Gideon: Israel’s Fifth Judge

Feature 2 – February 2022 — Grace & Truth Magazine

Gideon–Israel’s Fifth Judge

Judges describes Israel’s national life in Canaan after Joshua’s death. It consisted of repeated cycles of:

1. Disobedience of the Israelites to God’s covenant.
2. Oppression of the nation by their enemies.
3. Crying to the Lord by the people for deliverance and God’s raising up a judge to deliver them.
4. A period of peace during the judge’s lifetime.

Gideon was Israel’s fifth judge and was introduced after a prophet warned Israel about their continued disobedience (6:7-10). He was concerned about Israel’s rich inheritance, which included the provision of the “finest of the wheat” (Dt. 32:14). However, the Midianites1 were devouring it (Jud. 6:1-6). So Gideon adopted an unusual method of threshing the harvested wheat in a winepress, thus securing the proper food for God’s people (v.11). He had been told of all the mighty deeds performed by the LORD in bringing His people out of Egypt and into the Promised Land. However, he was distressed that now the LORD had seemingly forsaken His chosen people (v.13).

Chosen And Commissioned By God
The Angel of the LORD2 came to Ophrah and appeared to Gideon as he worked. He appointed him to save Israel from the Midianites (v.14) and promised, “I will be with you [in battle]” (v.16 ESV). Gideon then communed with the Angel of the LORD by providing Him a fellowship offering meal (vv.17-21). The full implication of Gideon’s encounter with the Angel of the LORD only dawned upon him when his present was accepted, and the Angel of the LORD disappeared from his sight (v.22). Distraught, Gideon prayed to God. The LORD reassured Gideon and gave him peace of mind (v.23), whereupon Gideon worshiped and named his altar “Jehovah-shalom” (v.24 JND), or “The LORD Is Peace” (ESV).

Flee Idolatry!
There remained one more vital step in Gideon’s preparation for service. He had to repent of the nation’s – and specifically his family’s and townsfolk’s – blatant idolatry: the worship of Baal. God told him to break down his father’s altar to Baal and the Asherah pole beside it and to replace this idolatry with the true worship of “the LORD your God” (v.26). Gideon was now spiritually fit for battle, albeit awaiting the Spirit of God to clothe him with power.

A “Mighty Man Of Valor”
This is how the Angel of the LORD described Gideon in Judges 6:12. To grasp the full account of his battles with the Midianites, I encourage you to read Judges 7–8.

When the Spirit of the LORD endued, or came on, him, Gideon called an army of some 32,000 soldiers together from Manasseh, Asher, Zebulun and Naphtali (6:34-35, see 7:3). Even so, he still was not sure God would save Israel under his command. God graciously provided that reassurance with the sign of the fleece (6:36-40). However, when the army assembled on Mount Gilead, God reduced the fighting force down to 300 men – those who lapped water from their hands (7:1-8).

He then gave Gideon fresh confidence by sending him into the camp of Midian at night to hear the interpretation of a Midianite’s dream about a cake of barley bread: “And [the Midianite soldier’s] comrade answered, ‘This is no other than the sword of Gideon … a man of Israel; God has given into his hand Midian and all the camp’” (v.14). Gideon worshiped and immediately returned to his men, calling them into action: “Arise, for the LORD has given the host of Midian into your hand” (v.15). They were victorious, for through the blowing of their trumpets and the shining of their torches, the LORD caused panic in the camp of Midian. Among the enemy, every man turned on his comrade. But notice the battle cry from the men of Israel: “A sword for the LORD and for Gideon!” (v.20, compare with v.14: “This is no other than the sword of Gideon”).

Practical Considerations
• A Man Of Faith. In Hebrews 11 we read: “And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets” (v.32). In the chapter’s earlier verses the writer highlighted those features of the named Old Testament saints which show they had lived “by faith.” But we are left to ponder for ourselves what those features were for Gideon and the other saints referred to in verse 32. However, we do know that he was a victorious judge of Israel when “by faith” he obeyed the LORD’s instructions and defeated the Midianites (Jud. 7:1-23). He had heard about the exploits of the LORD in Egypt and at the Red Sea, and these reports were the basis of his confidence that the LORD would now act to save Israel from their enemies’ vast forces (v.12). But what about his seeming doubts – the sign of the fleece (6:36-40) – and his fears (7:9-15)?

To me, these are self-doubts and self-fears – equivalent to Paul’s humble attitude of putting “no confidence in the flesh” (Phil. 3:3) and “not that we are sufficient in ourselves … but our sufficiency is from God” (2 Cor. 3:5). God graciously strengthened Gideon’s faith through the cake of barley bread sign (Jud. 7:13-14). Strong in faith, he declared to his men, “the LORD has given the host of Midian into your hand” (v.15). With his meager army of 300 and employing his peculiar battle strategy, they went into battle crying, “A sword for the LORD and for Gideon” (v.20).

