Yahweh said to Gideon, The people who are with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hand, lest Israel vaunt themselves against me, saying, My own hand has saved me.
"Let him return and depart from mount Gilead"  (Judges 7:3).  The difficulty with this is that Gilead was east of the Jordan River, and the confrontation between Gideon's forces and the Midianites was west of the Jordan.  Scholars have "solved" the difficulty by "emending" (that means substituting their own opinion for what is written) the text to make it read: "From mount Gilboa."[4]  The suggestion of Keil is a far better solution.  "There was a mountain or a mountain range named Gilead in western Palestine, just as there was a range of mountains called Seir in the territory of Judah."[5]  Just look at a map of the U.S.A., for example, there are multiple cities named, Lincoln, Georgetown, Paducah, Washington, Nashville, Atlanta and dozens of others.  The fact that an "unknown" Mount Gilead is mentioned here is fully in keeping with the fact that not any of the places mentioned here can be identified with any certainty.  Hervey also mentioned the fact that, "`Mount Gilead,' was a stereotyped expression for `home,' used by all the tribe of Manasseh, both by those on the east of Jordan in whose territory Gilead was located, and by those on the west side of Jordan also."[6]  It is this writer's opinion that alleged "scholars" have been far too ready to "emend" difficult passages to change their meaning instead of seeking an explanation of the text as it stands.