The Call of Gideon

Continuing a chronological Bible study:

(Judges 6:1) And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord delivered them into the hand of Midian seven years.

In the last chapter and post, Deborah as judge, with Barak, had delivered Israel from Jabin king of Canaan and Sisera the captain of his army.  The land had rest for forty years.  But now the people again began doing evil in the sight of the Lord, and He allowed them to be delivered into the hand of Midian for seven years.  The Midianites had been decimated by Moses about 200 years prior, but it seems many of them had fled to neighboring countries and subsequently returned to their own land and grew in number.  God had probably purposely increased their number so that they would be a check on His people.

(2) And the hand of Midian prevailed against Israel. Because of the Midianites, the children of Israel made them the dens which are in the mountains, and caves, and strongholds.

The Midianites prevailed against Israel and brought them into subjection to them.  Because of the oppression of the Midianites, the children of Israel built for themselves dens and caves and places for them to hide out from their enemy.

(3) And it was when Israel had sown that the Midianites came up, and the Amalekites, and the children of the east, even they came up against them; (4) And they encamped against them and destroyed the increase of the earth till you come to Gaza, and left no sustenance for Israel, neither sheep, nor ox, nor ass.

When the children of Israel came out of their hiding places and sowed the land, the Midianites came along with the Amalekites and the children of the east, who were probably Arabians.  They all joined forces and camped by the Israelites and destroyed their growing crops all the way to Gaza which was on the Mediterranean Sea in the far west of Canaan.  As they had come from the east, this meant they destroyed the whole land from east to west.  They left nothing for the Israelites, no crops and no animals.

(5) For they came up with their cattle and their tents, and they came as grasshoppers for multitude; both they and their camels were without number, and they entered into the land to destroy it.

The Midianites, Amalekites, and other eastern tribes, came into Canaan with all their flocks and livestock to eat up the crops.  They came with tents that they could move from place to place in order to take of all that Israel had.  They were as grasshoppers in the land, just as numerous and devouring everything in their path.  They came with camels that were just as numerous, as Midian and Arabia were famous for camels.  They ate as well and trampled and destroyed the land. 

(6) And Israel was greatly impoverished because of the Midianites, and the children of Israel cried to the Lord.

Israel became greatly impoverished because of the Midianites and others, and they cried out to the Lord, which is always the purpose of God's punishments, to bring His people back to Him, their only source for life.

(7) And it came to pass, when the children of Israel cried to the Lord because of the Midianites, (8) That the Lord sent a prophet to the children of Israel who said to them, "I brought you up from Egypt and brought you forth out of the house of bondage, (9) And I delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians, and out of the hand of all who oppressed you, and drove them out from before you, and gave you their land, (10) And I said to you, 'I am the Lord your God; do not fear the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell but you have not obeyed My voice.'"

When the children of Israel cried out to the Lord, He first sent them a prophet to make them realize how they had sinned against Him and brought this oppression on themselves.  The prophet spoke the words of the Lord, reminding the people how He had brought them out of bondage in Egypt, and He continued to drive out all who came against them to give them their land in Canaan.  He had said to the people that they were not to fear the gods of the Amorites.  He did not mean not to be afraid, but rather have no reverential fear of them so as to worship them (Deuteronomy 7:16).  However, the children of Israel had disobeyed Him, and that is why they found themselves in the trouble in which they now were again.

(11) And there came an angel of the Lord and sat under an oak which was in Ophrah, that of Joash the Abiezrite, and his son Gideon threshed wheat by the winepress to hide it from the Midianites.

Meanwhile, there came an angel of the Lord who sat under an oak tree belonging to Joash, a descendant of Abiezer, in a place called Ophrah.  Joash's son Gideon threshed wheat by the winepress, which would have been an unsuspecting place, so he could hide from the Midianites.

(12) And the angel of the Lord appeared to him, and said to him, "The Lord is with you, you mighty man of valor."

