Judges 6:11-24
Mighty man of valour
The greeting does not match the scene. He answers with a complaint about the exodus and asks who he is, being the least in his father’s house, and asks for a sign before he will believe it.
People of the Bible
Gideon
Was threshing wheat in a winepress to hide it, and was greeted as a mighty man of valour.
Also called Jerubbaal
Gideon is hiding grain from Midianite raiders when he is addressed as a mighty man of valour, and his first response is an argument: if the LORD is with us, why has all this happened. He asks for a sign, then pulls down his father’s altar at night because he is afraid to do it by day, then asks for the fleece twice, wet then dry, to be sure. He is given thirty-two thousand men and told there are too many, twice, until three hundred are left holding trumpets and empty jars.
Scroll down to the storyThe movements, in the order the text gives them.
The story of Gideon
- 01
- 02
Judges 6:25-32
The altar pulled down at night
He obeys, but under cover of dark, because he is afraid of his family and the town. In the morning his father defends him with the best line in the chapter: if Baal is a god, let him contend for himself.
- 03
Judges 6:36-40
The fleece, twice
Wet fleece on dry ground, then dry fleece on wet ground, with an apology before the second request. He is not rebuked for either.
- 04
Judges 7:1-8
Too many, still too many
Twenty-two thousand go home afraid. Ten thousand are cut to three hundred at a stream over how they drink. The reason given is that Israel must not boast that its own hand saved it.
- 05
Judges 7:16-22
Trumpets, jars and torches
Three hundred men surround a camp at the change of the watch, break the jars they were hiding the light in, and shout. The camp turns on itself in the dark.
- 06
Judges 8:22-27
The ephod at Ophrah
Asked to rule, he says the LORD will rule over them, and then asks each man for a gold earring from the plunder. What he makes with it becomes a snare to him and to his house.
Why it matters
The whole point of the reduction is stated outright: so that Israel cannot say its own hand saved it. Gideon is the judge most consistently given less than he asks for and more than he needs, and the victory is won by noise and light rather than by weapons. The end is bleaker. He refuses to be king in words that sound right, then makes an ephod out of the gold, and the country goes after it, and his own house does not survive him.
5 songs
The music
Every song in the catalogue whose passage falls inside these chapters.
