(33) Put themselves in array at Baal-tamar.--This is either a detail added out of place (so that we might almost suppose that there has been some accidental transposition of clauses), or it means that when the Israelites in their pretended rout had got as far as Baal-tamar ("Lord of the Palm") they saw the appointed smoke-signal of the ambuscade, and at that point rallied against their pursuers. What makes this probable is that Baal-tamar can only have derived its name from some famous, and therefore isolated, palm-tree. Now there was exactly such a palm tree--the well known "Palm of Deborah" (see Note on Judges 4:5)--"between Ramah and Bethel," and therefore at a little distance from the spot where the roads branch. The place was still called Bathamar in the days of Eusebius and Jerome. The Chaldee rendering, "in the plains of Jericho" ("the palm city," Judges 1:16), is singularly erroneous.

Out of the meadows of Gibeah.--The word maareh, rendered "meadows," occurs nowhere else. Some derive it from arah, "to strip." The LXX., not understanding it, render it as a name, Maraagabe, and in Cod. A (following a different reading), "from the west of Gibeah," as also does the Vulg. Rashi renders it, "because of the stripping of Gibeah," and Buxtorf, "after the stripping of Gibeah." It is, however, clear that the words are in apposition to and in explanation of "out of their places:" The Syriac and Arabic understand maareh to mean "a cave" or "caves," printing it maarah instead of maareh. Similarly the reading "from the west" only involves the change of a single letter (maarab). If the text be left unaltered, the "meadows" may have been concealed from the town by intervening rocks. In Isaiah 19:7 aroth mean "pastures."

Verse 33. - Rose up out of their place. The narrative is singularly obscure and broken, and difficult to follow. But the meaning seems to be, that when the Israelite army had reached Baal-tamar in their flight, they suddenly stopped and formed to give battle to the pursuing Benjamites. And at the same time the liers in wait came out from their ambushment and placed themselves in the rear of the Benjamites on the direct road to Gibeah. Baal-tamar, a place of palm trees. The site has not been identified, but may possibly, or probably, be the same as the palm tree of Deborah, between Ramah and Bethel (Judges 4:5). The meadows of Gibeah, Hebrew, Maareh-Geba, may very likely have been, as the Septuagint takes it, a proper name, denoting some locality outside Gibeah (here called Geba) where the ambush was concealed. The meaning of the word maareh is thought to be a bare tract of ground without trees - something like a heath or common. It may have had pits, or deep depressions, where the ambush would be hid both from the city itself and from the high road, or other facilities for concealment.

17:7-13 Micah thought it was a sign of God's favour to him and his images, that a Levite should come to his door. Thus those who please themselves with their own delusions, if Providence unexpectedly bring any thing to their hands that further them in their evil way, are apt from thence to think that God is pleased with them.And all the men of Israel rose up out of their place,.... The main body of the army, which fled before Benjamin, when they were come to a proper place, stopped, and rose up out of it, and stood in their own defence:

and put themselves in array at Baaltamar; drew up in a line of battle at that place, facing their enemies, in order to engage with them: this place the Targum calls the plains of Jericho, that being the city of palm trees, which Tamar signifies; and so Jarchi interprets it; but these are too far off; it must be some place near Gibeah. Jerom (w) speaks of a little village in his time in those parts, called Bethamari, and may be thought to be this same place; perhaps in the times of the old Canaanites here was a grove of palm trees, in which Baal was worshipped, from whence it had its name:

and the liers in wait of Israel came forth out of their places, even out of the meadows of Gibeah; or plain of Gibeah, as the Targum; for as the city was built on a hill, at the bottom of it were a plain and fine meadows of grass, and here an ambush was placed at some little distance from the city; and when the army of the Benjaminites were drawn off from it, in pursuit of Israel, these came forth and placed themselves between them and the city.

(w) De loc. Heb. fol. 89. I.