Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Judges 6:1

And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD: and the LORD delivered them into the hand of Midian seven years.

1 6. The Midianite oppression

1 . The Deuteronomic editor introduces a fresh subject in his accustomed manner: cf. Jdg 2:11; Jdg 2:14, Jdg 3:7, Jdg 4:1.

Midian ] The Midianites had their homes on the E. of the ‘Arbah; see Gen 25:6. At times they are found as far N. as Moab (Gen 36:35, Num 22:4; Num 25:15 ff; Num 31:1-12), while some section of them lived as far S. as the Gulf of ‘A bah; a trace of this southern settlement was long preserved in the name of the town called Modiana by Ptolemy (Jdg 6:7; Jdg 6:2) and Madyan by Arab geographers, 75 miles S. of Elath; cf. Euseb., Onom. Sacr., 136 f. Again, the Midianites are said to have inhabited the Sinaitic peninsula. Horeb, the mountain of God, lay in their territory, Exo 2:15 ff; Exo 3:1, cf. Hab 3:7; from 1Ki 11:18 Midian appears to be a district between Edom and Paran on the way to Egypt, i.e. in the N.E. of the Sinaitic desert. These various statements do not enable us to fix any exact boundaries; probably the Midianites shifted their territory in the course of ages. They ranged over the desert E. and S. of Palestine, engaged chiefly in warfare and in escorting trade-caravans (Gen 37:28, Isa 60:6). The tendency of Arab tribes was to move northwards; accordingly we find the Midianites advancing up the desert E. of the caravan-route, and making forays from time to time into Edom 1 [35] , Moab, and Gilead; on this occasion they even enter Palestine, probably by the valleys Wadi Jld or W. Fara‘, which lead up from the Jordan into the central district. They were tempted by the harvests, and their incursions, here described as taking place repeatedly, caused wide-spread misery. The Bedouin of the desert always looked upon the agricultural population as lawful prey.

[35] Ewald made the attractive suggestion that the battle alluded to in Gen 36:35 may have been a secondary result of Gideon’s victory described here. Hist. Isr. ii. 336.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Midian – See Gen 25:2 note. They were remarkable not only for the vast number of their cattle Jdg 6:5; Num 31:32-39, but also for their great wealth in gold and other metal ornaments, showing their connection with a gold country. (Compare Num 31:22, Num 31:50-54, with Jdg 8:24 :26.) At this time they were allies of the Amalekites and of the Arabian tribes called collectively the children of the East Jdg 6:3. They seem to have extended their settlements to the east of Jordan, and to have belonged to the larger section of Arabs called Ishmaelites Jdg 8:24.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Jdg 6:1-10

Because of the Midianites the children of Israel made them the dens . . . and caves and strongholds.

Divine punishment through natural means

Thus God gets at men through various means. The Midianites came out and spoiled the fields of the Israelites. The camels of the Midianites were without number; they entered the land to destroy it. Wheresoever they laid their hand they crushed the hope of Israel. Has God a way into our life, then, through corn and grass? Has He a way to chastise us through the medium of our business? Can He turn a client away and send a customer in another direction, and blind a man whilst he is counting his money? and can He so arrange things that prosperity shall crumble into adversity and a dense darkness shall settle upon the brightness of prosperity? This is Gods way of doing. He gets at men through their skin; He smites them with leprosy that they may learn to pray; He curses their bread that they may cry out about the better life; He drops poison into their water that they may learn that they have committed two evils–they have forsaken Him, the fountain of living water, and have hewn out unto themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water. These things should bring us to study, to reflection, to inquiry. Why has this adversity come upon me? why do men actually pine and die? Is there not a cause? (J. Parker, D. D.)

Divine retribution

The famished, terror-stricken fugitives, are they indeed the sons of the men of old before whom the elders of Moab and of Midian trembled, and against whom the prince of sorcerers confessed that no enchantments could prevail? These crouching slaves that timidly peep from behind projecting rocks, or shiver in the damp darkness of caverns, are they indeed the sons of the men who vanquished Sihon king of the Amorites, and Og king of Bashan? Where are the old traditions of victory? Where is the national character–the energy of the race? National character, ancestral traditions, energy of race! Yes; such things exist; they have potency and value. But there is one law higher, wider, deeper than all these, and which modifies and controls them all. It is the everlasting law of right and wrong; the law of conscience; the law of retribution. Israel had forsaken Jehovah and had fallen into the licentious practices of the heathen, therefore they became an easy prey to the spoiler, whose audacity increased, while Israels strength diminished year by year of that calamitous seven. The same laws are still in force, for the whole world is a theocracy. If we act as the Israelites acted, we shall suffer as they suffered. Spoilers will come upon us–spoilers in the form of tumultuous passions; spoilers in the form of mighty lusts; spoilers in the form of wretched, remorseful thoughts, which will devour our happiness, and make us ready to skulk away into the farthest corner of the darkest cave, to avoid the light of the sun. This irruption of the Midianites into the fruitful vales of Palestine was no accident. The world is not governed by chance. Israel had bowed to the gods of the heathen, therefore they must bow to the tyranny of the heathen. (L. H. Wiseman, M. A.)

The Midianite spoilers

The narrative of the sacred historian, though brief, gives a vivid picture of the ravages of the Midianites, and of the pitiable distress to which Israel was reduced. They chose the spring when the seed had been sown, and came up with all the accompaniments of Bedouin life, with their cattle, their tents, and their camels. They ranged over the entire plain, beginning at the bank of the Jordan, and proceeding farther and farther westward until thou come to Gaza, on the low-lying sandy shore of the Mediterranean. They carried their plundering incursions far up into the hills of Manasseh, of Zebulun, and of Naphtali. They arranged no regular campaign, but pitched their tents wherever they pleased; roaming in armed parties over the whole country, and spreading terror in every direction. The farmers, instead of combining in self-defence, fled to the hills or sheltered themselves in caves; leaving their produce to the robbers, who destroyed the increase of the earth, carried off the cattle, and left neither sheep, nor ex, nor ass, nor any kind of sustenance for Israel. After they had plundered all, they withdrew till the following season, when they again came up from the desert, after the seed had been sown, to renew their depredations. For seven successive years were these ravages committed–ravages more terrible than those of war–until the Israelitish people had become not only greatly impoverished, but utterly disheartened. (L. H. Wiseman, M. A.)

The Lord sent a prophet.

Divine reproof

Thus saith the Lord . . . ye have not obeyed My voice. Awful words, but not unmixed with mercy. If the wounds of a friend are faithful–if it be a kindness when the righteous smite us–how much more when our heavenly Father is pleased to reprove! Severe and unsympathising as the utterances of this prophet might sound in the ears of a crushed and dejected people, they were necessary preparation for the coming deliverance. Before the Lord sent them a deliverer, He sent to them a prophet to preach repentance; to remind them that their own disobedience had been the real cause of all their miseries; to prepare them for salvation by piercing them with a sense of sin. It is a mercy if the silence of the skies is broken, even though it be by the voice of correction. If that word which is like a two-edged sword be humbly and dutifully received, the word which heals and restores will presently follow. Thus it was in Gideons time; a messenger of reproof prepared the way for a messenger of victory. (L. H. Wiseman, M. A.)

The result of disobedience to Gods voice

God reads the book of history, and says, See what I did for you, where I found you, how I delivered you, how I interposed for you in the hour of extremity; see how, by a mighty hand and outstretched arm, I wrought out this whole salvation for you, and no sooner did I recover you to life and to hope, than you turned your backs upon Me and stopped your ears with your fingers, and your hearts went astray from My throne. There is, then, a moral explanation of this whole thing that we call difficulty, or pain, or discipline, disappointment, sorrow, and death: Ye obeyed not My voice. That is the explanation of it all. The explanation of death, pain, poverty, homelessness, friendlessness, sorrow of every degree, is to be found in the fact that we have disobeyed the voice of God. There has been the moral lapse, the great spiritual slip, the heart has not retained its integrity, and we have got wrong at the centre, and having become disorganised there, all the outwardness of life has gone off into confusion and riot and darkness, and God has justly vindicated Himself by a multitude of pains and penalties, keen distresses and intolerable agonies, all of which are the servants of His righteous and gracious will. How long can God set Himself against the cries of the heart of His people? Not long. Israel cried unto the Lord! Did the Lord remove Himself ten thousand miles further into the depth of the great solitude that is above? No. He is full of compassion, He is tender in mercy, He is gentle in spirit. When Israel cried, God came. Though He might have said, No, yet He came–for God is love. He knoweth our frame, He remembereth that we are dust. (J. Parker, D.D.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

CHAPTER VI

The Israelites again do evil, and are delivered into the hands

of the Midianites, by whom they are oppressed seven years,

1, 2.

Different tribes spoil their harvests, and take away their

cattle, 3-5.

They cry unto the Lord, and he sends them a prophet to reprehend

and instruct them, 6-10.

An angel appears unto Gideon, and gives him commission to

deliver Israel, and works several miracles, to prove that

he is Divinely appointed to this work, 11-23.

Gideon builds an altar to the Lord, under the name of

Jehovah-shalom; and throws down the altar of Baal, 24-27.

His townsmen conspire against him; he expostulates with them,

and they are pacified, 28-32.

The Midianites and Amalekites gather together against Israel;

Gideon summons Manasseh, Asher, Zebulun, and Naphtali, who

join his standard, 33-35.

The miracle of the fleece of wool, 36-40.

NOTES ON CHAP. VI

Verse 1. Delivered them unto the hand of Midian] The Midianites were among the most ancient and inveterate of the enemies of Israel. They joined with the Moabites to seduce them to idolatry, and were nearly extirpated by them; Nu 31:1-12. The Midianites dwelt on the eastern borders of the Dead Sea, and their capital was Arnon.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

For although the generality of the Midianites had been cut off by Moses about two hundred years ago, yet many of them doubtless fled into the neighbouring countries, whence afterwards they returned into their own land, and in that time might easily grow to be a very great number; especially when God furthered their increase, that they might be a fit scourge for his people Israel when they transgressed.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

1. and the Lord delivered them intothe hand of MidianUntaught by their former experiences, theIsraelites again apostatized, and new sins were followed by freshjudgments. Midian had sustained a severe blow in the time of Moses(Nu 31:1-18); and thememory of that disaster, no doubt, inflamed their resentment againstthe Israelites. They were wandering herdsmen, called “childrenof the East,” from their occupying the territory east of the RedSea, contiguous to Moab. The destructive ravages they are describedas at this time committing in the land of Israel are similar to thoseof the Bedouin Arabs, who harass the peaceful cultivators of thesoil. Unless composition is made with them, they return annually at acertain season, when they carry off the grain, seize the cattle andother property; and even life itself is in jeopardy from the attacksof those prowling marauders. The vast horde of Midianites thatoverran Canaan made them the greatest scourge which had everafflicted the Israelites.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord,…. After the death of Deborah and Barak, during whose life they kept to the pure worship of God, and who, perhaps, lived pretty near the close of the forty years’ rest, or of the twenty years from their victory over Jabin; but they dying, the children of Israel fell into idolatry, for that that was the evil they did appears from Jud 6:10, even worshipping the gods of the Amorites:

and the Lord delivered them into the hand of Midian seven years: this was not the Midian where Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses, lived, which lay more southward, but that which joined to Moab, and was more eastward. This people had been destroyed by the Israelites in the times of Moses, in their way to the land of Canaan, Nu 31:1 wherefore they might bear them a grudge, and now took the opportunity to revenge themselves on them, God permitting them so to do for their sins; and though the destruction of this people by Israel was very general, yet as some of them might make their escape, and afterwards return to their own land, and this being about two hundred years ago, might, with others joining them, repeople their country by this time, and become strong and powerful.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

Renewed Apostasy of the Nation, and Its Punishment. – Jdg 6:1. As the Israelites forsook Jehovah their God again, the Lord delivered them up for seven years into the hands of the Midianites. The Midianites, who were descendants of Abraham and Keturah (Gen 25:2), and had penetrated into the grassy steppes on the eastern side of the country of the Moabites and Ammonites (see at Num 22:4), had shown hostility to Israel even in the time of Moses, and had been defeated in a war of retaliation on the part of the Israelites (Num 31). But they had afterwards recovered their strength, so that now, after an interval of 200 years, the Lord used them as a rod of chastisement for His rebellious people. In Jdg 6:1, Jdg 6:2, Jdg 6:6, they alone are mentioned as oppressors of Israel; but in Jdg 6:3, Jdg 6:33, and Jdg 7:12, the Amalekites and children of the east are mentioned in connection with them, from which we may see that the Midianites were the principal enemies, but had allied themselves with other predatory Bedouin tribes, to make war upon the Israelites and devastate their land. On the Amalekites, those leading enemies of the people of God who had sprung from Esau, see the notes on Gen 36:12 and Exo 17:8. “ Children of the east ” (see Job 1:3) is the general name for the tribes that lived in the desert on the east of Palestine, “like the name of Arabs in the time of Josephus (in Ant. v. 6, 1, he calls the children of the east mentioned here by the name of Arabs), or in later times the names of the Nabataeans and Kedarenes” ( Bertheau). Hence we find in Jdg 8:10, that all the enemies who oppressed the Israelites are called “children of the east.”

Jdg 6:2-5

The Oppression of Israel by Midian and Its Allies. Their power pressed so severely upon the Israelites, that before (or because of) them the latter “ made them the ravines which are in the mountains, and the caves, and the strongholds, ” sc., which were to be met with all over the land in after times (viz., at the time when our book was written), and were safe places of refuge in time of war. This is implied in the definite article before and the following substantives. The words “ they made them ” are not at variance with the fact that there are many natural caves to be found in the limestone mountains of Palestine. For, on the one hand, they do not affirm that all the caves to be found in the land were made by the Israelites at that time; and, on the other hand, does not preclude the use of natural caves as places of refuge, since it not only denotes the digging and making of caves, but also the adaptation of natural caves to the purpose referred to, i.e., the enlargement of them, or whatever was required to make them habitable. The . . does not mean “light holes” ( Bertheau), or “holes with openings to the light,” from , in the sense of to stream, to enlighten ( Rashi, Kimchi, etc.), but is to be taken in the sense of “ mountain ravines,” hollowed out by torrents (from , to pour), which the Israelites made into hiding-places. , fortresses, mountain strongholds. These ravines, caves, and fortresses were not merely to serve as hiding-places for the Israelitish fugitives, but much more as places of concealment for their possessions, and necessary supplies. For the Midianites, like genuine Bedouins, thought far more of robbing and plundering and laying waste the land of the Israelites, than of exterminating the people themselves. Herodotus (i. 17) says just the same respecting the war of the Lydian king Alyattes wit the Milesians.

Jdg 6:3-5

When the Israelites had sown, the Midianites and their allies came upon them, encamped against them, and destroyed the produce of the land (the fruits of the field and soil) as far as Gaza, in the extreme south-west of the land (“till thou come,” as in Gen 10:19, etc.). As the enemy invaded the land with their camels and flocks, and on repeated occasions encamped in the valley of Jezreel (Jdg 6:33), they must have entered the land on the west of the Jordan by the main road which connects the countries on the east with Palestine on the west, crossing the Jordan near Beisan, and passing through the plain of Jezreel; and from this point they spread over Palestine to the sea-coast of Gaza. “ They left no sustenance (in the shape of produce of the field and soil) in Israel, and neither sheep, nor oxen, nor asses. For they came on with their flocks, and their tents came like grasshoppers in multitude. ” The Chethibh is not to be altered into , according to the Keri and certain Codd. If we connect with the previous words, according to the Masoretic pointing, we have a simple asyndeton. It is more probable, however, that belongs to what follows: “ And their tents came in such numbers as grasshoppers.” , lit. like a multitude of grasshoppers, in such abundance. “ Thus they came into the land to devastate it.”

Jdg 6:6

The Israelites were greatly weakened in consequence ( , the imperf. Niphal of ), so that in their distress they cried to the Lord for help.

Jdg 6:7-10

But before helping them, the Lord sent a prophet to reprove the people for not hearkening to the voice of their God, in order that they might reflect, and might recognise in the oppression which crushed them the chastisement of God for their apostasy, and so be brought to sincere repentance and conversion by their remembrance of the former miraculous displays of the grace of God. The Lord God, said the prophet to the people, brought you out of Egypt, the house of bondage, and delivered you out of the hand of Egypt (Exo 18:9), and out of the hand of all your oppressors (see Jdg 2:18; Jdg 4:3; Jdg 10:12), whom He drove before you (the reference is to the Amorites and Canaanites who were conquered by Moses and Joshua); but ye have not followed His commandment, that ye should not worship the gods of the Amorites. The Amorites stand here for the Canaanites, as in Gen 15:16 and Jos 24:15.

Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament

The Inroads of the Midianites.

B. C. 1249.

      1 And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD: and the LORD delivered them into the hand of Midian seven years.   2 And the hand of Midian prevailed against Israel: and because of the Midianites the children of Israel made them the dens which are in the mountains, and caves, and strong holds.   3 And so it was, when Israel had sown, that the Midianites came up, and the Amalekites, and the children of the east, even they came up against them;   4 And they encamped against them, and destroyed the increase of the earth, till thou come unto Gaza, and left no sustenance for Israel, neither sheep, nor ox, nor ass.   5 For they came up with their cattle and their tents, and they came as grasshoppers for multitude; for both they and their camels were without number: and they entered into the land to destroy it.   6 And Israel was greatly impoverished because of the Midianites; and the children of Israel cried unto the LORD.

      We have here, I. Israel’s sin renewed: They did evil in the sight of the Lord, v. 1. The burnt child dreads the fire; yet this perverse unthinking people, that had so often smarted sorely for their idolatry, upon a little respite of God’s judgments return to it again. This people hath a revolting rebellious heart, not kept in awe by the terror of God’s judgments, nor engaged in honour and gratitude by the great things he had done for them to keep themselves in his love. The providence of God will not change the hearts and lives of sinners.

      II. Israel’s troubles repeated. This would follow of course; let all that sin expect to suffer; let all that return to folly expect to return to misery. With the froward God will show himself froward (Ps. xviii. 26), and will walk contrary to those that walk contrary to him, Lev 26:21; Lev 26:24. Now as to this trouble, 1. It arose from a very despicable enemy. God delivered them into the hand of Midian (v. 1), not Midian in the south where Jethro lived, but Midian in the east that joined to Moab (Num. xxii. 4), a people that all men despised as uncultivated and unintelligent; hence we read not here of any king, lord, or general, that they had, but the force with which they destroyed Israel was an undisciplined mob; and, which made it the more grievous, they were a people that Israel had formerly subdued, and in a manner destroyed (see Num. xxxi. 7), and yet by this time (nearly 200 years after) the poor remains of them were so multiplied, and so magnified, that they were capable of being made a very severe scourge to Israel. Thus God moved them to jealousy with those who were not a people, even a foolish nation, Deut. xxxii. 21. The meanest creature will serve to chastise those that have made the great Creator their enemy. And, when those we are authorized to rule prove rebellious and disobedient to us, it concerns us to enquire whether we have not been so to our sovereign Ruler. 2. It arose to a very formidable height (v. 2): The hand of Midian prevailed, purely by their multitude. God had promised to increase Israel as the sand on the sea shore; but their sin stopped their growth and diminished them, and then their enemies, though otherwise every way inferior to them, overpowered them with numbers. They came upon them as grasshoppers for multitude (v. 5), not in a regular army to engage them in the field, but in a confused swarm to plunder the country, quarter themselves upon it, and enrich themselves with its spoils–bands of robbers, and no better. And sinful Israel, being separated by sin from God, had not spirit to make head against them. Observe the wretched havoc that these Midianites made with their bands of plunderers in Israel. Here we have, (1.) The Israelites imprisoned, or rather imprisoning themselves, in dens and caves, v. 2. This was owing purely to their own timorousness and faint-heartedness, that they would rather fly than fight; it was the effect of a guilty conscience, which made them tremble at the shaking of a leaf, and the just punishment of their apostasy from God, who thus fought against them with those very terrors with which he would otherwise have fought for them. Had it not been for this, we cannot but think Israel a match for the Midianites, and able enough to make head against them; but the heart that departs from God is lost, not only to that which is good, but to that which is great. Sin dispirits men, and makes them sneak into dens and caves. The day will come when chief captains and mighty men will call in vain to rocks and mountains to hide them. (2.) The Israelites impoverished, greatly impoverished, v. 6. The Midianites and the other children of the east that joined with them to live by spoil and rapine (as long before the Sabeans and Chaldeans did that plundered Job, free-booters) made frequent incursions into the land of Canaan. This fruitful land was a great temptation to them; and the sloth and luxury into which the Israelites had sunk by forty years’ rest made them and their substance an easy prey to them. They came up against them (v. 3), pitched their camps among them (v. 4), and brought their cattle with them, particularly camels innumerable (v. 5), not a flying party to make a sally upon them and be gone presently, but they resolved to force their way, and penetrated through the heart of the country as far as Gaza on the western side, v. 4. They let the Israelites alone to sow their ground, but towards harvest they came and seized all, and ate up and destroyed it, both grass and corn, and when they went away took with them the sheep and oxen, so that in short they left no sustenance for Israel, except what was privately taken by the rightful owners into the dens and caves. Now here we may see, [1.] The justice of God in the punishment of their sin. They had neglected to honour God with their substance in tithes and offerings, and had prepared that for Baal with which God should have been served, and now God justly sends an enemy to take it away in the season thereof,Hos 2:8; Hos 2:9. [2.] The consequence of God’s departure from a people; when he goes all good goes and all mischiefs break in. When Israel kept in with God, they reaped what others sowed (Jos 24:13; Psa 105:44); but now that God had forsaken them others reaped what they sowed. Let us take occasion from this to bless God for our national peace and tranquillity, that we eat the labour of our hands.

      III. Israel’s sense of God’s hand revived at last. Seven years, year after year, did the Midianites make these inroads upon them, each we may suppose worse than the other (v. 1), until at last, all other succours failing, Israel cried unto the Lord (v. 6), for crying to Baal ruined them, and would not help them. When God judges he will overcome; and sinners shall be made either to bend or break before him.

Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary

Judges – Chapter 6

Midianite Oppression, vs. 1-6

According to their pattern, when Deborah and Barak had passed off the scene the Israelites reverted to their old sinful and idolatrous ways. As a result the Lord let come on them the most severe depression they had yet suffered. Though it lasted for only seven years, it was devastating, and was at the hand of the ruthless and cruel Midianites, Amalekites, and “children of the east”, or desert nomads. These people had a long standing animosity of Israel. The Amalekites were Israel’s first enemy after they left Egypt (Exo 17:8-16). The Midianites had suffered a humiliating defeat during the episode involving Balaam (Num 25:16-18; Num 31:1 ff).

So terribly afflicted were the Israelites, and so lacking were they in ability to resist, that they made them dens in the mountains, hid in caves, and made strongholds to escape the oppression. These cruel tribes pillaged and destroyed over a wide area, reaching to the coastal lowland of Gaza at the Great (Mediterranean) Sea. When Israel sowed, the enemies destroyed their crops, or took the production. They stole the sheep, the oxen, and the asses. Furthermore, they moved into the land and pitched their tents. So numerous were they that they are likened to a plague of grasshoppers, and their camels were uncounted for number.

The scripture plainly says that they came into the land for the specific purpose of destroying it. The context shows that they succeeded to a high degree. So impoverished, and doubtless hungry, did the Israelites become that they finally cried to the Lord, but not in repentance.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

THE BOOK OF JUDGES

Judges 1-21.

THE Book of Judges continues the Book of Joshua. There are some Books of the Bible, the proper location of which require careful study, but Judges follows Joshua in chronological order. The Book opens almost identically with the Book of Joshua. In the latter the reading is, Now after the death of Moses the servant of the Lord it came to pass that the Lord spake unto Joshua. In the Book of Judges, Now after the death of Joshua it came to pass, that the Children of Israel asked thd Lord, saying Who shall go up for us against the Canaanites first, to fight against them? And the Lord said, Judah shall go up. God always has His man chosen and His ministry mapped out. We may worry about our successors and wonder whether we shall be worthily followed, but as a matter of fact that is a question beyond us and does not belong to us. It is not given to man to choose prophets, apostles, evangelists, pastors and teachers. That prerogative belongs to the ascended Lord, and He is not derelict in His duty nor indifferent to the interests of Israel. Before one falls, He chooses another. The breach in time that bothers men is not a breach to Him at all. It is only an hour given to the people for the expression of bereavement. It is only a day in which to calm the public mind and call out public sympathy and centralize and cement public interest.

Men may choose their co-laborers as Judah chose Simeon; leaders may pick out their captains as Moses did, and as did Joshua; but God makes the first choice, and when men leave that choice to Him, He never makes a mistake.

Whenever a captain of the hosts of the Lord is unworthily succeeded, misguided men have forgotten God and made the choice on the basis of their own judgment.

People sometimes complain of some indifferent or false preacher, We cant see why God sent us such a pastor. He didnt! You called him yourself. You didnt sufficiently consult God. You didnt keep your ears open to the still, small voice. You didnt wait on bended knees until He said, Behold your leader; follow him!

When God appoints Judah, he also delivers the Canaanites and the Perizzites into his hands. Adoni-bezek, the brutal, will be humbled by him; the capital city will fall before him; the southland will succumb, also the north and the east and the west, and the mountains will capitulate before the Lord of Hosts.

But the Book of Judges doesnt present a series of victories. There is no Book in the Bible that so clearly typifies the successes and reverses, the ups and downs, the victories and defeats of the church, as the history of Israel here illustrates. It naturally divides itself under The Seven Apostasies, The Successive Judges, and The Civil War.

THE SEVEN APOSTASIES

The first chapter is not finished before failure finds expression. Of Judah it was said he could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley because they had chariots of iron (Jdg 1:19). Of the children of Benjamin it was said, They did not drive out the Jebusites that inhabited Jerusalem (Jdg 1:21). Of Manasseh it was said, They did not drive out the inhabitants of Beth-Shean and her towns, nor Taanach and her towns, nor the inhabitants of Dor and her towns, nor the inhabitants of Ibleam and her towns, nor the inhabitants of Megiddo and her towns: but the Canaanites would dwell in that land (Jdg 1:27). Neither did Ephraim drive out the Canaanites that dwelt in Gezer, (Jdg 1:29); neither did Zebulun drive out the inhabitants of Kitron (Jdg 1:30), nor the inhabitants of Mahalol. Neither did Asher (Jdg 1:31) drive out the inhabitants of Acho nor of Zidon; neither did Naphthali drive out the inhabitants of Beth-Shemesh (Jdg 1:33), and this failure to clear the field results in an aggressive attack before the first chapter finishes, and the Amorites force the children of Dan into the mountain (Jdg 1:34).

If one study these seven apostasies that follow one another in rapid succession, he will be impressed by two or three truths. They resulted from the failure to execute the command of the Lord. The command of the Lord to Joshua was that he should expel the people from before him and drive them from out of his sight, and possess their land (Jos 23:5). He was not to leave any among them nor to make mention of any of their gods (Jos 23:7). He was promised that one of his men should chase a thousand. He was even told that if any were left and marriage was made with them that they should know for a certainty that the Lord God would no more drive out any of these nations from before them; that they should be snares and traps and scourges and thorns, until Israel perished from off the good land that God had given them (Jos 23:13). How strangely the conduct of Israel, once in the land, comports with this counsel given them before they entered it; and there is a typology in all of this.

The Christian life has its enemiessocial enemies, domestic enemies, national enemies! Ones companionship will determine ones conduct; ones marriage relation will eventuate religiously or irreligiously. The character of ones nation is more or less influential upon life.

The ordinance of baptism, the initial rite into the church, looks to an absolute separation from the world, and is expressed by the Apostle Paul as a death unto sin, the clear intent being that no evil customs are to be kept, nor companions retained, nor entangling alliances maintained. The word now is as the word then, Come out from among them, and be ye separate (2Co 6:17).

They imperiled their souls by this forbidden social intercourse. It is very difficult to live with a people and not become like them. It is very difficult to dwell side by side with nations and not intermarry. Intermarriage between believers and unbelievers is almost certain to drag down the life of the former to the level of the latter. False worship, like other forms of sin, has its subtle appeal; and human nature being what it is, false gods rise easily to exalted place in corrupted affections.

If there is one thing God tried to do for ancient Israel, and one thing God tries to do for the new Israel, the Church, it was, and is, to get His people to disfellowship the world.

There are men who think God is a Moloch because He so severely punished Israels compromises. They cant forget that when Joshua went over Jordan and Israel lay encamped on the skirts of the mountains of Moab, her people visited a high place near the camp whereon a festival of Midian, idolatrous, licentious in the extreme, was in process, and they went after this putrid paganism and polluted their own souls with the idolatrous orgy. Then it was that Moses, speaking for the Lord, said, Take all the heads of the people, and hang them up before the Lord against the sun, and while that hideous row of dead ones was still before their eyes, the plague fell on the camp and 24,000 of the transgressors perished! But severe as it was, Israel soon forgot, showing that it was not too severe, and raising the question as to whether it was severe enough to impress the truth concerning idolatry and all its infamous effects.

Solomon is commonly reputed to have been the wisest of men, and yet it was his love alliances with the strange women of Moab, Ammon, Zidon and the Hittites, these very people, that brought the Lords anger against him and compelled God to charge him with having turned from the Lord God of Israel and in consequence of which God said, I will surely rend the kingdom from thee, and will give it to thy servant (1Ki 11:11).

Again and again the kingdom has been lost after the same manner. The present peril of the church is at this point, and by its alliance with the world, the kingdom of our Lord is delayed, and Satan, the prince of this world, remains in power, and instead of 24,000 people perishing in judgment, tens of thousands and millions of people perish through this compromise, and swallowed up in sin, rush into hell.

But to follow the text further is to find their restoration to Gods favor rested with genuine repentance. There are recorded in Judges seven apostasies; they largely result from one sin. There are seven judgments, increasing in severity, revealing Gods determined purpose to correct and save; and there are seven recoveries, each of them in turn the result of repentance. God never looks upon a penitent man, a penitent people, a penitent church, a penitent nation, without compassion and without turning from His purposes of judgment. When the publican went up into the temple to pray, his was a leprous soul, but when he smote upon his breast and cried, God be merciful to me a sinner, his was the instant experience of mercy. When at Pentecost, 2500 sincere souls fell at the feet of Peter and the other Apostles, and cried, Men and brethren, what shall we do, the response was, Repent and be baptized every one of you in the Name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and the promise was, Ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.

When David, who was a child of God, guilty of murder and adultery combined, poured out his soul as expressed in the Fifty-first Psalm, God heard that prayer, pardoned those iniquities, restored him to the Divine favor, and showered him with proofs of the Divine love.

When Nineveh went down in humility, a city of 600,000 souls, every one of whom from Sardana-palus, the king on the throne, to the humblest peasant within the walls, proving his repentance by sitting in sackcloth and ashes, God turned at once from the evil He had thought to do unto them and He did it not, and Nineveh was saved.

The simple truth is, God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked. He never punishes from preference, but only for our profit; and, even then, like a father, He suffers more deeply than the children upon whom His strokes of judgment fall.

What a contrast to that statement of Scripture, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, is that other sentence, Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints. The reason is not far to seek. In the first case it is death indeed; death fearful, death eternal. In the second case, death is a birth, a release from the flesh that held to a larger, richer, fuller life. In that God takes pleasure.

There is then for the sinner no royal road to the recovery of Gods favor. It is the thorny path of repentance instead. It is through Bochim, the Vale of Tears; but it were just as well that the prodigal, returning home, should not travel by a flowery path. He will be the less tempted to go away again if his back-coming is with agony, and home itself will seem the more sweet when reached if there his weary feet find rest for the first time, and from their bleeding soles the thorns are picked; if there his nakedness is clothed, his hunger is fed and his sense of guilt is kissed away. Oh, the grace of God to wicked men the moment repentance makes possible their forgiveness!

The court in Minneapolis yesterday illustrated this very point. When a young man, who had been wayward indeed, who had turned highway-robber, saw his error, sobbed his way to Christ and voluntarily appeared in court and asked to have sentence passed, newspapers expressed surprise that the heart of the judge should have been so strangely moved, and that the sentence the law absolutely required to be passed upon him, should have been, by the judge, suspended, and the young man returned to his home and wife and babe. But our Judge, even God, is so compassionate that such conduct on His part excites no surprise. It is His custom! Were it not so, every soul of us would stand under sentence of death. The law which is just and holy and good has passed that sentence already, and it is by the grace of God we have our reprieve. Seven apostasies? Yes! Seven judgments? Yes! But seven salvations! Set that down to the honor and glory of our God! It is by grace we are saved!

THE SUCCESSIVE JUDGES

Evidently God has no special regard for some of our modern superstitions, for in this period of conquest He deliberately chooses thirteen judges and sets them over Israel in turn, beginning with Othniel, the son of Kenaz, and nephew of Caleb, and concluding with Samson, the son of Manoah.

They represented varied stations of Israelitish society. A careful review of their personal history brings a fresh illustration of the fact that God is no respector of persons; and it also illustrates the New Testament statement that Not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. With few exceptions these judges had not been heard of until their appointment rendered necessary some slight personal history. That is the Divine method until this hour. How seldom the children of the great are themselves great. How often, when God needs a ruler in society, He seeks a log cabin and chooses an angular ladAbe Lincoln. The difference between the inspired Scriptures and yesterdays newspaper is in the circumstance that the Scriptures tell the truth about men and leave God to do the gilding and impart the glory, instead of trying to establish the same through some noble family tree. There is a story to the effect that a young artist, working under his master in the production of a memorial window that represented the greatest and best that art ever knew, picked up, at the close of the day, the fragments of glass flung aside, and finally wrought from them a window more glorious still. Whether this is historically correct or not, we know what God has done with the refuse of society again and again. Truly

God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;

And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are:

That no flesh should glory in His presence * * * * He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord (1Co 1:27-29; 1Co 1:31).

Out of these un-named ones some were made to be immortalGideon, Jephthae, Samson, Deborah.

Gideon, the son of Joash, became such because he dared to trust God. The average Captain of hosts wants men increased that the probabilities of victory may grow proportionately. At the word of the Lord Gideon has his hundreds of thousands and tens of thousands reduced to a handful. What are three hundred men against the multitude that compassed him about? And what are pitchers, with lights in them, against swords and spears and stones; and yet his faith failed not! He believed that, God with him, no man could be against him. When Paul comes to write his Epistle to the Hebrews and devotes a long chapter of forty verses to a list of names made forever notable through faith, Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthaethese all appear, and they are put there properly, reason confirming revelation. Barak had faced the hundreds of iron chariots of the enemy, and yet at the word of the Lord, had dared to brave and battle them. Samson, with no better equipment than the jaw-bone of an ass, had slain his heaps. Jephthae, when he had made a vow to the Lord, though it cost him that which was dearer than life, would keep it. Such characters are safe in history. Whatever changes may come over the face of the world, however notable may eventually be names; whatever changes may occur in the conceptions of men as to what makes for immortality, those who believe in God will abide, and childrens children will call their names blessed. Gideon will forever stand for a combination of faith and courage. Barak will forever represent the man who, at the word of the Lord, will go against great odds. Jephthae will forever be an encouragement to men who, having sincerely made vows, will solemnly keep the same; and Samson will forever represent, not his prowess, but the strength of the Lord, which, though it may express itself in the person of a man, knows no limitations so long as that man remains loyal to his vows, and the spirit of the Lord rests upon him.

Before passing from this study, however, permit me to call your attention to the fact that there was made a political exception in the matter of sex. We supposed that the putting of woman into mans place is altogether a modern invention. Not so; it is not only a fact in English language but in human history, that all rules have their exceptions. Gods rule for prophets is men, and yet the daughters of Philip were prophetesses. Gods rule for kings is men, and yet one of the greatest of rulers was Queen Victoria. Gods rule for judges is men, and yet Deborah was long since made an exception. Let it be understood that the exception to the rule is not intended to supplant the rule. The domestic circle is Gods choice for womankind, and her wisdom, tact and energy are not only needed there, but find there their finest employment. And yet there are times when through the indifference of men, or through their deadness to the exigencies of the day, God can do nothing else than raise up a Deborah, speak to a Joan of Arc, put on the throne a Victoria.

I noticed in a paper recently a discussion as to whether women prominent in politics proved good mothers, and one minister at least insisted that they did. We doubt it! The text speaks of Deborah as a mother in Israel, but we find no mention of her children. Our judgment is that had there been born to her a dozen of her own Israel might never have known her leadership. The unmarried woman, or the barren wife, may have time and opportunity for social and political concern; but the mother of children commonly finds her home sphere sufficient for all talents, and an opportunity to reach society, cleanse politics, aid the church, help the world, as large an office as ever came to man. However, let it be understood that all our fixed customs, all our standard opinions, give place when God speaks. If it is His will that a woman judge, then she is best fitted for that office; if He exalts her to lead armies, then victory will perch upon her banners; if He calls her to the place of power on the throne, then ruling wisdom is with her.

