(5) As grasshoppers.--See Judges 7:12. Rather, as locusts. The magnificent imagery of Joel 2:2-11 enables us to realise the force of the metaphor, and Exodus 10:4-6 the number of locusts, which are a common metaphor for countless hordes. Aristophanes (Ach. 150) speaks of an army so numerous that the Athenians will cry out, "What a mass of locusts is coming!" The Bedouin call the locusts Gurrud Allah, "Host of God" (Wetzstein, Hauran, p. 138).

Their camels.--These were very uncommon in Palestine, and were brought by the invaders from the Eastern deserts.

Without number.--This is Oriental hyperbole. "When Burckhardt asked a Bedouin, who belonged to a tribe of 300 tents, how many brothers he had, he flung a handful of sand into the air, and replied, 'Equally numberless'" (Cassel).

Verse 5. - As grasshoppers. See the striking description of the destruction caused by locusts in Joel 3. I have heard travellers in India describe the sudden darkening of the sky by a flight of locusts.

6:1-6 Israel's sin was renewed, and Israel's troubles were repeated. Let all that sin expect to suffer. The Israelites hid themselves in dens and caves; such was the effect of a guilty conscience. Sin dispirits men. The invaders left no food for Israel, except what was taken into the caves. They prepared that for Baal with which God should have been served, now God justly sends an enemy to take it away in the season thereof.For they came up with their cattle, and their tents,.... Brought their flocks and their herds with them, to eat up the increase of the earth, and their tents, which they pitched and removed from place to place, for the convenience of feeding their cattle, and while they cut down the fruit of the earth everywhere, which serves to confirm the sense of the Targum and Vulgate Latin version of Judges 6:5.

and they came as grasshoppers for multitude; or "as locusts" (c), they were like them for their number, and for devouring all they came to:

and their camels were without number; which they brought with them, to load and carry off their plunder they could not eat. Midian was a place famous for camels and dromedaries, Isaiah 60:6 and so Arabia, the people of which joined the Midianites in this expedition; of whom Leo Africanus says (d), that they reckon of their riches and possessions by their camels; wherefore if anyone speaks of the riches of such a prince or nobleman, he says that he is possessed of so many camels, and not of so many thousands of pieces of gold, see Job 1:3.

and they entered into the city to destroy it; this was their sole view. In suchlike manner as this did Alyattes king of the Lydians make war with the Milesinns, as Herodotus (e) relates; which passage Grotius has quoted at large.

(c) "tanquam locustae", Pagninus, V. L. Tigurine version, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator. (d) Descriptio Africae, l. 9. p. 745. (e) Clio, sive, l. 1. c. 17.