In our service for the Lord, do we exhibit these same features of humility and faith?

• Fighting The Good Fight And Keeping The Faith. Unlike Gideon, Christians do not fight physical battles to protect their heavenly inheritance – those spiritual blessings of which Canaan is a picture. “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Eph. 6:12). For these spiritual battles we must “put on the whole armor of God” (v.11) and recognize that “though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Cor. 10:3-5).

In Ephesians 6:17 Paul stated that our offensive weapon is “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” Gideon was very effective with his sword but his firstborn son, Jether, was not (Jud. 8:18-21). There is a lesson for us Christians to learn from this incident: for victory in spiritual conflicts we must be equipped with the Scriptures and able to use them effectively (see 2 Tim. 3:16, 2:15).

Another important aspect of Christian warfare is prayer “in the Spirit” (Eph. 6:18). Paul regarded prayer as an ongoing spiritual battle (see Col. 2:1). He prayed that the Lord’s people would be spiritually enlightened to grasp the richness of their spiritual blessings (Eph. 1:16-19), and spiritually strengthened to apprehend them and to know the love of Christ (3:14-19).

• Torches And Trumpets. Gideon’s peculiar battle strategy was to use empty jars, containing lights, in his men’s left hands and trumpets in their right hands (Jud. 7:16,19-21). He must have been instructed by God to do this because the LORD caused the Midianites, when they saw the light and heard trumpet blasts, to turn on each other (v.22). Paul alluded to Gideon’s victory in 2 Corinthians 4:3-11, where he stated that there is a spiritual battle raging whenever the gospel is preached (v.4).

He wrote that the gospel is a treasure. It is “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ,” a treasure which Christians possess in their physical bodies – “jars of clay” (vv.6-7, see 3:18). God has deliberately “shone in our hearts” so the gospel might shine out into this world of spiritual darkness (2 Cor. 4:6 JND). The broken jars used by Gideon’s army illustrate how the gospel shines out from believers, whose bodies are both frail and mortal (vv.8-18). Like Gideon and his army, we have no strength in ourselves; we are only proclaimers of His message, “that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us” (v.7 KJV).

• Gideon’s Ephod. Gideon became a national hero through his comprehensive victories over the Midianites, so much so that the men of Israel wanted to give his family the kingdom, which Gideon rightly refused (Jud. 8:22-23). They seemed to attribute their deliverance to Gideon and failed to own that it was God’s work. However, Gideon became covetous and took of their gold spoil (vv.24-26). He fashioned the gold into an ephod, by which he led the nation into idolatry again (vv.27-28). We are not told why he took this action, but it serves as a warning to us. The aftermaths of successful service for God are times when we are most vulnerable to cunning attacks by the Devil (see 2 Cor. 11:1-3).

Conclusion
The state of the professing Christian Church in the 21st century is very much like Israel in the days of the judges in that everyone does what he thinks is right in his own eyes (compare Jud. 21:25). Are you and I, instead, determined to be men or women of faith, whom the Lord can use in His service?

ENDNOTES
1. In his book How to Overcome, J. T. Mawson stated that the Midianites illustrate earthly things (Phil. 3:19), such as cares or anxieties, riches, and pleasures of life (Lk. 8:14), which prevent the Christian’s spiritual food (the Word of God) from being effective in our lives.
2. The Angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon as a Man. It is one of several appearances recorded in the Old Testament, and these are known as Theophanies.

By David Anderson

Ephesians closes with a striking passage which sets forth the Christian conflict. The conflict supposes that we know and appreciate the truths of the epistle and arises from seeking to retain and maintain them in the face of every opposing power. In the course of the epistle, the apostle unfolds to us our heavenly calling, the inheritance of glory to which we are predestined, the mystery of the Church and the practical life consistent with these great truths. If, however, we are set to enter into our heavenly blessings and to walk in consistency with them, we shall at once find that all the power of Satan is arrayed against us. In his hatred of Christ, the Devil will seek to rob us of the truth, or to bring dishonor upon the name of Christ and discredit the truth by bringing up moral breakdowns among those who hold the truth. The more truth we have, the greater dishonor to Christ if we breakdown by the allowance of the flesh. We must therefore be prepared to face conflict, and the more truth we have the greater will be the conflict. In view of this conflict, three things are brought before us: the source of our strength, the character of the enemy with whom we wrestle, the armor provided to enable us to withstand the assaults of the enemy. —Hamilton Smith