The angel of the Lord who had been under the oak tree appeared to Gideon and called him a mighty man of valor and assured him that the Lord was with him.  I love this!  Gideon was just a son of a poor man trying to get by by hiding away in fear of the Midianites.  Yet God was calling him a mighty man of valor!  God can call any of us poor weak individuals to do great things for Him, as He will be with us to perform any task to which He calls us.

(13) And Gideon said to him, "Oh, my Lord, if the Lord be with us, why then is all this befallen us? And where all His miracles which our fathers told us of, saying, 'Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?' But now the Lord has forsaken us and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites."

However, Gideon answered the angel, probably not understanding he was an angel, but seeing him as a distinguished man, asking how it could be that the Lord was with them when He had allowed all that misery to befall them.  He wondered where all God's miracles were of which their fathers had told them, specifically about how God had brought them out of Egypt.  He felt that the Lord had now forsaken them because He had delivered them into the hands of the Midianites.

(14) And the Lord looked upon him and said, "Go in this your might, and you shall save Israel from the hand of the Midianites. Have I not sent you?"

The Lord Himself looked upon Gideon, and through the angel He told him to go forth in the might he had received from the Lord, as he had already been told by the angel that the Lord was with him (verse 12).  He would save Israel from the oppression of the Midianites because the Lord Himself was sending him, and He would be with him.

(15) And he said to Him, "Oh my Lord, how shall I save Israel? Behold, my family poor in Manasseh, and I the least in my father's house."

But Gideon answered, asking how it was that he could save Israel.  He was from a simple family in the tribe of Manasseh, which is a better translation than "poor," for we will see in a later verse that he must have had some wealth.  He called himself the least in his father's house.  He may have been the youngest in his family or just considered himself the least fit to take on such a great work.

(16) And the Lord said to him, "Surely I will be with you, and you shall strike the Midianites as one man."

The Lord assured Gideon that He would be with him, and he would be able to strike down the Midianites as easily as if they were just one man.

(17) And he said to Him, "If now I have found grace in your sight, then show me a sign that You talk with me."

Gideon then asked that if he had surely found grace in the Lord's sight, he might receive a sign from the Lord that it was truly Him talking to him through the angel.

(18) "Do not depart from here, I pray you, until I come to you and bring forth my present and set it before You." And He said, "I will tarry until you come again."

Gideon asked the angel not to leave there until he had come back with a present for him.  And the Lord, through the angel, said He would wait until Gideon came again.  In the words of Dr. John Gill, in his Exposition of the Bible, this "was a wonderful instance of divine condescension," that the Lord would patiently wait on a man.

(19) And Gideon went in and made ready a kid and unleavened cakes of an ephah of flour; the flesh he put in a basket, and he put the broth in a pot, and he brought it out to Him under the oak and presented it.

Gideon went in and prepared a goat kid and unleavened cakes he had made from an ephah of flour, that is about two thirds of a bushel of flour.  He brought some cakes, the goat meat in a basket, and its broth in a pot, out to the angel who was still under the oak tree and presented it all to him.

(20) And the angel of God said to him, "Take the flesh and the unleavened cakes and lay them upon this rock and pour out the broth." And he did so.

The angel told Gideon to place the meat and the unleavened cakes on a rock and pour out the broth.  In this, he was making an offering to God of the meat and bread and likewise with the broth, he used it as a libation, a drink offering poured out to the Lord.

(21) Then the angel of the Lord put forth the end of the staff in his hand and touched the flesh and the unleavened cakes, and there rose up fire out of the rock and consumed the flesh and the unleavened cakes. Then the angel of the Lord departed out of his sight.

The angel of the Lord touched the flesh and the cakes with the end of his staff, and fire rose up out of the rock and devoured the meat and cakes.  With that, the angel left, leaving Gideon with the sign for which he had asked.

(22) And when Gideon perceived that he was an angel of the Lord, Gideon said, "Alas, O Lord God! For I have seen an angel of the Lord face to face."

Gideon then realized that the man was an angel of the Lord, and he cried out.  The exclamation "Alas!" was a word used to express pain exclamatorily in the Bible.  Speaking of seeing the angel of the Lord face to face demonstrates that Gideon had fear because of the notion that it was death for mortal man to see God.

