31 But Joash said to all those who were attacking him, Will you take up the cause of Baal? will you be his saviour? Let anyone who will take up his cause be put to death while it is still morning: if he is a god, let him take up his cause himself because of the pulling down of his altar.
Do not be moved to do wrong by the general opinion, or give the support of your words to a wrong decision:
And Joshua, the son of Nun, and Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, two of those who had been to see the land, giving signs of grief,
And that prophet or that dreamer of dreams is to be put to death; for his words were said with the purpose of turning you away from the Lord your God, who took you out of the land of Egypt and made you free from the prison-house; and of forcing you out of the way in which the Lord your God has given you orders to go. So you are to put away the evil from among you. If your brother, the son of your mother, or your son or your daughter or the wife of your heart, or the friend who is as dear to you as your life, working on you secretly says to you, Let us go and give worship to other gods, strange to you and to your fathers; Gods of the peoples round about you, near or far, from one end of the earth to the other; Do not be guided by him or give attention to him; have no pity on him or mercy, and give him no cover; But put him to death without question; let your hand be the first stretched out against him to put him to death, and then the hands of all the people. Let him be stoned with stones till he is dead; because it was his purpose to make you false to the Lord your God, who took you out of the land of Egypt, out of the prison-house. And all Israel, hearing of it, will be full of fear, and no one will again do such evil as this among you. And if word comes to you, in one of the towns which the Lord your God is giving you for your resting-place, That good-for-nothing persons have gone out from among you, turning the people of their town from the right way and saying, Let us go and give worship to other gods, of whom you have no knowledge; Then let a full search be made, and let questions be put with care; and if it is true and certain that such a disgusting thing has been done among you; Then take up arms against the people of that town and give it up to the curse, with all its cattle and everything in it. And take all the goods into the middle of its open space, burning the town and all its property with fire as an offering to the Lord your God; it is to be a waste for ever; there is to be no more building there. Keep not a thing of what is cursed for yourselves: so the Lord may be turned away from the heat of his wrath, and have mercy on you, and give you increase as he said in his oath to your fathers: So long as you give ear to the voice of the Lord your God, and keep all his orders which I give you today, and do what is right in the eyes of the Lord your God.
If there is any man or woman among you, in any of the towns which the Lord your God gives you, who does evil in the eyes of the Lord your God, sinning against his agreement, By becoming a servant of other gods and worshipping them or the sun or the moon or all the stars of heaven, against my orders; If word of this comes to your ears, then let this thing be looked into with care, and if there is no doubt that it is true, and such evil has been done in Israel; Then you are to take the man or woman who has done the evil to the public place of your town, and they are to be stoned with stones till they are dead. On the word of two or three witnesses, a man may be given the punishment of death; but he is not to be put to death on the word of one witness. The hands of the witnesses will be the first to put him to death, and after them the hands of all the people. So you are to put away the evil from among you.
And in the middle of the day, Elijah made sport of them, saying, Give louder cries, for he is a god; he may be deep in thought, or he may have gone away for some purpose, or he may be on a journey, or by chance he is sleeping and has to be made awake.
And Elijah said to them, Take the prophets of Baal, let not one of them get away. So they took them, and Elijah made them go down to the stream Kishon, and put them to death there.
Their images are silver and gold, the work of men's hands. They have mouths, but no voice; they have eyes, but they see not; They have ears, but no hearing; they have noses, but no sense of smell; They have hands without feeling, and feet without power of walking; and no sound comes from their throat.
Bel is bent down, Nebo is falling; their images are on the beasts and on the cattle: the things which you took about have become a weight to the tired beast.
They put him on their backs, and take him up, and put him in his fixed place, from which he may not be moved; if a man gives a cry for help to him, he is unable to give an answer, or get him out of his trouble.
This is what you are to say to them: The gods who have not made the heavens and the earth will be cut off from the earth and from under the heavens.
So, then, as to the question of taking food offered to images, we are certain that an image is nothing in the world, and that there is no God but one.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Judges 6
Commentary on Judges 6 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 6
Nothing that occurred in the quiet and peaceable times of Israel is recorded; the forty years' rest after the conquest of Jabin is passed over in silence; and here begins the story of another distress and another deliverance, by Gideon, the fourth of the judges. Here is,
Jdg 6:1-6
We have here,
Jdg 6:7-10
Observe here,
Jdg 6:11-24
It is not said what effect the prophet's sermon had upon the people, but we may hope it had a good effect, and that some of them at least repented and reformed upon it; for here, immediately after, we have the dawning of the day of their deliverance, by the effectual calling of Gideon to take upon him the command of their forces against the Midianites.
Jdg 6:25-32
Here,
Jdg 6:33-40
Here we have,