Gideon #47

Gideon, also called Jerubbaal, was the son of Joash from the tribe of Manasseh and one of the judges in the book of Judges whose story is told at length (Judges 6 to 8). Israel had again done evil, and for seven years the Midianites and their allies had invaded at harvest time, stripping the land so severely that the people hid in mountain caves (Judges 6:1-6). Gideon is remembered for defeating a vast army with a tiny force so that Israel would know the victory belonged to the Lord.

Biblical Significance

The angel of the Lord found Gideon threshing wheat in a winepress to hide it from the Midianites and greeted him as a “mighty man of valour” (Judges 6:11-12). Gideon answered with questions, asking where the Lord’s wonders had gone, and when told he would save Israel, he protested that his clan was the weakest in Manasseh and he was the least in his family. God replied simply that he would be with him (Judges 6:13-16). That night Gideon tore down his father’s altar to Baal and cut down the Asherah beside it; when the townspeople demanded his death, Joash replied that Baal could defend himself, and Gideon received the name Jerubbaal (Judges 6:25-32).

Before battle Gideon asked for signs, laying out a fleece on the threshing floor and asking that it be wet with dew while the ground stayed dry, then the reverse (Judges 6:36-40). Popular tradition calls this “putting out a fleece,” although the text presents it as a request to confirm a promise God had already made.

God then reduced the army. Of thirty-two thousand men, twenty-two thousand went home when Gideon announced that the fearful could leave, and the remaining ten thousand were reduced again at the water to three hundred, so that Israel could not claim its own strength had saved it (Judges 7:1-8). Gideon divided the men into three companies, each holding a trumpet and a torch hidden in a jar. At the edge of the camp at night they broke the jars, blew the trumpets, and shouted, and the Midianites turned on one another and fled (Judges 7:19-23).

Legacy

When Israel offered to make Gideon and his descendants their rulers, he answered, “I will not rule over you, neither shall my son rule over you: the LORD shall rule over you” (Judges 8:22-23). Yet he then collected gold from the spoil and made an ephod, which became a snare to him and his household as the people worshiped it (Judges 8:24-27). The land had peace for forty years, but after his death the people returned to Baal, and his son Abimelech brought violence and ruin (Judges 8:28-9:57).

The New Testament lists Gideon among the heroes of faith (Hebrews 11:32). His story has become a well known picture of God working through weakness and hesitation, and also a reminder that a faithful leader can still make a costly mistake.