(23) And the Lord said to him, "Peace to you, fear not, you shall not die."

The Lord knew Gideon's fear, and He told him to have peace and not be afraid for he was not going to die.

(24) Then Gideon built an altar there to the Lord and called it Jehovah-Shalom; unto this day it is yet in Ophrah of the Abiezrites.

Gideon then built an altar there to the Lord and called it Jehovah-Shalom, which meant "the Lord is peace."  The altar was still there at the time of the writing of this book, and that was most likely by the prophet Samuel.

(25) And it came to pass the same night that the Lord said to him, "Take your father's young bullock, even the second bullock of seven years old, and throw down the altar of Baal that your father has and cut down the grove that is by it."

That night the Lord spoke to Gideon, perhaps in a dream, and told him to take his father's young bull and a second bull of seven years old.  It's a little difficult to discern if there was one bull or two.  The verse is written in a way that could be interpreted that his father's young bull was a bull of seven years old, perhaps the second in age or position among his team.  However, the phrase "even the second," originally "sheniy," meant more precisely "double, duplicate," so it appears there were two bulls.  It becomes clearer in later verses that there probably were indeed two bulls.  One was to be Gideon's father's young bull and the other may have belonged to the people and was to be offered to Baal which seems plausible in the subsequent verses.  The Lord told him to use the bulls to tear down the altar of Baal that was apparently on his father's property, and also cut down the grove that was by it.  Groves of trees were planted near pagan altars for places of worship to the false gods.

(26) "And build an altar to the Lord your God upon the top of this rock in the proper arrangement, and take the second bull and offer a burnt sacrifice with the wood of the grove which you shall cut down.

The Lord continued with His command that Gideon then build an altar to Him on the rock, possibly the same one where Gideon had built his altar, or more likely it was just the large rock where Gideon had hidden himself as the Israelites had been forced to do (verse 2).  He was then to take the second bull and offer a burnt sacrifice of it with the wood of the grove he was going to cut down.

(27) Then Gideon took ten men of his servants and did as the Lord had said to him; and so it was, because he feared his father's household and the men of the city, that he could not do it by day, that he did it by night.

Gideon took ten men of his servants, which proves he was not a man poor in wealth (verse 15), to help him do what the Lord had told him to do.  Because he feared the wrath of his father, or the fact that his father would surely try to stop him, and he feared the men of the city which proves the altar to Baal, and perhaps the grove, was frequented by the public even if it was on his father's land, he tore down the altar and cut down the grove at night.

(28) And when the men of the city arose early in the morning, behold, the altar of Baal was cast down and the grove was cut down that was by it, and the second bullock was offered on the altar that was built. (29) And they said to one another, "Who has done this thing?" And when they enquired and asked, they said, "Gideon the son of Joash has done this thing."

When the men of the city arose early the next morning, they saw that the altar of Baal had been cast down and the grove next to it had been cut down, and a new altar had been built that had a bull as an offering upon it.  They asked one another who had done such a thing, and either received an answer from someone who knew, or just surmised that it was Gideon, perhaps because they knew him to be no friend of Baal.

(30) Then the men of the city said to Joash, "Bring out your son that he may die because he has cast down the altar of Baal and because he has cut down the grove that was by it."

Then men of the city then demanded of Joash that he bring out his son Gideon so that he might die because he had destroyed the altar of Baal and the grove that was beside it.

(31) And Joash said to all who stood against him, "Will you plead for Baal? Will you save him? He who will plead for him, let him be put to death while morning. If he is a god, let him plead for himself because one has cast down his altar."

Joash spoke to the men seeking Gideon.  He asked if they would plead the case for the false god Baal.  After all, these men were children of Israel and knew their one true God.  He asked if they would save Baal.  After all, if he was truly a god, he could save himself and plead his own case.  If he was truly a god, he knew who cast down his altar.  He also said that whoever would plead for the false god Baal should be put to death immediately while it was still morning.  It appears that Joash had come to his senses about worshiping false idols, or at the very least, in trying to save his son, he spoke common sense truth.

(32) Therefore on that day he called him Jerub-Baal, saying, "Let Baal plead against him because he has thrown down his altar."

