For the Midianites came with their livestock and their tents like a great swarm of locusts. They and their camels were innumerable, and they entered the land to ravage it.
Parallel translations
- WEB For they came up with their livestock and their tents. They came in as locusts for multitude. Both they and their camels were without number; and they came into the land to destroy it.
- KJV For they came up with their cattle and their tents, and they came as grasshoppers for multitude; for both they and their camels were without number: and they entered into the land to destroy it.
- NKJV For they would come up with their livestock and their tents, coming in as numerous as locusts; both they and their camels were without number; and they would enter the land to destroy it.
- NASB For they would come up with their livestock and their tents, they would come in like locusts in number, and both they and their camels were innumerable; and they came into the land to ruin it.
- NLT These enemy hordes, coming with their livestock and tents, were as thick as locusts; they arrived on droves of camels too numerous to count. And they stayed until the land was stripped bare.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
The Midianites came up like a swarm of locusts, their people and camels too numerous to count, intent on ruining the land.
Overview
The locust imagery conveys the overwhelming numbers and destructive force of the invaders. Their countless camels likely gave them mobility for swift raids across the region. The scene emphasizes Israel's helplessness apart from divine intervention, magnifying the deliverance God is about to bring.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 11
- Judg 7:12Now the Midianites, Amalekites, and all the other people of the east had settled in the valley like a swarm of locusts, and their camels were as countless as the sand on the seashore.
- Judg 8:10Now Zebah and Zalmunna were in Karkor with their army of about fifteen thousand men—all that were left of the armies of the people of the east. A hundred and twenty thousand swordsmen had already fallen.
- Isa 60:6Caravans of camels will cover your land, young camels of Midian and Ephah, and all from Sheba will come, bearing gold and frankincense and proclaiming the praises of the LORD.
- Isa 13:20She will never be inhabited or settled from generation to generation; no nomad will pitch his tent there, no shepherd will rest his flock there.
- Jer 46:23They will chop down her forest, declares the LORD, dense though it may be, for they are more numerous than locusts; they cannot be counted.
- Jer 49:32Their camels will become plunder, and their large herds will be spoil. I will scatter to the wind in every direction those who shave their temples; I will bring calamity on them from all sides,” declares the LORD.
- Jer 49:29They will take their tents and flocks, their tent curtains and all their goods. They will take their camels for themselves. They will shout to them: ‘Terror is on every side!’
- 1 Sam 30:17And David struck them down from twilight until the evening of the next day. Not a man escaped, except four hundred young men who fled, riding off on camels.
- Song 1:5I am dark, yet lovely, O daughters of Jerusalem, like the tents of Kedar, like the curtains of Solomon.
- Judg 8:21Then Zebah and Zalmunna said, “Get up and kill us yourself, for as the man is, so is his strength.” So Gideon got up and killed Zebah and Zalmunna, and he took the crescent ornaments from the necks of their camels.
- Ps 83:4–12saying, “Come, let us erase them as a nation; may the name of Israel be remembered no more.”
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Christ at the center
Israel's cycle of sin and rescue through flawed deliverers cries out for a Savior who never fails — the true and final Judge and Deliverer who saves his people not for a season but forever.
How Judges 6:5 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.