Verse 9. - The children of Ammon, etc. It would seem that at this time the king of the children of Ammon was also king of the Moabites, since he laid claim (Judges 11:13, 24) to the land which had once belonged to Moab. If we may trust the king of the Ammonites' statement, the object of the war was to recover that land, and he carried the war across the Jordan into the territory of Judah and Ephraim in order to compel the Israelites to give it up.
10:6-9 Now the threatening was fulfilled, that the Israelites should have no power to stand before their enemies, Le 26:17,37. By their evil ways and their evil doings they procured this to themselves.
Moreover, the children of Ammon passed over Jordan,.... Not content with the oppression of the tribes on the other side Jordan, which had continued eighteen years, they came over Jordan into the land of Canaan to ravage that, and bring other of the tribes into subjection to them, particularly the three next mentioned, which lay readiest for them, when they were come over Jordan:
to fight also against Judah, and against Benjamin, and against the house of Ephraim who lay to the south and the southeast of the land of Canaan, and were the first the Ammonites had to fight with and subdue, when they had crossed Jordan to the east of it:
so that Israel was sore distressed; by the Ammonites in the east, threatening those three tribes, mentioned, and the Philistines on the west, who gave disturbance to the tribes that lay nearest them, as Asher, Zebulun, Naphtali, Issachar, and Dan; and this distress was begun the same year in different parts, by different enemies.
Was sore distressed.--The same expression is used in Judges 2:19.
to fight also against Judah, and against Benjamin, and against the house of Ephraim who lay to the south and the southeast of the land of Canaan, and were the first the Ammonites had to fight with and subdue, when they had crossed Jordan to the east of it:
so that Israel was sore distressed; by the Ammonites in the east, threatening those three tribes, mentioned, and the Philistines on the west, who gave disturbance to the tribes that lay nearest them, as Asher, Zebulun, Naphtali, Issachar, and Dan; and this distress was begun the same year in different parts, by different enemies.