Blew a trumpet.--See Judges 3:27. The trumpet is shophar, or ram's horn (LXX., keratine). Gideon's call was two-fold: the first he had already obeyed in destroying the Baal-worship at Ophrah; he now begins to obey the second, which was to deliver his country.
6:33-40 These signs are truly miraculous, and very significant. Gideon and his men were going to fight the Midianites; could God distinguish between a small fleece of Israel, and the vast floor of Midian? Gideon is made to know that God could do so. Is Gideon desirous that the dew of Divine grace might come down upon himself in particular? He sees the fleece wet with dew to assure him of it. Does he desire that God will be as the dew to all Israel? Behold, all the ground is wet. What cause we sinners of the Gentiles have, to bless the Lord that the dew of heavenly blessings, once confined to Israel, is now sent to all the inhabitants of the earth! Yet still the means of grace are in different measures, according to the purposes of God. In the same congregation, one man's soul is like Gideon's moistened fleece, another like the dry ground.
But the Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon,.... Not the spirit of prophecy, as Maimonides (x), who calls this spirit the first degree of prophecy, but a spirit of fortitude and courage, as the Targum; the Spirit of God filled him, or, as in the Hebrew text, "clothed" (y) him with zeal, strength, and might, moved and animated him to engage with this great body of people come into the land, to ravage and waste it, and to attempt the deliverance of Israel from their bondage:
and he blew a trumpet; as an alarm of war, and as a token to as many as heard to resort to him, and join with him in the common cause against the enemy:
and Abiezer was gathered after him; the Abiezrites, one of the families of the tribe of Manasseh, of which Gideon and his father's house were; and even it is probable the inhabitants of Ophrah, who were Abiezrites, being now convinced of their idolatry, and having entertained a good opinion of Gideon as a man of valour, and who, in the present emergence, they looked upon as an hopeful instrument of their deliverance, and therefore joined him.
(x) Moreh Nevochim, par. 2. c. 45. (y) "induit", Pagninus, Montanus, &c. Vid. Maimon. ut supra. (T. Bab. Temurah, fol. 28. 2. & 29. 1.) So Homer often represents his heroes as clothed with fortitude and courage; see Iliad. 17.
Blew a trumpet.--See Judges 3:27. The trumpet is shophar, or ram's horn (LXX., keratine). Gideon's call was two-fold: the first he had already obeyed in destroying the Baal-worship at Ophrah; he now begins to obey the second, which was to deliver his country.
and he blew a trumpet; as an alarm of war, and as a token to as many as heard to resort to him, and join with him in the common cause against the enemy:
and Abiezer was gathered after him; the Abiezrites, one of the families of the tribe of Manasseh, of which Gideon and his father's house were; and even it is probable the inhabitants of Ophrah, who were Abiezrites, being now convinced of their idolatry, and having entertained a good opinion of Gideon as a man of valour, and who, in the present emergence, they looked upon as an hopeful instrument of their deliverance, and therefore joined him.
(x) Moreh Nevochim, par. 2. c. 45. (y) "induit", Pagninus, Montanus, &c. Vid. Maimon. ut supra. (T. Bab. Temurah, fol. 28. 2. & 29. 1.) So Homer often represents his heroes as clothed with fortitude and courage; see Iliad. 17.