Judges Chapter 6 verse 26 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 26. - This rock. Rather, the keep or stronghold of Ophrah, where also the high place was; just as the temple was in the stronghold of Zion, and the hold of the house of Baal-Berith at Shechem was in the citadel of the place (Judges 9:46). In the ordered place. The meaning of this phrase is uncertain. It may either be rendered as in the A.V., meaning on the levelled ground ordered and prepared for the building of the altar; or it may more probably be rendered with the arranged material, i.e. the stones which were laid in order at the bottom, and the wood which was laid in order upon the top of the altar (cf. Genesis 22:9). The material may either refer to that taken from the altar of Baal, which had been thrown down, and which was then ordered to be used in building the altar of the Lord, or to its own arranged material or superstructure, the wood of the asherah.

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(26) Of this rock.--The word is not selah, as in Judges 6:20, or tsor, as in Judges 6:21, but malioz, "stronghold," probably the citadel of Ophrah. The LXX. render it as a proper name (maoz), or in some MSS., "on the top of this mountain." The word only occurs elsewhere in Hebrew poetry.In the ordered place.--The margin reads, "in an orderly manner;" but probably neither version is quite correct. The Hebrew word is bammaarachah (comp. Leviticus 24:6; 2Chronicles 2:4); and as the particle be is used of the materials with which a thing is built in 1Kings 15:22; some here render it, "with the materials." That the Jews themselves were not quite certain of the meaning appears from the various versions. The LXX. render it, "in the arrangement," and the Vulg., "on which you have before placed the sacrifice." It means "with the Asherah pillar hewed down, and split up into firewood." The Jews point out the peculiar features of this burnt offering: (1) It was not at Shiloh; (2) it was not offered by a priest; (3) it was offered at night; and (4) the fire was kindled with the unhallowed materials of an idol. The Divine command was, of course, more than sufficient to justify these merely ritual irregularities; and, indeed, it is clear that in these rude times, when the country was in the hands of the heathen, the Levitic order of worship became, for the time, impossible in many particulars. Prophets and those directly commissioned by heaven were tacitly regarded as exempt from the strict rules of outward ritual which were necessary for the mass of the nation. . . .