6:11 The Lord’s angelic messenger 1 came and sat down under the oak tree in Ophrah owned by Joash the Abiezrite. He arrived while Joash’s son Gideon 2 was threshing 3 wheat in a winepress 4 so he could hide it from the Midianites. 5
19:22 They were having a good time, 6 when suddenly 7 some men of the city, some good-for-nothings, 8 surrounded the house and kept beating 9 on the door. They said to the old man who owned the house, “Send out the man who came to visit you so we can have sex with him.” 10
1 tn The adjective “angelic” is interpretive.
sn The
2 tn Heb “Now Gideon his son…” The Hebrew circumstantial clause (note the pattern vav [ו] + subject + predicate) breaks the narrative sequence and indicates that the angel’s arrival coincided with Gideon’s threshing.
3 tn Heb “beating out.”
4 sn Threshing wheat in a winepress. One would normally thresh wheat at the threshing floor outside the city. Animals and a threshing sledge would be employed. Because of the Midianite threat, Gideon was forced to thresh with a stick in a winepress inside the city. For further discussion see O. Borowski, Agriculture in Iron Age Israel, 63.
5 tn Heb “Midian.”
6 tn Heb “they were making their heart good.”
7 tn Heb “and look.”
8 tn Heb “the men of the city, men, the sons of wickedness.” The phrases are in apposition; the last phrase specifies what type of men they were. It is not certain if all the men of the city are in view, or just a group of troublemakers. In 20:5 the town leaders are implicated in the crime, suggesting that all the men of the city were involved. If so, the implication is that the entire male population of the town were good-for-nothings.
9 tn The Hitpael verb form appears to have an iterative force here, indicating repeated action.
10 tn Heb “so we can know him.” On the surface one might think they simply wanted to meet the visitor and get to know him, but their hostile actions betray their double-talk. The old man, who has been living with them long enough to know what they are like, seems to have no doubts about the meaning of their words (see v. 23).