In the language of the Apostle Paul, And what shall I say more, for the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and of Samson and of Barak and of Jepkthae. They are all great characters and worthy extended discussion. It would equally fail me to rehearse the confusion, civil and religious, that follows from the seventeenth chapter of this Book to the end, but in chapters nineteen to twenty-one there is recorded an incident that cannot in justice to an outline study, be overlooked, for it results in

THE CIVIL WAR

Tracing that war to its source, we find it was the fruit of the adoption of false religions. We have already seen some of the evil effects of this intermingling with heathen faiths, but we need not expect an end of such effects so long as the compromise obtains. There is no peace in compromise; no peace with your enemies. A compromise is never satisfactory to either side. Heathen men do not want half of their polytheism combined with half of your monotheism. They are not content to give up a portion of their idolatry and take in its place praises to the one and only God. The folly of this thing was shown when a few years since the leaders of the International Sunday School Association attempted to temporarily affiliate Christianity with Buddhism. The native Christians in Japan, in proportion to their sincere belief in the Bible arid in Christ, rejected the suggestion as an insult to their new faith, and the followers of Buddha and the devotees of Shintoism would not be content with Christian conduct unless the Emperor was made an object of worship and Christian knees bowed before him. It must be said, to the shame of certain Sunday School leaders, that they advocated that policy and prostrated themselves in the presence of His Majesty to the utter disgust of their more uncompromising fellows. The consequence was, no Convention of the International Association has been so unsatisfactory and produced such poor spiritual results as Tokios.

Confusion is always the consequence of compromise, and discontent is the fruit of it, and fights and battles and wars are the common issue.

Idolatry is deadly; graven images cannot be harmonized with the true God. The first and second commandments cannot be ignored and the remainder of the Decalog kept. It is God or nothing! It is the Bible or nothing! It is the faith once delivered or infidelity!

The perfidy of Benjamin brought on the battle. We have already seen that men grow like those with whom they intimately associate. This behavior on the part of the Benjamites is just what you would have expected. The best of men still have to battle with the bad streak that belongs to the flesh incident to the fall; and, when by evil associations that streak is strengthened, no man can tell what may eventually occur. Had this conduct been recorded against the heathen, it would not have amazed us at all. We speedily forget that as between men there is no essential difference. Circumstances and Divine aidthese make a difference that is apparent indeed; but it is not so much because one is better than the other, but rather because one has been better situated, less tempted, more often strengthened; or else because he has found God and stands not in himself but in a Saviour.

Pick up your paper tomorrow morning and there will be a record of deeds as dark as could be recorded against the natives of Africa, or those of East India or China, Siberia or the South Sea Islands. The conduct of these men toward the concubine was little worse than that of one of our own citizens in a land of civilization and Christianity, who lately snatched a twelve-year-old girl and kept her for days as his captive, and when at last she eluded him, it was only to wander back to her home, despoiled and demented. Do you wonder that God is no respecter of persons? Do you wonder that the Bible teaches there is no difference? Do you doubt it is all of grace?

The issues of that war proved the presence and power of God. There are men who doubt if God is ever in battle; but history reveals the fact that few battles take place without His presence. The field of conflict is commonly the place of judgment, and justice is seldom or never omitted. We may be amazed to see Israel defeated twice, and over 40,000 of her people fall, when as a matter of fact she went up animated by the purpose of executing vengeance against an awful sin. Some would imagine that God would go with them and not a man would fall, and so He might have done had Israel, including Judah and all loyal tribes, been themselves guiltless. But such was not the truth! They had sins that demanded judgment as surely as Benjamins sin, and God would not show Himself partial to either side, but mete out judgment according to their deserts. That is why 40,000 of the Israelites had to fall. They were facing then their own faithlessness. They were paying the price of their own perfidy. They were getting unto themselves proofs that their fellowship with the heathen and their adoption of heathen customs was not acceptable with God.

Many people could not understand why England and France and Belgium and Canada and Australia and America should have lost so heavily in the late war, 19141918, believing as we did believe that their cause was absolutely just. Why should God have permitted them to so suffer in its defense? Millions upon millions of them dying, enormous wealth destroyed, women widowed, children orphaned, lands sacked, cities burned, cathedrals ruined, sanctuaries desecrated. The world around, there went up a universal cry, Why? And yet the answer is not far to seek. England was not guiltless; France was not guiltless; Belgium was not guiltless.

Poor Belgium! All the world has turned to her with pity and we are still planning aid for the Belgians and to preach to them and their children the Gospel of grace, and this we should do; but God had not forgotten that just a few years ago Belgium was blackening her soul by her conduct in the Belgian Congo. Natives by the score and hundreds were beaten brutally, their hands cut off because they did not carry to the Belgian king as much rubber and ivory as Belgian avarice demanded. American slavery, in its darkest hour, never knew anything akin to the oppression and persecution to which Belgium subjected the blacks in the Congo. Significant, indeed, is the circumstance that when the Germans came into Belgium, many Belgian hands were cut off; hapless and helpless children were found in this mangled state. Frightful as it was, it must have reminded Belgian authorities of their sins in Africa and of the certainty and exactitude of final judgment.

We have an illustration of this truth in the Book of Judges. When Judah went up against the Canaanites and the Lord delivered them into his hands, they slew in Bezek 10,000 men. They found Adoni-Bezek, the king, and fought against him, and caught him and cut off his thumbs and great toes. We cry Horror! and wonder that Gods own people could so behave; but, complete the sentence, and you begin to see justice, And Adoni-bezek said, Threescore and ten kings, having their thumbs and their great toes cut off, gathered their meat under my table. As I have done, so God hath requited me (Jdg 1:7).

Think of England in her infamous opium traffic, forcing it upon natives at the mouths of guns, enriching her own exchecquer at the cost of thousands and tens of thousands of hapless natives of East India and China!

Think of France, with her infidelity, having denied God, desecrated His sabbath, rejected His Son and given themselves over to absinthe and sensuality!

Think of the United States with her infamous liquor traffic, shipping barrels upon barrels to black men and yellow men, and cursing the whole world to fill her own coffers.

Tell me whether judgment was due the nations, and whether they had to see their sin in the lurid light of Belgian and French battlefields; but do not overlook the fact that when the war finally ends, Benjamin, the worst offender, the greater sinner, goes down in the greatest judgment, and one day Benjamins soldiers are almost wiped from the earth! Out of 26,700, 25,000 and more perish. Tell us now whether judgment falls where judgment belongs!

Take the late war. Again and again Germany was triumphant, but when the Allies had suffered sufficiently and had learned to lean not to themselves but upon the Lord; when, like Israel, they turned from hope in self and trusted in God, then God bared His arm in their behalf and Germany went down in defeat, a defeat that made their come-back impossible; a defeat that fastened upon them the tribute of years; a defeat that proved to them that, great as might have been the sins of the allied nations, greater still, in the sight of God, was their own sin; for final judgment is just judgment.

God is not only in history; God has to do with the making of history. If men without a king behave every one as is right in his own eyes, the King of all kings, the Lord of all lords, will do that which will eventually seem right in the eyes of all angels and of all good men. That is GOD!

Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley

GIDEON AND THE THREE HUNDRED

Judges 6-8.

IN passing hurriedly over the Book of Judges, we were compelled to give inadequate treatment to certain great names. It would seem that at least the illustrious list that finds place in the composite photograph of Hebrews XI, should have extensive treatmentGideon, Barak, Samson and Jephthae and that no discussion of Judges would be complete that ignored any one of this quartette, and that three, at leastGideon, Samson and Jephthae should have somewhat elaborate study.

In our birds-eye view of Judges, we were impressed with a constantly recurrent phrase. Painful as was the sentence, And the Children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, it is again employed to introduce the subject of Gideon, for in judgment Israel was delivered into the hand of Midian, and the hand of Midian prevailed against Israel.

The extent of this oppression is made evident in the circumstance that the Children of Israel made them dens which are in the mountains, and caves, and strongholds. And when Israel had sown, the Midianites came up, and the Amalekites, and the children of the east, * * * * and destroyed the increase of the earth * * and left no sustenance for Israel, neither sheep, nor ox, nor ass. * * They came as grasshoppers for multitude, * * and Israel was greatly impoverished.

The modern scientist has a vast deal to say about the cave man and the tree man. The only history that men have ever made in caves is much like this that Israel is here making. Caves have never been the homes of monkey men, for such men have never lived; but they have ever been the homes of criminals and cowed men. Trees have never been the homes of men of any sort, but they have been the temporary refuge of men who sought to escape beasts, or spring advantageously upon their fellows. Such books as The First Days of Man are wild and bestial imaginations.

The Children of Israel cried unto the Lord because of the Midianites. God is too often a mere convenience. We forget Him in prosperity, and only make our appeal to Him in times of suffering and pain. But God is ever merciful, and He hears even the man who prays only when he is in trouble. The Lord sent a prophet unto the Children of Israel. The greatest single necessity of any people was thus met. Impoverished, indeed, is that people who have no prophet. The prophet is more than a predictor. He may be an historian. In this instance he was. He rehearsed what the God of Israel had done for His people; how He had brought them forth from Egypt out of their house of bondage, out of the hand of the Egyptians, and how they had forgotten Him. It was this fact that necessitated the rise of Gideon.

With the eleventh verse we have recorded

THE CALL OF GIDEON

And there came an angel of the Lord, and sat under an oak which was in Ophrah, that pertained unto Joash the Abi-eserite: and his son Gideon threshed wheat by the winepress, to hide it from the Midianites.

Jamieson, Fausset and Brown remind us that this was a dark corner in which Gideon was quietly rubbing the wheat from the straw. He dared not make a sound lest some watching Midianite should pounce upon him and take away the last hope of subsistence.

He was divinely chosen. And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him, and said unto him, The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valour (Jdg 6:12).

God has many ways of calling men into His ministry. We believe that at times He has audibly spoken. Little Samuel heard His voice. We believe that at other times, by the still small voice of the Spirit, He has produced profound conviction, as when Philip was sent the southway which is desert. But if the Old Testament be dependable, the angel of the Lord, or Christ, in some manlike form walked with men, talked with them, before the final incarnation. It was He, then, who called Gideon. In fact, it may be that no other than the Second Person of the Godhead has ever selected the servants of the Divine will; and it is true that such office He still fills, for it is none other than the ascended Lord that gives now to the church its apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers.

He was naturally fitted. The angel of the Lord appeared unto him, and said unto him, The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valour.

There is no history of Gideons exploits back of this time. What they were we shall never know. It is not vain, however, to imagine that the life Gideon had lived was essentially different from that he is to live. The child is father to the man. You show me a man who is doing great exploits and I will agree to trace him back to a boy who behaves after a kindred manner. Gideon as a warrior was probably no whit more energetic, or daring, or dangerous to an enemy, than was Gideon, the shepherd farmer. The depth of his thinking, the seriousness of his nature, the sense of sympathy with Israels condition, his familiarity with Israels former and more glorious historythese are all voiced in Jdg 6:13. When one remembers that his father was an idol worshiper, the convictions and character of the lad become the more engaging, and also the more prophetic.

I have a dear frienda minister of the Gospel with powerwho was the son of a saloon-keeper. This knowledge enhances alike the genuineness of his character and the strength of his convictions.

He was supernaturally inspired. The Lord looked upon him, and said, Go in this thy might, and thou shalt save Israel from the hand of the Midianites: have not I sent thee?

And when, like Moses, he fled the poor house to which he belonged and hinted its departure from the faith, and, like David, admitted that he was least in the fathers house, the Lord said unto him, Surely I will be with thee, and thou shalt smite the Midianites as one man (Jdg 6:16).

Such a statement naturally staggered his faith. Is it possible that God is speaking to me after this manner? And he decided to test it out. The first was a request to remain till he should bring Him a present and set before Him. And that was an offering of

a kid, and unleavened cakes of an ephah of flour: the flesh he put in a basket, and he put the broth in a pot, and brought it out unto him under the oak and presented it.

And the angel of God said unto him, Take the flesh and the unleavened cakes, and lay them upon this rock, and pour out the broth. And he did so.

Then the angel of the Lord put forth the end of the staff that was in his hand, and touched the flesh and the unleavened cakes; and there rose up fire out of the rock, and consumed the flesh and the unleavened cakes. Then the angel of the Lord departed out of his sight (Jdg 6:19-21).

This is the first miracle in evidence. No wonder Gideon built an altar and called it Jehovahshalom. Nor is it any greater wonder that in that same night Gideon took his fathers young bullock, even the second bullock of seven years old, the first one having been snatched by the Midianites, or by his infidel father sacrificed on the altar of Baal, and with the strength of that second bullock he pulled down the altar of Baal and cut down the grove that was by it, and built an altar unto the Lord his God on the top of that rock, as the Lord had commanded.

This resulted in

THE CHALLENGE OF GIDEON

First, he was challenged by a host of opponents.

When the men of the city arose early in the morning, behold, the altar of Baal was cast down, and the grove was cut down that was by it, and the second bullock was offered upon the altar that was built.

And they said one to another, Who hath done this thing? And when they enquired and asked, they said, Gideon the son of Joash hath done this thing.

Then the men of the city said unto Joash, Bring out thy son, that he may die: because he hath cast down the altar of Baal, and because he hath cut down the grove that was by it (Jdg 6:28-30).

The shock seems to have brought the father to better senses. His speech revealed the fact that his sympathies went with the faithful lad, and the new name that he gave his son indicated the same. But the host of

the Midianites and the Amalekites and the children of the cast were gathered together, and went over, and pitched in the valley of Jezreel.

But the Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon, and he blew a trumpet; and Abi-ezer was gathered after him.

And he sent messengers throughout all Manasseh; who also was gathered after him: and he sent messengers unto Asher, and unto Zebulun, and unto Naphtali; and they came up to meet them (Jdg 6:33-35).

The effect of a miracle is soon forgotten. The consuming of the flesh and meal at the touch of the angels rod would have seemed to be enough. Not so! That was yesterday. Every day demands a new manifestation of the Divine. Our memories are short-lived, our faith soon fails and must be oft refreshed.

Gideon puts God to a double test. I will put a fleece of wool in the floor; and if the dew be on the fleece only, and it be dry upon all the earth beside, then shall I know that Thou wilt save Israel by mine hand, as Thou hast said. And it was so (Jdg 6:37-38).

Did that suffice? No! Wool has a tendency to gather moisture. It might be naturalnot supernatural. So Gideon turned it around and said, Let it now be dry only upon the fleece, and upon all the ground let there be dew. And God did so that night: for it was dry upon the fleece only, and there was dew on all the ground (Jdg 6:39-40).

Thats God! He will meet even the demand of the unbelieving. When poor doubting Thomas said, Except I shall see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into His side, I will not believe * * * *, Then saith He to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold My hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into My side: and be not faithless, but believing (Joh 20:25; Joh 20:27). God with you, you can go forth against a host.

He was challenged by Gods command. The one phrase that occurs again and again in this study is, The Lord said unto Gideon. He is not starting a war, then, on his own account, but at Gods command. He is not calling Israel together, then, on his own account, but at Gods command. He is not ready to pitch against the Midianites on his own account, but at Gods command. Where God commands He has also a right to control. The people that are with thee are too many for Me to give the Midianites into their hands, lest Israel vaunt themselves against Me, saying, Mine own hand hath saved me.

Alas, how long, how long has God sought to teach man, It is not by might, nor by power? How long has He sought to impress upon us the truth, Not by works lest any man should boast? How long and how ardently has He sought to show that it is all of grace, and all of God, lest we vaunt ourselves against Him?

And there returned of the people twenty and two thousand; and there remained ten thousand. How contemptible a crowd to go against the mighty army of the Midianites! And yet,

the Lord said unto Gideon, The people are yet too many: bring them down unto the water, and I will try them for thee there: and it shall be, that of whom I say unto thee, This shall go with thee, the same shall go with thee; and of whomsoever I say unto thee, This shall not go with thee, the same shall not go.

So he brought down the people unto the water: and the Lord said unto Gideon, Every one that lappeth of the water with his tongue, as a dog lappeth, him shalt thou set by himself; likewise every one that boweth down upon his knees to drink.

And the number of them that lapped, putting their hand to their mouth, were three hundred men: but all the rest of the people bowed down upon their knees to drink water.

And the Lord said unto Gideon, By the three hundred men that lapped will I save you, and deliver the Midianites into thine hand: and let all the other people go every man unto his place.

So the people took victuals in their hand, and their trumpets: and he sent all the rest of Israel every man unto his tent, and retained those three hundred men: and the host of Midian was beneath him in the valley (Jdg 7:3-8).

God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform. His methods are not mans methods, because His thoughts are not mans thoughts. This brings us to the fact that

The faith of Gideon was challenged by the implements appointed. Three hundred men against an army that were like grasshoppers for multitude what folly from the human standpoint! But greater folly follows. These three hundred men were divided into three companies, and a trumpet was put into every mans hand, with empty pitchers, and lamps within the pitchers, and they were sent forth to war with instruments that had never been employed successfully in any battles of the past. Then implements are not of first consideration. God with us, is the final and only essential element in success.

Read, then, the remainder of the chapter and witness the utter rout, the overwhelming defeat, of the Midianites. Who shall stand against God and Gideon? The three hundred could have been sent home, and Gideon alone could have defeated the Midianites. But while God can work without men, His method is to work with men. What a great New Testament truth is here! What an absurdity exists in the very sentence of the great commission itself, and yet, what sanity is introduced when, at the end of the same, Christ says, Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world?

One of the hardest lessons for poor, proud man to learn, and one that this egotistical age needs as no age ever did, is recorded in 1Co 1:25-31:

Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called:

But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;

And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are:

That no flesh should glory in His presence.

But of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption:

That, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.

THE COMPLAINTS AGAINST GIDEON

It is a singular thing to follow this reported conquest with multiplied complaints. When was it ever otherwise? When I hear some leader in Israel, oft condemned and condemned in unsparing speech, I know that he has done something of the unusual sort. Spiritual nobodies excite few criticisms.

First, Ephraim complained of civic discourtesy. There are plenty of people who, when a war is over, will tell you how much bigger and better the battles would have been had they been invited to bear important part in the same. Such was Ephraim!

And the men of Ephraim said unto him, Why hast thou served us thus, that thou calledest us not, when thou wentest to fight with the Midianites? And they did chide with him sharply.

And he said unto them, What have I done now in comparison of you? Is not the gleaning of the grapes of Ephraim better than the vintage of Abi-ezer?

God hath delivered into your hands the princes of Midian, Oreb and Zeeb: and what was I able to do in comparison of you? Then their anger was abated toward him, when he had said that.

And Gideon came to Jordan, and passed over, he, and the three hundred men that were with him, faint, yet pursuing them.

And he said unto the men of Succoth, Give, I pray you, loaves of bread unto the people that follow me; for they be faint, and I am pursuing after Zebah and Zal-munna, kings of Midian (Jdg 8:1-5).

Succoth and Penuel complained of national enmity.

And the princes of Succoth said, Are the hands of Zebah and Zalmunna now in thine hand, that we should give bread unto thine army?

And Gideon said, Therefore when the Lord hath delivered Zebah and Zalmunna into mine hand, then I will tear your flesh with the thorns of the wilderness and with briers.

And he went up thence to Penuel, and spake unto them likewise, and the men of Penuel answered him as the men of Succoth had answered him.

And he spake also unto the men of Penuel, saying, When I come again in peace, I will break down this tower.

Now Zebah and Zalmunna were in Karkor, and their hosts with them, about fifteen thousand men, all that were left of all the hosts of the children of the east: for there fell an hundred and twenty thousand men that drew sword.

And Gideon went up by the way of them that dwelt in tents on the east of Nobah and Jogbehah, and smote the host: for the host was secure.

And when Zebah and Zalmunna fled, he pursued after them, and took the two kings of Midian, Zebah and Zalmunna, and discomfited all the host (Jdg 8:6-12).

It made no difference to them whether or not God was with Gideon. He was not of their nation, and consequently should expect no assistance from them. There are plenty of people who can have little or no sympathy with those who are not of their kin, their color, their nation, their denomination. This is and has always been the evil ground work of international complications. We may not approve Gideons method in this matter, but, whether we approve it or not, we practice it. When nations war, neutrals become extremely unpopular. And often, when war is at an end, the attitude of the neutral is not forgotten.

Finally, God complained of his help to a new idolatry.

And Gideon said unto them, I would desire a request of you, that ye would give me every man the earnings of his prey. (For they had golden earrings, because they were Ishmaelites.)

And they answered, We will willingly give them. And they spread a garment, and did cast therein every man the earrings of his prey.

And the weight of the golden earrings that he requested was a thousand and seven hundred shekels of gold; beside ornaments, and collars, and purple raiment that was on the kings of Midian, and beside the chains that were about their camels weeks.

And Gideon made an ephod thereof, and put it in his city, even in Ophrah: and all Israel went thither a whoring after it: which thing became a snare unto Gideon, and to his house.

Thus was Midian subdued before the Children of Israel, so that they lifted up their heads no more. And the country was in quietness forty years in the days of Gideon.

And Jerubbaal the son of Joash went and dwelt in his own house.

And Gideon had threescore and ten sons of his body begotten: for he had many wives.

And his concubine that was in Shechem, she also bare him a son, whose name he called Abimelech.

And Gideon the son of Joash died in a good old age, and was buried in the sepulchre of Joash his father, in Ophrah of the Abi-ezerites.

And it came to pass, as soon as Gideon was dead, that the Children of Israel turned again, and went a whoring after Baalim, and made Baalberith their god.

And the Children of Israel remembered not the Lord their God, who had delivered them out of the hands of all their enemies on every side:

Neither shewed they kindness to the house of Jerub-baal, namely, Gideon, according to all the goodness which he had shewed unto Israel (Jdg 8:24-33).

It is very doubtful if Gideon intended idolatry when he gathered the gold earrings, and when out of that gold he made an ephod. But there is nothing on earth so easily excited as false worship. And all Israel went thither a whoring after it: which thing became a snare unto Gideon, and to his house (Jdg 8:27). This thing became a snare unto Gideon and to his house.

One of the strangest things in the world is here recorded. It is strange to see a young man rise up, and, in the Name of the Lord, tear down false altars, as the young man Gideon tore down the altar of Baal, and then, after a long and useful life, in utter loyalty to God and His Word, turn in his old age to Baal worship again. But such men we know, and in America they are a multitude. When Israel was triumphant, they were Israelites. But when Baal became popular, they became Baalimites. When Fundamentalism was the only faith of the fathers, they stood fast for it. But when the sons of those same fathers turned to Rationalism, and succeeded to ecclesiastical control, they turned to worship at this new shrine. I can forgive a young man for his infidelity, but I find it difficult to have even sympathy with an old man who, after having tested and tried and proved God, turns from Him and despises His Holy Word.

But in the interest of fairness, let us hope that Gideon never so intended his ephod, and that Israels defection from the faith was in sheer consequence of Israels folly, and that natural infidelity which pulls on the souls of men as the law of gravity drags at plants, and so accept the thought that while Gideon lived, God was the only God in Israel, but when Gideon was gone, the Children of Israel turned again to Baalim as the children of true believers are turning today to rationalism and atheism.

Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley

ISRAELS RELAPSE INTO SIN, AND THEIR OPPRESSION BY THE MIDIANITES. Jdg. 6:1-10

CRITICAL NOTES. Jdg. 6:1. Did evil, etc.] Not continued to do evil, though that is implied (pp. 158, 186). Deborah and Barak were now dead, and their personal example, the influence of their names, and their warning voices were all buried with them. The shake given to the idolatry of the land by the signal manifestation made of Jehovahs jealousy had now lost its effect, and a new generation had sprung up. That so long a period as 40 years should have been influenced by the shadow of the great event of the destruction of Sisera and his army shows that a mighty impression had been made of the character of Israels God, both on Israel themselves, and also on the nations around them. All seemed to feel that great fear was due to the God of Israel, for there was no God that could deliver after this manner. The hand of Midiandescendants of Abraham and Keturah (Gen. 25:2). Though not the same race, they appear to have been in close affinity with the Ishmaelites, or were included among that people as a part is included in the whole (Jdg. 8:22-24). With them, too, they appear to have been engaged in the carrying trade across the desert between the Euphrates and Egypt (see Gen. 37:25; Gen. 37:28). Some regard the word Midianites, as the plural of the old Egyptian Madi [Fausset]. They were a nomadic people and did not till the ground, but lived in tents. They occupied a belt of desert land, extending from Horeb in a line extending north-east, passing Moab on the east, and skirting the territory of Reuben. While Moses was at Horeb, he dwelt with his father-in-law, Jethro, who was the priest of Midian. Their territory, therefore, must have been, at one side, near by Horeb. But being unsettled in their residence, and predatory in their habits, there was probably no very strict delimitation of the boundary lines. Wiseman calls them wandering corsairs of the desert. The disposition to plunder had become to them almost a natural instinct, as it was with all the tribes of the desert. They had an old grudge against, Israel on account of the crushing blow that had been inflicted on them in the time of Moses by the express command of God, because of their having wickedly enticed Israel into sin on the plains of Moab (see Num. 25:1; Num. 25:6; Num. 25:16-18; Num. 31:7-12; Num. 22:4-7). Quite 260 years had elapsed since that sweeping desolation had passed on them; and now they had recovered their strength, but cherished an undying hatred to their destroyers. They would be readily joined in their raid against Israel by the Amalekites (see p. 158), by the Ishmaelites (Psa. 83:6-7), by the Arabs and wandering hordes generally, along the south and south-east border of Palestine, who were always ready for any work of pillage. The initiative, however, was taken by Midian.

Cassel thinks that the two words Midian and the more modern Bedouin are really one and the samethe Hebrew spelling beginning with , while the Arabic language begins with . In this last case the word would spell Bidiun, or Bedouin. In the Semitic languages there is a constant interchange of these letters. The word comes from a root signifying the desert.

Jdg. 6:2. The hand of Midian prevailed.]bore heavily upon them (p. 97). They had no power to remove it. They made them the dens which are in the mountains, etc.] Some (Keil) make the word to signify mountain ravines, hollowed out by torrents; being thus found they were fitted up by mens hands in such a manner, as to make suitable retreats from danger. Others (Cassel and Bertheau) understand by it, Light holes. i.e., holes with openings for the light, or grottoes. Wetzstein says, At some elevated dry place, a shaft was sunk obliquely into the earth, and at a depth of twenty-five fathoms, streets were run off straight, from six to eight paces wide, in the sides of which the dwellings were excavated. At various points these streets were extended to double their ordinary width, and the roof was pierced with air-holes according to the size of the place. These were like windows. Hence the meaning is, caves, with air-holes like windows. Watchers were employed to give the alarm when the enemy approached. Then the plonghmen and herds hurried quickly into the earth and were secure. There was also a second place of exit, for the most part. Similar must have been the rock dwellings of Petra. In the limestone mountains of Palestine, there are many natural caves. but these generally were more fully excavated, and fitted up artificially, when used as human dwellings. The remaining word () signifies fortresses, or (mountain) strongholds. These refuges were less used for purposes of personal safety, than as places of concealment for property and necessaries of life. For the propensity of the Bedouin always has been rather to pillage than to kill (1Sa. 13:6; 1Sa. 23:14; 1Sa. 23:19; 1Sa. 23:29; 1Ch. 11:7) These were memorials of the dark times, when the Bedouin host like an over-running flood swept over the land. Sin like a leprosy leaves its scars and its baldness behind it.

Jdg. 6:3. Children of the East.] This phrase seems to designate the various Arab tribes, not otherwise named, who roamed over the open country between the Red Sea and the Euphrates. We hear of the men of the east (Job. 1:3); the mountains of the east (Num. 23:7); the east country (Gen. 25:6); the east specifically (Gen. 29:1). (Isa. 41:2; Mat. 2:1; Mat. 7:12; Mat. 8:10). These hordes seem to have had no design of conquering the country, nor yet of cutting off its inhabitants. Their object simply was plunder. Their visits were like the incursions of the Picts and Scots into Southern Britain during the latter part of the Roman dominion (A.D. 1368); or the raids for lifting cattle. which were common from the Highlands of Scotland into the Lowlands at a much later period (Lias). And he might have added, which visits were returned by the English into Scotland, with a like disregard of meum and tuum, when they could get a safe opportunity. This was but the fulfilment of prophecy upon Israel (Deu. 28:31; Deu. 28:33; Deu. 28:43; Deu. 28:48).

When Israel had sown they came up, etc.] i.e., They chose the time when the fruits of the earth were fast ripening, just before harvest (about March), and remained for weeks or months on the ground, till they had time to clutch the whole produce for the year; and when they had stripped it bare, they returned to their own country, leaving the poor Israelites to sow the land for a new crop in the following season, at which time they would return and repeat the work of rapine. Their route would be along the east bank of the Jordan, until they got as far as Bethshean (now Beisan), the principal ford of the river, when, crossing over, they would have before them to the north-east, the rich plain of Esdraelon and the fertile valley of Jezreel, forming together the very garden of Palestine, whose richness of soil was proverbial everywhere, and formed a most tempting prize to eyes accustomed to look on the sterility of the desertluxuriant crops of corn, vineyards, olive trees, fig trees, pomegranates, milk and honeyall found in profuse abundance. Here they would revel until feasted to the full, when going along the course of the Kishon, and passing through the mountain gorges on the west. would then turn southward along the rich belt of land that skirted the sea, the southern part of which was occupied by the Philistines, their last city being Gaza. There the forces of the marauders necessarily took end, for there was nothing more in that direction to seize.[2]

[2] It has long been the practice (till recently stopped) of the marauding Turkomans of Central Asia, to rob the long caravans of camels, laden with the produce of the countries of the Far East, passing to the countries of the Far West (and vice versa), along the route through ancient Media [Has that word any connection with Midian?] which has the Caspian Gates to the north and Persia to the South. These tribes also have long been in the habit of making alamans, or raids on their weaker neighbours, their object being robbery and man-stealing, including woman and child-stealing. Their favourite hunting ground has been the eastern frontier of Persia. The people they caught were carried off to the inhospitable deserts of Central Asia, where escape was impossible. For prisoners of importance a heavy ransom was expected; the others were made to work in the fields, or were sold as chattels where a market could be found. These incursions were made sometimes up to the gates of Teheran, while so strangely imbecile or helpless were the governore of Persia, the country once ruled over by a Cyrus and an Ahasuerus, that little or no opposition was offered to the fierce barbarians who came plundering and murdering to within a few miles of the capital. No wonder that all the towns and villages are walled in with towers and gates which are shut at night. Even in many of the fields were towers, as refuges or the people at work, in case of sudden alarm, when there was no time to reach the village. The workers by squeezing themselves through a narrow opening in the bottom, which could be closed with a stone, might thus escape, and the Turkoman would lose his prize. To complete the picture, occasionally some of the governors on the frontier, who could have stopped their raids, allowed them to pass westwards in order to catch them on their return, laden with the spoil they had captured. This was profitable to the governor, who thus bagged everything. Happily Russia by her movement into Central Asia, during the eighth decade of this century, has laid a strong hand on this system, and it may now be said no longer to exist. That movement if it has had few other beneficial effects seems to be breaking up the fallow ground, in what has long been one of the wildest, and most intractable wastes, both of the moral and physical worlds.

Jdg. 6:4. They encamped against them]ready to seize their plunder by force of arms, if they could not get it peaceably (Psa. 27:3; 2Sa. 12:28). But such was the cowardice of the God-for-saken people, that they never once attempted to take the field against these insolent robbers, far less did they dream for a moment that they could be driven out of the country. The same course was taken by the Turks on a larger scale, when they first made their appearance in the east of Europe, and seized one territory after another, crushing all opposition. The increase of the earth]the annual produce of the soil; such as wheat, barley and grass; wine, honey, milk and oil; all fruit trees produce, and such things as are alluded to in the following passages (Exo. 3:8; Deu. 8:8; Deu. 32:14; 2Ch. 2:10; 2Ch. 2:15; Eze. 27:17; Eze. 27:19; Isa. 7:22-23; Mic. 4:4). Till thou come to Gaza]an idiomatic phrase in the Hebrew language (Gen. 10:19; Jdg. 11:33; Gen. 13:10; 1Sa. 17:52; 1Sa. 27:8). Left no sustenance for Israel, neither Sheep, etc.]no means of support, whether the fruit of the soil, or the flocks and herds. Not only were the rich plains of Issachar devastated, but the uplands of Manasseh were not safe from the hands of these rapacious prowlers, as the case of Gideon illustrates. Their march was like a sweeping rain which leaveth no food (Pro. 28:3). To drive off the cattle has been the practice of the Bedouins all along unto this day; and it is customary, in some parts of Western Asia to make a compromise with the invaders, engaging to pay them a heavy tribute on condition that they shall be left unmolested. Even powerful communities do this to avoid perpetual warfare. Besides the tribute, the chiefs look for substantial presents, and these being received as gifts in one year are exacted the next year as a matter of right. Ere long the pressure becomes intolerable, and they are obliged to leave the settlements altogether.(Pict. Bible.) Not a solitary sheep, ox or ass which came in their way was left to the Israelites! So complete was the pillage. Their cattle comprising beeves, sheep, asses and camels, would eat up all the herbage and every green thing which they did not require for themselves. For they were most numerous (Num. 31:32-39).

Jdg. 6:5. They came up, and their cattle and their tents, etc.]they and their cattle is emphatictheir tentsthose who lived in their tents. All their domestics, as well as fighting men. It was not a sudden assault followed by a hasty retreat; but they came to remain in the land, for a time at least, to fatten themselves on its rich produce. Came as grasshoppers.] Rather locusts in like abundance to the locusts; also like to them in voracity, of which it is said in Joe. 2:3, the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them is a desolate wilderness. It was a deluge of human robbers.[3]

[3] From p. 38 under Jdg. 6:5, they and their camels were without number]rather, dromedaries (Isa. 60:6) which are peculiar to the deserts of the South and East. Camels and asses take the place of horses and oxen in the West. Camels, indeed, were not unfrequently used for ploughing.

Jdg. 6:6. Greatly impoverished.] is a strong word, implying more than that they suffered a great loss, or had much taken from them. It implies that they felt utterly desolate and helpless. What a spectacle was before them! Their beautiful country turned into a vast and hideous wreck; countless marauders roaming at will all over the land, devouring or trampling down ruthlessly the choicest fruit of their matchless soil, until scarcely a stalk of grain or a blade of grass was left in Jezreel itself. As far as the eye could reach, the human wolves had done their work with absolute completeness. It was one vast sea of wreckage. On every foot of the sacred land was inscribed Ichabod. The curse of heaven was everywhere marked. They were a people forsaken of their God. Hence they were thoroughly dispirited, and hung their heads in despair and shame, under the terrible conviction that on the one hand they had deserved it all, and on the other, that they were utterly powerless to effect a remedy for their condition.[4]

[4] Many think it was about this time that the great famine occurred in the land which led Elimelech and his family to remove to the land of Moab to sojourn there, and when Ruth through Naomis instrumentality became a convert to the faith of Israels God (Ruth 1).

But this conviction was not arrived at all at once. For the first three years these depredators, Josephus tells us, repeated each year their terrible visit, with such disastrous result, that a large part of the land was no longer sown, while the miserable inhabitants, with their numbers thinned, partly through famine, and partly through oppression, at last, in great numbers quitted their homes and sought to the retreats and fastnesses among the mountains referred to in Jdg. 6:2. For four years more did they survive the terrible humiliation of their country until they agreed by general consent to return to their allegiance to the God from whom they had apostatized (Hos. 5:15). Now they were virtually saying come, let us return unto the Lord, for He hath torn and He will heal, He hath smitten and He will bind up.

Jdg. 6:7. They cried unto the Lord because of Midian.] (See p. 159). (Jdg. 3:9; Jdg. 3:15; Jdg. 4:3; Psa. 106:44-45; Psa. 107:6; Psa. 107:19; Psa. 107:28).

Jdg. 6:8. The Lord sent a prophet.] A man, a prophet; not an angel. An unnamed messenger (1Ki. 13:1-2; 1Ki. 20:13; 1Ki. 20:35; 2Ki. 9:1; 2Ki. 9:4). God would send a prophet before He sends a saviour. Before giving the blessing He first deals with that which keeps back the blessing. They were beginning to use the language of penitence; they must learn it more thoroughly. (Act. 2:37, yet the apostle adds Jdg. 6:38carry your repentance farther). The message itself etc., is like that of 1Sa. 10:18, or Jos. 24:17 and Jdg. 2:1.I brought you up from Egypt, etc.] It was strange that they should so continually require to be reminded of one of the very first truths in their national history, the day which of all others had a white letter mark in their calendar. Then they for the first time rose up to be a nation. Then was laid the foundation of everlasting obligations to their God, to whom alone they owed their unparalleled history as a people.

10. But ye have not obeyed my voice.] These words contain the charge which their God brings against them. This short sentence would not be all that the prophet would say. It was rather the theme on which he would enlarge; in the same manner in which we have an account of Peters sermon on the day of Pentecost. That sermon may have occupied more than an hour in delivery, and yet as given in the canon, it is so abridged as not to occupy a tenth part of that time in the reading. The line of thought followed by the speaker alone is given; so hereThe gods of the Amorites.]This name is put for the Canaanites, (as in Jos. 24:15; Jos. 24:18; and Gen. 15:16). In the Egyptian monuments of Ramases 3, Palastine is called the land of the Amori. The prophet may have been addressing the dwellers in the mountains where the Amorites (the Highlanders) dwelt. (Gen. 48:22). The idolatries of that race were specially abominable (see 1Ki. 21:26; 2Ki. 21:11). [Speakers Com.] It has well been remarked that the existence of a class of men, whose duty it is to convict men of moral declension, is peculiar to revealed religion. Other religions had their priests; Judaism and Christianity alone had their prophets. [Lias].

