Judges 7:16
And he divided the three hundred men into three parts, and gave them trumpets in their hands, and empty pitchers, and lamps within the pitchers.
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The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Divisitque trecentos viros in tres partes, et dedit tubas in manibus eorum, lagenasque vacuas, ac lampades in medio lagenarum.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- καὶ διεῖλεν τοὺς τριακοσίους ἄνδρας εἰς τρεῖς ἀρχάς, καὶ ἔδωκεν κερατίνας ἐν χειρὶ πάντων καὶ ὑδρείας κενὰς καὶ λαμπάδας ἐν ταῖς ὑδρείαις,
- Hebrew (WLC)
- וַיַּ֛חַץ אֶת שְׁלֹשׁ מֵא֥וֹת הָאִ֖ישׁ שְׁלֹשָׁ֣ה רָאשִׁ֑ים וַיִּתֵּ֨ן שׁוֹפָר֤וֹת בְּיַד כֻּלָּם֙ וְכַדִּ֣ים רֵקִ֔ים וְלַפִּדִ֖ים בְּת֥וֹךְ הַכַּדִּֽים
Haydock's commentary
Lamps, or flambeaux, (Calmet) made of wood, full of turpentine. (Haydock)
The soldiers held one end in their hand, and when they had thrown down their pitchers, the sudden light, the sound of trumpets and of men on three sides of the camp, threw the various nations into the utmost consternation, as they very naturally supposed that they were surrounded with a great army. God also sent among them the spirit of confusion, so that they knew not one another. An ancient author, under the name of Tertullian, asserts that the 300 men were on horseback, and conquered by virtue of the cross, as the letter T, in Greek, stands for 300; (Calmet) and St. Augustine (q. 37,) follows up this idea, saying that, as the Greeks are put by the apostle for all the Gentiles, this letter was to insinuate, that the Gentiles chiefly would believe in Christ. Some of the Fathers have given a like mysterious explanation of the 318 servants of Abraham, as the two first letter of the name of Jesus denote 18. (Eucher. Gen. xiv. 14.) (St. Ambrose, de Abr. i. 3.)
We can never conquer our spiritual enemies, without a lively faith in our crucified Saviour. If Amama, and other enemies of the cross of Christ, ridicule these pious meditations of the Fathers, we need not wonder. See Apocalypse xiii. 18. (Haydock)
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.