Who was Gideon in the Bible?
Gideon lived when Israel had turned to idols and were being stripped bare by raiders from Midian, a people descended from Abraham through his second wife Keturah. God's answer to their cry was not an army but one frightened farmer — and the story that follows is largely about how God takes away a man's props until only He is left.
The state of the land
The oppression was total. Food, freedom and safety had all gone, and Israel was hiding in caves while others reaped their harvest.
The Christian's FriendThe hand of Midian prevails against Israel, and the Midianites, as numerous as grasshoppers, spread themselves over the land and eat it up. Israel have taken to the mountains, to dens and to caves. The highways are empty; travellers walk by side roads. The harvest is reaped by others. The increase of the earth is destroyed, and Israel has no food left; neither sheep, nor ox, nor donkey.
God's rescue came in two stages, and the order matters.
Edward DennettFirst, the Lord sent a prophet to bring their sin home to their conscience, and then He sent an angel to raise up a deliverer; and He finds Gideon threshing wheat by the winepress to hide it from the Midianites.
Called a mighty man while hiding
The greeting Gideon received — "mighty man of valour" — did not describe what anyone could see. Writers point out that the strength named was not his own.
H. L. RossierThese two things are closely joined: his strength was in the Lord Himself. "Go in this your might," said the Lord as He looked on him; and at once Gideon is gripped by the sense of his own nothingness — his family was the poorest in Manasseh, and he the least in his father's house. And the Lord said to him, "Surely I will be with you."
His first reply was a question about why the nation was suffering at all, and that is treated as part of what fitted him for the job.
Edward DennettThese words show that Gideon identified himself with the condition of his people; for he says, "Why has all this happened to us?" — and that, entering into their state, he carried it on his heart before the Lord. Without this he would not have been qualified to be their helper.
The altar at home came down first
Before Gideon faced Midian he had to face his own father's household. He built an altar he named Jehovah-shalom, "the Lord is peace," and then destroyed the altar of Baal beside it — at night, because he was afraid.
Numerical Bible NotesThe altar itself is now a challenge to the idols; the Lord's altar cannot stand alongside Baal's, nor can Israel's deliverance be carried out with a divided faith... So "to faith" Gideon had to "add virtue" — the boldness needed by every good soldier of Christ; and this boldness is God's means of waking up and emboldening others, so that Joash, his father, steps into the ranks.
His father's defence — let Baal plead for himself — gave Gideon a second name, Jerubbaal.
A weak faith met with patience
Gideon then asked for signs, laying a fleece of wool out overnight, twice, with opposite conditions. Commentators are candid about what this revealed.
H. L. RossierAll God's orders to Gideon were clear and simple, but when Gideon asked God for signs, everything became obscure and complicated... What poor faith! What feeble confidence in Him! But the God of grace patiently did what His servant asked. He wanted to deliver His people. He wanted, by every means, to hold up the feeble heart of His witness, so as to enlist him in His service and make him an instrument for His glory.
Thirty-two thousand cut to three hundred
God twice told Gideon his army was too big. The fearful went home; the rest were tested at a stream by how they drank.
J. N. DarbyThese people were really not afraid, as those who left earlier were; they were all soldiers ready for war. The test was this: whether, on that thirsty day, they would lap the water, putting the hand to the mouth, or bow down and drink at their ease. The three hundred chosen ones — those through whom the Lord was about to work — had no time for stopping, since their hearts were in the work, and they merely took a drink as they went on their way.
Armed with trumpets, jars and torches, they broke the jars at midnight and the Midianite camp destroyed itself. The point of such weapons is drawn out plainly:
F. B. HoleTrumpets, pitchers and lamps are wonderfully effective weapons if God is pleased to use them, but then it is obvious that the excellency of the power is not from them but from God.
Victory, then the snare
Israel offered Gideon a dynasty; he refused it. But he asked for the gold earrings taken as plunder and made an ephod — a high priest's garment — which Israel then worshipped.
William KellyHow often we see that the result of the victory of faith is too great for the faith that won it!... It was an attempt to preserve by a form what can only be sustained by grace from the same source.
The land had forty years of quiet in his lifetime; commentators note he is listed among the people of faith in Hebrews 11.
Summary
- Emptied — God found Gideon hiding grain in a winepress, the least man in the poorest family, and greeted him as a mighty man of valour.
- Equipped — his might was never his own: "Surely I will be with you" was the whole armoury, and God patiently gave signs to a faith that was real but weak.
- Cleared — the altar of Baal in his own father's yard fell before Midian did; deliverance cannot be done with a divided faith.
- Reduced — 32,000 became 300 so Israel could never say their own hand had saved them; broken jars and torches carried the victory.
- Endangered — the greatest risk came after the win. He refused the crown but kept a memorial of gold, and it became a snare to him and his house.