Joash then called his son Gideon, Jerub-Baal, which literally meant "Baal will contend," because Baal would contend with Gideon if he could.  It appears that name stuck as Gideon was called by that name in several other subsequent verses of the Bible.  It seems to me it would be considered a symbol of courage that he was the man with whom Baal should contend and destroy, but obviously he couldn't, and Jerub-Baal's very existence proved His Lord God's dominion over Baal.

(33) Then all the Midianites and Amalekites and the children of the east were gathered together and went over and pitched in the valley of Jezreel.

Because they had heard what Gideon had done, or perhaps just because it was harvest time and time for their usual devouring of the land, all the Midianites, Amalekites, and Arabians from the east gathered together and went over the Jordan River and pitched their tents in the valley of Jezreel.

(34) But the Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon, and he blew a trumpet, and Abiezer was gathered after him. (35) And he sent messengers throughout all Manasseh who was also gathered after him, and he sent messengers to Asher, and to Zebulun, and to Naphtali, and they came up to meet them.

The Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon and filled him with determination, strength, and courage, and he blew a trumpet of alarm.  The Abiezrites, of whom Gideon was a member (verse 11) gathered after him.  He then sent messengers throughout the rest of the tribe of Manasseh, and they also gathered after him.  He also sent messengers to the tribes of Asher, Zebulun, and Naphtali, and they came up to meet him.

(36) And Gideon said to God, "If You will save Israel by my hand, as You have said, (37) Behold, I will put a fleece of wool on the floor, and if the dew is on the fleece only and dry on all the earth, then I shall know that You will save Israel by my hand, as You have said."

Gideon then said to God in prayer that if He intended to save Israel by Gideon's hand, as He had said, then he proposed a sign to confirm it.  Gideon admitted that God had already said what He wanted him to do, yet Gideon asked for a sign.  His faith may have needed a boost, but this may have been more for the soldiers he had gathered together so that they would be encouraged by the confirmation that God would be with them.  He proposed that he would place a fleece of wool on the floor, probably the threshing floor where the angel first appeared to him which would have been exposed to open air, and if dew was on the fleece but not on the ground around, Gideon would know that the Lord would indeed save Israel by his hand.

(38) And it was so, for he rose up early the next day, and he thrust the fleece together and wrung the dew out of the fleece, a bowl full of water.

It was just as Gideon had proposed.  He rose up early the next morning, grabbed up the fleece and wrung out a bowl full of dew from it.  The verse doesn't say it, but I am sure we can safely assume that the ground around him was dry.

(39) And Gideon said to God, "Let not Your anger be hot against me, and I will speak but this once; let me prove, I pray You, but this once with the fleece, let it now be dry only on the fleece, and on all the ground let there be dew."

Then Gideon spoke to the Lord and actually asked for another sign!  However, he did ask with a great deal of humility and consciousness of the boldness and appearance of distrust he showed in asking for another sign.  He asked that the Lord not be angry with him, and that this would be the last time he asked for a sign with the fleece.  He asked that this time only the fleece would be dry, and all the ground would be wet with dew.

(40) And God did so that night, for it was dry on the fleece only, and there was dew on all the ground.

The Lord patiently and graciously did as Gideon asked that night, for the next morning the fleece was dry and there was dew all over the ground around it.  Was it Gideon whose wavering faith needed so much strengthening?  If so, it is a beautiful picture of how patient God is and willing to come to us and meet us at our level of weakness and infirmity.  However, Gideon was called one of the heroes of faith in Hebrews 11:32.  He probably had faith in God as he had already done things God called him to do but perhaps lacked faith in himself to be the one who could fulfill God's will.  He had thought of himself as simple and poor and the least among his father's house (verse 15).  We must remember that whatever God calls us to do, He equips us to do; He will be with us.  God knows the heart and one's faith and desire to have stronger faith, as demonstrated in Mark 9:24, "...Lord, I believe; help my unbelief."  However, once again, this request for a second sign might have been more for the soldiers Gideon had called, to encourage them and reinforce their faith in God to defeat their enemy.