C. F. Keil and Franz Delitzsch on Judges 7:20-21

Jdg 7:20-21

According to the command which they had received (Jdg 7:17), the other two tribes followed his example. “Then the three companies blew the trumpets, broke the pitchers, and held the torches in their left hands, and the trumpets in their right to blow, and cried, Sword to the Lord and Gideon! And they stood every one his place round about the camp,” sc., without moving, so that the Midianites necessarily thought that there must be a numerous army advancing behind the torch-bearers. וגו ויּרץ, “and the whole army ran,” i.e., there began a running hither and thither in the camp of the enemy, who had been frightened out of their night’s rest by the unexpected blast of the trumpets, the noise, and the war-cry of the Israelitish warriors; “and they (the enemy) lifted up a cry (of anguish and alarm), and caused to fly” (carried off), sc., their tents (i.e., their families) and their herds, or all their possessions (cf. Jdg 6:11; Exo 9:20). The Chethibh יניסוּ is the original reading, and the Keri ינוּסוּ a bad emendation.