Bible Strands
Judges 8:34
The Israelites failed to remember the LORD their God who had delivered them from the hands of all their enemies on every side.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The narrator records the immediate post-Gideon period when the Israelites abandoned their covenant identity and adopted Baal worship. This occurs at the chronological junction between Gideon’s death and the subsequent apostasy detailed in the surrounding verses.
The words — The Hebrew phrase לֹא זָכְרוּ (lo zakhru) literally means "they did not remember," while the participle הַמַּצִּיל (hammatzil) translates to "the deliverer" or "who delivers." These terms frame the verse’s core claim about Israel’s deliberate spiritual amnesia.
The thread — This motif of covenantal forgetting appears in Psalms 78:42, Psalms 106:21, and Psalms 78:11, where the psalmist documents Israel’s repeated failure to retain memory of God’s redemptive power.
Why it lands — The text states that Israel actively neglected the memory of Yahweh’s past deliverance before detailing the resulting idolatry. It requires readers to treat remembrance as a structural discipline rather than an emotional response.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
And the children of Israel remembered not the Lord their God, who had delivered them out of the hands of all their enemies on every side:
Cross-references
- Psalms 78:42 They did not remember His power—the day He redeemed them from the adversary,
- Psalms 106:21 They forgot God their Savior, who did great things in Egypt,
- Psalms 78:11 They forgot what He had done, the wonders He had shown them.
- Deuteronomy 4:9 Only be on your guard and diligently watch yourselves, so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen, and so that they do not slip from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and grandchildren.
- Judges 3:7 So the Israelites did evil in the sight of the LORD; they forgot the LORD their God and served the Baals and the Asherahs.
- Psalms 106:18 Then fire blazed through their company; flames consumed the wicked.
- Ecclesiastes 12:1 Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of adversity come and the years approach of which you will say, “I find no pleasure in them,”
- Jeremiah 2:32 Does a maiden forget her jewelry or a bride her wedding sash? Yet My people have forgotten Me for days without number.