MAIN HOMILETICS.Jdg. 6:1-10

GODS DEALINGS WITH THE UNTEACHABLE HUMAN HEART

Here again we have the same weary go-round. Fresh outbreaks of depravity; new chastisements of the Divine hand; the treacherous heart turning again to its God when it finds that it must; and God, with wonderful tenderness and slowness to anger (at every new stage becoming more wonderful), repenting Him of the evil and granting deliverance. We have

I. The Picture of Sin Presented.

It is not a case of sinning for the first time, but a case of repeated sinning, and that accompanied with every possible aggravation.

1. The form of their sin was of a heinous character. Idol-worship was peculiarly offensive to their God. It was a direct rejection of Jehovah as their God, not-withstanding all His claims to be so acknowledged. No greater insult could be offered to His Majesty and His Holiness. It was to cast off His authority, to deny His sovereign rights, to refuse Him submission, to contemn His glorious perfections, to trample under foot His law, and to reject His Divine fellowship. It was to do all this in the most offensive manner, by preferring to worship in His place beasts and fourfooted things, or images of sinful objects, the work of their own hands. It was to go lower stillit was to set up the embodiments of sin in the place of God, and to give to these the devotion and the worship which are properly due to God. It was to give external form and embodiment to the worst ideals of wickedness which the human imagination could conceive, and yield up to these the homage which is due only to the Holy one of Israel! In this matter the desperately-wicked heart seems to have exceeded itself in its ordinary acting. And to complete the picture, it must take away the one foundation of all possible good (namely, the worship of the Good one), and to expose the heart to the incursion of all possible evils.

Idolatry, indeed, implies the creature striking out for itself in disregard of its Maker, as if its Maker were insufficient to it, and His presence were a burden rather than a pleasure. Have I been a wilderness to Israel?a land of darkness? Wherefore say, my people, We will come no more to thee? What iniquity have your fathers found in me that they are gone from Me and have walked after vanity? This reproach applies to all who put any other objects in place of God, and give to these the homage, the affection, the interest and the obedience which are due to Him alone. It may be riches, or fame, social distinction, the good opinions of our fellows, or any prize which the man who lives without God counts dear (see pp. 110, 111, 123).

2. They sinned against the clearest light. All the means of instruction which that age could furnish in the matter of their duty to their God were employed to press His claims on their attention. If they had no printed Bible, yet at the Red Sea, at Mount Horeb, all through the wilderness, at Jordan, and in every city of the Canaanites, as well as in many startling events of more than 200 years afterwardsthey had all the facts and revelations of the Divine character and of human duty which go to make a Bible. And they had these as living factsevents passing before their eyes, coming with the freshness of personal experiencein which they themselves were principal factors. They had an illuminated Bible given them to read, in which the blindest among them could see a great meaning. It was a Bible which spoke with a plainness that the dullest could appreciate, and with a loudness that made the most stolid fall down and worship. But they had no eyes to read such a Bible; no ears to hear its remarkable sayings, for they did shut their eyes that they might not see, and stop their ears that they might not hear. They sinned against the clearest light as to the claims which Jehovah had on the allegiance and love of their hearts. They would not come to the light lest their deeds should be reproved. Hence they continued as sottish childrena people of no understanding (see Deu. 32:5-6; Deu. 32:28; Deu. 4:5-8; Deu. 4:32-36; Luk. 12:48; Mat. 11:21-23; Num. 15:30-31; Joh. 9:41; Rom. 2:12-16).

3. They sinned in abusing the highest privileges. They had the continual presence of God among them that they might enjoy His fellowship. A way of access was provided through the appointed sacrifices. The means whereby individual sins might be pardoned, and personal sanctification secured, were set every day before their eyes in the blood of sprinkling and the water of purification. Gods own glorious character as a God of truth and righteousness, of holiness and love, was exhibited very strikingly in the statutes, ordinances, and commandments which were given them as a law for their conduct. They had exceeding great and precious promises made to them from time to time as to their deliverance for the present, and the realisation of bright hopes for the future. They had very endearing and very honourable names given them by their God, and they had continually fresh proofs given that He was among them on all occasions, ever ready to do them such signal service by the events of His Providence as no other people on earth ever experienced. Yet all this was despised and put aside when they forsook the Lord their God and worshipped Baalim and the groves. This comes very near the case described in the terrible passage of Heb. 6:4-6, or that other in Heb. 10:26-29, making allowance for the difference of the dispensations (Isa. 5:4; Mat. 21:35-43; Act. 7:51-53; 2Ki. 17:12-18; Joh. 12:35-37; Luke 12.) (See pp. 120, 121).

4. They sinned in disregarding the most sacred obligations. Never were a people so sacredly bound by acts of kindness shown them, by great deliverances wrought, by honours conferred, and by hopes opened up. The whole Book of Deuteronomy is a record of the extent and the weight of the obligations laid on that people to love and serve Jehovah as their God. He hath not dealt so with any nationthe children of Israel are a people near unto Him. They were set forth as priests among the nations, to make mention of the loving kindness of the Lord, and the praises of the Lord according to all that the Lord hath bestowed upon them, and the great goodness to the house of Israel, which He bestowed on them according to His mercies, and according to the multitude of His loving kindnesses. And those who have set before them the rich discoveries contained in the pages of the New Testament truth; who find the Son of God standing before them in the capacity of the Son of Man; who hear from His own lips the free offer of eternal life, in all its immeasurable fulness, to those who are willing to be reconciled to God through His precious blood; and who have many precious promises made to them both for the present and the future lifethese have obligations laid on them to love and live for God, which no scales can weigh, and no mind can appreciate. (see Heb. 1:1-3; Heb. 2:2-4; Heb. 10:19-23; Mat. 12:41-42; Psa. 89:15-16; Pro. 1:20-23, with 2428; Joh. 3:36, also 1618; Rev. 3:15-18).

5. They sinned in breaking the most solemn engagements. They not only had many acts of kindness shown them, and great things done for them, but they had entered into a special covenant with Jehovah, and pledged themselves to be His people. They were formally set apart by the sprinkling of blood to be His. God Himself came down on Mount Sinai to enter into this covenant, and the whole proceedings were conducted in so solemn a manner as to be memorable to all future generations. To break this covenant (which was made for all their generations) was to perjure themselves, and increase their guilt to an incalculable degree. To break ones solemn engagement made to a fellow man is reckoned a sin of deep dye, but how shall we characterise the violation of a solemn oath made to high Heaven? (see p. 121).

6. They sinned in the face of the most earnest teachings. Especially the teachings of Divine Providence. What did the fathers gain by serving other gods? Had not the experiment been made once and again, and on several occasions? Did not the history of two centuries and a half prove it to be a palpable folly, and a terrible evil to forsake the true and living God, the only fountain of living waters? Did not all the figures of Israels history since they entered into Canaan, each one in his place, condemn with a fearful emphasis the crime of forsaking Jehovah? What a long tale of sorrow and degradation was the history of the generation that went before the present one, when they were so grievously oppressed by the cruel Jabin! Surely twenty years pressure of that iron heel might have read a lesson sufficient to teach for a whole century the sin and danger of idolatry. And the mighty acts of Israels God, when He rose up from His place to take vengeance on the oppressors of His people, in the discomfiture and ruin of Sisera and his army, might have taught for generations to come that there was no god but Jehovah. Yet though having these and many other lessons of instruction and warning set before them, this generation fell again into the mire from which their fathers had at such cost been drawn. (See pp. 121, 122).

One general remark we must not omit to make as regards this melancholy picture of sin, that when men complain of the awful character of the punishment which God sometimes brings down even on His own professed people, the wonder ought to cease when we look candidly at the terrible character of their guilt. God is just when He smites, as well as when He smiles.

II. The state of heart which this picture indicates.
1. Its inveterate tendency to sin. The propensity must be strong to make its appearance in the face of such solemn remonstrances, and such weighty arguments as God employs to make men desist from it. Sin has a deep root in the heart. The leprosy is deeper than the skin, the scall spreads in the skinit is a fretting leprosy. In me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing. (Lev. 13:3; Lev. 13:36; Rom. 7:18). Facts prove, account for it as we may, that the spirit or tendency of backsliding is incorrigible among Gods people. Indeed, in face of the facts that meet us on every page of this book, who can doubt the truth of Gods own testimonythe carnal mind is enmity against God; it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be (Rom. 8:7). (Jer. 13:23; Jer. 2:22; Mat. 19:24; Joh. 3:3; Joh. 3:6-7; Rom. 7:23-24; Rom. 8:8; Eph. 2:1; Psa. 51:5).

2. The hardness of the heart. This is the feature of character which shows itself in refusing to be impressed by any dealing which God may have with the heart. This was strikingly visible in Pharaohs case (Exodus 7-11). (Heb. 3:8; Heb. 3:15; Heb. 4:7; Jos. 11:20; 1Sa. 6:6; Jer. 7:26). It implies that the heart offers resistance to the motive by which God would impress it. It is not only callousimpassive, or utterly indifferent. It is actively opposing the influence by which God seeks to move it. But it includes the want of sensibility.

3. Its boldness in sin. There is a recklessness of consequences; a defiance, wild it may be, yet still a defiance of the Lawgiver, and a refusal to submit to His authority.

4. Its obstinacy in sin. The heart shows a pertinacity in clinging to its sins. It refuses to obey Gods voice (Neh. 9:17; Psa. 78:10). It refuses to repent (Jer. 5:3; Jer. 8:5). It refuses to receive any proper knowledge of God and His ways (Jer. 9:6; Jer. 13:10). The stubbornness of the heart in refusing to receive any teaching from Gods judgments is strikingly brought out by the prophet Amos in Amo. 4:6; Amo. 4:8-11; Jer. 5:23.

5. Its depth of enmity against God. It is said to be desperately wicked, which implies wickedness in an unusual degree (Jer. 17:9). If the human heart does not constitutionally consist of enmity against God, it is magnetised with that enmity, and said to be alienated from God (Col. 1:21; Eph. 4:18; Joh. 7:7; Joh. 15:23-24; 1Jn. 2:15-16.

6. Its unteachableness. Notwithstanding all Gods dealing with the heart in this case, and for so long a time there was no reformation. Patience and long forbearance on the one side, to show how reluctant He was to chastise them; severe scourging employed when milder treatment had no effect, to show that God would keep to His word of threatening as well as His word of promise when necessary. Yet the old tendency shows itself so soon as the pressure of trouble is removed.

Forty years had elapsed during which the land had peace, with the invaluable privilege of a Deborah and a Barak at the helm of affairs. But long before that time was expired, the mass of the people had again begun to forsake Jehovah, and to follow after the worship of idols. No sooner are these zealous defenders of righteousness in their graves than the stream of evil, which had been stemmed for a time, flows on as before. Israel was but an example of the general rule. Even the awful catastrophe of the destruction of a world by a universal flood did not suffice to take away mens depravity, root and branch. After the flood as before, the account still is, the imagination of mans heart is evil from his youth. (See Gen. 6:5, with Jdg. 8:21.) In the days of David the account was similar (Psa. 14:3). In Solomons time the same (Pro. 27:22). In the days of Isaiah matters seem worse rather than better (Isa. 1:5-6). In Jeremiahs age the report is as dark as ever (Jer. 17:9). After all the plagues, Pharaohs heart continued as hard as the nether mill-stone. The Sodomites and Canaanites though forewarned of the issue of their high-handed sins would not hearken, and so were destroyed. And these Israelites, after their settlement in the land promised to the fathers, though dealt with in the most solemn manner to lead them to give up their idolatrous practices, yet clung to them with extreme obstinacy during all the period of the Judges, and also the long reign of the kings, for nearly a thousand years, until the nation was ground to the very dust by the heavy calamities which such apostacy from the God of Israel at last brought on their heads. My people are bent to back-sliding from Me. They are slidden back with a perpetual back-sliding (Jer. 8:5; Hos. 11:7; Hos. 4:16-17; Jer. 2:32, also Jeremiah 10, 11, Jer. 7:28). (See pp. 166, 186, 190.)

III. God cannot in any case tolerate sin.

As often as it is repeated, His anger must come down upon it. It might be said, it was already conclusively proved, that sin was so inwoven into the very nature of this people, that it was hopeless to get it extirpated; for so long as the stubborn propensity of their hearts to apostatise continued, there must be a continually fresh outbreak of sin, when these hearts were left to themselves. That might be a good argument for casting off such a people altogether, when it was fully proved, that they were incorrigibly treacherous to the covenant of their God, but it is no reason, why God should be forgetful of what is due to His own holy name. He cannot connive at sin, and be true to Himself. That He sometimes may seem to wink at sin has been inferred from such a passage as Act. 17:30. But it is one thing to pass over sin for a timenot to take it up, and give judgment upon it, until a fit period come round, and quite another thing, expressly to tolerate it, while dealing with it in the exercise of His Providential rule. While men sin, Gods anger ever burns against it, even though He should long suffer it to go on, and remain silent. Wisdom must come in to decide as to the proper manner, and the proper time, for showing His anger.

In the present case, this long forbearance with a people so wedded to sin, and the purpose not to cast them entirely off under any circumstances, strongly fits in with Messianic arrangements. The utter depravity of their nature shows the great need of adopting some method out of ordinary course, to cure mens hearts of their tendency to depart from God. This is what the gospel specially provides (p. 191). Meantime proof must be given that no toleration is allowed to sin, that though ordinary punishment does not suffice to effect a cure (Isa. 1:5-6), yet evidence must be given that sin is a thing which must be frowned upon under all circumstances. If the heart is ever turning aside like the deceitful bow, then it must ever be chastised anew (p. 170). For,

1. Gods nature is irreconcilably opposed to sin. Psa. 5:4-6. He not only hates sin, but He cannot look upon it (Hab. 1:13). He cannot let His eye rest upon it for a moment. As light cannot co-exist in the same apartment with darkness, so God cannot dwell in the same heart with sin. He is separated from it not only by distance, but by a strong antagonism of nature (2Co. 6:14-15). All His perfections are against it. He is so holy, that without holiness no man shall see the Lord. The very heavens are not clean in His sight. He is so just and righteous that it is proverbial to say Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? (Psa. 11:7; Psa. 97:2). He is so true, that heaven and earth may pass away, but His words shall not pass away (Num. 23:19; 1Sa. 15:29). His Yea is Yea, and His Nay is Nay) Rev. 3:14). He is so unchangeable in the principles of His government, that He is said to be without variableness or the shadow of turning (Mal. 3:6; Job. 23:13).

It is the greatest mystery of the universe that sin should ever have been allowed to enter it at all under the government of so holy a God; and the next greatest mystery is, that it should have been allowed to continue so long. For God is ever irreconcilably opposed to sin. On the other hand, neither can a nature under the dominion of sin ever be reconciled to holiness. How often are we told that, under all the chastisement which God sent upon this people, they refused to return to him. This whole book is the historical proof (Jer. 5:3; Jer. 9:3; 2Ch. 28:22; Rev. 16:9-11). It is invariable as the law by which water runs down a hill.

2. Sin carries its own punishment in its own bosom. The simple fact that sin means enmity to God involves a terrible penalty. Gods favour is lost, and the life of the creature becomes one of misery. How can a man bear to be at war with God? He has the whole universe against him. Sin is a debt he never can pay; a burden under which he must groan for ever; a leprosy for which in all nature there is no cure; a poison for which neither man nor angel can find an antidote; a serpent that shall without pity sting its victim for ever. There is no peace to the man who clings to his sin. It is a perpetual disturber. There is no rest in sin. It is an unresting trouble. Many sorrows are to the wicked. So many miseries accompany sin that all the pleasure it gives is but as a drop of honey in a sea of gall (South). Sin and punishment go together as substance and shadow. They grow together out of one stem. Punishment is a fruit that ripens within the flower of the pleasure that conceals it (Emerson). The genius of a heathen has taught a striking moral on this subject. He made the model of a serpent, and fixed it in the bottom of a goblet, coiled for the spring, a pair of gleaming eyes in its head, and in its open mouth fangs raised to strike. It lay beneath the ruby wine. Nor did he who raised the golden cup to quench his thirst, and quaff the delicious draught, suspect what lay below till, as he reached the dregs, that dreadful head rose up and glistened before his eyes. So when lifes cup is nearly emptied, and sins last pleasure quaffed, and unwilling lips are draining the bitter dregs, shall rise the ghastly terrors of remorse, death, and judgment on the despairing soul (Guthrie).

3. Gods word uniformly condemns it. Gods word is His written lawa compendium of the judgments He passes on mens principles and actions. On every page sin in every form is condemned. The first act of disobedience, it threatens with death; the same tone is kept up throughout, and its closing statement shows the same unalterable attitude towards sin,let him that is unjust remain unjust still, etc. In unequivocal language it declares that the wages of sin is death, that God is angry with the wicked every day, and if he do not turn, He will whet His sword, and bend His bow, etc. (Rom. 6:23; Psa. 7:11-12). He will set His face against the wicked (Psa. 34:16; Lev. 26:17; Lev. 17:10; Lev. 20:3; Lev. 20:5-6, etc.) and in the day when He visits those who sin, He will visit their sin upon them (Exo. 32:34). He will by no means clear the guilty (Exo. 34:7). Their sin shall surely find them out (Num. 32:23). Indeed all the threatenings of the Bible are a manifold condemnation of sin (Deu. 28:45; Eph. 5:6).

4. His Providence always works against it. He may not indeed visit the sinner with instant destruction. Men may be permitted to go on in sin for a time, while the thunders of justice sleep, yet sin does not pass unpunished. Where there is no repentance, sooner or later, He brings down the rod of chastisement, or the sword of destruction. At the proper time, He will lay judgment to the line, and righteousness to the plummet. It is an old but true proverb, the mills of the gods grind slow, but they grind to powder. God came not to Adam till the evening, but He came. Though the deluge was delayed for 120 years, yet at the appointed time it came. God waited on the Canaanites for their repentance for 430 years, but as they continued impenitent, the sword of Joshua was commanded to do its work. Josephs brethren thought their wicked deed was forgotten, as year after year slipped away, and no whisper was ever made of it. But when the dungeons of Egypt closed around them, and they received unaccountably rough dealing from the strange man who was lord of the country, an accusing voice was awakened within them, memory called up the past, and the old sin rose up as a spectre before them in all its terribleness, as the cause of their accumulated troubles. Silently had that sin dogged their steps, while they slept and awoke from day to day, and much of life passed on. It lay forgotten, but not dead. At the fit moment God held it up before them, and they cried out with one voice, We are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul, etc.

Though a sinner do evil a hundred times, and his days be prolonged, yet I know it shall be well only with them that fear the Lord. etc. These things thou hast done, and I kept silence. The silence is ominous. A dead silence goes before the earthquake. Nature seems hushed into an awful stillness, more dreadful than the storm would be. It is as if she were holding her breath at the thought of the coming disaster. The air hangs heavy; not a breath fans the leaves; the birds cease their music; the hum of the insects ceases; there is no ripple in the streams; and meanwhile houses, it may be cities, are on the brink of ruin. So it is with Gods silence over the wicked. It will be followed by the earthquake of His judgments. When they shall say Peace and Safety, then sudden destruction, etc.(Goulburn).

5. The laws of a mans own nature cry out against it. Sin is a kind of boomerang which goes off into space curiously, but turns again on its thrower, and with tenfold force strikes the hand, or the person that launched it, after describing singular curves. There is no such terrible punishment known on earth as an accusing conscience. It is like Tophet of old, the pile of which is fire and much wood, and the breath of the Lord like a stream of brimstone doth kindle it. Wilful and aggravated sin is the fuel of that awful fire. Examples we have in Belshazzar, Cain, Herod, Pilate, Judas, and others. They prove that punishment is the recoil of sin, and that the strength of the backstroke is in proportion to the force of the original blow. Conscience is a clock that strikes loud and gives warning, in one mans case; in another the hand points silently to the number but strikes not. Meantime the hours pass away, death hastens, and after death comes the judgment.

6. The cross of Christ shows that sin cannot, under any possible circumstances, go unpunished. This is incomparably the highest proof that can be given in the case. The Eternal Father spares not His only begotten Son, because He cannot spare sin! What depth of hatred to sin is here? How supreme the necessity for inflicting death, as the due desert of our sins when such a substitute as this cannot be exempted from bearing the full burden of Divine wrath! The sufferings of mere creatures are small indeed, and of very ordinary consequence, compared with the groans and agonies of Him who made the worlds, and who wrought all the mighty works of Divine power, which distinguished His life in this world. The whole human race are but as a grain of dust before the infinite Majesty of the Son of God, who yet called Himself the Son of Man. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him, because He became responsible for our sins, and was made a curse for us.

Our conclusion is, that if God could not spare our sins, but was so strict to mark iniquity, we too must resolve unalterably, in the strength of Gods grace, not to spare them ourselves. We must wage ceaseless war against them, in all the Protean forms they may assume, saying, Thou shalt dieand thouand thou! The whole brood must be cast out; while holy thoughts, devout affections, and heavenly longings must take their place. Let our motto be Delenda sunt peccata.

IV. Repeated sin brings heavier chastisement.

God warned His people, that if they would not listen to His first reproofs, but would obstinately repeat their offences afresh, He would not only chastise them again, but would chastise them seven times more for their sins. (Lev. 26:18; Lev. 26:21; Lev. 26:24; Lev. 26:28). He begins with whips, but by and bye proceeds to the use of scorpions. This was strikingly exemplified in the Midianitish invasionthe most overwhelming of all the judgments God had yet brought upon the land. As Bp. Hall remarks, During the former tyranny, Deborah was permitted to judge Israel under a palm tree; under this, private habitations are not allowed. Then the seal of judgment was in the sight of the sun; now their very dwellings must be secret under the earth. They who had rejected the protection of God, now run to the mountains for shelter; and as they had savagely abused themselves, so they are fain to creep into the dens and caves of the rocks like the wild animals, for safeguard. God had sown spiritual seed among them, and they suffered their heathen neighbours to pull it up by the roots; and now no sooner can they sow their material seed, than Midianites seek to devour it.

Jabin mightily oppressed them for twenty years. but now the distress occasioned by the Midianites was only for seven years. Was not that an alleviation rather than an aggravation? Only in appearance, for it is possible to suffer more in one year than in twenty. It depends on the treatment given; and it is generally admitted that this was the greatest scourge they ever had in the days of the Judges. What a frightful calamity to be robbed of the whole harvest produce of their fertile country, year by year, till seven years had passed over them! only a few scanty gleanings being left here and there in corners, or bleak spots, as sustenance for their vast population. All the miseries of famine were upon them. And the life they otherwise led was like that of brute beasts, that find their lairs by burrowing in the ground! To what a low ebb does sin reduce its votaries! (comp. p. 170).

V. The cowardice and weakness of guilt.

Henry says, Sin dispirits men, and makes them sneak into dens and caves. The day will come, when chief captains and mighty men will call in vain to rocks and mountains to hide them.

1. Their former condition. Here was a people who traversed the ground of the wilderness for forty years, during the greater part of which they were crossing and re-crossing part of the territory occupied by these marauders, and yet only once in all that period did these tribes dare to encounter them in the open field, and that not alone but in conjunction with Moab. (Num. 22:4; Num. 22:7). Again, when God sent twelve thousand Israelites to punish the Midianites for their sin, in having tempted Israel to sin, they trode them down with ease like the grass of the field, and Midian was by a single blow reduced to the point of ruin. Still, further as we go down the history, beyond the date referred to in the chapter, to the days of Saul, king of Israel, we are told that the transjordanic tribes (Reuben, Gad, and half Manasseh) alone made war on the whole people of the Hagarenes, or Ishmaelites, or Midianites, and inflicted on them a signal defeat. They had long been harassed by raids made by these freebooters into their country, and they resolved, after asking counsel of their God, to take the strong step of rooting them entirely out of that part of the country, and colonising the whole region, as far as the Euphrates, themselves. This scheme was most successfully accomplished (see 1Ch. 5:9-10, also Jdg. 6:18-22; comp. 1Ch. 1:31, and Gen. 25:15-16).

2. Their present condition. But now Israel, being deserted by their God, had become so cowardly and weak, that all their tribes united dare not meet this outlandish and despicable people in the open field. They see an undisciplined mob come up in the most arrogant manner, and squat themselves down at pleasure amid the very fat of their land, and take all of the best they can find, while they, the degenerate descendants of a once conquering nation, not venturing once to meet them in the open country, are only too glad to skulk into corners, and make themselves cavities under ground for habitations! And the whole country is left at the mercy of the enemy! Not fifty years had yet elapsed, since, on this very plain of Jezreel, Siseras mighty army had been scattered as the chaff. Now the children of those who fought under Barak have become timid, terror-stricken fugitives. These crouching slaves that timidly peep from behind the projecting rocks, or shiver in the damp darkness of the caverns, are they indeed the sons of the men who vanquished the hosts of Sihon and of Og, in whose sight the sun and moon stood still, and great hailstones were rolled down from heaven on the heads of their enemies? Where are now the old traditions of victory? Where is now the shout of a king in their camp? Whence has gone the national characterthe energy of this once invincible race?

3. Sin brings down. Sin degrades (p. 104). It terrible weakens (p. 107, 265, 266). The basis of all true courage of the highest type is a good conscience, which a man can only find in the ways of righteousness. But where there is conscious guilt, the foundations of all real strength are sapped. The wicked flee even when none pursue. God speaks to a mans imagination, and it becomes to him the bearer of fearful tidings, wherever he turns. He fears each bush an officer. It is the same now as then. There is no mere chance in the matter. The evil comes expressly from the Lord. He scares him with dreams, and terrifies him through visions; terrors make him afraid on every side. Why is a man who has all the conditions of prosperity in his life yet a stranger to happiness, destitute of hope, and a prey to groundless fears? It is because he allows himself to be enslaved by sin, because he allows sinful thoughts to swarm and settle on his heart, and eat up all its strength; or because he is so craven in spirit as not to resist the approaches of evil, but gives way to all manner of temptation with which the wicked one, or the wicked world may surround him. O what need for Divine keeping for such hearts, in such a world, and exposed to such an enemy! Ye are kept by the power of God (1Pe. 1:5). Those whom thou gavest me I have kept, etc. (Joh. 17:12). What need have the best of men to get themselves purged from the idols of the heart!

VI. All relief at Gods hand begins with earnest prayer.Jdg. 6:7. (see pp. 198200, 202, 224, 225).

We do not say that God never confers a blessing except in answer to prayer. He may sometimes see reason to bestow some spiritual good even where prayer has not been offered up. He gives indeed, exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, in one sense. For we generally have a poor conception of the value of the blessings we pray for; but when He gives them, He puts far more meaning into them than we do. He also sometimes confers blessings which we do not ask at all, according as He sees it to be necessary or fit, just as the kind and watchful parent would give to the child what was needful, though not asked. But the main idea is, that we have no just ground to expect deliverance from trouble, or any other blessing from God till we have prayed for it. The direction given to us is, ask, and ye shall receive; ye have not, because ye ask not. Our warrant for expecting blessings to be given in answer to prayer is

(1.) such, is the rule laid down in Gods word.

(2.) Prayer itself is in many ways glorifying to God.

(3.) True prayer implies a spirit of penitence, without which the way is blocked against all blessing from the Divine hand. Israels cry seemed to be earnest and deepout of the depths. God hears the prayer of the destitute, when penitent. (Psa. 34:4-6; Psa. 34:17; Psa. 102:17-18). (See p. 173).

VII.Gods first answer is a call to thorough penitence.
1. He explains the meaning of His Providential dealing. In sending His prophet to the people, He leaves them in no doubt as to the meaning of this disastrous Providence. Disastrous it was, and very grievous, yet not mysterious. It was only what they had every reason to expect from what they had been told all along. If no calamity had befallen them, then they might have wondered; but, as it was, the natural expectation had been realised. These events did not happen by chance. They were specially sent by God to intimate His high displeasure with their sins. God had really gone against them, because they had abandoned His worship and dishonoured His name.

2. He specially reproves them for ingratitude and breach of vows. According to the excellence of the spirit of gratitude is the detestable character of ingratitude (pp. 259, 260, 263, with p. 122). No people had had the one-half done for them that Israel had, and more was justly expected of them than of others. Yet they had turned their backs on the kindest of Benefactors, and had wickedly put out of memory the sacred doings of His mighty hand. Their conduct was extremely offensive in daring to treat so slightingly His gracious deliverances of the past. And it was terribly intensified by their doing all this after solemnly engaging to belong to Jehovah and to serve Him from the land of Egypt. And they not only broke their covenant, but most wickedly went into the service of Amoritish idolatry, though so repeatedly warned against those heinous sins.

3. He insists on penitence before deliverance is granted. Far more stress is laid on penitence than on the means of deliverance. The latter was easy to be found if only the former were thoroughly gone through. Hence the prophet, with his reproof, comes before the angel, with his deliverance. The great difficulty was to find penitence among the people. Gods claims are set forth, and the peoples backslidings emphasised, that they may be duly repented of, and a speedy and general return to the God of their fathers might be made. Penitence was the first step in the process. That taken, all the rest will come right, as happened with their father Jacob when he wrestled with the angel and prevailed, and the conquest of Esau and flight of all his troubles followed. God could, indeed, have struck down the Midianites at one blow, and so saved all the tantalising and harrowing suspense of the circuitous course which He actually did take. But though none had such true sympathy with the deeply afflicted Church as He had, His love was far-seeing and wise. Therefore He delayed for a time until the most useful lessons, which the rod alone can effectually teach, were learned by His erring children. It was only under great sufferings, and by painful experience of the sad fruits of sin, that they could learn effectually true sorrow for sin, self-abasement, submission, faith, patience and entire consecration to God. To get the backsliding people to practise the passive virtues of the religious character, was a valuable purpose to be gained, but if the deliverance had been accomplished in a day, there would have been no opportunity afforded for gaining it.

This seems to be the Divine rule under all circumstances, to send first a ministry of condemnation, to produce conviction of sin, self-humiliation, and the casting away of transgressions; and when this has had its proper effect, then comes deliverance. Meantime the terrible character of the sin might be read in the terrible character of the punishment. In this case the prophet would likely travel from city to city, or to those places where he might find an audience, or any considerable number of people assembled all over the land. It is a good sign when God chides us; His severe reproofs are ever gracious fore-runners of mercy; whereas His silent connivance at the wicked argues deep and secret displeasure. The prophet made way for the angel, reproof for deliverance, humiliation for comfort.(Hall).

COMMENTS AND SUGGESTIONS.Jdg. 6:1-10

I. BESETTING SINS

1. Every age has its own besetting sins.

The besetting sin of the ancient Israel undoubtedly was that of idol worship. The depraved heart, being in a state of alienation from God, does not like to retain God in its knowledge. But in departing from Him it cannot remain in a state of neutrality. For there is no such thing possible as a negation of good. The feeling that could reject God is itself a positive evil. Hence, in leaving God, it comes under the dominion of sin. Besides, being made for God, all its deepest instincts cry out for something to take His place. A god of some kind it must have, and hence it devises a god after its own liking. Thus from within do we account for idolatry; and not less powerful was the influence operating from without. The universal example of the other nations was always acting with the force of a mighty current in the same direction. It was like the confluence of several mighty streams bearing down with great force.

Idolatry continued as the sin to which the Israelites were most addicted for centuries. It seemed bred in the bone. Not till the frightful calamity of the captivity had befallen them when the nation came near the point of being annihilated, were they cured of it. Even then depravity was not extirpated but assumed a new form. From that time the besetting sin was Pharisaism, consisting of pride in religious profession, systematic hypocrisy in attending to externals, and cold formalism in the discharge of religious duty. In the earlier centuries the age was very much distinguished by the tyrannical and cruel oppression of the weak by the strong. In what is called the Dark Ages the characteristic feature was the torpor of spiritual slavery; and when the human mind began to shake itself free, the principal feature of the times was that of persecution for non-comformity of religious belief. In the seventeenth century, the pendulum swung from a rigid austerity of profession and life, to the extreme of laxity in manners and even to open profligacy and vice. In the eighteenth century the prevailing spirit was that of Deistical infidelity on the one hand, along with daring ridicule of Bible Christianity, and on the other nominal religious profession, and empty formality of worship.

And now in the nineteenth century, the most strikingly many-sided age in the history of the world, we have not one besetting sin, but many. There is avarice or the lust for money, in the commercial world, carrying many breaches of the eighth and ninth commandments in its track, the lust for power in the political world, especially as between nations; the lust for self-indulgence in many forms, though visibly curbed by the awakened power of Christianity; the spirit of liberty becoming a rage, and running into licence; the spirit of infidelity assuming Protean forms, and appearing sometimes as scepticism, or mere questioning of Christian truths, sometimes, though seldom, as Pyrrhonism, or absolute doubt; again as Spinozism, or Pantheism; again as Agnosticism; Atheism proper; Positivism and Naturalism; Spiritualism; and Rationalism.

2. Every individual man has his besetting sins.

Wherever the enemy enters, his desire is to have a fortress of evil in the heart, one or more, so that if other parts should come under the influence of good, he might still hold out in that fortress, and possibly from thence reconquer the whole. A besetting sin, or one to which the man is specially addicted, is such a fortress. Or, it might be regarded as that side of the defences of the heart, where some lurking traitor has got command of the keys, and at an opportune moment, he opens the gates to the enemy.

Trench describes it as that sin which gets advantage over us more easily than others, to which we have a mournful proclivity, an especial predisposition; it may be through natural temperament, through faults in our education, or the circumstances in which we are placed, or it may be through our having given way to them in time past, and so broken down on that side the moral defences of the soul. The soul in such a case resembles paper, which, where it has been blotted once, however careful the erasure may have been, there do blots more easily run anew. A man should watch and pray against all sin, but he must set a double watch, and pray with all prayer against an easily besetting sin.

3. It is through easily-besetting sins that Satan gains most of his victories.

In the case of such a sin, there is usually some charm, or hallucinating influence exercised over the soul by which it is more easily persuaded to listen to the tempter. A mans will as it were acts under the influence of an intoxication. He is allured into a kind of spiritual debauch. Though our first parents might be said to have a perfect panoply of defence, being entirely innocent, and without any seed of sin in their natures, yet their crafty adversary made the most dexterous use of the less strongly fortified points of the case. He attacked the weaker vessel first, he presented to the eye nothing gross or impure, but what appeared noble and most fit for a pure mind to attain, as the highest possible reach of knowledge, and especially he tried to over-reach an inferior nature with his superior intellect. It was practically assaulting our innocent humanity on its weak side. It has been so all along. He looks for the weak part of the embankment, where the great flood of waters is most ready to burst forth, and he tries to make a breach there.
Every man has a handle. This Satan soon finds out, and deftly uses to serve his own ends. He tempted Judas on the side of his covetousness, and in the same manner Ananias and Sapphira, Demas, Lots wife, Lot himself also, though he was saved yet so as by fire. He tempted the Jews on the side of their expecting a Messiah of great temporal glory; Pilate on the side of his fear lest he should be reported to Csar as allowing a rival to the throne of Judea to escape; Josephs brethren on the side of their fear lest the dreams of their envied younger brother should one day be realised; and guilty Herod the great on the side of his troubled conscience, that God would one day make use of the young child to wrest his kingdom from him because of his sins.

It is, indeed, almost always those points of a mans character, where he is specially liable to fall into some sin, that Satan attacks. Hence Christians are directed to watch and pray lest, etc., and to take the whole armour of God that they may be able to stand in the evil day, i.e., the day of temptation. (See also 1Pe. 5:8; Eph. 5:15; Rom. 13:12-14; 1Th. 5:8; 1Co. 16:13; Heb. 3:12.) Indeed Satan baits his hook according to the appetite of the fish.Adams. (pp. 168, 191.)

II. THE SINS OF THE PEOPLE OF GOD

1. A man may sin and yet be a child of God.

This is only too easily proved. For there is not a just man upon earth that doeth good, and sinneth not. All the good people of whom we have any account given in Scripture, have, every one of them, some spot or stain pointed out in his character. And there is scarcely one who makes reference to his state before God, but laments his sinfulness and pollution (Psalms 51; Isa. 6:5; Job. 40:4; Job. 42:5-6; Ezr. 9:6; Dan. 9:5; Dan. 9:7; Mat. 26:31-35; 1Jn. 1:8; 1Jn. 1:10). A good man in this world is really a bad man in the process of being made good. His heart resembles a muddy well, which has got a spring of clear, running water opened in the bottom of it. The purifying process is begun, but there is still much of the muddy element in the well, which requires time to clear it away. The process of sanctification is gradual. The motions of sins which are by the law still work, though they are languishing and destined to die. There is the old man with his deeds. But the fact that it is called the old man assumes that it is destined to die out. See the struggle described in Rom. 7:15-25,

2. The sins of the good are specially heinous.

Sin, in place of coming nearer the point of toleration, when committed by a godly man, is only the more aggravated and offensive to God. The sins of these Israelites implied much greater guilt, than the same sins as committed by the heathen. There were many circumstances of aggravation. They were committed under much clearer light; they enjoyed privileges which the Canaanites never had; far more tender, more loving, and more sacred considerations did God use in dealing with their hearts than ever He did with the native idolaters of the land. Besides, they violated sacred vows, most solemnly entered into, and they forgot the most extraordinary acts of loving kindness ever done to any people in the history of time. The sacred position occupied by the people of God adds incalculably to the evil of their sins. Just as a sin committed in the Holy of Holies involves far greater guilt than a sin committed in ones private dwelling. There theft, which is bad in itself, becomes sacrilege.
If the sins of Gods people are, notwithstanding this, freely forgiven when repented of, it is not because they are not exceedingly heinous, but because of two things:

1. They have already accepted Christ as their sin-bearer, while He has engaged to be their Advocate; and
2. They have got the heart of flesh, and are ready to confess and forsake their sins.

