16 Among all this people there were seven hundred chosen men left-handed; everyone could sling stones at a hair-breadth, and not miss.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
See Judges 3:15, and note. In the Septuagint and Vulgate the 700 chosen men of Gibeah are represented as the seven hundred left-handed slingers.
Left-handed - They were ambidexters - could use the right hand and the left with equal ease and effect. See the note on Judges 3:15.
Could sling stones at a hair - and not miss - ולא יחטא velo yachati, and not sin: και ουκ εξαμαρτανοντες; Sept. Here we have the true import of the term sin; it signifies simply to miss the mark, and is well translated in the New Testament by ἁμαρτανω, from α, negative, and μαρπτω, to hit the mark. Men miss the mark of true happiness in aiming at sensual gratifications; which happiness is to be found only in the possession and enjoyment of the favor of God, from whom their passions continually lead them. He alone hits the mark, and ceases from sin, who attains to God through Christ Jesus.
It is worthy of remark that the Persian khuta kerden, which literally signifies to sin or mistake, is used by the Mohammedans to express to miss the mark.
The sling was a very ancient warlike instrument, and, in the hands of those who were skilled in the use of it, it produced astonishing effects. The inhabitants of the isles called Baleares, now Majorca and Minorca, were the most celebrated slingers of antiquity. They did not permit their children to break their fast till they had struck down the bread they were to eat from the top of a pole, or some distant eminence. They had their name Baleares from the Greek word βαλλειν to dart, cast, or throw.
Concerning the velocity of the ball out of the sling, there are strange and almost incredible things told by the ancients. The leaden ball, when thus projected, is said to have melted in its course. So Ovid, Met. lib. ii.. ver. 726.
Obstupuit forma Jove natus: et aethere pendens
Non secus exarsit, quam cum balearica plumbum
Funda jacit; volat illud, et incandescit eundo;
Et, quos non habuit, sub nubibus invenit ignes.
Hermes was fired as in the clouds he hung;
So the cold bullet that, with fury slung
From Balearic engines, mounts on high,
Glows in the whirl, and burns along the sky.
Dryden.
This is not a poetic fiction; Seneca, the philosopher, in lib. iii. Quaest. Natural., c. 57, says the same thing: Sic liquescit excussa glans funda, et adtritu aeris velut igne distillat; "Thus the ball projected from the sling melts, and is liquefied by the friction of the air, as if it were exposed to the action of fire." I have often, by the sudden and violent compression of the air, produced fire; and by this alone inflamed tinder, and lighted a match. Vegetius de Re Militari, lib. ii., cap. 23, tells us that slingers could in general hit the mark at six hundred feet distance. Funditores scopas-pro signo ponebant; ita ut Sexcentos Pedes removerentur a signo-signum saepius tangerent. These things render credible what is spoken here of the Benjamite slingers.
Among all this people there were seven hundred chosen men lefthanded,.... According to Ben Gersom, these were the seven hundred men of Gibeah; but this does not appear from the text, but, on the contrary, that these were among all the people; or there were so many to be selected out of them all, who were lefthanded men; nor is it likely that all the inhabitants of one place should be such. Benjamin signifies a son of the right hand, yet this tribe had a great number of lefthanded men in it, see Judges 3:15. Josephus (h) wrongly reduces the number to five hundred:
everyone could sling stones at an hair's breadth, and not miss: the mark they slung the stone at, so very expert were they at it; and perhaps their having such a number of skilful men in this art made them more confident of success, and emboldened them in this daring undertaking, to point to which this circumstance seems to be mentioned. There were a people that inhabited the islands, now called Majorca and Minorca, anciently Baleares, from their skilfulness in slinging stones, to which they brought up from their childhood, as it is related various writers, Strabo (i), Diodorus Siculus (k), Floras (l) and others (m); that their mothers used to set their breakfast on a beam or post, or some such thing, at a distance, which they were not to have, unless they could strike it off; and the first of these writers says, that they exercised this art from the time that the Phoenicians held these islands; and, according to Pliny (n), the Phoenicians, the old inhabitants of Canaan, were the first inventors of slings, and from these the Benjaminites might learn it. The Indians are said (o) to be very expert in slinging stones to an hair's breadth.
(h) Antiqu. l. 5. c. 2. sect. 10. (i) Geograph l. 3. p. 116. (k) Bibliothec. l. 5. p. 298. (l) Roman Cost. l. 3. c. 8. (m) Vid. Barthii Ammadv. ad Claudian. in 3 Consul. Honor. ver. 50. (n) Nat. Hist. l. 7. c. 56. (o) Philoetrat. Vit. Apollon. l. 2. c. 12.
left-handed; every one could sling stones at an hair-breadth, and not miss--The sling was one of the earliest weapons used in war. The Hebrew sling was probably similar to that of the Egyptian, consisting of a leather thong, broad in the middle, with a loop at one end, by which it was firmly held with the hand; the other end terminated in a lash, which was let slip when the stone was thrown. Those skilled in the use of it, as the Benjamites were, could hit the mark with unerring certainty. A good sling could carry its full force to the distance of two hundred yards.
Not miss - An hyperbolical expression, signifying, that they could do this with great exactness. And this was very considerable and one ground of the Benjamites confidence.
*More commentary available at chapter level.