The Judges · c. 1190 BC
Chapter 4
Gideon
Yahweh’s angel appeared to him, and said to him, “Yahweh is with you, you mighty man of valor!”
For parents
When Gideon tears down Baal’s altar, the men of his town demand that he be put to death, and his father answers that whoever fights for Baal will be put to death by morning (Judges 6:30–31). In the night battle the Lord turns the enemy soldiers’ swords against each other (7:22). The Israelites chasing Midian kill its two princes, Oreb and Zeeb, and bring their heads to Gideon (7:24–25).
The did what was evil in the ’s sight, so for seven years the Lord put them in the power of . Midian overpowered Israel. Because of Midian, the Israelites made dens for themselves in the mountains, and caves and strongholds too.
Whenever Israel had planted its fields, the Midianites, the and the people of the east came up against them and camped on their land. They destroyed the land’s crops all the way to . They left nothing in Israel to live on, and no sheep, no ox and no donkey. They came up with their livestock and their tents, as many as . There was no counting them or their camels, and they came into the land to ruin it.
Midian left Israel very poor, and the Israelites cried out to the Lord. When they did, he sent them a . The prophet told them, “The Lord, the God of Israel, says this: ‘I brought you up from . I brought you out of the land where you were slaves. I rescued you from the Egyptians and from everyone who mistreated you. I drove them out ahead of you and gave you their land. I said to you, “I am the Lord your God. You are not to fear the gods of the , whose land you are living in.” But you haven’t listened to me.’”
Then the came and sat under the oak at that belonged to the . Joash’s son was beating out wheat in the , to hide it from the Midianites.
The Lord’s angel appeared to him and told him, “The Lord is with you, you brave warrior!”
“Please, my lord,” Gideon said to him, “if the Lord is with us, why did all this happen to us? Where are all the wonders he did? Our ancestors told us about them. They said, ‘Didn’t the Lord bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the Lord has cast us aside and handed us over to Midian.”
The Lord looked at him and said, “Go with this strength of yours, and save Israel from Midian. Haven’t I sent you?”
“Lord,” Gideon said to him, “how can I save Israel? Look, my family is the poorest in , and I am the least in my father’s household.”
“I will be with you,” the Lord told him. “You will strike the Midianites down as if they were one man.”
Gideon said to him, “If you’re pleased with me, give me a sign that it’s you speaking to me. Please don’t go until I come back with my gift and set it in front of you.”
“I will wait until you come back,” came the answer.
Gideon went in and prepared a young goat, and cakes of made from an of flour, about six gallons. The meat went into a basket and the broth into a pot. He brought it all out to the angel under the oak and offered it to him.
The angel of God said to him, “Take the meat and the unleavened cakes, lay them on this rock, and pour out the broth.” Gideon did it.
Then the Lord’s angel reached out with the staff in his hand and touched the meat and the cakes with its tip. Fire went up out of the rock, and the meat and the cakes were burned up. And the Lord’s angel was gone from his sight.
Gideon saw that he was the Lord’s angel. “Oh, Lord God!” Gideon cried. “I have seen the Lord’s angel face to face!”
The Lord said to him, “Peace be to you! Don’t be afraid. You won’t die.”
Then Gideon built an there to the Lord and named it “.” To this day it is still in Ophrah of the Abiezrites.
That same night the Lord told Gideon, “Take your father’s bull, the second bull, the one that is seven years old. Tear down the altar of that your father has, and cut down the that stands next to it. Then build an altar to the Lord your God up on this stronghold, and build it properly. Take the second bull and sacrifice it as a . Burn it on wood from the Asherah pole that you cut down.”
Gideon took ten men from among his servants and did as the Lord had said. But because he was afraid of his father’s household and the men of the town, he couldn’t do it by day. He did it at night.
When the men of the town got up early in the morning, they found Baal’s altar broken down, the pole next to it cut down, and the second bull offered on the new altar.
“Who did this?” they asked each other. They asked around and looked into it, and they said, “Gideon, the son of Joash, did this.”
The men of the town told Joash, “Bring your son out. He has to die. He broke down Baal’s altar and cut down the Asherah pole next to it.”
Joash said to all the people standing against him, “Are you going to fight for Baal? Are you going to save him? Whoever fights for him will be put to death by morning! If Baal is a god, let him fight for himself, because someone has torn down his altar.”
So on that day Gideon was given the name , which means “Let Baal fight against him,” because he had torn down Baal’s altar.