3. These sins are specially dishonouring to God.

Because they represent God before the world. They are His children, and the Fathers likeness is expected to be seen in the child. Though sin in all cases is detestable, yet it is not so surprising to be seen in the wicked. We expect to see more or less of it there. But, when it comes glaringly out in the case of a child of God, we say it is scandalous, and gives occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme. If the sun is eclipsed but one day it is more talked of than if it were to shine clearly for a whole year.
It is terrible when a Christian becomes an argument against Christianity. To induce anyone to sin is for Satan a conquest, but in the case of a Christian it is a triumph.(South). God specially hates sin in His own people. It is in gardens that weeds are most noxious, for their appearance there shows that, after all the pains taken, the work is still marred. When the Lord saw it, He abhorred them because of the provoking of His own sons and daughters. (Deu. 32:19).

4. Such sins are soon forsaken.

In the case of a wicked man, to sin is only in keeping with his nature. He acts in character. In the case of a child of God, it is quite the reverse. The wicked one for the moment has got an advantage over him, but he will speedily recover, as in the case of Peter (Luk. 22:31, etc.).

Whosoever is born of God sinneth not and he cannot sin because he is born of God (1Jn. 3:9). He that committeth sin is of the devil, i.e., one whose nature it is so to do. It is not the nature of a man who is born of God to commit sin. The Spirit of God within him prompts him otherwise and he is now led by that Spirit. When he does sin, through the uprising of his native depravity, his better nature rebels against it, and he can give as the explanation, it is no more that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me (Rom. 7:17). But still he mourns at the victory of sin over him, O wretched man that I am, etc. (Rom. 7:24). A good watch may point wrong for a season, but if the owner has paid a heavy price for it, he will see to its being repaired without delay, when it will get into its natural position and point right as before.

III.THE WORTHLESSNESS OF HUMAN CHARACTER BEFORE GOD

1. From this narrative, and, indeed, from the whole book of Judges, we learn with what a fatal facility the human heart can forget all its mercies, its sad experiences, its gracious deliverances, and all the tender dealings of its God (pp. 95101)! How strange that God should accept of such a people, as those whose character is here depicted, to represent Him in the world, to be called by His name, and to hold up His standard before men on the earth! Most strikingly is the idea brought out, of the utter worthlessness of human character before God. The character of Israel in every age was a continual blot. The descendants of those holy men with whom God entered into covenantAbraham, Isaac, and Jacobin almost every generation, turned completely round from the attitude of allegiance which the fathers occupied, when God chose them and their seed to be a people to Him on the earth.

2. What a harrowing spectacle to the spiritual eye! As we turn over every page, it is to find some sickening tale of disobedience, treachery, apostasy, and everything that is badthe very worst. We can hardly read a single paragraph without hanging our heads for very shame, to think that this is the people who are taken as a fair representation of the race to which we belong, and, that, as they were, so we are all judged to be in the roots of character, however different may be the soil in which we are planted, and however more genial the spiritual climate around us is. What a blackening of our human nature is here! Who does not blush and hang his head to think himself a man? The simple truth, without a stroke of emphasis, is a melancholy picture, fit only to be framed in black. It is an indelible disgrace to a creature made after the image of God. We dare only say, with trembling acquiescence in the Divine verdict, Ichabod! Ichabod! The crown is fallen from our heads; woe unto us for we have sinned! We smite on our breasts and cry, God be merciful to us sinners!

3. What a wonder of grace that God should not at once cast us off! The natural expectation is, that He would banish us from His presence, and consign us to endless darkness, raising up in our place, as He could do in a single moment, another race, all pure and spotless, of nobler rank, of more gifted capacity, and more faithful in their allegiance to the Eternal Throne. That could be done by a single word. But ere the old sinning race could be restored, the Son of God must die! The Eternal Light must be shrouded in darkness, and the Eternal Life must sink in death. How stedfast has the Divine love been to its first idea in the covenant made with Abraham! Mans faithlessness, and Gods truthfulness appear in striking contrast.

4. The humiliating glimpse we here have of the falsity of human character in all ages.

This record is given intentionally as a specimen of human hearts in every age. What crowds came around Jesus, and yet all melted away before a single spiritual discourse (John 6)! How quickly did the warmest friends of the Saviour show treachery when exposed to temptation (Mat. 26:56)! How superficial all the professions of friendship made to the aged apostle when he was in real difficulty (2Ti. 1:15-16)! What perjury has been committed by those who have solemnly engaged themselves to be the Lords peoplethese Israelites in almost every age, with good words, but perfidious hearts, all apostates, all lukewarm professors, all unworthy partakers of the Lords supper, all inconsistent Christians. These are camp followers only.

IV. THE UNSEEN DANGERS FROM WHICH GOD DELIVERS HIS PEOPLE

He is the Preserver (not Saviour) of all men, especially of them who believe. Believers have a special promise of protection from danger. He that keepeth Israel neither slumbers, nor sleeps. Of His vineyard, God says, I the Lord do keep it lest any hurt it; I will keep it night and day. The whole 91st Psalm is a manifold promise of protection from unseen dangers. It is a most singular fact in the history of Israel, that though they were always surrounded by enemies, they were yet, on the whole, very seldom attacked. The fear of God was upon the nations, as in the case of their father Jacob. (Gen. 35:5).

By all the nations round about the people of God were hated. Why then did they not oftener combine to cut them off utterly, when at some moment they seemed specially weak? In place of Chushan-rish-a-thaim coming alone, Eglon alone, Jabin alone, and the Midianites in like manner, why did not they all come together, or such rulers of those kingdoms as were contemporarieswhy did they come singly merely? And as to these Midianites, why do we not read of their coming to attack Israel long before this period, and how do we never hear of their return? And why should not the Philistines, the Moabites, and other nations have come forward now and crushed Israel to the very earth? There were a few occasions of this kind in the history of the people; but they were very few (see Psalms 83). The Lord is a wall of fire round about His Church, etc.

The missionaries to the Figi Islands, when threatened with destruction from the natives, had no means of defence except prayer. The savages heard them praying, were seized with trembling, and fled. They said afterwards, We knew that your God was a strong God, and when we saw you crying to Him, we were afraid. How often are praying people saved just in time from some terrible accident, or from some fatal epidemic, or from some evil purpose of wicked men! (Psa. 34:20; Psa. 34:22; 1Sa. 2:9). Laban durst not carry out any evil design against Jacob (Gen. 31:24). Neither could Satan himself proceed further against Job, or Peter, than he was permitted (Job. 2:6; Luk. 22:31-32). God guards His people by putting a muzzle on the lions mouths. Sometimes, in punishment for their sins, he takes off the muzzle and they rise up, and fall upon them with the weight of an avalanche.

V. THE READINESS WITH WHICH THE WICKED UNITE TO ATTACK THE RIGHTEOUS

These various tribes of the desert, all had frequent quarrels with each other. But we seldom hear of two of them uniting together to crush a third. Yet when one of them is about to attack Israel, others are wonderfully disposed to join in the attack, as if they had special pleasure in doing so (p. 70). (Jdg. 3:13). This seems to be a special part of the reference in Psalms 83. Pilot and Herod had a bitter feud among themselves. But they could agree in pouring contempt on the Saviour (Luk. 23:12). When Christ was crucified it was by a combination of enemies, who could all agree in that, though differing at a thousand points with each other. We see generally how they united in the days of the Judges, from Jdg. 10:11-12, also Jdg. 6:7. (Act. 4:27; Joh. 15:19).

Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Gideon of Manasseh and Abimelech Jdg. 6:1 to Jdg. 9:57

Midian Oppresses Israel Jdg. 6:1-10

And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord: and the Lord delivered them into the hand of Midian seven years.
2 And the hand of Midian prevailed against Israel: and because of the Midianites the children of Israel made them the dens which are in the mountains, and caves, and strongholds.
3 And so it was, when Israel had sown, that the Midianites came up, and the Amalekites, and the children of the east, even they came up against them;
4 And they encamped against them, and destroyed the increase of the earth, till thou come unto Gaza, and left no sustenance for Israel, neither sheep, nor ox, nor ass.
5 For they came up with their cattle and their tents, and they came as grasshoppers for multitude; for both they and their camels were without number: and they entered into the land to destroy it.
6 And Israel was greatly impoverished because of the Midianites; and the children of Israel cried unto the Lord.
7 And it came to pass, when the children of Israel cried unto the Lord because of the Midianites,
8 That the Lord sent a prophet unto the children of Israel, which said unto them, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, I brought you up from Egypt, and brought you forth out of the house of bondage;
9 And I delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians, and out of the hand of all that oppressed you, and drove them out from before you, and gave you their land;
10 And I said unto you, I am the Lord your God; fear not the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but ye have not obeyed my voice.

1.

Who were the Midianites? Jdg. 6:1

The descendants of Midian, son of Abraham and Keturah, were called Midianites. Abraham had six sons by KeturahZimran, Jokshan, Medan, Ishbak, Shuah, and Midian. Midian, himself had five sonsEphah, Epher, Henoch, Abida, and Eldaah (cf. Gen. 25:2; Gen. 25:4; 1Ch. 1:32 ff.). When Abraham made provisions for his heirs, he gave gifts to Midian and sent him along with Ishmael to the east country, away from Isaac (Gen. 25:6). The Midianites were defeated by the Moabites and the Edomites under Hadad (Gen. 36:35; 1Ch. 1:46). It was the Midianites who appeared as merchantmen traveling from Gilead to Egypt and bought Joseph from his wicked brothers (Gen. 37:25 ff.). When Moses fled from Egypt, he found refuge with Jethro, a Midianite leader; and a Midianite served as a guide before the traveling thousands of Israel through the wilderness wandering (Exo. 2:15; Exo. 2:21; also Jdg. 4:19, and Num. 10:29 ff.). The Midianites joined the Moabites in asking Balaam for a curse, and Israel punished them (Num. 22:4-7; Num. 25:15; Num. 25:17; Num. 31:2 ff.). No boundaries can be assigned to the land of Midian. It included territory on the west as well as on the east of the Gulf of Akaba. Generally speaking, it lay between Edom and Paran (1Ki. 11:18); but in the days of the judges their district seems to have extended northward to the land of Gilead which lay east of the territory settled by the tribes of Israel. A trace of the ancient name is found in the modern name of Madyan, a place mentioned by some Arab geographers. It has a plentiful supply of water and lies east of the Gulf of Akaba, some miles from the coast, almost opposite the point of the Sinaitic peninsula. Since the Midianites were nomadic, their land can hardly be limited to this area.

2.

Where did the Israelites hide? Jdg. 6:2

The Midianites were so numerous and their flocks and herds were so large that they literally brought a scorched-earth policy to Israel. This forced the Israelites to find refuge from their oppressors in dens, caves, and strongholds. They were like some of the more modern Arabs who fled from the invading armies of Israel, taking refuge in rock-hewn tombs, During the six-day war of 1967, one young Arab man told of how he and his family hid in a cave near their village of Deir Dibwan; and for two days they were without food. They had expected the armies to move quickly through their territory and had taken food supplies for only a short time. They had enough water to last them throughout the six-day period, but they ran out of food on the fourth day.

3.

Where was Gaza? Jdg. 6:4

Gaza was on the Mediterranean seacoast. It was directly west of a point about half way down on the length of the Dead Sea. Gaza would thus be located in the territory which was assigned to Judah and Simeon and was in the south part of the Promised Land, Since Manasseh was towards the north, this gives us some kind of an idea of the extensive devastation brought on Israel by the Midianites. Gaza would be some seventy-five miles from the heart of the land assigned to the tribe of Midian.

4.

Why did the Midianites have tents and camels? Jdg. 6:5

Since the Midianites were a nomadic people without a specific territory in which to settle, they moved their families, flocks, herds, and droves from place to place. In the time of Gideon, they were described as grasshoppers without number. The people were without number, and the camels were equally numerous. Between themselves and the animals, the Midianites ate up all the grain of Canaan, leaving the hapless Israelites in dire straits. Many commentators believe this was the era during which Elimelech and Naomi fled from Bethlehem to Moab because there was a famine in the land (Rth. 1:1).

5.

Why did God send a prophet? Jdg. 6:8

God sent a prophet to warn Eli when he failed to rebuke his wicked sons (1Sa. 2:27). Unnamed prophets make frequent appearances in the Scripture narrative to anoint kings (2Ki. 9:4 ff.), to pronounce judgment on wicked rulers (1Ki. 21:21-24), or to challenge a nation (1 Kings 13). Many of these prophets banded together under the leadership of Samuel, and throughout the succeeding years the schools of the prophets play an important part in the national life of Israel.

Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series

(1) Did evil.Jdg. 2:11; Jdg. 3:12; Jdg. 4:1.

Midian.Midian was the son of Adraham and Keturah (Gen. 25:2), and from him descended the numerous and wealthy nomadic tribes which occupied the plains east of Moab (Num. 31:32-39). The name belongs, properly, to the tribes on the south-east of the Gulf of Akabah (1Ki. 11:18). Moses himself had lived for forty years among them (Exo. 3:1; Exo. 18:1); but the Israelites had been bidden to maintain deadly hostility against the nation because of the shameful worship of Baal-peor, to which, under the instigation of Balaam, the Midianites had tempted them (Num. 25:1-18).

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

MIDIANITE OPPRESSION, Jdg 6:1-10.

1. Israel did evil Though, on account of their sins, the kings of Mesopotamia, Moab, and Hazor successively overran and oppressed the land, and though, after long years of servitude and sorrow, they repented and had deliverance from God, they profited not by their bitter experiences. Again and again they did evil, and thereby brought upon their own necks the yoke of other heathen powers.

The hand of Midian The Midianites were descendants of Abraham and Keturah, (Gen 25:2,) and dwelt in the country east and southeast of the Moabites and Ammonites. They were a nomadic people, and roamed over a vast tract of country. Among them Moses found a home when he fled from Pharaoh, and Horeb and a part of the Sinaitic peninsula seem to have been possessed by them. Exo 2:15; Exo 3:1. But when the Israelites approached the borders of Canaan, and had conquered Sihon and Og, the Midianites contiguous to the Moabites joined with the latter in seeking their overthrow. Num 22:4; Num 22:7. They were a wily people, and did much to injure Israel, (Num 25:8😉 and one of the last acts of Moses was to make war with them and utterly defeat and spoil them. Num 31:1-12. Now after a lapse of two hundred years they had recovered strength, and God used them as the rod of his anger to scourge his guilty people.

Seven years Though this oppression was not as long as previous ones, it was more severe.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Chapter 6. Gideon.

In this chapter we have an account of the distressed condition Israel was in as a result of continual Midianite invasion; of a prophet being sent to them to reprieve them from their sins; of the angel of Yahweh appearing to Gideon with an order to him to go and save Israel out of the hands of the Midianites; of a sign given to him by the angel, whereby he knew this order was from God; of the reformation from idolatry he commenced in his father’s family, by throwing down the altar of Baal, and building one for Yahweh; and of the preparation he made to fight the Midianites and others. But first he desired a sign from Yahweh, that Israel would be saved by his hand, a request which was granted and repeated.

God’s Fourth Lesson – Invasions From the East – Gideon the Deliverer ( Jdg 6:1 to Jdg 8:32 ).

The Continual Invasions by Midian, Amalek and the Children of the East ( Jdg 6:1-6 ).

Jdg 6:1

‘ And the children of Israel did what was evil in the sight of Yahweh, and Yahweh delivered them into the hand of Midian seven years.’

Again the refrain is repeated because the sin of Israel was repeated. Again they turned to idols and worshipped Baal and the Asherah. It should make us wonder why God did not get sick of them and does not get sick of us also with our continual disobedience. It was of course because He was working out His sovereign plan of redemption through them. But again He determined to teach them a lesson.

The time of ‘rest’ after the activities of Barak and Deborah was now over, for in their passing Israel once more slipped back into their old ways. They had enjoyed a generation at peace, serving Yahweh, offering sacrifices and offerings, faithfully attending at the central sanctuary, generally obeying Yahweh’s commandments, but now they had become complacent and were neglecting Him once again. They had begun again to look to the local Baals and Asherah as well, and to do ‘what was evil in the sight of Yahweh’.

“Yahweh delivered them into the hand of Midian seven years.” ‘Seven’ is the number of divine completeness. And these were seven years of perpetual invasions, when the Midianites would sweep in from the eastern desert, murder and plunder, seize their crops and cattle, and then withdraw to wait for the next harvest. God gave Israel full measure for their sins. This particular episode was so dreadful that it bored itself into the mind of Israel long after the others were almost forgotten. ‘The day of Midian’ was remembered as horrific (Isa 9:4).

The Midianites consisted of a number of semi-nomadic and bedouin tribes, including Ishmaelites. They were connected with Abraham’s other sons (other than Isaac). They engaged in both caravan trade (Gen 37:28) and despoiling any weaker than themselves, as well as herding sheep and goats (Exo 2:15; Exo 3:1). They dwelt in, and moved around in, the wilderness and desert from south of the Dead Sea to lands east of the Jordan (Gen 25:2-6; Gen 37:25 on; Exo 3:1; Num 22:4; Num 22:7), and were fairly widespread. Because of what they had done to Israel some suffered at the hands of Israel (Num 25:16-18; Num 31:2; Num 31:7-12). Five Midianite chieftains, ‘the princes’ of Sihon, king of the Amorites, and thus his vassals and presumably fairly settled, were defeated by Moses in the approach to the land (Jos 13:21). There was nothing but enmity between them and the Israelites. Israel could expect no mercy at their hands.

Here they conjoined with the Amalekites (pure bedouin, who as far as Israel were concerned were under The Ban and therefore subject to total destruction – Deu 25:19) and the children of the East (Arab tribes east of Jordan – Jer 49:28; Eze 25:4), similar semi-nomadic and bedouin tribes. The confederacy was for the purpose of a powerful attack on Canaan in view of its then present prosperity, combined with its military weakness now that Hazor and its confederacy were no longer a threat. The tribal confederacy was weak because faith in and response to Yahweh had become dulled, affecting their oneness. The covenant was only effective when response to the needs of the confederacy was strong and immediate. With their war camels, a new weapon of war, the Midianites and their allies were themselves the new serious threat.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Jdg 6:6  And Israel was greatly impoverished because of the Midianites; and the children of Israel cried unto the LORD.

Jdg 6:6 “Israel was greatly impoverished” – Comments – The Israelites has left Egypt with much spoil (Exo 12:35-36, Psa 105:37), and they had gained many riches during the conquest (Jos 22:8). Now, after much disobedience, they were reduced to poverty.

Exo 12:35-36, “And the children of Israel did according to the word of Moses; and they borrowed of the Egyptians jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment: And the LORD gave the people favour in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they lent unto them such things as they required. And they spoiled the Egyptians.”

Jos 22:8, “And he spake unto them, saying, Return with much riches unto your tents, and with very much cattle, with silver, and with gold, and with brass, and with iron, and with very much raiment: divide the spoil of your enemies with your brethren.”

Psa 105:37, “ He brought them forth also with silver and gold : and there was not one feeble person among their tribes.”

Jdg 6:11  And there came an angel of the LORD, and sat under an oak which was in Ophrah, that pertained unto Joash the Abiezrite: and his son Gideon threshed wheat by the winepress, to hide it from the Midianites.

Jdg 6:11 “And there came an angel of the LORD” – Comments – Is this the same angel that led the children of Israel thru the wilderness? This same angel could very well have watched over this nation for centuries while the children of Israel multiplied in Egypt.

Jdg 6:11 “and his son Gideon threshed wheat by the winepress” – Comments – Bread, or wheat, represents survival, the basic food staff of Israel. Wine represents prosperity and joy. At this time in Israel’s history, the nation was being oppressed by the Midianites. Therefore, there was no wine for the wine press.

Jdg 6:11 “to hide it from the Midianites” – Comments – In this passage of Scripture, Gideon did not have a lot of wheat. He was hanging on to what little wheat he was afraid of loosing. As an act of faith he prepares an offering to God, a true sacrifice out of his lack. This act of faith sowed the seed for a harvest from God.

Jdg 6:12  And the angel of the LORD appeared unto him, and said unto him, The LORD is with thee, thou mighty man of valour.

Jdg 6:13  And Gideon said unto him, Oh my Lord, if the LORD be with us, why then is all this befallen us? and where be all his miracles which our fathers told us of, saying, Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt? but now the LORD hath forsaken us, and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites.

Jdg 6:13 Comments Discouragement can blind a man’s heart to the things of God. Did not the two on the road to Emmaus fail to recognize Jesus in a mind-set of discouragement (Lk 24;13-31), and did not Mary standing at the tomb weeping fail to recognize Jesus (Joh 20:14-17). Although Gideon had heard of God’s great works in Israel’s past, he had only seen and experienced bondage and fear from the enemy. For the first time in Gideon’s life, he was about to hear words of faith and power that penetrated his inner man, giving him strength to walk in God’s divine plan of redemption by faith in His Word.

Jdg 6:15  And he said unto him, Oh my Lord, wherewith shall I save Israel? behold, my family is poor in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.

Jdg 6:15 “my clan is the weakest in Manasseh” – Comments – Gideon was of the tribe of Manasseh, who was the father of Abiezer, who was a forefather of Gideon (Jos 17:2).

Jos 17:2, “There was also a lot for the rest of the children of Manasseh by their families; for the children of Abiezer , and for the children of Helek, and for the children of Asriel, and for the children of Shechem, and for the children of Hepher, and for the children of Shemida: these were the male children of Manasseh the son of Joseph by their families.”

Jdg 6:15 Comments – One reason that towns and cities were named after forefathers is to preserve their tribes, clans and families.

Jdg 6:24  Then Gideon built an altar there unto the LORD, and called it Jehovahshalom: unto this day it is yet in Ophrah of the Abiezrites.

Jdg 6:24 Word Study on “Jehovahshalom” Strong says the Hebrew name “Jehovahshalom” ( ) (H3073) means, “Jehovah (is) peace.”

Jdg 6:32  Therefore on that day he called him Jerubbaal, saying, Let Baal plead against him, because he hath thrown down his altar.

Jdg 6:32 Word Study on “Jerubbaal” Strong says the Hebrew name “Jerubaal” ( ) (H3378) means, “Baal will contend.”

Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures

The Oppression of Midian

v. 1. And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, after the forty years of rest; and the Lord delivered them into the hand of Midian seven years. The Midianites, descendants of Abraham and Keturah, occupied the rich steppes east of the territory of Moab and Ammon. After their decisive defeat at the hands of the children of Israel at the time of Moses, Numbers 31, they had again grown numerous enough to give vent to their ancient hatred for the people of God.

v. 2. And the hand of Midian prevailed against Israel, rested heavily upon the people; and because of the Midianites the children of Israel made them the dens which are in the mountains and caves and strongholds. They made use of the natural grottoes and caves in the limestone, excavated others, made them habitable by digging air-holes from above, and fortified many, to serve not only for retreats in case of a raid, but also as places for the safe-keeping of their personal property.

v. 3. And so it was, when Israel had sown, prepared the fields for harvest, that the Midianites came up, and the Amalekites, the other tribe which was especially hostile to Israel, and the children of the East, desert tribes living by plunder and pillage, even they came up against them;

v. 4. and they encamped against them, and destroyed the increase of the earth, by wantonly plundering and devastating the harvest-fields, till thou come unto Gaza, the raids thus extending across the entire land, to the Philistine country, and left no sustenance for Israel, neither sheep, nor ox, nor ass.

v. 5. For they, the Midianites and their allies, came up with their cattle and their tents, fully supplied with all they needed; and they came as grasshoppers, locusts, for multitude, and also for voracity; for both they and their camels were without number, a very great multitude; and they entered into the land to destroy it, that was their avowed purpose, wantonly and ruthlessly to devastate the entire land, making it unfit for habitation.

v. 6. And Israel was greatly impoverished, brought down very low, deeply distressed, because of the Midianites; and the children of Israel cried unto the Lord, they turned to Him in repentance.

v. 7. And it came to pass, when the children of Israel cried unto the Lord because of the Midianites,

v. 8. that the Lord sent a prophet unto the children of Israel, a man directly inspired by Him, which said unto them, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, I brought you up from Egypt, and brought you forth out of the house of bondage, namely, as a people, Exo 13:3-14; Exo 20:2;

v. 9. and I delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians, and out of the hand of all that oppressed you, and drave them out from before you, the nations of Canaan as they were defeated by Moses and Joshua, and gave you their land;

v. 10. and I said unto you, I am the Lord, your God; fear not the gods of the Amorites, the name here standing for the Canaanitish nations in general, in whose land ye dwell; but ye have not obeyed My voice. That was the explanation of their present plight. God does not suffer disobedience in His children to go unpunished. But in sending such punishment, His intention is to draw His children back to Him in true sorrow over their sins, that they plead for mercy and forgiveness.

Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann

EXPOSITION

Jdg 6:1

Midian. In Num 22:7 we read of the Midianites as allied with the Moabites in their hostility to the children of Israel, and we find them willing agents of Balaam s iniquitous counsels (Num 25:6, Num 25:17, Num 25:18; Num 31:7, Num 31:8), and suffering a terrible chastisement from the Israelites in consequence. An abiding national feud was the natural consequence; and this, added to their love of plunder, no doubt led to the present invasion in company with the Amalekites (Jdg 3:13, note). Observe the contrast between the victory described in Num 31:1-54. and the defeat narrated in this chapter.

Jdg 6:2

The dens and caves. In the writer’s time certain hiding-places called by the above names were traditionally known as the places where the Israelites took refuge during the terrible Midianite invasion. The limestone hills of Palestine abounded in such caves.

Jdg 6:3

Children of the east. We first find this term in Gen 29:1, where it is applied to the people of Haran. Comparing the analogous phrases, “the east country” (Gen 25:6), the mountains of the east (Num 23:7), “the men of the east” (Job 1:3), “the east” (Isa 2:3; Mat 2:1), we gather that the country lying to the east of Palestine as far as the river Euphrates was called the east country, and that the various tribes of Arabs and others who peopled that desert were called “the children of the cast” (see Gen 29:33 and Jdg 7:12; Jdg 8:10).

Jdg 6:4

Left no sustenance, etc; i.e. neither grass, nor corn, nor fruit. It is added, neither sheep, nor ox, nor ass. These all either died for want of food or were seized by the Midianites. The next verse explains that the enormous multitudes of their cattle and camels consumed the whole produce of the ground.

Jdg 6:5

As grasshoppers. See the striking description of the destruction caused by locusts in Joe 3:1-21. I have heard travellers in India describe the sudden darkening of the sky by a flight of locusts.

Jdg 6:8

A prophet. Literally, a man, a prophet, just as Deborah was described as a woman, a prophetess (Jdg 4:4). It is interesting to observe the flow of the spirit of prophecy in those early days between Moses and Samuel, before the dispensation of the prophets had risen to its height. I brought you up from Egypt. Note the constant reference to the exodus as a fixed point in their national and religious life (see Jdg 6:13; Jdg 2:1).

HOMILETICS

Jdg 6:1-10

The fruit of ingratitude.

What a condemnation of Israel there was in the simple statement of facts by the mouth of the prophet, without exaggeration and without comment. God had brought them up from the land of Egypt with a mighty hand and a stretched-out arm; when they were in bondage he had broken their yoke; when they were oppressed he had set them free; when the multitudes of Moabites, and Ammonites, and Midianites, and Canaanites, had opposed their entrance into the land of promise, God had brushed them all away and given their land to the Israelites. He had accompanied these acts of grace and power with a simple command not to worship the idols of Canaan, but to remember that Jehovah was their God, but they had not obeyed his voice. They had forsaken God, to whom they owed all they had, and they had turned to heathen vanities. What need to say any more? They were now reaping what they had sown. They were helpless because they had cast off him who had helped them so wondrously, and who would have been their help in every time of need if they had not so wantonly forsaken him. And in like manner how often will a bare statement of facts be enough to overwhelm us with guilt and shame! Let any man be his own prophet, and with unflinching truth record the incidents of a year or a day of his own life. “God in his abounding grace and love redeemed me by the blood of his dear Son; he freely forgave me my trespasses and sins; he received me into the adoption of children, by Jesus Christ, unto himself; he sealed me with the Holy Spirit of promise; he crowned me with loving-kindness and tender mercy; he showed me the kingdom of heaven, and bid me enter into it; he showed me the deadly evil of sin; he showed me the beauty and loveliness of goodness; he said to me, Abhor that which is evil, and cleave to that which is good. But I have not hearkened to his voice; I have forgotten his love, and despised his grace; I have disbelieved his word, and have believed the lying promises of sin; I have loved the world; I have been the slave of my own lusts, and the subject of my own passions; I have turned aside with the multitude of evil-doers, and I am now eating the fruit of my own doings; I have forsaken God, and so God has forsaken me.”

HOMILIES BY A.F. MUIR

Jdg 6:1-6

Israel’s extremity.

With repeated defection a severer punishment is needed and inflicted. Midian is not only a neighbour, but one who encircles Israel on south, south-east, and east. It was a name given to the great Arab tribes living east of the Red Sea, and south and east of Canaan. Unlike a comparatively civilised nation, they are not satisfied with receiving tribute; they render husbandry and the arts of civilised life impossible by lawless raids, ceaseless devastation, and wanton destruction. It is a new terror. Israel may be overwhelmed and stamped out if this curse of the wilderness be not restrained.

I. ISRAEL‘S ABANDONMENT OF JEHOVAH IS PUNISHED BY AN APPARENT ABANDONMENT OF ISRAEL BY JEHOVAH. It seems a light punishment; really there could scarcely be a harder one. Let the sinner and the backslider consider what their condition would be were God just to treat them as they treat him. Even the mildest phase of such discipline could not be long bearable. Simply to be left to oneselflet alonewhat tragic possibilities does that suggest! But when enemies of the most ruthless description overrun our land, and have us at their mercy, how much does abandonment mean! It is in such times we learn how much we owe to Divine inter- position hour by hour. The moral consciousness of Israel was consequently lowered. So of all in like cases.

II. THE MANNER AND EXTENT OF THEIR DISCIPLINE ARE SUGGESTIVE OF THE HEINOUSNESS or THEIR OFFENCE. Things had come to such a pass that only a full experience of the worst of their heathenish and idolatrous neighbours would avail. There is little or no love of God left; let the consequences of their unbelief teach them a bitter hatred of evil; in time it will drive them back to the doctrine and practice of truth for very life. By and by they will learn to love it again. We have but to think of God’s loving nature and infinite tenderness to see how desperate such a measure is. If forbearance failed, no other remedy would suffice but this. All unbelief is this potentially. It was a glimpse of the horror of a godless world.

III. IT WAS A SALUTARY DISCIPLINE, BECAUSE IT LED THEM TO REPENTANCE AND PRAYER. God had no pleasure in this long agony; but neither, on the other hand, would he shorten it until due cause appeared. The result justified the severity. Saints often regard their calamities amongst their greatest mercies. How roughly handled have been some of God’s dearest ones I But the worst is not ours to bear, since Christ died. There is no calamity we cannot take to him. He will distil sweetness from wormwood itself, and give us help in time of sorest need. “Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.” He may be nearer to us in the affliction than in the prosperity.M.

Jdg 6:7, Jdg 6:8, Jdg 6:11, Jdg 6:34

Divine mercy: its adaptation and sufficiency.

The cry of distress is heard instantly by Jehovah, and the answer begins to come at once. But only as is best for the sinning nation. As there was discipline-in the misery to which Israel was reduced, so there is still discipline in the succession and several instalments of the mercy of God. The aim is not merely nor so much to deliver from the material evil to which they were subject, but to root out the unbelief and develop the spiritual life and moral heroism of the people.

I. THE IMMEDIACY OF GOD‘S MERCY. “It came to pass, when the children of Israel cried … that the Lord sent a prophet.“ There appears to be no interval. God begins to readjust his relations with Israel at once. But the material boon is not granted then. The sting must rankle until true repentance is forthcoming. Deliverance would have been a very questionable blessing under the circumstances. Freedom and independence are responsibilities as well as birthrights. So God hears the cry of the sinner always. “Not what we wish, but what we want,” that in the end what we wish may be rendered spiritually advisable and blessed. The measure of comfort here was that God was not silent, prayer was not unavailing. There is hope in the opening of mercy’s door, even though it be in reproof.

II. THE SUCCESSIONS OF GOD‘S MERCY. First the cry of desperation and repentance, then the outward reproof, then the direction, encouragement, and training of a deliverer, then the recovery of national freedom, prosperity, and prestige. Flowerlike. So God adapts his blessings to the moral and spiritual capacity of his people. The Divine view of our misery and its requirements is the reverse of the human; we think of the material suffering, God of the moral defect and sin. These mercies as they come in train are manifestly education, that the work of grace may be effectual. “Grace for grace” is a law of his kingdom. And the dignity of God is never lost.

III. MERCY IN ITS CULMINATION. God did not stop short of ultimate deliverance, although it was not achieved at once. So “he crowneth us with his loving-kindness and tender mercy.” It is no mere secular and vulgar deliverance. It is national re-creation. The chivalry of Israel is called forth. It is even more a religious than a military triumph. So the salvation of the soul has its splendours and glories. It is absolute, complete, and magnificent, crowning the life of the faithful. “An abundant entrance will be ministered” into the kingdom of his Son. “We are more than conquerors” through him.M.

Jdg 6:7-10

Merciful reproof.

The answer to prayer begins in reproof. An anonymous messenger is sent, a prophet probably from amongst the Israelites themselves. In such a season of distress and seclusion they would become strangers even to themselves. No biography is given of the prophet. He is raised for the occasion. His message is simple. But it is the utterance of the people’s own national and individual conscience. He is a “voice crying in the wilderness,” and saying, “Repent!”

I. THERE IS ENCOURAGEMENT EVEN IN GOD‘S CHIDINGS. For

1. They are better than absolute and final silence.

2. They are meant to bring us back to him, and not to drive us away.

3. His severity is to prepare us for his gentleness.

II. IT IS OFTEN AS NECESSARY AND PROFITABLE TO BE IMPRESSED WITH WHAT WE ALREADY KNOW AS TO RECEIVE NEW TRUTH. Revelation is not primarily intended to satisfy intellectual cravings, but to stimulate and enrich the moral nature. A sermon may be a mere exhortation, an impressive resume of acknowledged truth, and yet more valuable than if it were full of theological discoveries. Knowledge of God becomes religious and living when it is realized and acted upon. In this connection notice

1. How impressive the personality of the prophet.

2. The heightening of the conscience of sin by contrast with remembered and recited mercies.

3. The tone and style of the discourse. It was short, direct, spoken to the conscience. Its chief message and its sting is in the conclusion. No word of comfort is uttered. The people are left with their consciousness of sin. But this in itself is a gracious work, and preparatory for everything that is good. Thorough repentance is the condition of deep and lasting piety.M.

HOMILIES BY W.F. ADENEY

Jdg 6:7-10

God sought and found in times of trouble.

I. TROUBLE DRIVES MEN TO GOD. The people forsook God in their prosperity, and neglected his service so long as they enjoyed their comfortable homes in peace. But now they are miserable fugitives hiding in wild mountain caves, they remember his goodness and cry to him for help. This is a common experience. It is to our shame that it must be confessed. We ought to seek God for his own sake, to worship him in the beauty of holiness, not merely to obtain blessings for ourselves. In prosperity we should recognise tokens of his love, and so lift up our thoughts to him in grateful recognition of his goodness. To turn to God only in the hour of our need is a sign of base selfishness. Nevertheless it is better to seek him then than not at all. And if it is disgraceful in us that trouble should be needed to drive us to God, it is merciful in him to send the trouble for that object. The calamity which leads to this result is the greatest blessing. Herein we may see the end of many of the most severe forms of adversity. They are sent to us in our indifference to rouse us to our need of God, and lead us to seek him. Hence we may conclude that if we sought God aright in happy circumstances we might be spared some of the troubles which our spiritual negligence renders necessary to our soul’s welfare (Hos 5:15).

II. IF GOD IS TRULY SOUGHT IN TROUBLE HE WILL CERTAINLY BE FOUND. As soon as the people cried God heard them, and sent them first a prophet and then the deliverer Gideon. If we forsook God in our prosperity it would be reasonable that God should forsake us in our need. But he does not deal with us according to our sins. Our claim does not lie in our merit, in our obedience and fidelity, in anything of ours, but in his nature, and character, and conduct. Because God is our Father he hears us not out of consideration for our rights, but out of pity for our distresses. Therefore we need not fear that he will not respond to our call. To doubt is not to show our humility, but our distrust in the mercy of God and influence of Christ’s sacrifice and intercession (Jer 29:11-13).

III. WHEN GOD IS FOUND IN TROUBLE HE DOES NOT ALWAYS BRING IMMEDIATE DELIVERANCE. Israel called for help in need. God did not send the help at once. The people expected a deliverer, God sent a prophet. No word of promise is given by the prophet that relief will be accorded to the temporal distress of the nation. He speaks only of sin, and shows the ingratitude of the people, that they may feel how richly they deserve the calamities which have fallen upon them. They think most of their distresses, God of their sins. They cry for deliverance from the yoke of the Midianites, God wishes first to deliver them from the yoke of iniquity. Therefore the prophet of repentance comes before Gideon the deliverer. So we must expect that when God visits us in our sins he will deal with us so as to save us from spiritual evil before relieving us of physical distress. Christ bore the sicknesses and infirmities of his people, but his great work was to save them from their sins (Mat 1:21).

