Judges 20:16
Among all these soldiers there were 700 select left-handers, each of whom could sling a stone at a hair without missing.
Among all this people there were seven hundred chosen men lefthanded; every one could sling stones at an hair breadth, and not miss.
Among all these soldiers there were seven hundred chosen men who were left-handed. Every one of them could sling a stone at a hair and not miss.
Among all this people there were seven hundred chosen men lefthanded; every one could sling stones at a hair-breadth, and not miss.
Related passages
From the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, grouped by the word they explain.
- Judges 20:16
- left-handed.{Itter yad yemeeno,} "obstructed in his right hand;" so the Chaldee Targum, {gemid beedaih deyammeena,} contracted or impeded in his right hand." Le Clerc observes, that the 700 men left-handed seem therefore to have been made slingers, because they could not use the right hand, which is employed in managing heavier arms; and they could discharge the stones from the sling in a direction against which their opponents were not upon their guard, and thus do the greater execution.
- Judges 3:15; 1 Chronicles 12:2
- sling stones
- The sling was a very ancient warlike instrument; and, in the hands of those who were skilled in the use of it, produced astonishing effects. The inhabitants of the islands of 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 had to eat from the top of a pole, or some distant eminence. Vegetius tells us, that slingers could in general hit the mark at 600 feet distance.
- 1 Samuel 17:40, 49, 50; 1 Samuel 25:29; 2 Chronicles 26:14