Judges 7:2-3
Lest Israel vaunt themselves against me
The reduction is about attribution rather than tactics, and twenty-two thousand leave at the first invitation.
Objects of the Bible
The torches and the jars
Three hundred men, and every one of them had both hands full of things that were not weapons.
The army is reduced twice, from thirty-two thousand to ten thousand by sending home the fearful, and then to three hundred by how the men drink at the water. The stated reason for the reduction is credit: lest Israel vaunt themselves against me, saying mine own hand hath saved me. What the three hundred are issued with is a trumpet in one hand and an empty pitcher in the other, with a lamp inside the pitcher.
Scroll down to the story
The movements, in the order the text gives them.
The story of The torches and the jars
- 01
- 02
Judges 7:16
A trumpet in every man’s hand, with empty pitchers
The equipment list is short and contains nothing that could hurt anyone. The lamps are inside the pitchers, hidden until they are not.
- 03
Judges 7:19-20
They brake the pitchers
The timing is the beginning of the middle watch, when the guard has just changed. Light, noise and a shout arrive in the same second.
- 04
Judges 7:21-22
They stood every man in his place
The three hundred do not advance. The account is explicit that the host runs, and cries, and turns its swords on itself.
Why it matters
The arithmetic of that is the point. Both hands are occupied, so nobody is holding a sword. The plan is a single coordinated moment: they blow the trumpets and break the pitchers that were in their hands, and hold the lamps in their left hands and the trumpets in their right, and shout. Three hundred lights appear at once around a sleeping camp of a hundred and thirty-five thousand, and the account says the LORD set every man’s sword against his fellow. The Israelites stood every man in his place.
3 songs
The music
Every song in the catalogue whose passage falls inside these chapters.