IV. THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF SIN WHICH MUST PRECEDE DELIVERANCE IS PRODUCED BY A PROPHET‘S MESSAGE IN THE MIDST OF TROUBLE. The trouble is necessary to soften the hearts of the people, and make them willing to listen to the prophet. Yet the trouble does not produce repentance. For this a prophet is needed. The prophet does not make any prediction, nor does he give any revelation of God; he simply reveals his hearers to themselves. We need prophets to show to us our own true character. Much of the Bible is a revelation of human nature which would not have been possible without the aid of prophetic inspiration. The call to repentance consists

(1) in recounting the ancient mercy of God, for it is in the light of God’s goodness that we see most clearly our own wickedness; and

(2) in directly charging Israel with ingratitude and apostasy. All sin includes the sin of ingratitude. Till we feel this it is not well that God should show us more mercy. Therefore the stern John the Baptist must precede the saviour Christ; bat as Gideon followed the prophet, full salvation will follow repentance and submission.A.

Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary

CHAP. VI.

The Israelites are oppressed seven years by the Midianites: Gideon is raised up by the Lord for their deliverance. The miracle of the fleece of wool.

Before Christ 1267.

Jdg 6:1. The hand of Midian See ch. Jdg 7:24-25 Jdg 8:4. The Midianites were the ancient enemy of the Israelites; they joined with the Moabites to seduce them to idolatry, and were almost extirpated by them. See Numbers 31. But having now recruited themselves, and re-peopled their country, they were, no doubt, well disposed to take a sharp revenge of the Israelites, being joined for that purpose with some other people, Jdg 6:3.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

FOURTH SECTION

The Incursions And Oppressions Of The Midianites. Gideon, The Judge Who Refuses To Be King

_______________________

The Midianites invade the land seven years. Israel cries to Jehovah, and is an swered through a prophet, who reminds them of their sins

Jdg 6:1-10

1And the children [sons] of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord [Jehovah]: and the Lord [Jehovah] delivered them into the hand of Midian seven years. 2And the hand of Midian prevailed [was strong] against [over] Israel: and because of the Midianites the children [sons] of Israel made them the dens [grottoes] which 3are in the mountains, and [the] caves, and [the] strong holds. And so it was, when Israel had sown [his fields], that the Midianites came up, and the Amalekites, and the children [sons] of the east, even they came up against them [and passed over them]:1 4And they encamped against [upon] them, and destroyed [ruined] the increase [produce, cf. Deu 32:22] of the earth, till thou come unto Gaza; and left no sustenance2 for [in] Israel, neither sheep, nor ox, nor ass. 5For they came up with their cattle and their tents, and they came as grasshoppers [locusts] for multitude; for both they and their camels were without number: and they entered into the land to destroy [ruin] it. 6And Israel was greatly impoverished [reduced] because of the Midianites; and the children [sons] of Israel cried unto the Lord [Jehovah]. 7And it came to pass, when the children [sons] of Israel 8 cried unto the Lord [Jehovah] because of the Midianites, That the Lord [Jehovah] sent a prophet unto the children [sons] of Israel, which [and he] said unto them, Thus saith the Lord [Jehovah, the] God of Israel, I brought you up from Egypt [cf. 1Sa 10:18] and brought you forth out of the house of bondage [Exo 13:3]; 9And I delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians, and out of the hand of all that oppressed you, and drave them out from before you, and gave you their land; 10And I said unto you, I am the Lord [Jehovah] your God; fear not [ye shall not fear, i.e. reverence] the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but ye have not obeyed my voice.

TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL

[1 Jdg 6:3 : literally, came up upon him, or, came up against him. Dr. Cassel supplies after , and accordingly makes him refer to field. But although this rendering suits the connection admirably well, it cannot be supposed that the Hebrew writer would have left the accusative after unexpressed if he had intended to refer back to it by means of a pronoun, especially when the latter could so readily be referred to another noun. . simply adds the idea of hostility, which the preceding left unexpressed. In like manner, , in the next verse, explains that the encamping was against Israelhad hostile purposes is view.Tr.]

[2 Jdg 6:4.: Dr. Cassel, Lebensmitteln, means of life. So also Keil: They left no provisions (produce of the field) in Israel, and neither sheep, nor cattle, nor ass. Dr. Cassel, in a foot-note, gives a simple reference to 2Ch 14:12 (13), where, however, the word unquestionably means anything alive. Bertheau adopts that meaning here; but cf. Jdg 17:10.Tr.]

EXEGETICAL AND DOCTRINAL

Jdg 6:1. And Jehovah delivered them into the hand of Midian. Of the death of Deborah and Barak, no mention is made; the peace which their great deeds procured lasted forty years. But those deeds were already forgotten again; and with them the God whose Spirit had begotten them. Then fresh bondage and misery came, and reminded the people of Him who alone can save. Numerous tribes of eastern nomads invaded, plundered, and devastated the land. The transjordanic tribes could at that time offer them no such resistance as, according to 1Ch 5:10; 1Ch 5:19, they were able, at a later date, to make against the Hagarites, Jetur, Nephish, and Nodab. The present invaders are called Midian, and appear in league with Amalek and the sons of the east. The Midianites are wandering tribes in the desert of Sinai, in the neighborhood of the Moabites, answering both in name and manner of life to the Bedouins. In the constantly occurring interchange of and (m and b) in the Semitic dialects, the Arabic tongue seems to prefer the , while the Hebrew inclines to the (cf. Timnath and Tibneh). The Bedouin derives his name from the Arabic , the desert; an expression of which the Hebrew , to be desolate and waste, readily reminds one. The derivation from , formerly current, is too artificial, since the prominent idea of the term Bedouin is not a reference to pasture lands, but to the desert. The name Midian manifestly belongs to the same root3 being the same as , primitive Bedawin, who, like the Towara of the present day (Ritter, xiv. 937), engaged in the carrying trade between the Euphrates and Egypt, and in general pillage. Not all desert tribes boast the same descent, as in fact the Ishmaelites and the Midianites did not belong to the same family; both, however, followed similar modes of life, and hence are sometimes designated by one and the same name (Gen 37:25; Gen 37:28; Jdg 8:22; Jdg 8:24). They are dwellers in tents, as contrasted with those who till the earth or dwell in cities.

Jdg 6:2. And the sons of Israel made them the grottoes which are in the mountains, and the caves and the strongholds. The word for grottoes is , and an entirely satisfactory description of them is given by Wetzstein (Hauran, p. 45): At some rocky, elevated, and dry place, a shaft was sunk obliquely into the earth; and at a depth of about twenty-five fathoms, streets were run off, straight, and from six to eight paces wide, in the sides of which the dwellings were excavated. At various points these streets were extended to double their ordinary width, and the roof was pierced with airholes, more or less numerous according to the extent of the place. These airholes are at present called, rsen plural rawsin(windows). From this may be seen how accurately Raschi and Kimchi explained the above word, when they made it mean caves with air-holes like windows. The remark of R. Tanchum is likewise correct, that watchmen were employed, who gave alarm signals when the enemy approached. As soon as these were given, the ploughmen and herds hurried quickly into the earth, and were secure. Commonly, says Wetzstein, these excavations had a second place of exit; and consequently, in a region whose inhabitants are liable to constant attacks from the desert (he speaks of the Hauran), are regarded as strongholds. Quite appropriate, apparently, is the rendering of that Greek version which translates by , an inclosed space, a fold, stable. In later times, eastern monks, who lived in such grottoes, called the cloister itself .4

Jdg 6:3-4. Till thou come unto Gaza.5 They were expeditions for plunder and devastation, such as the Bedouin tribes of the present day are still accustomed to undertake against hostile communities.6 Their general direction was towards the plain. The invaders, however, did not content themselves with ruining the growing crops from east to west, but also scoured the land towards the south. Gaza, moreover, formerly as in later times, was the great bazaar of stolen wares, brought together there by the Bedouins from their expeditions (Ritter, xiv. 924).7

Jdg 6:5. As locusts (Sept. , cf. Il. 21. 12) for multitude: a comparison suggestive both of their numbers and of the effects of their presence. The Midianite devastation was like that by locusts. In Hauran, says Wetzstein, various plagues are found; the locust is bad, but the worst are the Bedouins (p. 43). A Bedouin said to him: The Ruwala have become like the hosts of God, i.e., numerous as the locusts, for these are called Gunud Allah (Hauran, p. 138).Camels without number. In such extravagant hyperbolisms the speech of Orientals has always abounded. When Burk-hardt asked a Bedouin, who belonged to a tribe of three hundred tents, how many brothers he had, throwing a handful of sand into the air, he replied, equally numberless. The invaders object was not to gather the harvest, but only to destroy. What they needed, they had with themcattle, tents, and camels.

Jdg 6:6-10. And the sons of Israel cried unto Jehovah. When the people were brought low (), they repented. Distress teaches prayer. With Israel repentance went hand in hand with the remembrance of their former strength. They lose themselves when they lose their God; they find themselves when they turn to Him. This the prophet sets before them. The words put into the mouth of the unknown preacher, reproduce the old penitential discourse. In various but similar forms that discourse ever reappears; for it rests on Mosaic warnings and declarations whose truth all the fortunes of Israel confirm. For the first time, however, the verb , to fear, elsewhere used only with reference to God, is here connected with heathen gods; but only to point out the fact that disobedient Israel has yielded to idol gods the reverence which it owed to the eternal God. When such rebukes are gladly heard by the people, deliverance is near at hand. When they believe themselves to have deserved such admonitions and punishments, they again believe God. In accepting the judge, we secure the deliverer. Such is the historical experience of all ages.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

Israel had again apostatized, notwithstanding the victory and the song of Deborah. Sailer When one has drunk, he turns his back upon the fountain; but it is only the ingrate who does this. Israel was altogether as it had been formerly, but Gods judgment assumes a new form. Greater than ever was the humiliation. Israel was not simply oppressed by a tyranny like that of Sisera, who was in the land, but it was like a slave who toils for a foreign master. Had it accomplished its task? Midian came and seized the fruit. So he who falls away from God who gives, must for that very reason serve sin, which takes.Starke: The strongest fortress, defense, and weapon, with which in danger we can protect ourselves, is prayer.

[Bp. Hall: During the former tyranny, Deborah was permitted to judge Israel under a palmtree; under this, not so much as private habitations will be allowed to Israel. Then, the seat of judgment was in sight of the sun; now, their very dwellings must be secret under the earth. They that rejected the protection of God, are glad to seek to the mountains for shelter; and as they had savagely abused themselves, so they are fain to creep into dens and caves of the rocks, like wild creatures, for safeguard. God had sown spiritual seed amongst them, and they suffered their heathenish neighbors to pull it up by the roots; and now, no sooner can they sow their material seed, but Midianites and Amalekites are ready by force to destroy it. As they inwardly dealt with God, so God deals outwardly by them; their eyes may tell them what their souls have done; yet that God whose mercy is above the worst of our sin, sends first his prophet with a message of reproof, and then his angel with a message of deliverance. The Israelites had smarted enough with their servitude, yet God sends them a sharp rebuke. It is a good sign when God chides us; his round reprehensions are ever gracious forerunners of mercy; whereas, his silent connivance at the wicked argues deep and secret displeasure; the prophet made way for the angel, reproof for deliverance, humiliation for comfort.Henry: Sin dispirits men, and makes them sneak into dens and caves. The day will come, when chief captains and mighty men will call in vain to rocks and mountains to hide them.Tr.]

Footnotes:

[1] Jdg 6:3 : literally, came up upon him, or, came up against him. Dr. Cassel supplies after , and accordingly makes him refer to field. But although this rendering suits the connection admirably well, it cannot be supposed that the Hebrew writer would have left the accusative after unexpressed if he had intended to refer back to it by means of a pronoun, especially when the latter could so readily be referred to another noun. . simply adds the idea of hostility, which the preceding left unexpressed. In like manner, , in the next verse, explains that the encamping was against Israelhad hostile purposes is view.Tr.]

[2][Jdg 6:4.: Dr. Cassel, Lebensmitteln, means of life. So also Keil: They left no provisions (produce of the field) in Israel, and neither sheep, nor cattle, nor ass. Dr. Cassel, in a foot-note, gives a simple reference to 2Ch 14:12 (13), where, however, the word unquestionably means anything alive. Bertheau adopts that meaning here; but cf. Jdg 17:10.Tr.]

[3]A Madian near the Arabian Gulf is mentioned by Abulfeda; cf. Geogr., ed. Paris, p. 86; Arnold, in Herzogs Realencykl., i. 463.

[4][Keil: The power of the Midianites and their confederates bore so heavily on the Israelites, that these made for themselves the clefts which are in the mountains, and the caves, and the strongholds, those, namely, which were afterwards (at the time when our Book was written) everywhere to be found in the land, and in times of war offered secure places of refuge. This is indicated by the definite article before and the other substantives. The words, they made for themselves, are not at variance with the fact that in the limestone mountains of Palestine there exist many natural caves. For, on the one hand, hey do not affirm that all the caves found in the land were made at that time by the Israelites, nor on the other does , to make, exclude the use of natural caves for purposes of safety, since it applies not only to the digging and laying out of new caves, but also to the fitting up of natural ones. For the rest, these clefts, caves, and strongholds, were to serve, not merely as hiding-places for the fugitive Israelites, but much more as places of concealment and security for their property and the necessaries of life. For the Midianites, like genuine Bedouins, were more intent on plunder and pillage, and the desolation of the country, than on the destruction of the people.Tr.]

[5]On Gaza, cf. the Com. on Jdg 16:1.

[6][See Thomson, The Land and the Book, ii. 163; Kitto Daily Bible Illustrations, Moses and the judges, p. 340, etc.Tr.]

[7][Bertheau: Since the expeditions of eastern tribes follow the same plan at every repetition, and since, according to Jdg 6:33, they encamped in the valley of Jezreel, and moreover made their incursion with their herds and camels, it is evident that they must have entered the country by the one great connecting road between the East and Palestine, which crosses the depression of the Jordan near Bethshean, and issues into the plain of Jezreel. The extension of their inroads thence, is indicated by the fact that Gaza, at the southwestern extremity of the land, is named as the limit of their advance. Cf. Dr. Cassels remarks on Jdg 6:11, p. 111.Tr.]

Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange

CONTENTS

In the progress of the history of Israel, we are here presented in this Chapter, with an account of Israel ‘ s rebellion by sin against God, after the forty years rest which the Lord had given them, from all their enemies, from the victory of Deborah and Barak. We are here told of their ill treatment by Midian: God’s message to Israel by a prophet: Gideon is raised up, for their deliverance: an angel appears to him to encourage him: the conduct of Gideon in consequence thereof.

Jdg 6:1

What a sad representation doth the Holy Ghost give us in this renewed instance of Israel’s sin, of poor human nature in its best characters. Reader! remember that this is God’s people, God’s church of whom we read. My people (saith the Lord) are bent to backsliding. Hos 11:7 . Sweet is that promise, I will heal their backsliding. Hos 14:4 . For I hope that the Reader hath not now to learn, that unless the Lord heals, there is neither balm nor physician in Gilead, Jer 8:22 . Reader, do not overlook the expression in this verse, that the Lord delivered Israel into the hand of Midian. For what is Midian? what are ten thousand enemies, except the Lord gives the power to scourge? Deu 32:30 . Besides, this is the very tenor of the Lord’s covenant, Psa 89:30 , etc.

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Gideon the Humble

Jdg 6

I. At first sight the character of Gideon is a very inconsistent one. It seems to be composed of two opposite sides towering aspiration and drooping humility. Was there not imposed upon him a great, a responsible destiny a destiny which he must not seek to evade. Was he not bound to become the Saviour of Israel. So speaks the one side of his nature the aspiring side. But there is another side. This same Gideon is the most humble of men, the most shrinking, the most cowering, the most timorous. That a man capable of lofty aspirings should be as mistrustful of himself as if he were a village rustic this seems an unaccountable thing. But is the village rustic distrustful of himself. The rustic, in proportion as his rusticity is deep, is increasingly removed from humility. Humility is incompatible with absolute ignorance. There is then no contradiction but a beautiful harmony between the two sides of Gideon’s character. So far from interfering with his humility his aspirations are the cause of his humility. It is the brightness of his ideal that makes him shrink in dismay. II. When Gideon has set himself right he proceeds to set right his people. Where does he begin? By changing their ideal of God. A man’s religion is the root of his whole conduct. The first step to Gideon’s success is effected not by material force, but by the power of spirit. When the worshippers of Baal come to the shrine in the morning, they find this sanctuary in ruins. They have no doubt that the perpetrator of the sacrilege is Gideon. Why then do they not put him to death? It is the very ruin of the shrine of Baal that makes them despise their idol. They cannot adore weakness even in their God. The effect of this silencing of Baal is the assembling of multitudes round the banner of Gideon. His ranks swell from day to day, till his adherents number thirty-two thousand. He reduces them to three hundred. He is jealous for God, jealous for the manifestations of the Divine power. He will not suffer human agencies to bear the credit of that help which he refers to God alone.

III. Every religious man wants to have the experience of strength from above. Gideon wished to have this experience. It was this that made him reduce his thirty-two thousand to three hundred. Here is a great paradox humility made a source of confidence! but it is a paradox that has its ground in truth. Timid men are humble; but humble men need not be timid. There is a humility which makes us bold Christian humility.

G. Matheson, Representative Men of the Bible, p. 150.

Jdg 6:8

It is not merely for being redeemed that we are called on to feel thankful, but for being redeemed by the blood of the God-man Jesus Christ, which He poured out for us on the cross. So it was not simply as God that Jehovah was to be worshipped by the Jews; but as the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the house of bondage, whose voice they had heard and lived, who had chosen them to be His people, and had given them His laws, and a land flowing with milk and honey.

The last sentence has suggested a query of some importance. Out of the house of bondage: What says the advocate of colonial slavery to this? That the bondage was no evil? That the deliverance of a people from personal slavery was not a work befitting God’s right hand?… To those religious men who are labouring for the emancipation of the negroes, amid the various doubts and difficulties with which every great political measure is beset, it must needs be an inspiring thought that to rescue a race of men from personal slavery, and raise them to the rank and self-respect of independent beings is, in the strictest sense of the word, a Godlike task; inasmuch as it is a task which, God’s book tells us, God Himself has accomplished.

Hare, Guesses at Truth (1st Series).

Jdg 6:11

What shifts nature will make to live! O that we could be so careful to lay up spiritual food for our souls, out of reach of those spiritual Midianites! We could not but live in despite of all adversaries.

Bishop Hall.

References. VI. 11. J. Sherman, Penny Pulpit, vol. v. p. 313. VI. 11-13. J. M. Neale, Sermons for the Church Year, vol. ii. p. 171.

Jdg 6:12

Though a great and momentous truth is involved in the saying, that when need is highest, then aid is nighest, this comfort belongs only to such as acknowledge that man’s waywardness is ever crossed and overruled by a higher power.

Hare, Guesses at Truth (2nd Series).

‘We are therefore,’ writes Burke in his ‘First Letter on a Regicide Peace,’ ‘never authorized to abandon our country to its fate, or to act or advise as if it had no resource. There is no reason to apprehend, because ordinary means threaten to fail, that no others can spring up. Whilst our heart is whole, it will find means or make them. The heart of the citizen is a perennial spring of energy to the state. Because the pulse seems to intermit, we must not presume that it will cease instantly to beat. The public must never be regarded as incurable.’

References. VI. 12, 13. J. M. Neale, Sermons Preached in a Religious House, vol. ii. p. 374. VI. 14. Ibid., Sermons for the Church Year, vol. i. p. 130.

Jdg 6:15

How the good man disparages himself! Bragging, and height of spirit, will not carry it with God. None have ever been raised by Him, but those which have formerly dejected themselves: none have been confounded by Him, that have been abased in themselves.

Bishop Hall.

After his return from India, as a young officer, in ill-health and depression, Nelson declares that, ‘I felt impressed with a feeling that I should never rise in my profession. My mind was staggered with a view of the difficulties I had to surmount, and the little interest I possessed. I could discover no means of reaching the object of my ambition. After a long and gloomy reverie, in which I almost wished myself overboard, a sudden glow of patriotism was kindled within me, and presented my king and country as my patron. “Well, then,” I exclaimed, “I will be a hero! And, confiding in Providence, I will brave every danger.”‘

References. VI. 19. J. W. Atkinson, Penny Pulpit, No. 1052. VI. 22-24. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxviii. No. 1679.

Jdg 6:23-24

Peace may be sought in two ways. One way is as Gideon sought it, when he built his altar in Ophrah, naming it, ‘God send peace,’ yet sought this peace that he loved, as he was ordered to seek it, and the peace was sent in God’s way: ‘The country was in quietness forty years in the days of Gideon.’ And the other way of seeking peace is as Menahem sought it, when he gave the King of Assyria a thousand talents of silver, that ‘his hand might be with him’. That is, you may either win your peace or buy it win it, by resistance to evil; buy it, by compromise with evil.

Ruskin in The Two Paths.

References. VI. 24. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Judges, p. 225.

Jdg 6:30 ; Jdg 8:27

Where thou findest a Lie that is oppressing thee, extinguish it. Lies exist there only to be extinguished; they wait and cry earnestly for extinction. Think well, meanwhile, in what spirit thou wilt do it: not with hatred, with headlong selfish violence; but in clearness of heart, with holy zeal, gently, almost with pity. Thou wouldst not replace such extinct Lie by a new Lie, which a new Injustice of thy own were; the parent of still other Lies? Whereby the latter end of that business were worse than the beginning.

Carlyle, French Revolution.

Jdg 6:35

They thronged after him and now professed themselves believers in Jehovah. They were not hypocrites. They really believed now, after a fashion, that Baal could not help them. Their fault was that they believed one thing one day and another thing the next.

W. Hale White, Miriam’s Schooling, p. 7.

References. VI. 36-40. E. Paxton Hood, Sermons, p. 430. VI. 37. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Judges, p. 233. VII. 1-8. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Judges, p. 236.

Fuente: Expositor’s Dictionary of Text by Robertson

Gideon

Judges 6-8

AT the close of the song of Deborah “the land had rest forty years.” The sixth chapter begins with the usual black line: “And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord.” These comings and goings of evil in human history seem to be fated. Men never get so clear away from evil as never to come back again to it; at any moment the course of life may be reversed, and the altar, the vow, the song, and the prayer may be forgotten like vanished summers. This makes the reading of human history a weary toil. We have only to turn over a leaf, and the saints who have been singing are as active as ever in evil. It would be difficult to believe this if we did not know it to be true. This Bible-history is indeed our own history written before the time. Our life seems to be spent upon a short ladder, in going up, in coming down: in going up to pray, in coming down to sin, and drying the tears of penitence; and climbing again, and then coming down; miles short of heaven. The weariness is not in the literature it is in the fact. We are many men: when we would do good, evil is present with us; when we would do evil, the angel looks at us and reproaches our purpose. The history of Israel is the history of the world. Israel was given over to the hand of the Midianites seven years. This was not, as in the former case, an oppression; it was an attack. In our last study we saw Israel oppressed; here we see a foreign invasion, crowding upon the land inhabited by Israel. Whether in this way or in that, God will not let the battle end until he has punished evil and destroyed it. He is continuing the same policy now. Seated in the heavens, he is watching the earth as if it were the only world he had, blessing the good, punishing the evil, threatening everything that is of another nature than his own, and keeping perdition for those only who must inevitably be lost. In the olden times there were oppressions, invasions, assaults, and the like; today Providence seems to be operating by subtler methods, but always operating to the same end: to punish the evil, and bless the good. A very vivid picture is given of the state of Israel in chapter Jdg 6:2 . Israel was dwelling in “the dens which are in the mountains, and caves, and strong holds.” The proud and princely Israel was burrowing in the torrent gullies, instead of building cities that should have lifted their towers and spires like ascending psalms to the approving heavens. Think of it well! It is the same today. Men who might have been in the thoroughfare are hidden away in some distressing obscurity. Men who ought to have been foremost are left so far behind they can hardly be seen, dim spectres in the far-away distance. The Midianites were coming up like locusts. No sooner did the Israelites sow their seed than the Midianites had their eye upon it; and it was only by strategy, cunning almost surpassingly human, that Israel could save a handful of corn for itself. Israel was “impoverished.” A very remarkable word is that. It means that they were like a door swinging on broken hinges. Israel, the redeemed people, Israel without whom there might have been no history, Israel had so sinned as to be at last like a door swinging on hinges that were broken: the door could not be shut, the door was no security, the door was a perpetual irony, yea, a daily reproach and taunt. There is a poverty that is the result of what we call misfortune; that is to be pitied and to be assisted: there is a poverty that is only the social and punitive side of sin; that is to be recognised as such a black blot on the snow of God’s holiness, a sad brand on the righteousness of things. Or the figure may be changed, for it is a double one. Israel was like a sear leaf, just hanging by one frail thread to the branch, all the juice gone, all the beautiful green dead for ever, all possibility of fruitfulness exhausted; and there hung great Israel, a leaf sear, yellow, dead, just hanging to drop! We must realise this condition of things before we can understand the arduousness of the mission of Gideon. If we do not understand the situation we cannot understand Gideon’s distress, hesitation, hopelessness. The times were out of joint. All things beautiful were dead. The whole time was given over to idolatry. There was but one man who kept to the true faith, and he seemed to worship in secret; he alone was not swallowed up in the great idolatrous passion; his father had gone religiously astray, but he himself still thought of old histories, and had in him flickering, but, oh, quite dyingly, some hope of returning faith.

Then came the inevitable “cry “: “The children of Israel cried unto the Lord” ( Jdg 6:6 ). It was a mean prayer. Some cries must not be answered; they are unworthy screams or utterances of selfish desire. The Lord will not be too critical about these “cries,” for who then could stand before him and hope for any thing from his hand? What prayer is there worth being heard, not to say worth being answered? Search it, probe it, and what is it but religious selfishness a plea for self? But men must pray as best they can. We cannot expect perfect prayers from imperfect men. In the cry there may be something which God can hear to which he will make response. But prayers are not answered, because they are not prayers; they are self-excuses, self-pleadings, desires inspired by selfishness: so they are narrow, shortsighted, out of the rhythm of the music of the universe, notes that cannot be smoothed into the general utterance of the divine purpose; they may do the suppliant good by heightening his veneration or exciting within him some inexpressible desires, but as words they fall back again like birds whose wings have been broken.

Israel cried unto the Lord. What was the divine answer to that cry? It was a prophet. Jewish legend says it was Phinehas, son of Eleazar. The prayer was answered by a man: “The Lord sent a prophet unto the children of Israel” ( Jdg 6:8 ). A “prophet” is a teacher, a man who sees the largest relations of things, one who lives above the cloud and can see what is going on underneath it; a seer, a man of penetrating vision, a man whose eyes are within, and from whom God has hidden nothing of wisdom, grace, purpose, and issue. The age must be prepared for its prophets. When the age is haughty, self-contented, self-idolatrous, prophets go for nothing; they are the object of sneering remark; they may be caricatured, they may be turned into food for merriment; but when the age becomes like a door swinging on broken hinges, or like a sear and yellow leaf when all hope has died out of it, then men ask if there be not a prophet, or one who can pray a seer who can penetrate beyond appearances and discover germs of life or hints of hope? It was so now. The prophet came, and delivered a judicial speech:

“Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, I brought you up from Egypt, and brought you forth out of the house of bondage; and I delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians, and out of the hand of all that oppressed you, and drave them out from before you, and gave you their land; and I said unto you, I am the Lord your God; fear not the gods of the Amorites [the Amorites were the highlanders of Palestine, and as they were the strongest of all the Canaanitish tribes they are often spoken of as representing or including the whole of them], in whose land ye dwell: but ye have not obeyed my voice” ( Jdg 6:8-10 ).

Here you find a reminder, that is to say, a reference to history. Memory was awakened and turned upon the days that had gone, God works through recollection. Marvellous are the miracles which God works by the power of memory: memory goes back, and brings to mind things forgotten, uses them in the light of today, observes their action upon the circumstances which make up the immediate present; and oftentimes a man needs no hotter hell than an awakened and stimulated memory. The recollection was followed by a reproof: “But ye have not obeyed my voice,” saying in effect: I have not changed; I was continuing the line; my purpose was one of deliverance and success and honour for Israel, but ye failed in obedience: first you became reluctant, hesitant, then weary, then you complained of monotony, then you said the yoke galled your shoulders, then you fell clean away, then you built Asherah and worshipped Baal; this is the reason of all that has come upon you; blame yourselves: for men who fall away from the road of obedience fail of the heaven of blessedness.

All this is intelligible. We have been accustomed to these reminding and accusing voices ourselves, and we do not hear in them anything that startles our reason or taxes our faith. Now the prophet is succeeded by an angel. A most mysterious instance occurs, challenging our faith in its loftiest moods. Gideon was threshing wheat by the winepress, to hide it from the Midianites. He was in a little sheltered corner, not daring to use a flail, perhaps, lest the beat of it should attract the attention of some listening Midianite; Gideon was almost rubbing the wheat between his hands. He was in a little cave rather than in a winepress, which is hardly the literal translation. He was in a corner by himself, rubbing out the wheat which he had industriously sown, painfully watched, and honestly gathered. It was weary work for Gideon. He felt that he was a prisoner, almost stealing his own bread. This is not unknown to ourselves. Men sometimes have to hide their food from their own relations. Some men dare not even seem to be prosperous, because they know what havoc would be wrought by those who have been watching their honourable and successful labours. Men sometimes have to hide themselves from their own flesh, and to rub out their little handful of wheat behind some sheltering crag. Some men are bound to look poor, because they know they would be fleeced and robbed. Is that not strictly according to our own personal experience? This is the picture presented by the position and action of Gideon [hewer]: a hidden man, doing an honest work in the quietest possible way, only thankful if he can get his wheat turned into bread to satisfy his hunger. Watch Gideon, the one religious man of the place and time. If any one were to come from heaven now, he would come to Gideon. Like descends upon like. “And there came an angel of the Lord, and sat under an oak which was in Ophrah [in Western Manasseh], that pertaineth unto Joash the Abi-ezrite.” For a time the angel was silent. How will he speak to a weary man? He will say to him: Poor laden one, this is sad work for Israel; poor weary Gideon, I am sorry for thee in my heart; Gideon, thou shouldst have been out in the open air swinging thy flail and separating the chaff from the wheat right cheerfully and hopefully poor Gideon! Such sympathy would have overborne the man; it would have been the one drop that would have made the cup of his sorrow overflow. No, there must be sharp reaction; a note must be struck that will awaken the man wholly: he must not continue his dream-trouble, he must have his sleep driven away. What said the angel? “The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valour.” The speech seemed to be ironical. Gideon had about him the look as to weariness of a man who was exhausted. But he was a king, and he had a kingly presence, a face that only needed to be awakened to answer the angel’s own in the likeness of kinship. There was no fairer man than Gideon in all the land; the make of him was a miracle of God. When he stretched himself right out to his full compass and looked his best self, one could understand how it was that he had “faithful among the faithless been,” and had kept Jehovah’s altar even amid the riot of the Baal-worshippers. Who shall say there is no kinship between angels and men? Who has wisdom enough to declare that there is no connection between the spiritual life or lives of the universe? It is not only a higher faith but a nobler reason which would say: All we, men, women, children, angels, spirits of the blessed, are one, warmed with one fire, radiant with one glory, expectant of one destiny. We cannot settle anything about this angel that is definite and final. What do we know that is at all of the nature of counterpart? We know something about unexpected meetings, strangers speaking to us, and yet so speaking that we know them, speaking to us in our mother tongue, speaking to us words which we have wanted to hear but dare scarcely speak to ourselves; people making beginnings which have had happy endings; that we know right well. We know something of unforeseen opportunities: the cloud has suddenly opened, and we have seen where we were. Clouds often do open quite suddenly. We have seen the mariner watching for the sun for days: the mariner is ready, his glass is in his hand; if there be but one little rift in that great cloud, he will avail himself of the opportunity to know where the sun is that he may know where his ship is. A rift has come, a sudden chance; it was but a moment, a glimpse, but in that moment there was communication between earth and heaven. So far we are upon familiar ground. We know something of unaccountable impressions also; and sometimes we utter prayers that angels might have inspired, for the prayers have surprised ourselves and made sudden Sabbath in the midst of the tumultuous week. If then we know something of unexpected meetings, unforeseen opportunities, and unaccountable impressions, we seem to be not far from the angel vision, the angel touch.

When Gideon heard the angel’s message, he said, in a tone we cannot reproduce, a tone made credulous by incredulity, yet with some resonance of strength in its very halting and shaking, a tone representing a strange struggle between hopelessness and faith, experience and possibility, “Oh, sir” for the term Gideon used in the first instance was but a term of courtesy and not a title of religious veneration “Oh, sir, if the Lord be with us” but the angel did not say so; the angel said “thee.” Who can listen critically? Who can distinguish between person and number in the grammar of an angel?

“Oh, sir, if the Lord be with us, why then is all this befallen us? [see Deu 21:17 ] and where be all his miracles which our fathers told us of, saying, Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt? but now the Lord hath forsaken us, and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites” ( Jdg 6:13 ).

It was a right answer so far. It was better that Gideon should know the exact circumstances. “To know ourselves diseased is half the cure.” Gideon must not have any false hopes. He must not be taking up any broken splinters of wood and saying: These splinters will be swords which we shall thrust through the bows of the enemy. It is well that he is driven into obscurity, that he is made to do his work with the utmost quietness, that he is compelled to act almost as a thief on the threshold of his own house. To be down so far is to be in that darkness which oft precedes the dawn.

What did the angel do? The angel did two things. (1) He “looked.” Who can interpret that word? Some biblical words must remain without interpretation. Sometimes in translating books from foreign languages into our own we are obliged to quote certain words and let them remain untranslated; we hover over them, point to them, give clumsy paraphrases of their possible meaning, but think it better after all to set down the word itself, for it has no equivalent in our own language. It must be so with this word “look.” That look begat attention, inspired confidence, elevated thought, stimulated veneration, and looked Gideon into a new man. There are looks which do so. There is one look which is yet to do this in all the fulness of its meaning: the day is to come when we shall be like Christ, for we shall see him as he is. These are spiritual looks that we read of in the Old Testament, and that we have experience of in the current of our own lives. (2) The angel, however, not only looked but “said” changed his tone, used human speech, addressed the man in his mother tongue. He said, “Go in this thy might, and thou shalt save Israel from the hand of the Midianites: have not I sent thee?” ( Jdg 6:14 ). But Gideon was astounded, and said in effect: Impossible

“Oh, my Lord, wherewith shall I save Israel? behold, my family [my thousand] is poor [the meanest] in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house” ( Jdg 6:15 ).

This is quite in the line of biblical history. Sarah “laughed” when the angel said that she should be the mother of one who should be supreme in history; Moses was shocked when he was told that he, a wandering, stammering shepherd, should face the Pharaohs of Egypt and demand justice to Israel; Paul was amazed that he should be chosen for great missions of deliverance. Speaking of Gideon, the quaint commentator Trapp says: “He was well-descended, but had mean thoughts of himself. True worth is modest. Moses had distributed the people into thousands as Alfred did the English into shires, hundreds, and tenths, or tithings, whereof the ancientest were called the tithing men.” Such was Gideon’s view of himself and his chiliad, or thousand. But there is the accusing and stimulating question: “Have not I sent thee?” accusing men of unfaith in a tone that stimulates them to seize their grandest opportunities. Are there not new births? Are there not vivid realisations? Are there not new selves? Behold, the angel must confirm his own message and vindicate his own revelation.

What is the application of all this to ourselves in addition to what has already been said? Are we not often hopeless? We say Jesus Christ is in a minority. Put down the great leaders of the world’s religions, and Jesus Christ must statistically take his place near the bottom of the list. That is the arithmetical condition of affairs today. Even if every man in the church be a sound man, yet, reckoning up the sum-total, the figures often sink into insignificance. But are there not these two great lessons lying upon the very face of the history, namely, that we grow in social power as we grow in spiritual consciousness? Just as Gideon saw the angel and was conscious of a divine presence did he grow in social power. He was warmed into a larger self. It is when we see God most clearly that all difficulties vanish from our sight. See God, and you need behold no other sight to make the soul majestic and clothe the life with social beneficence. Fear God, and have no other fear. Be sure that the heavens are with you, then be confident that the harvests of the earth will he gathered even to the last grain of wheat, and the enemy shall not prevail in any degree. Then there is a second lesson lying upon the same line, namely, that we need not be socially great to be spiritually useful. Gideon said, “Behold, my family is poor in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.” “Blessed are the poor in spirit; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven;” and anything but blessed are they who say, “We are rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing,” knowing not that they are poor, and blind, and miserable, and naked. It is like God to choose the poorest tribe and the poorest man in the tribe. When did God change that plan? When did he vary that mysterious policy? Is it not that no flesh may glory in his presence? Not many wise, great, mighty, noble are called, but God has chosen the weak things to trouble the strong, yea, things which are not things which seem to have no existence to bring to nought things that are: ghostly ministries operating upon material fortresses, spiritual agencies crumbling down temples in the night-time, mysterious influences rending the mighty and bringing down that which is high.

