Judges 10:12

12. The Zidonians Who probably joined with Jabin and other northern Canaanites against Israel, but were defeated by Barak. Judges 5:19.

Amalekites From these ancient foes they had been repeatedly delivered in the days of Moses, and Ehud, and Gideon. Compare Exodus 17:13; Judges 3:13; Judges 6:3.

Maonites The Hebrew is Maon, but, like Amalek, it here denotes a people, not a place. We have no record elsewhere of any oppressors of Israel bearing this name; hence the Septuagint reads Midian, and this reading Ewald and Keil follow. It is urged that unless we adopt this reading no mention at all is made of the terrible oppression of Midian. But it may be replied, No mention is made of the Moabite oppression, which lasted eighteen years. Judges 3:14. The sacred writer does not profess to give an exhaustive history; but, true to the spirit of the Old Testament theocratic history, he selects just seven deliverances of Israel, in apparent allusion to the seven classes of false gods mentioned in Judges 10:6, where see note. In such an instance it is not ours to say what he ought to have written, and what omitted.

The Maonites may be included under “the children of the East,” chap. Judges 6:3. “Traces of the name Maon are found in several localities. It is given to a town in the south of Judah, (Joshua 15:55,) now identified with the ruins of Tell Main. It is given to the bleak and hilly pasture lands which extend away to the southward of the town of Maon. 1 Samuel 23:25. Jeremiah (Jeremiah 48:23) mentions Beth- meon, which may be the same as Beth-baal- meon of Joshua 13:17, and Baal- meon of Numbers 32:38, and would thus be identical with the ruins of Main, three miles south of Heshbon. Still another Maon is mentioned. 2 Chronicles 26:7. It is probable that all these names indicate the presence of an ancient and powerful nomad tribe, whose earliest settlements were in the vale of Sodom, and with the Amalekites who dwelt in the wilderness south of Palestine.”- Porter.