Lives of Scripture

Oreb was one of two named Midianite princes (the other, Zeeb) captured during the rout that followed Gideon's famous victory with 300 men over the vast Midianite camp (Judges 7). After the Midianites fled in panic, Gideon summoned the tribe of Ephraim to seize the fords of the Jordan and cut off their retreat (7:24). The Ephraimites captured and killed both princes: "they killed Oreb at the rock of Oreb, and Zeeb they killed at the wine press of Zeeb... and brought the heads of Oreb and Zeeb to Gideon" (7:25). The place-name outlived the event -- "the rock of Oreb" became a lasting geographic marker of the victory, still referenced generations later when the psalmist prays that God's present enemies would be brought as low "as with Midian, as with Sisera... at Endor... Make their nobles like Oreb and like Zeeb" (Psalm 83:9-11). Oreb's death, alongside Zeeb's, completed a battle that began with God deliberately shrinking Gideon's army so that Israel could not credit the victory to its own strength (Judges 7:2) -- Oreb's fall was ultimately remembered as evidence of what God alone had accomplished for His people.