Selected Note

Palestine, which is only about the size of Wales, and was still largely held by the former inhabitants, was subdivided by the Hebrews into many tribal governments, as England in the Saxon period was broken up into Essex, Wessex, Mercia, Kent, Sussex, and several other kingdoms; and was, hence, in constant danger of inroad and subjugation. To the nomadic tribes of the desert, which stretched to the borders of the land on the east and south, the valleys of Gilead and Bashan, and the fertile plains of Central Canaan, were an irresistible temptation, stretching out as they did like paradises of green, before eyes wearied with the yellow sand or dry barrenness of the wilderness. Israel itself, when only so many wandering tribes, had forced a way into these oases, and had held them, and there seemed no reason why other races should not, like them, exchange the desert for a home so fair, at least during the summer and harvest of each year, by overpowering Israel in turn.

The forty years’ rest after Deborah’s triumph was rudely broken by inroads excited in this hope. A great confederation of the Arab tribes, like that which, at an earlier day, had given the Shepherd Kings to Egypt, poured into Palestine. Midianites, Amalekites, and all “the children of the east,” far and near, in countless numbers, with immense trains of camels, and of cattle, and flocks, streamed up the steep wadys from the fords of Jordan, and swept all resistance before them, from Esdraelon, on the north, to Gaza, on the extreme south. No sooner had the fields been sown each year, than these wild hordes reappeared, covering the hill pastures and the fertile valleys, in turn, with their tents; driving off every sheep, or goat, or ox, or ass, they could find, and seizing all hoards of grain they could discover, saved from the few fields that had escaped destruction by their endless flocks and herds. No visitation could be more terrible, for there was neither food nor live stock left in the land. Fire and sword spread terror on every side; desperate resistance by isolated bands of Hebrews only led to the massacre of these brave defenders of their homes, and at last safety and even existence seemed possible only by the population taking refuge in the numerous caves of the hills, and in strongholds on hill tops.

Geikie.

Prayer

Almighty God, come to us as thou wilt a great fire, or a great wind, or a still small voice. We shall know thee when thou comest, for we are akin to thee; thou didst make us and put thy name upon us. We are fearfully and wonderfully made; we are a continual surprise unto ourselves: sometimes we are self-afraid; sometimes we are tempted to be as gods. Now we know ourselves to be but men, and we sigh about our frailty, and say we are as a withering leaf, as a speck of dust blown about by the wind, a vapour that cometh for a little time and then vanisheth away; then in some other mood, created by thyself, we lay our hands upon all heaven and claim it as an inheritance in Christ Jesus, saying, This is the meaning of his blood, this is the true interpretation of his Cross, glory, honour, immortality; service without weariness, worship accompanied by growing knowledge, trust in God untroubled by a doubt. Whether we are in this mood, or that, low down or high up, moaning about our littleness or rejoicing in our spiritual sonship, take not thy Holy Spirit from us: Holy Spirit, dwell with us! As for these varying tempers and conditions of ours, are we not still prisoners of time, bondmen of the flesh? Are we not oppressed by circumstances we cannot control? But of all these we shall presently be rid, and then we shall claim thy great creation for the development of our powers, for the continuance and consummation of our worship. For all high religious feeling we bless thee; for all sweet Christian hope we thank thee: whilst the angel of hope shines within us and sings its sweet song of heaven, we know nothing of death or of restraint or of littleness; we are already in the celestial world mingling companionlike with the angels. Read thy book to us thyself, with thine own voice, in thine own tone, and the tone shall be explanation: we shall know what thou meanest when we hear thine own voice. Above all things give to us the seeing eye, the hearing ear, and the understanding heart, when we come into the sanctuary of revelation, lest we exalt ourselves and say our own right-hand hath gotten us what spiritual prey we have: rather would we say, This is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes, is not his love a continual wonder? Is not his grace a perpetual revelation? Hold us, Mighty One, today and to-morrow, and on the third day perfect us. Amen.

Gideon ( Continued )

Judges 6-8

WHEN the angel “looked” at Gideon the good man’s heart was troubled, and yet his hope was revived. His faith went so far that he would submit to receive some test and proof that the angel was in very deed the messenger of God. It is something to have got so far along the road of the better land; anything in this direction is better than deafness, blindness, and utter indifference. Gideon said, “If now I have found grace in thy sight, then show me a sign that thou talkest with me” ( Jdg 6:17 ). According to the laws of Oriental hospitality, Gideon withdrew to prepare refreshment for his wondrous visitor: “Depart not hence, I pray thee, until I come unto thee, and bring forth my present, and set it before thee.” And the angel said, “I will tarry until thou come again.” “Gideon went in, and made ready a kid, and unleavened cakes of an ephah of flour:” unleavened bread being more easily-prepared than any other “the flesh he put in a basket, and he put the broth in a pot, and brought it out unto him under the oak, and presented it.” The angel said, “Take the flesh and the unleavened cakes, and lay them upon this rock, and pour out the broth.” And Gideon did so.

“Then the angel of the Lord put forth the end of the staff that was in his hand, and touched the flesh and the unleavened cakes; and there rose up fire out of the rock, and consumed the flesh and the unleavened cakes. Then the angel of the Lord departed out of his sight” ( Jdg 6:21 ).

Now there came a practical test to be applied to Gideon. Sooner or later that test comes to every man. If we put God to the test, what if God should in his turn put us also upon our trial? The test to which Gideon was about to be put was a practical one. As the foreign invasion of Midian was traceable to Israel’s evil-doing, so the beginning of the divine deliverance must be moral, spiritual, and religious. That same night the Lord said to Gideon: Take thy father’s young bullock, even the second bullock of seven years old, attach it to the altar of Baal by rope or iron, and drag it down. That was a negative beginning. We must get down the old altar before we put up the new one. “And” when thou hast done this

“build an altar unto the Lord thy God upon the top of this rock, in the ordered place [build an altar with the wood laid in order]; and take the second bullock, and offer a burnt sacrifice with the wood of the grove which thou shalt cut down” ( Jdg 6:26 ).

Gideon made one reservation. We do not wonder that he should have done so. He said, in effect: I cannot do this in the daytime; I will do it by night. Who can blame him? Who will call him coward? It was a natural device. Men cannot be courageous all at once. Some men need to be trained and nursed into courage; be gentle with them, patient and hopeful, who can spring into lionhood all in one sudden moment? “Gideon took ten men of his own,” rather than “ten men of his servants,” and pulled down Baal’s altar by night. When night gives up her history, it may be found that many a man has attempted to begin a better life under the cover of darkness. We should not taunt men for want of boldness in spiritual things; sometimes they are bolder than we have imagined them to be: they may even have attempted to pray aloud when no one was present. That is a trial of a man’s spiritual sincerity. It is not every man who can listen to his own voice in prayer and continue the supplication with any composure. A man’s first audible prayer might smite himself down as by a great thunder-stroke: the voice seems so loud, the exercise so audacious; it is as if the universe had halted to hear the new appeal. Who shall say that men who are dumb in church have not tried in darkness and in loneliness to sing some little hymn of praise when they were quite unheard? Who knows what papers have been written, what plans of battle have been drawn up, at night-time, wherein men said they would certainly begin at this point, or at that point, to renounce a companionship, to change a custom, to release themselves from the tyranny of a habit: next time they would say No to the invitation which sought to seduce them to evil-doing. Who is not courageous when he is alone? Who is not most eloquent when there is none to hear him? We must not, therefore, fall foul upon the memory of Gideon and charge him with want of courage.

But the morning came. What the city then saw! The cathedral, so to say, was pulled down! When the men of the city arose early in the morning they missed the altar and the Asherah, “and they said to one another, Who hath done this thing?” And inquiry resulted in the information that Gideon the son of Joash had done it.

“Then the men of the city said unto Joash, Bring out thy son, that he may die: because he hath cast down the altar of Baal, and because he hath cut down the grove that was by it” ( Jdg 6:30 ).

Joash was not a born Baal-worshipper; the foreign religion sat uneasily upon him. He had inwardly no great respect for Baal; outwardly he was addicted to his worship, but really he had serious misgivings about Baal’s godhead. What if all idolators be afflicted with the same scepticism? Scepticism does not grow in the Church with relation to the true God alone; unbelievers in the true religion have scepticism often with regard to their own: they cannot tell what to make of their dumb gods; they have great philosophies about them, but no direct consequence comes of it all; so when an assault is made upon them the resistance is but reluctant or careless. Joash was a wise man; he said: Men of the city, hear me: my son has torn down the altar of Baal; if Baal be a god in very deed let him avenge the wrong himself; do not you interfere as to Baal’s sovereignty and godhead: in so far as Baal is a true god he will see to it that the man who insulted his altar shall be punished for his sacrilege and audacity. The men thought this was a good answer, and they accepted it. This is the challenge of the God of the Bible. God is always challenging the false gods to come forward and show what they can do. God mocks them, taunts them, tells them they are nothing, says they are things made out of iron and stone and wood, and not a single thought is in their carved heads. This is the challenge of Elijah; said he, “The God that answereth by fire, let him be God,” whatever his name be; this is not a test of names, forms, ceremonies, dogmas: if Baal be God, let us all worship him, and if the Lord be God, let us bow down in adoration before him: “the God that answereth by fire, let him be God.” The position taken up by Joash is the position we should all take up with regard to religious things. Let God defend himself. The Christian religion is never so humiliated as when men attempt to defend it. God needeth not to be ministered unto by men’s hands; nor does he require the patronage of trained intellect and swift and eager mind. God is continually vindicating himself in his providence. God’s appeal is: Look at the world; look at it in great breadths of time; not in a handful of days, or in a nameable measure of months, but look at it in the light of centuries; give yourselves field of vision enough; look at the distribution of men, and the distribution of all natural products; consider the occasion well: see what boundaries are set, see what issues are inevitable, observe how ambition is cut in two at a certain point, and must begin again to raise its shattered head; watch all the ebb and flow of civilisation; observe keenly as well as widely; and if providence be not its own vindication, it is useless for any man, however swift of thought or copious in expression, to attempt to vindicate what the facts themselves do not support. Christian teaching will be strong in proportion as it takes this ground. We are not engaged in matters that can be settled by words. We look abroad and see a law operating a law of restraint, a law of culture, a law of rewards and punishments; we try to check it, modify it, avert it, but it comes on with quiet irresistibleness an infinite force: who can ascend beyond a certain height? or who can descend without being suffocated? Who can stretch himself out so as to touch the horizon? and who has not chafed as Job chafed when he said, “Am I a sea, or a whale, that thou settest a watch over me?” If a man would take this wide vision, and bring into focus all these infinite relations, let him look carefully at his own life; let him, as it were, write his own story in his own language, and see how the chapters fall into happy sequence. See what training the man has had, what narrow escapes, what afflictions, what deliverances, how disappointments have been turned into the roots of prosperity, and how the grim discouraging negative has been the beginning of boldest and most successful endeavour; and when the reviewer has concluded his retrospect, let him say if he can, “All this was of chance, and luck, and incalculable fortune.”

Gideon, however, was punished by the people in some degree. The people must interfere a little, even in the case of avenging insults offered to Baal. So they called Gideon by a new name, they called him “Jerubbaal.” The least one can do is to give a reformer a nickname. If we may not smite him, we may at least throw some appellation at him which we hope the enemy will take up and use as a sting or a thong. So Gideon was called Jerubbaal literally, “Baal’s antagonist”: let Baal strive, let Baal take up his own cause; Gideon is the man who has defied the gods. That was not a severe punishment for the beginning of a revolution. The name itself was taken up afterwards and sanctified. There is nothing the enemy can do that God cannot turn into happy issues. Now came the open conflict:

“Then all the Midianites and the Amalekites and the children of the east were gathered together, and went over, and pitched in the valley of Jezreel” ( Jdg 6:33 ).

They were there first. They said, They will be well off who are soonest in the field. What had Gideon to present in reply to this tremendous muster? The story reads well at this point: “But the Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon,” and he was a thousand men in himself. Inspired, he knew no fear; the tabernacle of the living God, he trembled not before the wind and the tempest. We need inspired men, mad men, enthusiasts, men who know not whether they are fasting or feasting, men who use the world as not abusing it, who hold every thing lightly but their trust from the living God. Gideon “blew a trumpet; and Abi-ezer” his little flock “was gathered after him. And he sent messengers throughout all Manasseh” the people of the tribe “who also was gathered after him: and he sent messengers unto Asher” who once proved faithless “and unto Zebulun, and unto Naphtali” who had won immortal fame in the battle last fought by Israel “and they came up to meet them” ( Jdg 6:34-35 ). Spiritual endowment is power. It is of no consequence how many swords the Church has if it has not the living God: “Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword, shall perish with the sword.” Christ’s kingdom is not of this world: it is a kingdom of thought, feeling, love, sacrifice; be true to that spirit, and none can stand before you.

Now Gideon became afraid again, and must therefore be encouraged by another sign from heaven. We must not blame him. He is not the less earnest that he wants to be assured that he is right. Gideon invented a little test for God:

“Behold, I will put a fleece of wool in the floor; and if the dew be on the fleece only, and it be dry upon all the earth beside, then shall I know that thou wilt save Israel by mine hand, as thou hast said” ( Jdg 6:37 ).

Did God reply? God accommodated himself to human weakness as he has always done. Gideon arose early in the morning, “and thrust the fleece together, and wringed the dew out of the fleece, a bowl full of water” ( Jdg 6:38 ). [“Wool, as a good radiator of heat, would, under ordinary conditions, receive a plentiful deposit of dew, but so would the surrounding grass and soil. The second miracle was still more remarkable, inferior radiators receiving dew, when a better radiator, wool, remained dry.”] Gideon was half persuaded: Now, said he, if the reverse process can be completed, I shall be strong in faith, giving glory to God:

“Let not thine anger be hot against me, and I will speak but this once: let me prove, I pray thee, but this once with the fleece; let it now be dry only upon the fleece and upon all the ground let there be dew. And God did so that night: for it was dry upon the fleece only, and there was dew on all the ground” ( Jdg 6:39-40 ).

[“The double sign in connection with the fleece, which Gideon asked of God, is an illustration of a tendency in him to ask for signs: and nothing could be more ingenious, nothing more satisfactory, than the alternate wetting by dew of the fleece and of the whole ground. Possibly he was led to use such boldness in repeated pleadings with God, by the example of Abraham’s repeated requests when interceding for Sodom ( Gen 18:23-33 ). And he may have asked for the dew first to concentrate on the fleece, then to spread out over the ground, as he saw how the grace bestowed first upon himself, was spreading out over Israel.”

Douglas. ]

We may not set these fancy tests. They were proper enough at the time when Gideon applied them. The day was not then so far advanced; it was quite early morning, grey twilight, and men did not see clearly, so they asked for much assistance to their vision; and God graciously answered them. Even in apostolic days the freak of the lottery was tried, and we hear but little of the happy consequences which flowed from the adventure. We have nothing to do with putting tests for God now. Why? It would seem a natural and beautiful thing to say, as Gideon said, If the fleece be wet, or if all the earth be wet, and the fleece be dry, then God is with me, and the right way is open before mine eyes. Why may we not submit God to these tests? because the day is far advanced. This is the age of the Spirit, the age of true spiritual or religious faith. We have now to be guided by those inward and spiritual convictions which often have no words for their adequate and precise expression. We are to be students of providence. Providence itself is a succession of trials, tests, proofs. We are to see how things go, to watch their origin, sequence, consummation. We are to get rid of the superstition that life is a series of isolated incidents. Instead of being right in this particular case, or that, we ourselves are to be right, and all these things shall be regulated for us. The man who is anxious to know merely detailed right has not entered into the Spirit of Christ. He is a man who would keep a book regarding himself, and separate or distribute his life into independent lines and items. That is the Baal we must cast down, the Baal of being right in instances, in mere details, and writing a little maxim-bible of our own. What, then, is the great aim of Providence today? To make right men, to create new and clean hearts and spirits, to make the soul right. Is that represented to us in any formal, quotable words? Surely: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” Expand that thought, and what happens but this great philosophy of life, namely: Be right in your soul, be right in your purpose, have a single eye, do not be playing a double game; “do justly, and love mercy, and walk humbly with thy God; “and as for the details of this opening life, they will fall into great laws of divine Providence, and will be ministers of grace to the trusting soul. What an insidious sophism lurks in this thinking, namely, that if we could have lotteries by which to test individual actions we could not go wrong. So long as you are meddling with individual actions, and trying to be guided by a kind of travelling time-bill, you cannot be right. Here is the distinctive glory of Christ’s religion. “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” The man does not say, What shall I eat; what shall I drink; wherewithal shall I be clothed; what shall I do to-morrow; and on the second day how shall I be occupied; and in what spirit shall I encounter such and such a possible occasion? That is to live a little life, to split up, and separate, and individualise, and to act cleverly, not religiously. Life is not to be a system of scheming, managing, arranging, balancing, outwitting those who are half-blind, outrunning those who are cripples or unable to run; life is a religion, a consecration, a spiritual sacrifice, a continual living in the sight and fear and love of God; that being granted, all the rest comes in musical sequence, everything else conies and goes by a rhythm divine in its swing and throb. Foolish are the men who want to be right in particular instances, who desire above all things not to be outwitted on set occasions. There was a time in human history when such desires were natural and wholly seasonable, but that time is not now; for Christ is amongst us, and says to us: Children, be the children of your Father in heaven; be ye holy, as your Father in heaven is holy; be ye perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect; trust your Father, little flock; be not disheartened; live in your Father’s good pleasure: seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all details will settle themselves. Why, who would kindle a little fire in his own field to dissolve the snow, and say he will have at least a little garden there? Is the great snow to be broken up into patches in that way, and are we to have little summers and little forces of nature, and little clever attempts to grow something under the most discouraging circumstances? Do not interfere with God’s law in that way. God will send a south wind and a warm sun, and the snow will flee away. There must be a great astronomic movement a high, mighty far-reaching movement, a change of atmosphere: and that will drive back the winter, and in due time “throw a primrose on the bank in pledge of victory.” So must it be with the winter-bound heart of man. It is not by lighting little fires here and there so as to warm great feeling, or create a momentary benevolence, or rise into a temporary ecstasy; the Spirit of the living God must descend upon the whole man, must take possession of the heart; and, reigning there, ruling there, working out the mystery of inspiration there, all the life shall bud and blossom, and be gracious and hospitable as summer. This is the better plan; this is the grander philosophy of life. We do not pronounce judgment upon Gideon in any adverse terms; he did what he could. God smiled upon his infantile endeavours; the great day of spiritual inspiration had not then fully come. Gideon’s purpose was to know whether God was with him. The purpose is eternal the method of discovery was temporary. Let us also know whether God is with us, not in this particular case, or in that particular case, but whether God is with us in very deed within, ruling the mind, and heart, and will, and judgment of the whole soul; and then if we go downhill, it will be downhill on the highlands: even the valleys are lifted up in these great heights; and if we do stumble, we shall rise again yea, though we fall seven times, the eighth endeavour shall bring us home. He who lives upon any other principle lives a sharper’s life, often very clever, often very skilful, a good deal may be said in defence of it as to particular instances and individual successes, but he is a charlatan, an empiric, an adventurer; he is setting traps for God, and fancy devices wherein to entangle the Eternal. The great life the grand, true, simple life is to be in Christ, in God, as to thought, feeling, purpose: then let the days bring with them what they may, all their bringing will be overruled and sanctified, and even our very faults shall help us in our higher education.

Selected Note

” Cast down the altar of Baal ” ( Jdg 6:30 ). The word ba’al , as it signifies lord, master, is a generic term for god in many of the Syro-Arabian languages. As the idolatrous nations of that race had several gods, this word, by means of some accessory distinction, became applicable as a name to many different deities. Baal is appropriated to the chief male divinity of the Phoenicians, the principal seat of whose worship was at Tyre. The idolatrous Israelites adopted the worship of this god (almost always in conjunction with that of Ashtoreth) in the period of the Judges ( Jdg 2:13 ); they continued it in the reigns of Ahaz and Manasseh, kings of Judah (2Ch 28:2 ; 2Ki 21:3 ); and among the kings of Israel, especially in the reign of Ahab, who, partly through the influence of his wife, the daughter of the Sidonian king Ethbaal, appears to have made a systematic attempt to suppress the worship of God altogether, and to substitute that of Baal in its stead ( 1Ki 16:31 ); and in that of Hoshea ( 2Ki 17:16 ), although Jehu and Jehoida once severally destroyed the temples and priesthood of the idol (2Ki 10:18 , sq.; 2Ki 11:18 ).

Prayer

Almighty God, thou hast made the sanctuary a place of explanation: within thy house we understand all that is needful for us to know. Outside of it we cannot tell what things really are; we are in the midst of tumult and strife and anger; wrath and malice and bitterness exclude thy presence, but when we come into the house of God we see in the true light, we know somewhat of thy meaning, we are privileged to behold the outworking of thy purposes, and as we look we wonder, and as we wonder we pray, and our prayer speedily becomes a song of praise, because we see that the Lord reigneth and that the end of things is in his hands. Enable us often to come to the sanctuary. Blessed be thy grace for establishing it, so that now we may say, the tabernacle of God is with men upon the earth; God’s house is in the midst of our dwellings. When we come into the sanctuary may we find the spirit of the house there, the spirit of reverence and love, the spirit that loves the truth and follows after it and will eventually establish it; and being in the spirit in thy house, may thy book appear to us in all its breadth and lustre: wide as the great heaven, brighter than the sun when he shines in his strength; and may our hearts be comforted by the messages which they most need; and if first we must be humbled and chastened, stripped and impoverished, that we may know our right condition, thou wilt not end the process there, but having shown us our blindness and nakedness and wretchedness thou wilt give us fine gold, and ointment wherewith to anoint ourselves, and truth upon truth, until the soul is filled with the riches of Christ. So let it be now and evermore. May the sanctuary be a place of elevation whence we can see afar, and a place of revelation where we can see sights let down from heaven and hear voices meant for our instruction and comfort. To the sanctuary we bring our sin. Here we leave it, because the Cross is here; we may not need not take it back with us; for the blood of Jesus Christ thy Son cleanseth from all sin. Here let our sin be crucified; here let our sin be pardoned.

This prayer we pray at the Cross; and we tarry at the Cross until the answer come. Amen.

Gideon ( Continued )

Judges 6-8

THERE are critical words in every life, and critical moments. Everything seems to happen all at once, a curious sense of suddenness affecting the whole life. The word “then,” with which the first verse of the seventh chapter opens, marks a critical point of time. How easily the word is written; and how easily said; but all Gideon’s life seemed crowded into that ardent moment. So it is with our own lives. We crush the whole life into one day. Or we seem to see for what our whole life has been preparing by the light which shines upon one special moment. The time of battle had come; but the time of battle came in the case of Jerubbaal, as we have seen, after long and singular preparation. All that is happening should be regarded as of the nature of preparation. We should ask ourselves now and again, even amid the monotony of life, What is the meaning of this rest? What is the point of this delay? God always has a purpose, and we ought to find it. Why all this schooling, this long and weary study, this knocking night and day at Wisdom’s door? These intellectual inquiries touch the very region of prayer. What is the meaning of all these providences? In all these undulating lines of life read the philosophy and purpose of heaven regarding human service and destiny. Why these sharp trials, these rains of sorrow, these rivers of grief? Why these bereavements, losses, deprivations, disappointments, surprises? Has the tale no end? Is there no point of fire, no final climax? Is it all tumult, change, gain, loss, pleasure, pain, on and on, and the last pain the greatest, the pain of saying farewell before dropping into eternal silence? This cannot be. The question, then, should come to every man when he is seeing visions, hearing voices he never heard before, receiving unexpected and startling visits, What is the meaning of it all? This means action: presently the story will open upon the battle chapter. Surely some of us have had preparation enough. Long since we ought to have been in the thick of the fight, Why all this book-reading? Is there room in the crowded memory for one more volume? Surely we may say to some students, Why continue the bent head, the midnight lamp, the vigil out of season? What is the meaning of all this? The battle waits, or the battle might now begin: the world might turn round and ask, Are you not ready now to speak some gospel word, or at least look some look of hope, lifting upon our weariness eyes that might be as revelations and encouragements. It is weary work to watch how long some men are in putting on their armour. It tires the soul to see how long some men are in whetting the sickle, whilst the white harvest almost withers because of their unaccountable, if not criminal, delay. The critical morning dawned upon the life of Gideon. He took up his new name, having no objection to it. When his fellow-citizens called him Jerubbaal, he said, in effect: So be it: that name expresses my relation to the false god exactly, namely: “Let Baal strive;” or “Let me be Baal’s antagonist:” I yoke a bullock to the god, and drag him down; now let my father’s advice be accepted, and let Baal defend his own case. It is wonderful to notice how many of these Old Testament people take their new name with fine grace, as if with deep sense of the fitness of the larger appellation. We, too, are called upon to pass into new names, or new categories: have we done so? Have we been called Christians? Or are we hiding the new faith under the old name, so that the people know not that a change has taken place in our title? “Beloved, now are we the sons of God.” Yet some of us have hardly dared to claim and wear the name. If to some there belongs a name of controversy, battle, antagonism, take it up: it suits the times; the world wants warriors. Take the name which God gives you, or which is brought to bear upon you by the order of his providence. When does God give a less name than the old one? He adds a syllable, and thereby adds a destiny: he changes one letter, first or last, and therein changes the course of a lifetime. “Jerubbaal, who is Gideon,” took his place at the head of his people, “rose up early.” When did the great worker ever rise up late? Early-rising is a necessity of divine vocation. There need be no mechanical arrangement about it. The work is terrific, and the worker is straitened until it be accomplished. There is an impatience that is inspired. Gideon and his people “pitched beside the well of Harod,” that is, beside the well of “trembling,” beside the well of “fear.” It is well to begin at that point. Many a man who has begun his work nervously has turned out at the end to be quite a giant. Take heart; you are indeed now at the well of Harod, at the waters of fear and trembling, but if you are there on God’s business, have no vital fear; you may shake off all fear and pray in the church as a child might pray at home, and fight in the field as consciously called of God to do the work of battle. We must not pour contempt upon men who are nervous, timid, hesitant in their first speech, afraid to pray their first audible prayer. History ought to have taught us a good deal upon such matters. Men who have begun thus have ended in great renown. Everything depends upon our spirit, upon our reliance upon the living God, upon our knowing that the work is not ours but the Lord’s.

This would seem to have been the course of the divine thought, for “the Lord said unto Gideon, The people that are with thee are too many.” They are but thirty-two thousand in all; yet they are too many. But how can they be too many, for the Midianites are a hundred and thirty-five thousand strong? That, said God, is making a human calculation. We get wrong by applying human arithmetic to divine decrees; or we get wrong by trying to measure God’s eternity by the tape of our time. He was an inspired man who invented the phrase “for ever and ever.” That is the point at which time gives up the race, falls down dead, and lets eternity stand in its nameless mystery. But today we will play the arithmetician, and deal in figures and tables and returns audited and well avouched. When will we, can we, learn that all numbering is with the Lord, and that because the battle is his he will fight it as it pleases him? Israel would make a wrong use of numbers, as most men do. Israel would say, “Mine own hand hath saved me: I was thirty-two thousand strong on that memorable day, and that was force enough to slay the Midianitish power.” God will stain the pride of all glory. God will not allow any flesh to glory in his presence. If we are gospel preachers, “we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.” Human ambition must be restrained.

The so-called law of cause and effect, which has victimised so many men in the spiritual universe, must be upset and contemned. When the Church comes into this temper we shall hear news of victory: God will surprise his trustful Church with tidings of great joy. Two-and-twenty thousand men returned unto their houses because they were fearful and afraid. Do not contemn this cowardice, for it is the very colour and temper of our own time. Many men are bold the day after the battle; many have nearly said the word of courage, the word of just reproof. Are not the greatest numbers most cowardly? In a sense this is true. If they could fight as a crowd they would be partially courageous: but real fight comes to man by man, assault and answer. So two-and-twenty thousand men said, We had better continue in oppression, in slavery, in loss, than challenge these unequal odds. But the Lord said, “The people are yet too many;” and the number was reduced to three hundred men by a very curious and interesting test, namely, the different methods in which water was taken. Are there no such tests now? We suppose that this test has passed away and settled in venerable history, to be occasionally exhumed and wondered about: the particular instance itself may no longer be literally repeated, but the principle that is in it is the principle which is operating in the very men who deny the accuracy of the literal incident itself. Men are chosen now by curious signs. We do not know how we are chosen to any particular work; but it may be found incidentally that some little unexpected circumstance, of which we took no note or heed, determined our being where we are. Men who want servants, lieutenants, allies, co-operative assistants, are looking round; the people upon whom they are looking may be unaware of the critical inspection, but it is proceeding nevertheless. Those who are looking on say, He walks lazily, his gait is lacking in energy; he will never do for my particular work. Or: See how he walks; what fire there is in him; every action is half a battle; he needs but to be put in the right circumstances, and he will turn out a satisfactory man; or: He talks too much; his speech is without pith or regard to the number of its words; he patters and gossips and is cursed with a detestable fluency: listen; he never ceases, he never pauses, he evidently loves to hear himself chatter, he will never do. Or: He is an excellent listener; he does not commit himself: observe, he never plunges into anything that he cannot fully grasp and comprehend; he looks more than he speaks; not a word escapes that listener: when he does speak there is marrow in his speech; he is young, but he will get over that disadvantage; he shapes well already. This process is going on through all society. Men are noting one another; seeing whether they lie down upon the ground and devour the water, or whether, being men in wise haste and under self-control, they lap it, and pass on. The little local incident has changed, but the principle of curious and even eccentric election is operating in all life, and the men who deny the Bible live over again its most curious instances.

Gideon was one of those men who require continual encouragement. It was not enough to say to him once for all, “I will be with thee;” he did not doubt the divine presence: but see how Israel had been weakened, impoverished, crushed, these last seven years by the invasion of the Midianites; see how they dare not thresh their corn in the open field or accessible winepress, but had to beat it out in the concealment of the crags and rocks; observe how Israel had to listen and look to assure himself that no Midianite was looking on before he rubbed out his handful of corn and got it ready for the baking; then say if a man could instantly become a great religious and courageous character; and then see how loving it was of God to deal with him according to his weakness, to encourage him, little by little to lead him on. Why, this is the Christly spirit: he will not break the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax; he has the tongue of the learned, and can speak a word in season to him that is weary; he will not urge his omnipotence against our nothingness, but will accommodate his approach, and breathe upon us quietly, and send to our sinking spirits a still small voice. So Gideon needed to be encouraged again. The Lord said to him: I have made a man down in the Midianitish camp dream a curious dream; I will so operate upon him that he will begin to talk as it were in a half-sleep: go down and listen. Gideon looked afraid; the Lord noticed the blanched face and said: If thou fear to go down alone, go thou with Phurah thy servant; two may be better than one. This is an anticipation of the time when the Lord sent out his servants “by two and two.” Gideon took heart when he was allowed to take a servant with him.

“Then went he down with Phurah his servant unto the outside of the armed [the same word is rendered harnessed inExo 13:18Exo 13:18 . The probable meaning is arrayed in divisions] men that were in the host. And the Midianites and the Amalekites and all the children of the east lay along in the valley like grasshoppers [locusts. Compare Num 22:4-5 ] for multitude; and their camels were without number, as the sand by the sea side for multitude” ( Jdg 7:11-12 ).

When Gideon came near a man told a dream to his neighbour; he said, “Behold, I dreamed a dream, and, lo, a cake of barley bread” such bread as Israel has been reduced to, the bread of poverty “tumbled into the host of Midian, and came unto a tent, and smote it that it fell, and overturned it, that the tent lay along.” It is an extraordinary dream; what is the meaning of it? The other man had the faculty of interpretation; he said, “This is nothing else save the sword of Gideon the son of Joash, a man of Israel.” Once let the enemy have within him the fear that the opposing host will succeed, and the battle is won. Battles are lost and won in the soul. The Church has feared, and the Church has lost.

The battle opened. Israel, represented by three hundred men, did according to the instructions of Gideon: “When I blow with a trumpet, I and all that are with me, then blow ye the trumpets also on every side of all the camp, and say, The sword of the Lord, and of Gideon,” and that will correspond in instructive harmony with the dream which I have overheard; the name of Gideon has entered into the speech of the Midianites; associate that name with this great battle, and say, “The sword of the Lord, and of Gideon.” So the battle opened. “And the three companies blew the trumpets, and brake the pitchers, and held the lamps in their left hands, and the trumpets in their right hands to blow withal: and they cried, The sword of the Lord, and of Gideon;” and as the torches were shaken in the air, for they were torches rather than what we understand as lamps, and as the sound came from every quarter at once, Midian was afraid, and Midian was destroyed. Make the most of yourselves. You are but three hundred, but symbolically you are all heaven. This manner of assaulting the enemy is no dramatic manner, no pretence or affectation; this is a battle which is being fought on divine principles: therefore, if three hundred men seem to be three millions, they are such, multiplied by themselves and multiplied by infinity in their symbolical and representative capacity.

Gideon took princes that day, even “Oreb and Zeeb,” the Raven and the Wolf. The heads of the raven and the wolf were brought to Gideon on the other side Jordan, see him with the one in one hand and the other in the other. It was an old and barbarous plan to bring the head of the enemy to the hand of the conqueror. It is not a thing to be reproduced or countenanced by Christanised civilisation; but it was the ancient mode of warfare, and must be judged by the morality of the age. This is typical. “Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? this that is glorious in his apparel, travelling in the greatness of his strength? “He has trodden the winepress alone. He is mighty to save; he is mighty also to destroy. “His enemies will I clothe with shame: but upon himself shall his crown flourish.” In this faith all Christians live and work, serve and suffer, and, blessed be God, the inspiration is in us also. Men call themselves by symbolical names, as Midian was called “the Raven,” but God’s hand is in the heavens, and the air shall be cleansed of his enemies: “the Wolf,” but God’s eyes are in the forest and the jungle and the wilderness, and he will destroy the ravenous beast. Men have called themselves by ideal and typical names, as the “Gracchi” the jackdaws. We respect them under the name of the Gracchi, because we do not know what it means, but when it is understood that the interpretation thereof is “jackdaws” we feel that we ourselves might encounter them in battle. The Aquilini the eagles. So our great warriors have called themselves bull, and wolf, and lion. All these names have histories behind them; but we can never fight with names only: they must represent realities, spiritual inspirations, moral convictions, gospels we have died for, heavens we have seized with crucified hands; then the battle will go the right way. Enter the fight and always turn your eyes to the blood-stained banner on which is written, as with pen of lightning, The battle is not yours, but God’s. Fighting under that banner and in its spirit, the fight can have but one end grand, complete, eternal victory.

Prayer

Almighty God, evermore be with us; evermore give us the bread of life: evermore keep us within the hollow of thy hand. We have learned to distrust ourselves. We have hewn out to ourselves cisterns, but have found them to be broken cisterns that could hold no water. We have thought to plant gardens and sow fields of our own, and behold thou hast withheld thy sun, and all our efforts have perished in darkness. So now, if thou wilt not disdain so mean an offering, we would, under the drawing of a power not our own turn to thy grace, and offer ourselves in sacrifice unto thee: do thou now accept the oblation and give us answers from heaven. We thought our life would never end, and behold we have come to know that it is but a breath in our nostrils. We said of our strength, It is enduring, and cannot fail; and behold, whilst the boast was upon our lips our juice was dried up and there was no sap in all the life. We all do fade as a leaf. We are but as the wind, blowing for a little time: or a vapour dying upon the breeze. We cannot tell what we are, for there is no language that can set forth our poverty, and feebleness, and littleness; yet, when we come to know thy Son Jesus Christ our Saviour, and by living faith in him enter into the mystery of his being, then are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be, but our hope is that we shall be like our Saviour, for we shall see him as he is. So we are little, and great; worthless, yet all-worthy; children of time, yet sons of immortality. Help us to understand somewhat of this mystery, to accept it, to walk in its spirit, to pray mightily unto God that we may grow in all purity, nobleness, and holy power. Thy hand has been outstretched to us in all goodness; no good thing hast thou withheld from us. If we judge by thy rain we cannot tell the just from the unjust; if we judge by thy sunshine we know not the difference between the good and the evil: for thou art kind unto all, and thy tender mercies are over all thy works; the mercy of the Lord endureth for ever, and to his love there is no measure. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name. We confess our sins, and mourn them with bitterest lamentation, and seek thy pardon at the cross. God forbid that we should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ: it is the hope of the sinner; it is the way to heaven; it is the very glory of the divine love. Help us to handle our life with great sagacity, understanding the mystery of it as revealed in thy holy book; may we see its littleness, yet its infinite possibilities; may we judge between that which is for a moment and that which is for ever; as wise builders, may we build upon the rock and not upon the sand; may it be found at last that through apparent folly we have been practising the most solid wisdom, and though men have imagined that we had forgotten that which is temporal, yet by seeking first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, all the lower worlds and their meaner concerns have been put under our dominion. We give one another to thee. We would be wedded unto the Christ of God; we would serve him with all faithfulness, love, sincerity, and hopefulness: may he accept our offering. We bless thee for all good men, whose word is their bond, whose signature is never forsworn, who know what is righteous and do it at the cost of life itself. We thank thee for all patience, as shown in the house, in the business, in the church, in every sphere of life divine patience, motherly, womanly, Godlike. We ask thee to be with us in all our special troubles and turn them into special joys: may our losses be the beginning of our gains, and through our failing health may we see the meaning of immortality. Guide the blind; save the helpless; give speech unto the silent; and be the friend of the friendless. Thus may we live in thy fear, in thy Spirit, in thy love, triumphing over life, time, space, death, already knowing that our citizenship is in heaven. Amen.

