, are highly ornamented in the eastern countries, and indeed this was common, from the remotest antiquity, in all countries. Virgil refers to it as a thing long before his time, and thus describes the horses given by King Latinus to the ambassadors of AEneas. - AEn. lib. vii., ver. 274.
Haec effatus equos numero pater eligit omni.
Stabant tercentum nitidi in praesepibus altis: Omnibus extemplo Teucris jubet ordine duci Instratos ostro alipedes pictisque tapetis. Aurea pectoribus demissa monilia pendent: Tecti auro fulvum mandunt sub dentibus aurum.
"He said, and order'd steeds to mount the band: In lofty stalls three hundred coursers stand; Their shining sides with crimson cover'd o'er; The sprightly steeds embroider'd trappings wore, With golden chains, refulgent to behold: Gold were their bridles, and they champ'd on gold." PITT.
Instead of ornaments, the Septuagint translate touv mhniskouv, the crescents or half-moons; and this is followed by the Syriac and Arabic.
The worship of the moon was very ancient; and, with that of the sun, constituted the earliest idolatry of mankind. We learn from ver. 24 that the Ishmaelites, or Arabs, as they are termed by the Targum, Syriac, and Arabic, had golden ear- rings, and probably a crescent in each; for it is well known that the Ishmaelites, and the Arabs who descended from them, were addicted very early to the worship of the moon; and so attached were they to this superstition, that although Mohammed destroyed the idolatrous use of the crescent, yet it was universally borne in their ensigns, and on the tops of their mosques, as well as in various ornaments.
John Gill's Bible Commentary
Ver. 21. Then Zebah and Zalmunna said, rise thou and fall upon us , etc.] Since they must die, they chose rather to die by the hand of so great a man and valiant a commander as Gideon, which was more honourable than to die by the hand of a youth: for as the man is, so is his strength ; signifying, that as he was a stout able man, he had strength sufficient to dispatch them at once, which his son had not, and therefore they must have died a lingering and painful death: wherefore as they consulted their honour, so their ease, in desiring to die by the hand of Gideon: and Gideon arose, and slew Zebah and Zalmunna ; nor was it unusual in those early times for great personages, as judges and generals, to be executioners of others, as were Samuel and Benaiah, ( 1 Samuel 15:33 1 Kings 2:25,34) and took away the ornaments that were on their camels’ necks ; the Targum calls them chains, as in ( Judges 8:26) no doubt of gold; so the horses of King Latinus had golden poitrels or collars hanging down their breasts. They were, according to Jarchi, Kimchi, and Ben Gersom, in the form of the moon; (see Isaiah 3:18) some have thought that these were worn in honour of Astarte, or the moon, the goddess of the Phoenicians, from whom these people had borrowed that idolatry.
Matthew Henry Commentary
Verses 18-21 - The kings of Midian must be reckoned with. As they confessed themselve guilty of murder, Gideon acted as the avenger of blood, being the nex of kin to the persons slain. Little did they think to have heard of this so long after; but murder seldom goes unpunished in this life Sins long forgotten by man, must be accounted for to God. What poor consolation in death from the hope of suffering less pain, and of dyin with less disgrace than some others! yet many are more anxious on thes accounts, than concerning the future judgment, and what will follow.
Original Hebrew
ויאמר 559 זבח 2078 וצלמנע 6759 קום 6965 אתה 859 ופגע 6293 בנו כי 3588 כאישׁ 376 גבורתו 1369 ויקם 6965 גדעון 1439 ויהרג 2026 את 853 זבח 2078 ואת 853 צלמנע 6759 ויקח 3947 את 853 השׂהרנים 7720 אשׁר 834 בצוארי 6677 גמליהם׃ 1581
