Judges 6
Israel, once again, fell into sin and ignoring God and the law. This time God gives them over to the Moabites and Amelekites, who invaded the land in huge numbers.
Israel had the chance to plant crops, but the raiders came along and stole them along with all the livestock. The description is they were like a plague of locusts devouring every living thing in the land.
Israel eventually called upon God for help.
God sent a prophet to Israel to say basically we had an agreement, and you have not kept your side.
An angel from God pays a visit to Gideon who is currently trying to thresh and winnow grain while hiding in a winepress. Threshing wheat is a process of separating the heavy grain from the light chaff (or rest of the plant). Ideally this needs plenty of room and a good breeze to allow the wind to carry the chaff away.
The greeting from the Angel is rather superb "The LORD is with you, mighty warrior".
Given that Gideon is currently trying to farm while hiding in a confined space makes me think that Gideon's first reaction would be to look around and say "Who, me?".
Gideon asks a question that I think most of us would ask, "If the LORD is with us, why is this stuff happening?"
Gideon is basically told to man up - "Go in the strength you have and save Israel, I, the LORD, am sending you.
Gideon takes quite a lot of persuading that God really is calling him. First of all he asks the Angel to wait while he fetched an offering.
the angel burned it with a touch of his staff and Gideon has a panic attack "I'm going to die!"
The Angel replied "Peace, you are not going to die, don't be afraid"
Next thing Gideon is told to smash the alter to Baal and the pole to Asherah, build an alter to God and sacrifice his fathers second best bull.
Being full of courage, Gideon did this at night so that nobody would stop him.
In the morning basically Baal and Asherah are told that if they want to take revenge on Gideon, they will have to take it themselves as there is new godly competition on the scene.
Next time the Midianites came back Gideon gathers an army from Manesseh (His tribe) Zebulun and Naphtali.
Gideon then does his famous fleece trick (This is the origin of the saying laying a fleece) - he puts out a fleece and tells God that if the ground is wet with dew in the morning and the fleece is bone dry then God has sent him. So it occurs.
Next day Gideon asks for the reverse trick - the fleece is wet but the ground dry.
He really takes some convincing - but now he is convinced he is ready to lead the army.
Judges 7
Gideon gathers the army to attack the huge Midianite army, but God says - hold on a minute, the army is too big - if you win you will not credit me with the victory, you will think it was by your strength. Tell the army "Anybody who really does not want to be here for whatever reason, you can go." 22,000 men march off and 10,000 were left. I can imagine Gideon at this point thinking that the odds of him winning had just been reduced from being outnumbers something like 3 to 1 to being outnumbered 10 to 1.
God still thinks that the army of 10000 is far too big, so he tells Gideon to take the army to a stream and get them to drink - 300 of them cup the water in their hands and drank, while 9,700 of them kneel down to drink. God tells Gideon to get rid of the 9700 spare soldiers and with just 300 men, he would defeat the army of Moab - probably outnumbered 300 to 1.
he did keep the provisions and the trumpets from the departed army.
What happens next is remarkable - Gideon splits his 300 men into 3 groups armed with trumpets, torches hidden in jars, and probably with as many sharp edged weapons as they could carry, surrounding the camp.
Just after the midnight watch change the men smashed the jars to reveal the torchlight, blew the trumpets and shouted for all they were worth. The Midianites panicked and started attacking each other and ran away in total disarray.
The soldiers of Ephraim were called out to carry on the attack.
Interestingly the story of Gideon and this particular action was the inspiration for the British Special forces unit the Chindits - and during world war 2 the tactic was used in the attack on a German/Italian air base located in Africa.
Judges 8
Ephraim were a bit upset that Gideon had not called them before the battle, but Gideon salved their pride by telling them that they had done the majority of the victory.
Meanwhile 2 leaders had escaped, Zebah and Zalmunnaa, and Gideon was in hot pursuit when he reached Succoth and Peniel he asked them to provide some food for his soldiers to help them keep going. Both said "do you have their heads with you? we are not helping until you do, at which Gideon vows to flog Succoth with thorns and destroy the tower of Peniel when he comes back with the heads.
The mighty army of Midian has been reduced to 15,000 (from 130000) but Gideon attacks them and captures the 2 kings.
Gideon asks "what kind of men did you kill?",
"Men like you. " came the reply.
Gideon ordered his son to kill them, but he is young and hesitated, so the kings ask Gideon to do it himself, which he did.
He also destroyed the tower of Peniel and flogged the elders of Succoth with thorns to make his point.
Israel asks Gideon and his sons to rule and start a dynasty - Gideon denied this saying God will lead you., but he asked for any gold earrings (which apparently were fashionable in Midian) and he made an Ephod which people in his home town worshipped and it lured his family away from following God.
Gideon had 70 sons who rode on 70 donkey (I guess 1 each, rather than 70 each!)
Gideon died at an old age, but the moment he was dead Israel deserted God and forgot all that Gideon and his family had done.