Gideon ( Continued )

Judges 6-8

IN the eighth chapter we have quite a gallery of portraits. We may call these allusions to character, aspects, rather than full delineations. Unless we look very vigilantly we shall miss a good deal of the colour and meaning of this panorama, for the action is extremely rapid. You find a character in a line; a history in a sentence; the whole man almost in one trembling or urgent tone. Everything in this chapter is of the nature of condensation. More matter could not be put into this space. Hardly a word could be omitted without interfering with the solid integrity of the composition. He who built this chapter was a master-builder. What fire there is in it; what anger; yea, what zeal; what delay inspired by impatience! thus constituting an almost contradiction in terms. Here is a man too impatient to do what he wants to do at the moment, but he says, I will do it by-and-by; when the greater purpose is accomplished the smaller design shall be fulfilled. But we anticipate. Let us travel the road step by step.

Take Gideon’s answer to Ephraim as showing that not only was Gideon a great soldier but a great man. That is the secret of all official greatness namely, greatness of manhood. There can be no great officer in any sense except as expressive of a reserve of strength, a great manhood. There can be no great soldier, great statesman, great preacher, great business man, without there being behind all that is official and visible a great wealth of nature, a great fulness of life. The men of Ephraim did chide sharply with Gideon, saying, “Why hast thou served us thus, that thou calledst us not, when thou wentest to fight with the Midianites? “We shall see presently that Ephraim was both a bully and a coward. He is proud of having descended from Joseph, and proud of being connected with the illustrious Joshua; but in himself there was more foam than ocean, there was more splutter than divine energy. Ephraim was always finding that he had been left out in the cold. In a page or two we shall see that he met with the man who had the right answer to that foolish self-idolatry. Gideon will reply softly and gently, but Ephraim shall not always have it thus; he will ask this very question again of another man, and we shall see how that sterner man will answer him. Ephraim represents the kind of man who conies in after the battle has been turned to victory and says what he would have done if he had been invited. Ephraim represents the man who is always a day after the fair, a day after the battle, he who comes in when the sun of prosperity is shining and says that if only he had had an invitation he would have been the first subscriber to the fund, the most liberal supporter of the movement, the most energetic member of the faith. Presently he will tell Jephthah that, and Jephthah will answer him otherwise than Gideon replied. It was well that Gideon, whose name means “Hewer,” should show that he was as gifted in the quality of self-control as were his three hundred followers. His answer is intellectually energetic, and in it far away in it is just a little suggestion of irony and the kind of flattery which has a sting in it. It was a wonderful answer. Haughty, proud Ephraim apparently could have crushed the Hewer and his three hundred men; so Gideon said: What have I now done in comparison with you? think how little I am! Why, you misspend your anger in being at all annoyed by anything that was in my power to do. Is not the gleaning of the grapes of Ephraim better than all the vintage of the house to which I belong? the few odd grapes you leave on the vine, are they not of more value than all the grapes that ever cluster on the vines of Abi-ezer? It was well to put the inquiry so. There is a skilful use of interrogation. The form of question has been adapted to strange uses. Gideon reminded Ephraim of what had been done, though even that was only done incidentally. Then he asks the other question: And what was I able to do in comparison with you? You are such a great people; if I had asked you to join in a war you might have contemned so insignificant a creature; look how tall you are, and how scarcely visible I am! “Then their anger was abated,” showing that it was a bully’s anger, and not a hero’s. Their anger was abated when they were flattered. Yet this is the soft answer that turneth away wrath. The question well-planted, quite a thorn of a question, yea, a sharp sting; yet Ephraim, being of the mean quality he was, accepted the flattery and felt not the reproach. We almost long for Ephraim to come into contact with the other kind of man. Ephraim finding how this movement ended will try it again. Ephraim looked so well. What he would have done if he had only been invited! We wait for the man who can see through his falsehood and answer it with slaughter.

Was Gideon, then, soft and foolish? Has he lost the pith of his character? Take his treatment of the men of Succoth. Gideon asked that they would give loaves of bread unto the people that followed him, “For,” said he, “they be faint.” He seemed to ask for the people and not for himself: I am pursuing after kings give the people loaves of bread that they may be able to keep up with me in this fierce haste. The princes of Succoth took advantage of weary men. There are cruel hearts that can take advantage of the hunger of other men hearts that can say, Now is our opportunity; whilst they lack bread and are suffering from hunger, now we can vaunt it over them, now we can tread upon them. The princes of Succoth said, Your victory is not yet complete; you have to fight Zebah and Zalmunna before you can say the battle is ended; when Zebah and Zalmunna are in thy hands, then come, and we will give you bread enough; but do not suppose that you have found those whom you are only pursuing. Gideon was instantly fed with a nutriment that made him strong; forgetting his weariness, he said, “When the Lord hath delivered Zebah and Zalmunna into mine hand, then I will tear your flesh with the thorns of the wilderness and with briers.” And he made the same answer to the men of Penuel: “When I come again in peace, I will break down this tower.” So we must not argue that because a man gives a civil answer to a violent assault, therefore he is of mean quality, and is craven in spirit, and afraid of that which is high and mighty. The quiet answer is an illustration of self-control; the soft reply, the gracious retort, shows that the heart is trusting in the living God, and not in any accidental strength: they who dwell in the tower of heaven can speak quietly from the window to those who are looking up and who are expressing dislike far down at the base. In quietness possess your souls, and in sweet patience. Never answer fury with fury. The princes of Succoth and the men of Penuel were cold in their cruelty, mocking in their hostility; they were not in red-hot anger, but they were taking advantage of temporary weakness. Such persons were answered with fire red-hot. Gideon was thus a manifold character: a quiet man, few in words, threshing out his corn behind the rock that no Midianite might see him, quietly proceeding about his domestic affairs; suddenly taking fire when the touch from heaven came upon him, and a voice other than human told him he was a “man of valour,” right mighty in battle, but most suave and gentle and gracious in the presence of unreasonable men, who did chide with him sharply for what they supposed to be an omission of duty or a breach of courtesy; then flaming up again into the very divinest anger because men refused weak soldiers bread, and mocked pursuers because they appeared to be unable to complete the journey. “I will tear your flesh;” literally, I will thresh your flesh, as he had been found by the prophet and the angel threshing his corn; “I will break down this tower,” and those who are in it must take the consequences of its overthrow.

Was Gideon selfishly ambitious? To this inquiry there is a sublime reply. When the men of Israel saw the prowess of Gideon they said, “Rule thou over us, both thou, and thy son, and thy son’s son also: for thou hast delivered us from the hand of Midian” ( Jdg 8:22 ). That was his opportunity. All great prophets and soldiers have had such chances; John the Baptist had when he was asked if he was “that prophet.” Then, everything depended upon his answer; and he answered, “I am not” The people would have taken Jesus and made him a king “by force,” but he stood back from the mob and disdained their crown. “And Gideon said unto them, I will not rule over you, neither shall my son rule over you: the Lord shall rule over you” ( Jdg 8:23 ). There is the real quality of the man. Probe him where you will, you find his motive to be inspired by a consciousness of God’s sovereignty and control. Gideon might have been a king, but was not; and, because he was not, he really was. There are many kingships, some crowned, some uncrowned; some material, imperial; some spiritual, intellectual, moral: the crown is in the man rather than upon him; if only upon him, the wind may blow it off, or some fool’s hand may suddenly dash it to the ground. Gideon believed in what is known as the Theocracy, that is, the reign of God, God’s kingship of Israel, God’s headship of the Church, God’s defence of all faith, truth, righteousness. It is not every man who can start a victorious war so nobly. Gideon lost nothing in the fight, but gained all things. So may we. Life is a battle. Every day has its controversy, its sharp tug, its fierce wrestling, its great conflict a conflict within or without; a temptation addressed to the soul, or a fury assailing the estate. How are we to come out of the great combat; to bring out of the onslaught a clear character, a clean heart, a right spirit, a motive undamaged, and a probity unstained? that we may so come out of the clash of arms and the spiritual assault should be our continual prayer. “Take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all to stand.” Stand therefore, panoplied from head to foot, the left hand as the right, and the eyes fixed now on God, now on the foe.

Was Gideon, then, perfect? Is he by all these just encomiums removed from competition and enshrined in altitudes absolutely inaccessible? Is he an historical figure to be almost worshipped? Is he bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh, snared by the same gins and traps, and falling now and again under the same blandishments? The perfect man, whom we feel to be so per-feet as to lose touch with our humanity, really would do us more harm than good. Gideon was no perfect man. He had a vulnerable heel; there was a bruise upon him which showed him to be mortal. Having had the offer of the crown and the throne and the rulership that was to be hereditary, Gideon said, No, but “I would desire a request of you.” What is that? said Israel cheerfully. I would request” that ye would give me every man the earrings of his prey” (for they had golden earrings, because they were Ishmaelites). Gideon could make some use of these little crescent-shaped ornaments. “And they answered, We will willingly give them. And they spread a garment” perhaps the very overcoat that Gideon himself wore “and did cast therein every man the earrings of his prey. And the weight of the golden earrings that he requested was a thousand and seven hundred shekels of gold;” and, being in the giving mood, they said, Give him “ornaments, and collars, and purple raiment that was on the kings of Midian,” and add to the store “the chains that were about their camels’ necks.” We do not blame them. They were royal-hearted in their liberality; therefore they gave with both hands. Gideon had but to make his mind known, and the people who followed him instantly responded with abounding, yea, with redundant generosity. Wherein, then, was the littleness of Gideon or his imperfectness? It was in the use which he made of the golden store: “Gideon made an ephod thereof, and put it in his city, even in Ophrah: and all Israel went thither and whoring after it” lusting after it, desiring to make an idol of it and worship it “which thing became a snare unto Gideon, and to his house” ( Jdg 8:27 ). We did not expect this. Yet we might have expected it had we studied human nature closely. The very man who pulls down one idol sets up another. Gideon had an eye for colour. He liked the sleeveless coat of the priest. He noted its beautiful structure, its marvellous adornment, its oracular gems; and he was minded to make an ephod of all the gifts the people had given. This ephod became an idol, a charm, an amulet. It was looked at as if the very spirit of Gideon was in it. He who disestablished the national idol set up an ephod of his own! Alas for human inconsistency! The same Gideon, the man who took one of the bullocks and yoked it to Baal and dragged down the helpless god manufactures a little idol of his own! It was a shame; and yet it seems to be partly well, for now we can join Gideon at the point of his imperfection; perhaps we can get further into his character, and pray with as intense an energy, and grasp the eternal with as strong a faith. Take the man in the entirety of his character, in the sum-total of his being, and not in points and phases. Is it not so with all great reformers? The men who can finance the affairs of Europe can very seldom pay their own private accounts! The great and mighty reformers who could reconstruct the universe sometimes omit to wash their own hands! Are we not all human? Is it not perfectly possible to be both great and small to have dragged down a god and to have set up an ephod?

Now surely Israel will be good. Israel has had schooling enough, and the time has now come when Israel will take up the policy of good behaviour, and be honest and true evermore. “Gideon the son of Joash died in a good old age, and was buried in the sepulchre of Joash his father, in Ophrah of the Abi-ezrites” ( Jdg 8:32 ). Now Israel will remember the old man’s grave, and never be insincere or faithless any more. The thirty-fourth verse will disillusion us: “And the children of Israel remembered not the Lord their God, who had delivered them out of the hands of all their enemies on every side.” Well, they may have gone down theologically, but still they are men. Agnostics claim to be men, and honourable men. History has never been very much on the side of those persons who imagine that theology can be given up and yet morality retained. We are bound to accept the evidence of the ages. What was the case of the children of Israel? They “remembered not the Lord their God,” but they remembered Gideon. They will be kind to his children. They will say, We may have changed our theological views, but we are still men; we may have left the church, but we are still honourable citizens. The thirty-fifth verse will disenchant us: “Neither shewed they kindness to the house of Jerubbaal, namely, Gideon, according to all the goodness which he had shewed unto Israel.” The retirement from the soundly religious point of view is accompanied by lapses of another kind. A man cannot close the Bible and say, Though I have abandoned that book, yet I am as honourable and true and pure and good as I ever was. If so, then history has been inverted; the facts of the centuries have been proved to be false. A man cannot give up prayer, and give his attention in any profound and enduring sense to the culture of a noble life. A man cannot love his neighbour until he has loved his God. There is logic in the sequence of the commandments: the first, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God;” the second, “and thy neighbour as thyself.” It is a very dangerous thing for any of us to attempt today, in the face of so vast a body of historical evidence, to say that we will give up the Church, the sanctuary, the altar, the Bible, and be as good as we ever were. It is like the train saying, We will give up the engine, and travel just as easily and swiftly as we ever did. It is like the spring flower saying, I will give up the sun, and be as beautiful, delicate, and fragrant as before. It is like the body saying, I will stop the pendulum of the heart, and be as vigorous, strong, and energetic as I ever was. Do not attempt the risk; do not rush upon the mad adventure. The stream can only run in proportion as the fountain is filled and flowing; the earth is nothing of itself, but, being attached to the sun, being a little tiny servant in the great astronomic household, it swings on usefully, and yields us enough for the body. Said Christ, “I am the vine, ye are the branches.” “As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.” “Abide in me, and I in you.” “He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.”

Gideon ( Continued )

Judges 6-8

( A Varied Treatment )

“And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord: and the Lord delivered them into the hand of Midian seven years” ( Jdg 6:1 ).

GOD punishes indirectly as well as directly. He has agents strange, rude servants of his, who unconsciously do his will. He can turn the wrath of man as it doth please him. According to the text it hath pleased God sometimes to punish man by man. Instead of calling Israel up into a mountain apart, and there with some great scourge chastising Israel for iniquity, he chooses to hand over his people to the rod of the tyrant; he allows Midian for seven years to torment Israel. We can punish one another. We do not know always what we are doing; sometimes in our apparent lawlessness and riotousness we are actually carrying out some divine decree, and God has chosen us, in the very intensity of our madness, to do some terrible thing for him, that some side or other of his holy government may be fully vindicated.

“And the hand of Midian prevailed against Israel: and because of the Midianites the children of Israel made them the dens which are in the mountains, and caves, and strong holds” ( Jdg 6:2 ).

If we had looked at the dens, and caves, and strongholds, we should have said: “Some wild beasts have made these; we see the marks of their great paws; see how they have torn the mountains and made themselves beds and chambers in the strongholds.” So rudely and mistakenly do we interpret some things. The rough homes, these poor hiding places, that the wind could get at so fiercely, and the storm could rage in, were made by men. They who ought to have made the Most High their refuge, who ought to have made God himself their sanctuary, dug in the earth for a home and sought shelter among the rocks, when they might have rested in the secret places of heaven. We are doing every day in so far as we are doing wrong very much of the same thing. We are seeking to ourselves hiding places, we are planning for our own security, we have taken the defence of our life into our own hands, and we have said to money, “Thou shalt be my sanctuary;” to the poor power of our own arm, “Thou shalt be my defence,” and we have said with pagan Ajax to his sword, “Thou art my God.” Alas! poor man, thou hast been burrowing in the dust, scratching in the mud, hollowing out the rocks for a resting place, when God has asked thee to find security in his own power, quietude in his own peace, amplitude and beautifulness of home in his own infinite love. Think of a man tearing the mountains to pieces that he might get security from an enemy; think of a man tearing the rocks out of their places that he might hide himself from some storm of human fury! To such straits men are driven. Oh, that in being so driven they might catch some notion of the great moral purpose which is being worked out even by their torment and homelessness!

“And Israel was greatly impoverished because of the Midianites” ( Jdg 6:6 ).

Then comes a most beautiful arrangement: Gideon was threshing wheat, and as he was pursuing his business the angel of the Lord appeared unto him and said, “The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valour.” God answers the prayers of the many by touching the life of one. As God had tormented man by man, so God will redeem man by man. This is a great mystery; but it is a mystery of love, it is a secret of the divine education of the world. As God did not take Israel apart into the wilderness, or to the top of a mountain and there scourge him with his own hand, so when he comes to deliver, he will make arrangements which show that in all his government of mankind he proceeds upon the principle of mediation; he saves us by making us to one another instruments of salvation. He blesses man by man, he redeems man by man, the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost. What was Gideon doing? Threshing wheat. It seems a long way to us because we will look at things only in their outward relationship from threshing wheat to the command of a delivering army. It is a long way, if we measure the thing superficially and externally. But to God it is all one, whether you are blacking a shoe or studying a star; whether you are threshing your father’s wheat when he had many servants and might have sent one of them to thresh it, or whether you are wearing the crown of God’s empire. He says to a man, “A thousand men can plough that furrow, but one only here and there can do the work which I have for thee to do. Come away from the sycamore tree; come away from the receipt of custom.” God calls men by his great and wondrous word from one duty to another. All duties, humble and lofty, obscure and imposing, stand equal before God, if so be we have a servant’s spirit and a son’s love. My friend, there is a call comes to you through your business every day. When you are threshing your wheat, God speaks to you; when you are counting your money, an angel finds you. When God wants a man he knows exactly where to find him. So let me rest content in my sphere. Why should I be chafing myself? Why should I be complaining of the iron bars that cage me in? If God wants me to do some greater work, he knows where I am, and what I can do, and what I am capable of attempting, and at his own time and in his own way he will come for me and promote me to rulership and empire. If I seize that principle, I am strong; I have repose, I have quietude; but if I let go that, I find I am the victim of everything that may happen; the Bible is a chapter of accidents, and verily it is the Bible of a fool!

So Gideon, startled at his work by the presence of an angel, said he did not see how God could be with Israel.

“If the Lord be with us, why then is all this befallen us? and where be all his miracles which our fathers told us of, saying, Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt? but now the Lord hath forsaken us, and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites” ( Jdg 6:13 ).

Gideon approached the proposition of the angel very cautiously. He said, “If thou art an angel of the Lord, give me some proof of thine identity as such.” He put God to the test. He was so startled by the revelation of God, that he was to be the deliverer of Israel, that he proposed test after test. He was a cautious man. Let us beware lest our caution be mere pedantry, and lest it degenerate into sophism. It is right to be cautious. Make sure, in the first instance, and then, having made your ground secure, proceed, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against you. But Gideon, having put the angel to the test, was in his turn put to the test. The angel told Gideon that he was to do a work at home. The idol had been worshipped by Israel, and now the idol was to be torn down. The angel said unto him, “Take thy father’s young bullock, even the second bullock, of seven years old, and throw down the altar of Baal that thy father hath, and cut down the grove that is by it: and build an altar unto the Lord thy God upon the top of this rock, in the ordered place, and take the second bullock, and offer a burnt sacrifice with the wood of the grove that is by it” ( Jdg 6:25-26 ). What was the meaning of all this? “Gideon, you must be tested.” He who would make great revolutions must begin at home; he who would go out and strike a foreign enemy must begin reformation within his own circle. If you are going to fight the Midianites successfully you must reform at home. Take down the idol that thy father hath set up; tear down the idol from the elevated place; begin at home. He who begins there will fight well abroad. But if a man shall leave the idolatry in his own house, and go to fight some enemy that is on the outside, behold his victory shall perish, his renown shall be but the flash of a moment, and he shall have no real and abiding success. So must it be with us; we must go into our own hearts and do the great work of demolition there, so far as the empire of the devil is concerned, before we go out to revolutionise, to correct and to educate the public. How is it with our home life? How is it with the condition of our hearts? Are we preaching against idolatry in others and yet falling down before Baal ourselves? Are we filled with righteous indignation because of the evil doing of persons who are far away, whilst we ourselves have temples in our hearts set up to the idol gods? These inquiries search the very secrets of our lives; these questions are like the candle of the Lord held over the depths of our own being. Gideon will have a powerless arm when he challenges the Midianites if he go not forth and begin this moral revolution at home.

How did Gideon proceed? He was cautious here again. We shall find that caution was a characteristic trait in Gideon. He did not like to do this in the daytime because he feared his father’s household and the men of the city. So what was he to do? The angel had appeared unto him, and a new light had shed itself over his life; a great destiny was proposed to him; he himself had suggested a test of the credentials of the angel, and had been satisfied with that test; in his own turn he himself was to be tested. Now what did he do? He said, “If I go out in the daytime the men of the city will seize me. What am I in their hands? Yea, my own father’s household will fall upon me, and I shall be crushed by their cruel power. What shall I do? “And because he could not do it by day he did it by night. Earnest men can find opportunities if they want to do so. He is making a frivolous and impious excuse who says, “I do not like to do it; I am afraid to attempt it; I shrink from going forward; I prefer a modest retirement;” and so lets the work and the call of God slip out of his fingers. If you cannot do it in the morning brightness, you may do it in the evening twilight; if you cannot do it in the noontide glory, you may do it in the midnight darkness. Earnestness always finds opportunities; earnestness always finds the sycamore tree up which it can climb and see Christ. There is always a course open to tact, to reality, to sincerity, to determination. If any man is saying that he cannot make his way through all the difficulties that beset his life so as to get near to God, in the name of all history that is true, in the name of all history that is holy, in the name of all history that is worth preserving, I charge him with a mistake or a lie.

There was sad excitement on the morning of the next day. People finding that Baal had been overthrown were all astonished, and inquiry proceeded. How had this thing been done so suddenly? Done in the night-time? When it was discovered who had done it, they went to the father of Gideon and said, “Now shall thy son be slain for this. Bring out thy son that he may die, because he hath cast down the altar of Baal, and because he hath cut down the grove that was by it.” And Joash was changed in a moment: you can touch a man through his child. You can touch his keenest sympathies. When they proceeded to lay a bloody hand upon the head of Gideon, he said, “If Baal be a god let him plead for himself.” A grand tone, a right tone! If Baal be a god let him plead his own cause. What is a god worth if he cannot gather himself up again when somebody has thrown him down? The grandest things have been said by men when they have been cut to the quick, when their child’s life has trembled in the balance. Joash was a new man from that moment. He made the grandest proposition that ever was made in the whole kingdom of idolatry. He saw Baal on his face. He said, “If Baal be a god let him get up again!” This is exactly what we say to all the gods of England. Have you been trusting to money, to power, to health, to friends, to luck, to chance? Let them help you in the hour of extremity, but, beware, there was once a scornful laugh among the nations, a scornful laugh ringing along the courses of the whirlwind: It was this, “Thy calf, O Samaria, hath cast thee off!” Samaria had worshipped the calf; God had risen in judgment to vindicate his government, to vindicate his claim to human attention, and when Samaria went to the calf it turned Samaria off. He is but a poor god who cannot save us in extremity who cannot speak for himself in whose arm there is no. power of self-defence.

Gideon, having been satisfied that he was called of God to do this great work, betook himself to it. But there was one difficulty in the way, a strange difficulty, too, and peculiarly worthy of note. The Lord said, “Gideon, the people that are with thee are too many.” When did God ever complain of having too few people to work with? Tell me. I have heard him say, “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I.” I have heard him say, “One shall chase a thousand, and two shall put ten thousand to flight” But I never heard him say, “You must get more men, or I cannot do this work; you must increase the human forces, or the divine energy will not be equal to the occasion.” I hear him say, in the case before us, “Gideon, the people are too many by some thousands. If I were to fight the Midianites with so great a host, the people would say, after the victory had been won, ‘Mine own hand hath saved me.'” Now the Lord proposed that a proclamation should be made unto the people, saying, “Whosoever is fearful and afraid, let him return and depart early from Mount Gilead.” How many of the people think you returned? Twenty-two thousand went off at once. You cannot do much with a crowd. The crowd never did anything for the world or for itself. Twenty-two thousand went away, ten thousand remained. Now the Lord will say ten thousand is just enough. No. He said, “Gideon, the people are yet too many; they will still boast of their numbers, and they will take all the credit to themselves, if I delivered Israel from the Midianites by their instrumentality; we must have fewer still.” So they were taken down to the water, and every one that lapped of the water with his tongue as a dog lappeth he was set by himself, and he alone was taken; and out of the thirty-two thousand Israelites, but three hundred men were called upon to do the great work. Most people are afraid. It is only a man here and there can set himself up with true courage; there are only about three hundred out of every thirty-two thousand that are worth anything for real fighting, for real endurance, for real enterprise. The work of the world has always been done by the few; inspiration was held by a few; wealth is held by a few; poetry is put into the custody of but a few; wisdom is guarded in her great temple but by a few; the few saved the world; ten men would have saved the cities of the plain; Potiphar’s house is blessed because of Joseph; and that ship tossed and torn upon the billows of the Adriatic shall be saved because there is an apostle of God on board. Little child, you may be saving all your house your father, your mother, your brothers, and your sisters. Young man in the city warehouse, a blessing may be coming upon the whole establishment because of your prayer and sobriety, truthfulness, honour, and religious faith. We cannot tell how these things work. There is a secret behind all appearances, and we know not the meaning that underlies all the unrest, and storm, and confusion of life. Still, we may be of some use in other ways. If we cannot go forward to the fight, we can go back to the fields and plough. If I am not one of the three hundred men that can go and take Midian captive, I may be a quiet, homely man, who can repair a fence, or set a gate in order, or plough a furrow, or continue and complete the work which was interrupted by the calling away of the three hundred men. We can all do something. Cyphers are inexpressive and worthless by themselves, but when a unit is put at their head, they are gifted with articulation and value. So let the three hundred mighty ones lead the world; and those who can fight, and think, and scheme, and govern a state, and make law, and write books, go on, and God bless them! But let us who are of a humbler mould and poorer nature know that still there remains some kind of really useful good work for us to do. “Blessed is that servant, whom his Lord when he cometh shall find so doing!”

What does this teach us? What is the application of this to the men of today? It is this: that human history is under divine control. God’s eye, though in heaven, is looking upon the children of men. Afflictions do not spring out of the dust. If the rod be laid heavily upon our backs, it is because God would take out of us some desire that is evil, punish us for some way that is corrupt, seeking thus to recover us from the error we have committed. This history further teaches that the Lord himself finds a deliverer. Israel did not call upon Gideon, Israel did not call a council of war, and by some lucky stroke of genius deliver themselves. The Midianites were to be overthrown. This was a divine proposition, this was the arrangement of God. Salvation is from on high; deliverance is from the Lord of hosts. When there was no eye to pity, when there was no arm to save, his own eye pitied, and his own arm brought salvation. What is true in this little local case is true in the great and universal condition of humanity. The Redeemer is from heaven; the Deliverer is not a creation of earth. He who delivers mankind comes from the depths of eternity, having the ancientness of unbeginning time upon him, and the power of omnipotence in his arm. We cannot be delivered by ourselves. “O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in me is thine help.” God hath laid help upon one that is mighty, and the name of that one is Jesus Christ, God the Son, who came into the world to save sinners, and redeem from a worse than Midianitish bondage.

Then God by all this teaches us that no flesh shall glory in his presence. Man shall not arise, and say, “We have devised a scheme of salvation; we have bought ourselves with gold of our own coining; we have found a file, by the use of which we can cut in twain the iron chains that bound us.” God does the work. Our salvation is of his own mercy, of his own grace and power. It hath pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. He hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are. It hath pleased God to withhold the battle from the strong and the race from the swift, and give honour to whom he will, that no flesh shall glory in his presence!

See, yonder a man glorying in God’s presence. He lifts up his hands, he lifts up his eyes, he lifts up his voice and says, he is “not as other men.” He tells God how clean his hands are, how often he washes them, and to what perfection he has brought his character. There is also another man with downcast eyes, who has smitten his bosom, and who can only say with a sob, “God, be merciful to me a sinner.” He is the man who takes heaven back with him to his home. But where there is a spirit of self-trust and self-glorying, there can be no true honour, there can be no true salvation. It is when I am nothing, when I renounce myself, when I cast my whole life upon the Son of God, that I know what it is to be gathered into the love of God, and to be hidden in the sanctuary of his power. The day of salvation is come, the Deliverer is amongst us. This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus is come into the world to save sinners. There was a man in the ancient time, who, having been called to a charge, allowed his charge to slip from him, and when he was asked the reason, he said, “As thy servant was busy here and there, he was gone!” Let us be busy here and there, and yet mind the great business. Let us be threshing our wheat, and still be willing to show hospitality to the angels of God. Let us be doing the duty of the passing day, and yet let our doors be ajar that God may come in whenever it doth please him to visit us in our low estate!

Selected Notes

Though he resisted the offer of a throne, Gideon fell into the error of meddling with the priestly office; a snare into which he may have been betrayed by the command, which he received and obeyed, to build an altar in his city of Ophrah, and offer on it a sacrifice to Jehovah. This isolated act, connected with his rescuing the people from the worship of Baal, and, with the manifestation of the Angel of Jehovah to him (compare and contrast 1Ch 21:28 , 1Ch 22:1 ), was perhaps made the beginning of a system of sacrifices there; at all events, he prepared an ephod, the well-known high-priestly garment used in consulting God (Exo 28:6-30 ; 1Sa 23:6 , 1Sa 23:9 ). Whether he meant no more than to have a memorial of the divinely-appointed ephod, and the way of approaching God by it, as the eastern tribes had built an altar merely for a memorial ( Jos 22:26-29 ), it is impossible to tell; even so, there was a serious risk that he might go farther than he intended. But it is an old opinion that the high priests at Shiloh had early lost the confidence of the people, and had sunk into insignificance; certainly they are never mentioned or referred to in the Book of Judges, after Aaron’s grandson the illustrious Phinehas ( Jdg 20:28 ); and long before Gideon’s time there had been a schismatical and even idolatrous priestly system set up by the tribe of Dan in the town to which they gave their patriarch’s name, and this, too, arose out of an unlawful family sanctuary and its ephod (Jdg 17:5 , Jdg 18:30-31 ). There is no warrant whatever for imputing the same sin to Gideon; yet he did something which looked in that direction, possibly bringing the high priest from Shiloh to use his ephod at Ophrah, possibly using it himself. Even if he himself escaped the more serious consequences, yet ( Jdg 6:27 ), all Israel went a-whoring after it there, and it became a snare to himself and his house, with evil lurking in it, and ere long bursting forth with lamentable results. The high priest’s ephod, with all its attendant ornaments in the breastplate, and with its precious stones, must have been very costly; we need feel no surprise that Gideon laid out upon his ephod 1,700 shekels of gold, or about 53 lb. avoirdupois; nor that so much gold was obtained from this vast multitude of the enemy, since the Arabs to this day manifest an extraordinary love for golden ornaments. Perhaps Gideon thought himself like Moses, when he received the contributions for the tabernacle ( Exo 35:20-23 ), many of those also being the spoils taken from their oppressors; while the men of war who willingly responded to his request may have felt like their ancestors when they made a similar free-will offering after an earlier Midianite war ( Num 31:48-50 ). There were other dangers in Gideon’s position, of which his polygamy is an evidence. Even had he been king, the law of God against multiplying wives was explicit ( Deu 17:17 ): yet though he refused to be ruler, in those forty years of rest and prosperity, he must have assumed something of royal state in its worst oriental form, with a harem. And there is enough in the language of the original (comp. Neh 9:7 ; Dan 5:12 ) to lead to the conjecture that the name Abimelech, “A king’s father,” was one which he gave to his concubine’s son in addition to the name given to him originally, one of those epithets or descriptive names which were common among the Jews: if so, the lad was one of those spoilt children like Adonijah ( 1Ki 1:6 ), who brought misery and shame upon their families. Gideon himself died “in a good old age,” an expression used elsewhere only of his father Abraham (Gen 15:15 , Gen 25:8 ), and of David ( 1Ch 29:28 ); but his death was the signal for the renewed outbreak of all evil. It seems to have taken the form of open apostasy, substituting “Baal of the Covenant” as their covenant God instead of Jehovah; though possibly there was an attempt to combine the worship of the two. And when the people did not remember Jehovah their deliverer no surprise need be felt at their thankless forgetfulness of his earthly instrument and representative, whose two names seem united into one at ver. 35, as if to recall and combine all that he had procured for Israel both of temporal and of spiritual blessings. R ev. Principal Douglas, D.D.

” And Israel was greatly impoverished because of the Midianites ” ( Jdg 6:6 ). The Midianites had oppressed Israel so grievously that the people were forced to flee from the open country, and to seek an asylum in mountain fastnesses, in caves, and in fortified cities (vi. I, 2). Midian was now at the head of a great confederacy, comprising the Amalekites and the leading tribes of Arabia, called by the sacred historian Beni Kedem (“children of the East,” [ Jdg 6:3 ]). In early spring the confederates assembled their vast flocks and herds, descended through the defiles of Gilead, crossed the Jordan, and overran the rich plains of central Palestine, plundering and destroying all before them ( Jdg 6:5 ). In their distress the Israelites cried unto the Lord, and he sent a deliverer in the person of Gideon (8-13). The invaders were concentrated on Esdraelon their flocks covering the whole of that splendid plain, and their encampment lying along the base of “the hill of Moreh,” now called little Hermon (Jdg 6:33 ; Jdg 7:1 , Jdg 7:12 ). Gideon assembled his band of warriors at the well of Harod, or fountain of Jezreel, situated at the foot of Gilboa, and famed in after days as the scene of Saul’s defeat and death ( Jdg 7:1 ). Gideon having collected the forces of Israel, followed the fugitives across the Jordan, up the hills of Gilead, and away over the plain into the heart of their own country. There he completely overthrew the whole host ( Jdg 8:12 ). The power of Midian was completely broken. In a single campaign they lost their princes, the flower of their warriors, and their vast wealth. “Thus was Midian subdued before the children of Israel, so they lifted up their heads no more” ( Jdg 8:28 ). Their name as a nation appears no more in history.

Prayer

Almighty God, is not all our life a parable, full of instruction, full of rebuke, yet full of comfort? Thou art always coming to us in figures and incidents, and in things we cannot explain, mysteries that darken upon us, and lights above the brightness of the sun. Thou dost whisper to us in the night-season, when the darkness is round about us like prison walls; then thou dost call us out into the warm morning, into the liberty which is beyond, large and glorious liberty. Thou dost teach us by our disappointments and sorrows: our losses thou dost make eloquent with instruction; and, behold, night and day thy purpose is to make us wise unto salvation. O that we had the hearing ear, the understanding mind, the attentive heart; then thy gospels would not be lost upon us, but would be to us as light from heaven. Make thy word live as we read it May we know it to be true because of the answering voice within. May our judgment witness, and our conscience testify, that this is none other than the voice of the living God. So shall our life be strengthened, beautified, and introduced into great freedom. We come before thee evermore to seek thy pardon, for our sins are as numerous as our days: we spoil every hour by some touch of rudeness, some act of violence, some aversion of soul from light and truth. But that we know this sinfulness is itself a blessing: if we confess our sin, we know that whilst we are confessing it at the cross of Jesus Christ thy Son, our Saviour, thou dost look upon him rather than upon us, and for the sake of his work thou dost pardon the iniquity which we repent This is our joy, this is the good news from heaven: we accept it, and answer it, and are glad because of thy forgiveness. Direct us all our days. Their number dwindles; their light is uncertain; their messages are more urgent. Help us to seize the passing time, and inscribe it with love and service and sacrifice. Dry the tears of our sorrow. Lift the burden from us when it is more than we can carry. Attemper the wind to the shorn lamb. Undertake for us in all perplexities and embarrassments and difficulties, and give us the joy of those whose perfect trust is in the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ Amen.

Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker

XXVIII

DEBORAH’S SONG (Concluded); MIDIAN AND GIDEON

Jdg 5:23-8:35

DEBOBAH’S SONG Concluded

In Jdg 5:23 a curse is denounced on Meroz and in Jdg 5:24 a blessing pronounced on Jael. Now, is this imprecation on the one hand or this benediction on the other hand merely an expression of Deborah’s personal enthusiasm and aroused patriotism, or must we attribute it to the inspiration of God?

Ans. The whole context shows that she is not only speaking as a prophet under inspiration (compare Jdg 4:9 , “Jehovah will sell Sisera into the hand of a woman”), but quoting the very words of Jehovah, Jdg 5:23 .

2. Then would you approve the morality of Jael’s apparent violation of the laws of hospitality held so sacred in the Orient, and of what seems on its face to be assassination?

Ans. Yes, what Jehovah himself commands and blesses is not to be judged by man according to human standards. The avenger of blood was not an assassin but commissioned as a sheriff. So the case of Ehud. So the destruction of the Canaanites. So the flood. So the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.

3. But may not Jehovah in a governmental sense avail himself of wicked instruments overruling the evil but not approving it, as in the case of Joseph’s brethren, Gen 42:21 ; Gen 45:5 , of the remarkable case of the Assyrian, Isa 10:5-15 , and in the case of the betrayers and crucifiers of Christ, Act 2:23 ?

Ans. This is all true but cannot under a fair construction of our text apply in the case of the inspired curse on Meroz and the inspired blessing on Jael, especially since it was “the angel of Jehovah” who curses and blesses and Deborah only quotes Jdg 5:23 . Compare the blessing on Jael with the blessings on Mary, the mother of our Lord, Luk 1:41-42 , by Elisabeth and Mary’s own saying, Luk 1:48 .

4. But is not the doctrine dangerous in the hands of fanatics as in the assassination of William of Orange and Henry of Navarre?

Ans. All doctrines are dangerous in the hands of fanatics and are liable to fearful abuse. To assume, without warrant, to act in Jehovah’s name in either blessing or cursing or to cloak private revenge under religious sanction is a blasphemous usurpation of divine prerogative. See Rom 12:19 . God only can bless or curse. See specially the case of Balaam, Num 22:5-6 , and Num 23:7-8 ; Num 23:11-12 ; Num 23:20 ; Num 24:10-12 . It devolves upon him who assumes to bless or curse or slay in God’s name to give miraculous proofs as signs of his credentials.

