Bible Strands
Judges 6:5
For the Midianites came with their livestock and their tents like a great swarm of locusts. They and their camels were innumerable, and they entered the land to ravage it.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The narrator records the Midianite advance immediately after detailing their encampment from Gaza onward and the total depletion of Israel's food and livestock. This moment captures the height of the invasion before the people's cry for divine intervention.
The words — The Hebrew phrase כְּדֵי אַרְבֶּה (kdei arbeh) literally renders "according to the abundance of locusts" or "like a swarm of locusts." It quantifies the invading force by comparing its density to a known agricultural plague.
The thread — The swarm comparison reappears in Judges 7:12 when the combined Midianite, Amalekite, and eastern host settles in the valley. Judges 8:10 later tracks the numerical reduction of that same army, while Isaiah 60:6 repurposes the Midianite camel imagery for a prophetic scene of tribute.
Why it lands — The passage explicitly records the innumerable scale of the livestock, tents, and camels that entered to ravage the land. It requires a reader to acknowledge the total economic collapse that preceded Israel's cry to the LORD.
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The Hebrew words
King James Version
For they came up with their cattle and their tents, and they came as grasshoppers for multitude; for both they and their camels were without number: and they entered into the land to destroy it.
Cross-references
- Judges 7:12 Now the Midianites, Amalekites, and all the other people of the east had settled in the valley like a swarm of locusts, and their camels were as countless as the sand on the seashore.
- Judges 8:10 Now Zebah and Zalmunna were in Karkor with their army of about fifteen thousand men—all that were left of the armies of the people of the east. A hundred and twenty thousand swordsmen had already fallen.
- Isaiah 60:6 Caravans of camels will cover your land, young camels of Midian and Ephah, and all from Sheba will come, bearing gold and frankincense and proclaiming the praises of the LORD.
- Isaiah 13:20 She will never be inhabited or settled from generation to generation; no nomad will pitch his tent there, no shepherd will rest his flock there.
- Jeremiah 46:23 They will chop down her forest, declares the LORD, dense though it may be, for they are more numerous than locusts; they cannot be counted.
- Jeremiah 49:29 They will take their tents and flocks, their tent curtains and all their goods. They will take their camels for themselves. They will shout to them: ‘Terror is on every side!’
- Jeremiah 49:32 Their camels will become plunder, and their large herds will be spoil. I will scatter to the wind in every direction those who shave their temples; I will bring calamity on them from all sides,” declares the LORD.
- Judges 8:21 Then Zebah and Zalmunna said, “Get up and kill us yourself, for as the man is, so is his strength.” So Gideon got up and killed Zebah and Zalmunna, and he took the crescent ornaments from the necks of their camels.
- 1 Samuel 30:17 And David struck them down from twilight until the evening of the next day. Not a man escaped, except four hundred young men who fled, riding off on camels.
- Psalms 83:4 saying, “Come, let us erase them as a nation; may the name of Israel be remembered no more.”