These scavengers were hungry for the riches that fertile…land could produce.
1 Israel had such land, and for Israel the produce of the land was its livelihood. So it is not surprising that seven years of Midianite oppression reduced Israel to dreadful poverty. The Lord uses Midian as a scourge of chastisement upon his people.
4 They would encamp against them and devour the produce of the land, as far as Gaza, and leave no sustenance in Israel and no sheep or ox or donkey.