Judges 8

Whoever offers praise glorifies me. 2. We may know God is our Father by our resembling of him: The child is his father's picture (Judges 8:18). Each one resembled the children of a king: Every child of God resembles the King of Heaven; herein God's adopting children and man's di…

Hear the rod. Luther says he could never rightly understand some of the Psalms till he was in affliction (Judges 8:16). Gideon took thorns of the wilderness and briars, and with them he taught the men of Succoth: God by the thorns and briars of affliction teaches us.

A soft tongue breaks the bones (Proverbs 25:15). See the example of Gideon appeasing the Midianites (Judges 8:1), and Abigail pacifying David (1 Samuel 25). Fifthly, without meekness, we cannot savingly hear the word, either read or preached (James 1:21).

The second part of the commendation is verse 10, wherein her comeliness and beautiful adorning is set out: Though you think yourself black (says he) yet, your cheeks are comely with rows of jewels, and your neck with chains of gold. What is meant by neck, or cheeks, or chains, o…

When passion is up, that God whose eyes are upon all the ways of men, takes notice who speaks fiercely, and sets a mark upon them. The good effect of a soft answer, and the ill consequences of a peevish one, are observable in the stories of Gideon and Jephthah: Both of them in t…

Psalm 106:21: They forgot God their Savior, which had done great things in Egypt. Judges 8:34: And the children of Israel remembered not the Lord their God, who had delivered them out of the hands of their enemies on every side. It is a base ingratitude not to remember, prize an…

3. When you go forth to any work or conflict, without an actual renewing of your dependence upon God, it's a sign you lean upon the strength of your own resolutions, or present frame of your heart. The Ephraimites took it ill that Gideon would go to war, and not call them into t…

Persons of quality and honor that are used to, and deserve civility, will not bear such provoking words, nor take them but on the point of their rapier, and return it to the giver's throat. Great sins are committed from such beginnings; therefore Solomon tells us (Proverbs 15:1)…

And for this cause the least sin willingly, and with allowance lived in, spoils the good of all our obedience, and lays the soul under the whole wrath of God. One leak in a ship may sink her, though she be tight every where else; Gideon had seven sons, and but one bastard, and y…

Though the sinner could avoid or neglect the command of conscience, he cannot avoid the stroke of conscience: though he could avoid the warning of conscience, and cast away that, yet he cannot avoid the horror of conscience (Romans 2:14). His thoughts accusing of him in God's be…

Oh then behold the excellency of contentment, it does repel this temptation. If God be mine, says the contented spirit, it is enough, though I have no lands or tenements, his smile makes heaven; his loves are better than wine; better is the gleanings of Ephraim than the vintage…