Then the Midianites, the Amalekites and the people of the east all came together. They crossed over and camped in the valley of .
But the Lord’s Spirit came on Gideon. He blew a trumpet, and the clan of Abiezer gathered to follow him. He sent messengers all through Manasseh, and they too gathered to follow him. He sent messengers to , to and to , and they came up to meet them.
Gideon said to God, “If you are going to save Israel through me, as you said, then look: I will put a of wool on the . If there is dew on the fleece only, and all the ground is dry, then I’ll know you will do it.”
It happened just that way. Early the next day Gideon got up and squeezed the fleece. He wrung the dew out of it, enough water to fill a bowl.
“Don’t be angry with me,” Gideon said to God. “I’ll ask just once more: this time let only the fleece be dry, with dew on all the ground.”
That night God did it. Only the fleece was dry, and there was dew on all the ground.
Then Gideon, also called Jerubbaal, got up early with all his people and set up camp by the spring of . Midian’s camp lay north of them, in the valley by the hill of .
The Lord said to Gideon, “You have too many people with you. If I put Midian in their power, Israel would brag against me and say, ‘I saved myself by my own strength.’ So now announce to the people, ‘Whoever is afraid and shaking, go back. Leave Mount Gilead.’” Twenty-two thousand of the people went back, and ten thousand stayed.
The Lord said to Gideon, “There are still too many people. Bring them down to the water. There I’ll test them for you, and I’ll tell you who goes with you and who doesn’t.”
Gideon led the people down to the water. The Lord told him, “Set everyone who laps the water with his tongue, the way a dog laps, to one side. Do the same with everyone who gets down on his knees to drink.”
Three hundred men lapped, putting their hands to their mouths. All the rest of the people got down on their knees to drink the water.
The Lord said to Gideon, “I will save you with the three hundred men who lapped, and I will hand the Midianites over to you. Send all the others home.”
So the people took food with them, and their trumpets. Gideon sent all the rest of the men of Israel home to their tents, but he kept the three hundred. Midian’s camp was below him in the valley.
That same night the Lord told Gideon, “Get up and go down into the camp, because I have put it in your power. But if you’re afraid, take your servant to the camp with you. You will hear what they are saying, and after that you will be bold enough to go down into the camp.” So Gideon went with Purah to the outer edge of the camp, where the armed men were posted.
The Midianites, the Amalekites and all the people of the east were spread out across the valley, as many as locusts. Their camels couldn’t be counted; there were as many as the sand on the seashore.
When Gideon got there, a man was telling his friend a dream. “Listen to this dream I had,” he said. “A loaf of bread came rolling into the camp of Midian. It hit the tent and knocked it down. It turned the tent upside down, and the tent lay flat.”
His friend answered, “That can only be the sword of Gideon, the son of Joash, a man of Israel. God has handed Midian over to him, and the whole army with it.”
When Gideon heard the dream and what it meant, he worshiped. Then he went back to the camp of Israel and said, “Get up! The Lord has handed the army of Midian over to you!”
Gideon divided the three hundred men into three companies. He gave every man a trumpet and an empty jar with a torch inside it.
“Watch me and do what I do,” he told them. “When my men and I blow our trumpets at the edge of the camp, you blow yours all around it, and shout, ‘For the Lord and for Gideon!’”
Gideon and the hundred men with him came to the edge of the camp at the start of the middle watch. That was the middle one of the night’s three guard shifts, and the new guards had just been posted. They blew the trumpets and smashed the jars in their hands.
All three companies blew their trumpets and smashed their jars. They held the torches in their left hands and blew the trumpets in their right hands. They shouted, “The sword of the Lord and of Gideon!”
Each of them stood where he was, around the camp, and the whole army in the camp ran. They shouted, and sent them running.
They blew the three hundred trumpets, and all through Midian’s army the Lord set each man’s sword against the man beside him. The army fled as far as Beth Shittah, toward Zererah, and as far as the edge of Abel Meholah, by Tabbath.
The men of Israel gathered from Naphtali, from Asher and from all of Manasseh, and they chased Midian.
Gideon sent messengers all through the hill country of . “Come down against Midian,” he said. “Get to the waters ahead of them, all the way to Beth Barah and the !” The men of Ephraim all came out and did just that.
They caught the two princes of Midian, and . They killed Oreb at Oreb’s rock, and they killed Zeeb at Zeeb’s wine press, as they chased Midian. Then they brought the heads of Oreb and Zeeb to Gideon, on the other side of the Jordan.