Israel, once again, fell into sin and ignoring God and the law. This time God gives them over to the Moabites and Amelekites, who invaded the land in huge numbers.
Israel had the chance to plant crops, but the raiders came along and stole them along with all the livestock. The description is they were like a plague of locusts devouring every living thing in the land.
Israel eventually called upon God for help.
God sent a prophet to Israel to say basically we had an agreement, and you have not kept your side.
An angel from God pays a visit to Gideon who is currently trying to thresh and winnow grain while hiding in a winepress. Threshing wheat is a process of separating the heavy grain from the light chaff (or rest of the plant). Ideally this needs plenty of room and a good breeze to allow the wind to carry the chaff away.
The greeting from the Angel is rather superb "The LORD is with you, mighty warrior".
Given that Gideon is currently trying to farm while hiding in a confined space makes me think that Gideon's first reaction would be to look around and say "Who, me?".
Gideon asks a question that I think most of us would ask, "If the LORD is with us, why is this stuff happening?"
Gideon is basically told to man up - "Go in the strength you have and save Israel, I, the LORD, am sending you.
Gideon takes quite a lot of persuading that God really is calling him. First of all he asks the Angel to wait while he fetched an offering.
the angel burned it with a touch of his staff and Gideon has a panic attack "I'm going to die!"
The Angel replied "Peace, you are not going to die, don't be afraid"
Next thing Gideon is told to smash the alter to Baal and the pole to Asherah, build an alter to God and sacrifice his fathers second best bull.
Being full of courage, Gideon did this at night so that nobody would stop him.
In the morning basically Baal and Asherah are told that if they want to take revenge on Gideon, they will have to take it themselves as there is new godly competition on the scene.
Next time the Midianites came back Gideon gathers an army from Manesseh (His tribe) Zebulun and Naphtali.
Gideon then does his famous fleece trick (This is the origin of the saying laying a fleece) - he puts out a fleece and tells God that if the ground is wet with dew in the morning and the fleece is bone dry then God has sent him. So it occurs.
Next day Gideon asks for the reverse trick - the fleece is wet but the ground dry.
He really takes some convincing - but now he is convinced he is ready to lead the army.
Judges 7
Gideon gathers the army to attack the huge Midianite army, but God says - hold on a minute, the army is too big - if you win you will not credit me with the victory, you will think it was by your strength. Tell the army "Anybody who really does not want to be here for whatever reason, you can go." 22,000 men march off and 10,000 were left. I can imagine Gideon at this point thinking that the odds of him winning had just been reduced from being outnumbers something like 3 to 1 to being outnumbered 10 to 1.
God still thinks that the army of 10000 is far too big, so he tells Gideon to take the army to a stream and get them to drink - 300 of them cup the water in their hands and drank, while 9,700 of them kneel down to drink. God tells Gideon to get rid of the 9700 spare soldiers and with just 300 men, he would defeat the army of Moab - probably outnumbered 300 to 1.
he did keep the provisions and the trumpets from the departed army.
What happens next is remarkable - Gideon splits his 300 men into 3 groups armed with trumpets, torches hidden in jars, and probably with as many sharp edged weapons as they could carry, surrounding the camp.
Just after the midnight watch change the men smashed the jars to reveal the torchlight, blew the trumpets and shouted for all they were worth. The Midianites panicked and started attacking each other and ran away in total disarray.
The soldiers of Ephraim were called out to carry on the attack.
Interestingly the story of Gideon and this particular action was the inspiration for the British Special forces unit the Chindits - and during world war 2 the tactic was used in the attack on a German/Italian air base located in Africa.
Judges 8
Ephraim were a bit upset that Gideon had not called them before the battle, but Gideon salved their pride by telling them that they had done the majority of the victory.
Meanwhile 2 leaders had escaped, Zebah and Zalmunnaa, and Gideon was in hot pursuit when he reached Succoth and Peniel he asked them to provide some food for his soldiers to help them keep going. Both said "do you have their heads with you? we are not helping until you do, at which Gideon vows to flog Succoth with thorns and destroy the tower of Peniel when he comes back with the heads.
The mighty army of Midian has been reduced to 15,000 (from 130000) but Gideon attacks them and captures the 2 kings.
Gideon asks "what kind of men did you kill?",
"Men like you. " came the reply.
Gideon ordered his son to kill them, but he is young and hesitated, so the kings ask Gideon to do it himself, which he did.
He also destroyed the tower of Peniel and flogged the elders of Succoth with thorns to make his point.
Israel asks Gideon and his sons to rule and start a dynasty - Gideon denied this saying God will lead you., but he asked for any gold earrings (which apparently were fashionable in Midian) and he made an Ephod which people in his home town worshipped and it lured his family away from following God.
Gideon had 70 sons who rode on 70 donkey (I guess 1 each, rather than 70 each!)
Gideon died at an old age, but the moment he was dead Israel deserted God and forgot all that Gideon and his family had done.
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