Judges 10:14

Go and cry unto the gods which ye have chosen; let them deliver you in the time of your tribulation.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(14) Go and cry unto the gods.—With this bitter reproach comp. Deuteronomy 32:37-38; 2Kings 3:13; Jeremiah 2:28.

In the time of your tribulation.—Comp. 1Kings 18:27; Proverbs 1:26.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

10:10-18 God is able to multiply men's punishments according to the numbers of their sins and idols. But there is hope when sinners cry to the Lord for help, and lament their ungodliness as well as their more open transgressions. It is necessary, in true repentance, that there be a full conviction that those things cannot help us which we have set in competition with God. They acknowledged what they deserved, yet prayed to God not to deal with them according to their deserts. We must submit to God's justice, with a hope in his mercy. True repentance is not only for sin, but from sin. As the disobedience and misery of a child are a grief to a tender father, so the provocations of God's people are a grief to him. From him mercy never can be sought in vain. Let then the trembling sinner, and the almost despairing backslider, cease from debating about God's secret purposes, or from expecting to find hope from former experiences. Let them cast themselves on the mercy of God our Saviour, humble themselves under his hand, seek deliverance from the powers of darkness, separate themselves from sin, and from occasions of it, use the means of grace diligently, and wait the Lord's time, and so they shall certainly rejoice in his mercy.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The Zidonians - An allusion to the time of Barak, when the Zidonians doubtless formed part of the great confederacy of Canaanites under Jabin king of Hazor. See Joshua 11:8.

The Amalekites - In the time of Gideon (marginal reference).

The Maonites - Probably one of the tribes of the "children of the East," who came with the Midianites and Amalekites in the time of Gideon, and may have been conspicuous for their hostility to Israel, and for the greatness of their discomfiture, though the record has not been preserved. The name is "Mehununs" in 2 Chronicles 26:7.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

12. Maonites—that is, "Midianites."

Matthew Poole's Commentary

You have not been forced to worship those gods by your oppressors and tyrants; but you have freely chosen these gods before me.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Go and cry unto the gods which ye have chosen,.... For they were their choice, and not what they were obliged to serve through persecution, and by compulsion of others, and whom they needed not, having the Lord Jehovah to be their God; and they are bid not seriously, but in an ironical or sarcastic way, to call upon them for help in this their time of distress, in whose power it was not to relieve them:

let them deliver you in the time of your tribulation; if they can, whom you have served in your prosperity.

Geneva Study Bible

Go and cry unto the gods which ye have chosen; let them deliver you in the time of your tribulation.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

14. For the thought cf. Deuteronomy 32:37-38, Jeremiah 2:28.

Judges 10:14

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Therefore the Lord would not save them any more. They might get help from the gods whom they had chosen for themselves. The Israelites should now experience what Moses had foretold in his song (Deuteronomy 32:37-38). This divine threat had its proper effect. The Israelites confessed their sins, submitted thoroughly to the chastisement of God, and simply prayed for salvation; nor did they content themselves with merely promising, they put away the strange gods and served Jehovah, i.e., they devoted themselves again with sincerity to His service, and so were seriously converted to the living God. "Then was His (Jehovah's) soul impatient (תּקצר, as in Numbers 21:4) because of the troubles of Israel;" i.e., Jehovah could no longer look down upon the misery of Israel; He was obliged to help. The change in the purpose of God does not imply any changeableness in the divine nature; it simply concerns the attitude of God towards His people, or the manifestation of the divine love to man. In order to bend the sinner at all, the love of God must withdraw its helping hand and make men feel the consequences of their sin and rebelliousness, that they may forsake their evil ways and turn to the Lord their God. When this end has been attained, the same divine love manifests itself as pitying and helping grace. Punishments and benefits flow from the love of God, and have for their object the happiness and well-being of men.