5. But is it ever true that an individual or a people may dispense with ordinary forms of law?

Ans. It is true that under extraordinary conditions in which ordinary forms of law are not available the law of self-preservation may justify a father in protecting his family from burglary, assassination, and dishonor, and there have been extraordinary cases where there was no law to protect life or property, the right to social government inhering in the people justified extraordinary means of social protection, until ordinary forms of legal protection should be created. This doctrine also is liable to terrific abuses, but it is a true doctrine under the real conditions which demand it.

6. What can you say of the morality of Deborah’s exultation over the hopeless waiting of Sisera’s mother for the return of her son?

Ans. It is of a piece with the rest. A mother watching through the lattice for the return of a son who for twenty years has ground an oppressed people to powder, and who is delighting herself with the expectation of a robber’s spoils and of captive maidens to be devoted to bondage and dishonor, cannot reasonably hope that the delivered people will condole with her disappointment. Nor can it be evil to rejoice at that disappointment. See Rev 19:1-8 . The joy of Deborah was a righteous joy. The sentimental deprecation of some commentators on this point is sickly, namby-pamby, goody-goody gush, very far from piety. It is such a weakness as would weep over the ultimate downfall of the poor devil!

MIDIAN AND GIDEON JUDGES 6-8

7. What the occasion of the next oppression of Israel, how long the oppression, who the oppressor and where his territory?

Ans. See Jdg 6:1 , and map.

8. Trace the origin of the Midianites and show their kinship to Israel and the past connection of Joseph and Moses with them and what part of them was associated with Israel in travel and settlement in Canaan.

Ans. Examine Gen 25:2 ; Exo 3:1 ; Exo 18:1-27 ; Num 10:29-32 ; Num 12:1 ; Num 22:4-7 ; Num 31:1-12 ; Jdg 1:16 ; Jdg 4:11-17 ; Jdg 4:24 , and then make your own reply.

9. Why are Midianites used synonymously with Ishmaelites both here (Jdg 8:24 ) and in Gen 37:25 ; Gen 37:28 ?

Ans. They were close akin, occupied the same territory and had the same customs of desert life, were intermingled as one people.

10. What other tribes or nations were associated with Midian in this invasion of Israel?

Ans. Consult Jdg 6:3 , and Jdg 8:24 , and reply.

11. What characteristics show them to be the true children of the East?

Ans. (1) Their methods of travel and making war, Jdg 6:5 .

(2) Their ornaments, Jdg 8:24-26 .

12. What the sweep of the invasion and the extent of the desolation wrought?

Ans. Consult Jdg 6:2-6 and answer.

13. To whom did Israel cry for help and the method of response?

Ans. Consult Jdg 7:7-10 , and reply.

14. After the rebuke of Israel’s sin through a prophet how does Jehovah intervene?

Ans. He comes to call and qualify a human deliverer, Jdg 6:11 .

15. Comparing Jdg 6:11 , with Gen 15:1 ; Gen 18:2 ; Gen 21:17 ; Exo 3:2 ; Exo 23:20 ; Exo 23:23 ; Exo 33:2 ; Jos 5:13 ; Jdg 13:3-7 , what are these appearances of the “angel, or Word of Jehovah”?

Ans. They were real Theophanies or pre-manifestations of our Lord. Compare Joh 8:5-6 and Heb 9:26-27 .

16. State the circumstances of Gideon’s call, its miraculous sign, its commemoration, the meaning of Jehovah-Shalom and cite other significant combinations of “Jehovah” with a modifying word and the meaning of each.

Ans. For all but the last item see Jdg 6:11-24 . For the last item see Gen 22:14 ; Exo 17:15 ; Jer 23:6 . On the last item: Jehovah-Jireh The Lord Will Provide, Gen 22:14 . Jehovah-Nissi The Lord our Banner, Exo 17:15 . Jehovah-Shalom The Lord our Peace, Jdg 6:24 . Jehovah-Tsidkenu The Lord Our Righteousness, Jer 3:6 .

17. How does the New Testament comment on Gen 18:1-8 , and Jdg 6:18-19 ?

Ans. Heb 13:2 .

18. Compare in the following cases the different ways in which men receive God’s call to service.

(1) Moses, Exo 3:10-11 ; Exo 4:10-13 .

(2) Gideon, Jdg 6:15 .

(3) Samuel, 1Sa 3:4-10

(4) Saul, 1Sa 10:22 .

(5) Jonah, Jon 1:3 ; Jon 3:2-3 .

(6) Isaiah, Isa 6:8 .

(7) Jeremiah, Jer 1:6 .

(8) Amo 7:14-16 .

(9) Paul, Act 26:19 ; Gal 1:15-16 .

19. How was Gideon directed to make a square issue and fulfil it?

Ans. Jdg 6:25-27 .

20. Explain different renderings in common and revised versions of “cut down the grove,” “cut down the Asherah” in Jdg 6:25 .

Ans. Form your own answer.

21. Wherein the great courage of Gideon in this act?

Ans. It was against his own family and city.

22. What the reply of Gideon’s father to the demand of the city that Gideon be delivered up to die?

Ans. Jdg 6:31 .

23. What new name was given to Gideon and of what was it a standing memorial?

Ans. The name of Jerubbaal and it is a standing memorial of the fact that throughout his life Gideon was against Baal and that if Baal could not defend himself he was no god.

24. Compare this case with the remarkable case in 1Ki 18:17-20 .

Ans. Form your own answer.

25. How did both sides respond to Gideon’s issue?

Ans. Jdg 6:33-35 .

26. What the two confirmatory signs of victory given to Gideon?

Ans. Jdg 6:36-40 .

27. What and why the two eliminations of Gideon’s army?

Ans. Jdg 7:2-8 . The first elimination was this: God said, “These 32,000 you have here are too many. The battle must be the Lord’s battle and you have too many men.” The first elimination was to send home every man that was afraid. You know men get scared when they jam right up against a formidable army. The first elimination was that every one of the 32,000 that was scared might fall out, and 22,000 fell out. God looked at the 10,000 and said, “There are still too many. Now bring the 10,000 down to the creek and let me see them drink water,” and every one but 300 when they got there laid down their equipments and kneeled down and deliberately took a drink. But the 300 waded in and lapped up the water as they marched through, and never stopped walking. God said that the 300 that lapped the water like a dog were his crowd. Why? They had before them, after the battle, a march that would try the souls of men. Gideon will never let up pursuing them, across the Jordan and way out into Midian, and soldiers that have to lay aside their equipments and lie down and grunt, they never will overtake a fleeing enemy, and he needed people that wouldn’t lose time. I once heard an infidel say that that was the sorriest test he ever heard of. I always thought it a remarkable test. It was precisely the kind of a test that was made by an old Indian fighter. He said, “I am going to pursue the Indians into the mountains; whoever cannot load your gun as you go must drop out; you must be able to load your gun as you go.”

28. What additional sign of victory?

Ans. Jdg 7:9-14 . Gideon and one man marched up and took a close look at the enemy and heard one of them say, “I have dreamed. I dreamed that we would be destroyed by the sword of Gideon.” There is the mighty spirit of God sending a dream to a man as he sent a dream to Pharaoh.

29. What the arms of Gideon’s 300, his method of battle, the war cry and the result?

Ans. Jdg 7:16-23 . Army trumpets, lamps, and pitchers. The trumpets to blow, the pitchers to hide the light until the time came. They put the light down deep in the pitchers so they could slip up to the enemy, then at a signal they broke the pitchers and the 300 trumpets blew and the war cry came from three directions, “The sword of the Lord and of Gideon.” You see he divided his men into three companies; let a big crowd of men wake up in the night with 100 lights burning on the right, 100 on the left and 100 behind and three divisions shouting, “The sword of the Lord and of Gideon,” it would scare them nearly to death. The result was that they just ran until they dropped. That great big army, a multitude, running away before trumpets, lamps, and pitchers and the war cry.

30. What great sermon by great men have been preached from two texts in this paragraph?

Ans. I will give you two and let you think of a dozen more. Spurgeon has a sermon, indeed a series, on “Lamps and Pitchers.” Then John A. Broadus preached at the convention at Atlanta on “The Sword of the Lord and of Gideon.”

31. What other cases can you cite of using insignificant weapons to achieve great victories?

Ans. I will tell you of a few and you must think of some more. The ox-goad in the hands of Shamgar, the jawbone of an ass in the hands of Samson, and the sling and pebble in the hands of David.

32. What precautions of Gideon to cut off the retreat of the enemy?

Ans. He sent a rapid messenger to the tribe of Ephraim and they fell into line and captured two of the kings and killed a great multitude of the people.

33. Considering the case of Ephraim in dealing with Joshua, Gideon, and Jephthah, what the description of that tribe by a later prophet, and what the meaning of the metaphor?

Ans. Hos 7:8 : “Ephraim is a cake not turned.” You read those three passages about Ephraim and you will think of that prophets metaphor. He was just cooked on one side. Did you ever eat a piece of bread that was cooked on one side and raw on the other? That is the description of Ephraim.

34. What kings commanded the Midianites, and their fate?

Ans. Zabah and Zaimunna, who were slain by Gideon.

35. State the case of the cities of Succoth and Penuel and give your judgment of Gideon’s punishment of them.

Ans. When Gideon’s men came with their tongues out from thirst, having come all the way from the battlefield east of the Jordan, they said, “We are soldiers of Gideon and dying of hunger and thirst; feed us,” and those cities from financial and prudential reasons thought maybe the other side was going to capture them, so they went against the starving army and refused them bread and drink. Gideon said that when he came back he was going to make scourges out of the bushes with thorns and punish them and plough up their foundation. Later he did exactly what he said he was going to do.

36. What great sin did Gideon commit?

Ans. I wish that he had stopped without committing that sin. He commanded that the earrings, raiment, and the chains that were about their camels’ necks (as is characteristic of desert people) should all be poured into a sack and out of that he would make an ephod. What is an ephod? It is a garment like a Mexican blanket with a hole in it to put down over the head. The one for the high priest, on the breast, had a plate and two jewels, one on each side, and it was worn when the priest went to consult the oracles; whenever a question came up the high priest put on this robe and the oracle would answer. And the record says, “All Israel went a whoring after the ephod of Gideon.”

37. How long did peace last from this deliverance?

Ans. Forty years; it was just a day or two that that fight lasted and forty years of peace followed one brief fight.

Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible

Jdg 6:1 And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD: and the LORD delivered them into the hand of Midian seven years.

Ver. 1. And the children of Israel did evil. ] This was the bad fruit of their forty years’ peace. “Ease slayeth the foolish.” Pro 1:32 , marg. See Trapp on “ Jdg 4:1 “

Into the hand of Midian. ] Who once outwitted them and vexed them with their wiles, Num 25:17 now with their inroads: ever full of malignity against the Israelites, though they were of the posterity of Abraham by Keturah, and had been better taught by Jethro, a priest and prince of God amongst them.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

children = sous.

evil. Hebrew. ra’a’. App-44.

the LORD. Hebrew. Jehovah. App-4.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

Chapter 6

So again the rest for forty days but then in chapter six,

AND the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD: and the LORD delivered them into the hand of Midian for seven years. And the hand of Midian prevailed against Israel: because of the Midianites the children of Israel made themselves dens which are in the mountains, and caves, and strong holds. And so it was, when Israel had sown, that the Midianites came up, and the Amalekites, and the children of the east, even they came up against them; and they encamped against them, and destroyed the increase of the earth, till they are come to Gaza, they left no sustenance for Israel, neither sheep, nor ox, nor ass. And they came up with their cattle and their tents, and as multitude, they were like grasshoppers; for both they and their camels were without number: they entered into the land to destroy it. And Israel was greatly impoverished because of the Midianites; and the children of Israel cried unto the LORD. And it came to pass, when the children of Israel cried unto the LORD because of the Midianites, That the LORD sent a prophet unto the children of Israel, which said to them, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, I brought you up from Egypt, I brought you forth out of the house of bondage; I delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians, out of the hand of that oppressed you, I drove them out from before you, I gave you their land; I said unto you, I am JEHOVAH your God; fear not the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell: but ye have not obeyed my voice ( Jdg 6:1-10 ).

So the situation of this particular apostasy, turning their hearts away from God, God brought now the Midianites against them, tremendous number of people along with the Amalekites. And Gaza is about the southern most point along the Mediterranean. So by the time they got to Gaza they had gone through the entire land. Coming from the east, clear on over to the coast, south to Gaza. Whenever the people would plant their crops, at harvest time here would come all these people and just rip them off. They would, you know, you got your wheat harvested then they’d just come in and just rip them off from all their wheat and barley and all of their harvest, and then next year back again, harvest time.

And so they took away all the sustenance of these people and a tremendous multitude of them. The people finally cried unto the Lord and the Lord answered with a prophet who told them the reason for their dilemma was the fact that they had forsaken God who had given them deliverance out of Egypt and had brought them into the land.

So, there came an angel of the LORD, and sat under an oak tree which is at Ophrah, that pertained to Joash the Abiezrite: [and the son] and his son Gideon threshed wheat by the winepress, to hide it from the Midianites ( Jdg 6:11 ).

So here was Gideon hiding from the Midianites as he was threshing the wheat because if the Midianites had caught him they’d take the wheat. And so he was out by the winepress threshing wheat and here was an angel sitting under an oak tree.

And the angel of the LORD appeared unto him, and said unto him, The LORD is with you, you very brave man. And Gideon said unto him, Oh my LORD, if the LORD is with us, why is all of this calamity befallen us? Where are all of the miracles which our fathers told us of, saying, Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt? Now the LORD has forsaken us, and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites. And the LORD looked upon him, and said, Go in this thy might, and thou shalt save Israel from the hand of the Midianites: have I not sent thee? And he said, Oh my Lord, how shall I save Israel? behold my family is poor Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house ( Jdg 6:12-15 ).

Now as I was mentioning this morning, God often times has trouble getting people to respond to his call. God calls us; that’s the beginning of it. As soon as I respond to the call of God then God lays out what He wants me to do and then I resign “Lord, I can’t do that. How in the world can I do that, Lord?”

God called Moses and said, “Go in and stand before Pharaoh, tell him, Let my people go.” “Lord, how can I go before Pharaoh? I’m not eloquent in speech.” The Lord said to Jeremiah, “I have called thee to stand before kings” “Lord, how can I stand before kings? I’m young, no one’s gonna listen to me.” God said to Gideon, “Go in this thy might, and deliver Israel out of the hand of the Midianites” “Lord, how can I deliver. I’m-my family’s nothing. I’m the least of my father’s household. You’ve got the wrong man. Better check your address papers. Not me.”

The LORD said unto him, Surely I will be with thee ( Jdg 6:16 ),

There’s the key of any successful service for God: “I will be with thee.” Now, it’s an interesting thing that many times we endeavor to do a work for God not directed by God. And this is why we so often get just overwhelmed when God tells us what He wants us to do because we’ve already tried to do so many things on our own hook and utterly fail. So the Lord comes along and tells us to do just the thing we’ve been trying to do and failed. We say, “Lord, I can’t do that. I’ve tried to do that.” But God gave to Gideon the key of success, “I will be with thee.” That’s the key of success, the Lord working with us, learning to work together with the Lord.

The disciples had been fishing all night and had caught nothing. And in the morning Jesus stood on the shore and He said, “Children do you have any meat?” And they said no. And he said, “Cast your nets on the other side.” And when they did immediately the nets where full of fish. They began to draw them in until the boats began to sink with the multitude of fish.

You see, there’s a difference between just serving and serving at the direction of the Lord. When the Lord is in it, He can fill the nets. When the Lord is in it, He can make it prosperous. You can do the same thing in the same way and apart from the Lord. You’re gonna pull up empty nets all night. But as soon as the Lord joins with you, it makes the difference between the nets being empty and the nets being full. The key and the secret to all successful Christian service is in this verse, “I will be with thee,” to recognize my total need of the Lord being with me. To recognize I can’t do it myself and to depend upon that presence of the Lord with me in all that I endeavor to do for Him.

“How can I deliver the children of Israel from the hand of the Midianites? Lord, my dad is nothing and I’m the least of my father’s household.”

“I will be with thee” the Lord answered.

And thou shalt smite the Midianites as one man. And so Gideon said, Look if I’ve found grace in your sight, then show me a sign that you’ve talked with me ( Jdg 6:16-17 ).

He thought, man, I’m dreaming. This is wild. If you really chose me than give me some kind of a sign, Lord. I need a sign. Now Gideon was the kind of guy who was careful and he wanted to make sure. And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. I think that God respects honest doubt. I think there is a dishonest doubt that no one respects. There are some people who come up with a question and just the way they ask the question you know they don’t want an answer, they just want an argument. They’re not ready to listen to the answer when they hear it. There are other people who come up and the question is genuinely sincere, they are searching for an answer. Those kinds of questions are worth answering. The other kind I have no time for.

God is concerned with honest doubt. If you really are honest in your doubt, God respects that and God will confirm His word to your heart. “Lord, are you really speaking to me to do this?” And it is wise to make sure it’s God speaking. A lot of people have gone off on half-cocked ideas because they had some feeling or some vision or premonition and they’ve gotten into all kinds of miserable situations because they really didn’t search out to see if it was really God speaking. Now if you’ve got some wild task that you feel God is calling you to make sure God has spoken to you. Don’t just go out and put your house up for sale, for sale and take off with-unless you’re really sure that God has spoken to you. Make certain of that.

And Gideon wanted to make certain, “Show me a sign that you really have talked to me.” He said, “Wait here, wait here. I want to go fix you something. Will you wait here until I get back?” He said, “I’ll wait here until you get back.”

So Gideon went into the house, and there he made ready a little goat, some unleavened cakes, a bushel of flour: he put the flesh in a basket, put the broth in a pot, and he brought it to the angel under the oak tree, and presented it to him. And the angel of God said unto him, Take the flesh and the unleavened cakes, and lay them on the rock, and pour out the broth. And so he did so. Then the angel of the LORD put forth the end of the staff that was in his hand, and touched the flesh and the unleavened cakes; and there rose up a fire out of the rock, and consumed the flesh and the unleavened cakes. Then the angel of the Lord disappeared out of his sight. And when Gideon perceived that it was an angel of the LORD, Gideon said, Alas, O Lord GOD! Because I’ve seen an angel of the LORD face to face. And the LORD said unto him, Peace [Shalom]; fear not: thou shalt not die. So Gideon built an altar there unto the LORD, and he called it Jehovahshalom: unto this day it is yet in Ophrah this altar that Gideon built ( Jdg 6:19-24 ).

Now, it is interesting, he called it Jehovah-shalom. He’s about ready to go into one of the biggest battles of his entire life, I mean he is facing warfare and an enemy and conflict, God has called him to deliver the children of Israel from the oppression of Midianites but he calls the altar Jehovah-shalom, “God our peace.” For he is looking beyond the battle to the peace that God is going to bring. And so by faith really, the altar is named Jehovah-shalom, “the Lord our peace” because he’s looking beyond the conflict to the peace that God has promised to His people. It’s really very beautiful. And we too can look beyond the conflict to the peace that God has promised. And maybe you’re in conflict and turmoil tonight but He is still to you Jehovah-shalom, “the Lord your peace” and He can give you peace even in the midst of the conflict. Jehovah-shalom. One of the beautiful compound names of Jehovah.

And so it came to pass the same night, that the LORD said unto him, Now take your father’s young bullock, even the second bullock of seven years old, and throw down the altar of Baal that your father has, and cut down the grove that is by it: And build an altar unto Jehovah thy God upon the top of the rock, in the ordered place, and take the second bullock, and offer it as a burnt sacrifice with the wood of the grove which thou shalt cut down ( Jdg 6:25-26 ).

Now, Gideon’s dad was an idolater. Gideon’s dad had his own place of worship, a grove with the altar of Baal or an idol of Baal there where they worshipped in the grove. And so God says “Now take a second bullock, make another altar, cut down the grove that your father has his place of worship. Throw down the altar of Baal, build an altar unto God and offer the second bullock using the wood of this grove as the fire and all.”

And so Gideon took ten men his servants, and he did as the LORD said unto him: and so it was, because he feared his father’s household, and the men of the city, that he could not do it at day time, so he did it by night. And when the men of the city rose up early in the morning, behold, the altar of Baal was cast down, and the grove was cut down that was by it, and the second bullock was offered upon the altar that was built. And they said to one another, Who did it? And they inquired and asked, and they said, Gideon the son of Joash did it. And so the men of the city said to Joash, Bring out your son, that he may die: because he has cast down the altar of Baal, and because he has cut down the grove that was by it. And Joash said unto all that stood against him, Will you plead for Baal? will you save him? he that will plead for him, let him be put to death while it is yet morning: if he is a god, [let him plead] plead for himself, because one has cast down his altar ( Jdg 6:28-31 ).

Now, here the men of Israel are actually gonna do Gideon in because he threw down a pagan god. Joash, when they said you know, “Send your son out. We’re gonna kill him. He knocked down the altar of Baal.” And he said, “Are you pleading for Baal? For a pagan deity? Truly the men who are pleading for him ought to be the one that are put to death. If he’s a god let him defend himself. You don’t have to defend god.” Now, how many times we find ourselves in the awkward position of trying to defend God against the attacks of His enemies, trying to prove the existence of God, trying to defend God? God is able to defend Himself, perfectly, complete. I don’t have to defend God. God is able, quite well.

So, they called Gideon from there on Jerubbaal, which means “let Baal plead for himself.”

Then all the Midianites and the Amalekites and the children of the east were gathered together, and they went over, and they pitched in the valley of Jezreel. And the Spirit of the LORD came upon Gideon, and he blew a trumpet; and Abiezer was gathered after him. And he sent messengers throughout all of Manasseh; who also gathered after him: and to Asher, and to Zebulun, and to Naphtali; and they came to meet him ( Jdg 6:33-35 ).

These are all of them tribes in the northern part of the land. South of Manasseh was Ephraim, Benjamin, Judah and Simeon; they were not brought into this battle, nor where the tribes on the other side. But these tribes that were around the area of Megiddo, Jezreel is the same valley of Megiddo is also known as Jezreel. This is where the Midianites had encamped, some a hundred and thirty-two thousand of them.

And Gideon said unto God, If you will save Israel by my hand, as you have said ( Jdg 6:36 ).

Now again, Gideon is still questioning his call of God, wants to make sure. So tell you what, I’m gonna put a fleece wool out on the ground tonight and in the morning let the ground be dry and the fleece wet. Then I’ll know. In the morning when Gideon woke up he wrung a cup of water out of the fleece and the ground was dry.

And he thought, “Well, maybe that was just, who knows maybe fleece gathers moisture at night when the ground doesn’t. “Lord, let’s reverse the process just to make sure. Tonight, I’m gonna put the same fleece out there on the ground. Let the ground be all wet with dew, let the fleece be dry.” So in the morning he came out again and so the ground was all wet with dew, the fleece was dry and so he figured that it was the Lord.

Now, because of this there are many people who seek to discern the voice of God by offering some kind of a fleece before the Lord. And so you’ve heard of a person offering a fleece before God. “Lord, if they call by ten o’clock tomorrow morning then I’ll know” you know, and you set up some kind of a fleece before God, some kind of a condition for God to meet so that you’ll know that it’s really God speaking to your heart.

I really don’t know about fleeces today. I don’t know how valid they are for us as the children of the Lord to seek to ascertain the will of God by a fleece. In the period of the Old Testament there were many methods by which they sought to ascertain the will of God. One of them was by casting of lots.

And even carried over into the New Testament when Judas Iscariot died, Peter said to the disciples, “We’ve gotta get someone else to take his place and so let’s cast lots to see which one God has chosen. Whether it be Barnabas or Matthias.” And so the disciples cast lots to ascertain the will of God. But all of this was prior to the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the church. After the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the church we do not read of anywhere where they cast lots or where they used fleeces to ascertain the will of God. But it seemed that once the Holy Spirit had begun to direct the activities of the church, there was a greater certainty in the ascertaining of the will of God just by the direct leading of the Holy Spirit.

So Paul said, “And it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and us. We were determined to go to Asia but the Holy Spirit forbade us. The Holy Spirit said separate unto me Paul and Barnabas for the work that I have called them to do.”

And the Holy Spirit was directing in such a positive way there seemed to be no need of setting up a condition for God to fulfill for them to ascertain or there was no need of casting lots or trying to discern the will of God in some type of an ambiguous way.

Paul, after fourteen days on that ship driven in the storm on the Mediterranean, stood up and said, “Men and brethren, be of good cheer. Last night an angel of the Lord stood by me and told me that though the ship was gonna be wrecked there would be no loss of life.” And the angel of the Lord directed Paul. It wasn’t a fleece kind of a thing, it was a lot.

So I don’t about fleeces today. I know that some people set out, you know, conditions for God to fill and that I suppose is all right. But I just don’t know about them. I personally don’t try to fleece God. I’m just not certain about that practice. Though it was done in the Old Testament, I’m not really certain about it today. But each person, I guess, to his own. Whatever method that you have devised to really discern. The way I feel, if it works great. You know, whatever you’ve got as long as it works, that’s tremendous. And people, we all relate to God in our own individual styles. God doesn’t really, you know, follow patterns. You can’t really set God into a pattern. And I sort of like it that you can’t. I like the diversities with which God deals with people’s lives because we’re so diverse from each other.

And so Gideon used his fleece to ascertain the will of God. I don’t know if you would set out a piece of wool tonight. I would think in the morning that the wool and the ground would all be wet. Then whatta you do? You pray. “

Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary

After the passing of these forty years, sin again brought punishment. The people passed under the oppression of Midian. It was oppression of the severest kind and lasted for seven years. A terrible picture is drawn of the people of God hiding in dens and caves and strongholds.

In answer to their cry deliverance began. It came through Gideon. He is revealed as a man continuing his work with the bitterness of the whole situation burning like a fire in his bones. He was conscious of the true relation of the people to Jehovah, but equally conscious of the fact that the conditions obtaining were the result of disobedience to the divine government. The words of the angel to him are very significant, “Go in this thy might.” This command can be interpreted only in the light of the words immediately following, “Have not I sent thee?”

Thus the deliverer is seen as a man overwhelmingly conscious of the disastrous condition of affairs and yet as definitely conscious of the divine power. It is ever the man who has a double vision of divine intention and human failure who is the man of might and of valor. Moreover, in the consciousness of his own lowliness and insufficiency we discover another element of the greatness of Gideon. He knew that success did not depend on what he was but on what God was. Therefore, submissively to the divine call he erected his altar and seeing through to the prospect of war he called the altar, Jehovah is peace.” That is the triumph of faith.

His activity resultant on these convictions is recorded. He began at home. The altar of Baal in connection with his father’s house was broken down and the worship of God restored. The second movement was to send out the call. It is in connection with this that we have that remarkable statement that “the Spirit of Jehovah came upon Gideon.” Having gone so far, it would seem as though for the moment he became overwhelmed with a sense of fear. Such fear, however, never issues in evil when it drives men to God as it drove Gideon. He asked for signs and they were granted to him.

Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible

at the Mercy of Midian

Jdg 5:24-31; Jdg 6:1-6

What a contrast our reading suggests between those that love the Lord and go from strength to strength in the undimming luster and influence of their life, and the evil that once more brought the tyrants yoke upon this neck of Israel! Yet these alternations have too often befallen us. At one moment Sisera and his hosts are chased before us as sheep before the dog; then a reaction sets in and the hand of Midian prevails against us. Why are we not always glad, strong, and victorious? Is it not because we look to our moods, we relax our close walk with God, and we set up the images of Baal in our hearts? We are then reduced to the plight described here and in Hag 1:6. Why are there not more conversions in the Church? Why is there so little difference between the Church and the world? Why is so much of our Sunday-school teaching ineffective? Ah, the Midianite is in our midst and we acquiesce! The urgent, primal need of the present day is for the Church to realize her true condition, and cry mightily unto God for help. Note Jdg 6:6 and Joe 1:14, etc.

Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary

Judges 6-8

In the first words of Gideon we find the key to his character. (1) He was a man who felt deeply the degradation of his people. He could not enjoy his own harvest while the Midianites were robbing all around; he had the patriot’s wide sympathy. (2) He was a man also of the strongest common sense, accustomed to look through words to things, and to look the facts of life fair in the face. (3) He was a man of abundant personal valour, but yet unwilling to move a step until he was sure that God was with him.

I. We cannot fully understand Gideon’s attitude towards the work of God, without taking into account the fact that the first thing he was commanded to do was to hew down the altar of Baal which had been erected in his father’s grounds. God could not come among them while they were all turned away from Him to Baal. No sooner had Gideon hewed down the altar of Baal, than he received his commission against Midian. Gideon was right in refusing to believe God was present if things went on just as if He were not present, but he was wrong in not seeing what it was that prevented God from being present.

II. Gideon’s attitude towards God’s work, though not satisfactory, was due not so much to a flaw in his spirit, as to a mental blindness to duty. This could be, and was, easily amended. But the narrator goes on to show that there are other attitudes which men assume, and which unfit them for doing anything for God in the world. Much untrustworthy material existed in his army. The cowards had first to be rejected.

III. Out of the 10,000 men who were left, only 300 had that eagerness for the work that kept them from paying undue regard to other things. Men who are steeped in their own worldly objects are not the men whom God will use for His work.

IV. A fourth attitude is illustrated by the conduct of Ephraim. The Ephraimites may have been either high spirited and vexed that they had not been invited to help in overthrowing the Midianites, or they may have only wished that they had a share in the glory, and tried to make it appear that they would gladly have joined Gideon. There are both these classes still, persons who really feel hurt if they are not asked to help in every good work, and persons who when a good work is in its infancy make no movement to join it, but as soon as it becomes popular come forward and loudly complain that they were never asked to join.

V. A fifth and last attitude which men frequently assume towards God’s work is represented by the men of Succoth and Penuel. These men were blind to the glory of the common cause-selfish, poor spirited creatures, that shut themselves up in their fenced cities, and were satisfied to let God’s soldiers starve, and God’s work come to an end for want of support, so long only as they had bread enough to satisfy their own hunger. Such persons must be taught not by expostulation, but by the sword and with the briers of the wilderness.

M. Dods, Israel’s Iron Age, p. 31.

References: 6-8.-Parker, vol. vi., pp. 2, 49; J. Baldwin Brown, The Sunday Afternoon, p. 194. Jdg 6:11.-J. Sherman, Thursday Penny Pulpit, vol. v., p. 313. Jdg 6:11-13.-J. M. Neale, Sermons for the Church Year, vol. ii., p. 171. Jdg 6:11-24.-Homiletic Quarterly, vol. iv., p. 375. Jdg 6:14.-Homiletic Magazine, vol. vii., p. 27; Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. x., p. 275; J. M. Neale, Sermons for the Church Year, vol. i., p. 130. Jdg 6:19.-J. W. Atkinson, Penny Pulpit, No. 1052. Jdg 6:22-24.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxviii., No. 1679. Jdg 6:25-32.-Homiletic Quarterly, vol. iv., p. 376. Jdg 6:33-40.-Ibid., vol. iv., p. 377.

Jdg 6:36-40

I. Gideon asked the Lord for a sign, thus showing that there was in him that caution and waiting, for the want of which many a man has mistaken his mission, and instead of doing the work of the Lord, has wrecked both himself and his own work. “If Thou wilt save Israel by my hand.” A full consciousness that Israel needs saving, but an indisposition to feel that such an honour could be bestowed on him; such is a good index to the character of a man, a disposition to test ourselves. We do well to apply tests to ourselves and to our position; to our religious life, and to our relation to God by our religious life.

II. We can justify the Gideon test. Upon the heart and the home the dew will fall and remain. If we ask, Am I a child of God? we shall know by the dew on our hearts.

III. The world will insist on applying its test to us; the world will watch for the dew on our fleece. Gratitude in the heart, holiness in the life are dew.

E. Paxton Hood, Sermons, p. 430.

References: Jdg 6:36-40.-J. Baldwin Brown, Christian World Pulpit, vol. vi., p. 81; Expositor, 1st series, vol. iii., p. 295. Jdg 6:38-40. -C. J. Vaughan, Good Words, 1872, p. 745. Jdg 7:1.-Homiletic Quarterly, vol. iv., p. 387. Jdg 7:1-8.-Ibid., vol. iv., p. 379.

Fuente: The Sermon Bible

4. Fourth Declension: Under Midian and Gideon, Tola and Jair

CHAPTER 6

1. Israels suffering from Midian (Jdg 6:1-6)

2. Their repentance and the divine answer (Jdg 6:7-10)

3. Gideon, the deliverer, chosen (Jdg 6:11-24)

4. The restored worship (Jdg 6:25-32)

5. The gathering for the conflict (Jdg 6:33-35)

6. The sign of the fleece (Jdg 6:36-40)

After Deborah and Barak the land had fifty years rest, and when again they did evil they were delivered into the hand of Midian for seven years. It was a most cruel oppression which they suffered and on account of their repeated unfaithfulness. They sank now lower than during the previous declensions and captivities. They were stripped of everything and greatly impoverished. The Amalekites came also and made common cause with Midian against Israel.

The word Midian means strife. Midian is typical of the world in its opposition to and separation from God. Midian and Moab are often seen together. Both typify the world as the enemy of God. The Midianites with Moab tried to get Balaam to curse Israel (Num 22:6). Moab and Midian were the means of bringing Gods judgment upon Israel through the woman Balaam brought into the midst of Gods people. Then Israel was joined to Baal-Peor, and the Lord told Moses: Vex the Midianites and smite them (Num 25:17). Amalek represents the flesh with its lusts. The world and the flesh ever combine to enslave Gods people and rob them of their blessings; greatly impoverish them as Midian did to Israel. How the Church has been spoiled by Midian and is today in the sad condition typified by Midians power over Israel, we cannot follow at great length. The world is in the Church–separation is given up and the methods of the world have become the methods of the Church. In the Church message to Pergamos, Balaam and the stumbling-block he cast before the children of Israel, are mentioned. It represents that period of the Church when the Church gave up her separation and settled down in the world. (The seven Church messages in Rev. 2 and 3 are prophetic of the history of the Church on earth. Pergamos is that period which began with Constantine.)

And the same application of Midian must be made of the individual believer. How Gods Word warns against the world and the corruption which is through lust. Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him (1Jn 2:15). Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God (Jam 4:4).

When they cried to the Lord a prophet was sent to them. The deliverer they looked for is withheld for a time to deepen their need and burden their souls with a greater sense of the evil they had done. The unnamed prophet brings therefore a twofold message: The message of Gods faithfulness and the message of their disobedience.

Next we see an angel of the Lord under an oak in Ophrah. Gideon, the son of Joash, threshed wheat by the winepress to hide it from the Midianites. The angel greeted him. The LORD is with thee, thou mighty man of valour. And Gideon addressed him telling out the burden of his soul. If the LORD be with us why then is all this befallen us? … But now the LORD hath forsaken us. It was the language of despair Then the LORD looked upon him and said, Go in this thy might, and thou shalt save Israel from the land of the Midianites; have not I sent thee? And still Gideon is reluctant to believe the message and the Lord tells him Surely I will be with thee, and thou shalt smite the Midianites as one man. The Lord had called him, and when He calls He also fits for the service and is with the servant. Oh! the blessed word I will be with thee. And the One who spoke to Gideon is the same, who has left to us the precious word, Lo, I am with you always even to the end of the world. Then Gideon brought his offering upon the rock, and the Angel of the Lord with his staff brought the fire which consumed it all, while He departed from Gideons sight. Then it dawned upon Gideon that he had been face to face with Jehovah, and he feared death. A blessed message came to him then. Peace be unto thee; fear not; thou shalt not die.

Then he built an altar and called it Jehovah-shalom–the LORD is peace. All is full of meaning. The offering he brought typifies Christ; so does the rock upon which it was brought. The fire consumed it all, carried it upward to God. And upon that the assurance of peace is given. Even so He is our peace. Blessed be God for such a precious, beautiful name–Jehovah-shalom–the Lord is peace. So we need not to fear, for He has made peace through the blood of His cross, and He is our peace. And therefore like Gideon we need an altar to worship. True peace with God, and the enjoyment of Himself as our peace, leads to worship, yea, it demands worship. Such the Father seeketh. As holy priests we come, made nigh by His precious blood, and bring our spiritual sacrifices. If Christ were constantly enjoyed, the facts of our redemption of blood never forgotten, Midian, this poor world, could never impoverish us. And deliverance out of worldliness and a new separation unto Him must needs have for its starting point a heart-return to Himself, who is our peace.

Then Gideon does what his name (cutter down) means. Baals altar must fall down. He began his great work at home. It was a bold deed by which he put himself completely on the Lords side and stirred up the wrath of the enemy. And then the enemies gather for the battle. The Spirit of the Lord then came upon Gideon. He was endued with the Spirit for the approaching deliverance. The enemies were coming in like a flood, but the Spirit of God lifted up a standard against them.

Finally Gideon asked his signs. He still hesitated. And the wonderful patience and condescension of Jehovah in meeting poor, wavering Gideon! The fleece in the midst of the ground is the type of Israel in the midst of the nations. The dew is the symbol of divine grace and mercy. It is the Lord who forsakes and who refreshes Israel. Israel today is like the fleece without the dew, while the ground, the Gentiles, possess of the grace of God. But ere long the dew will fall upon Israel again and the time of their blessing and fulness will come.

Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)

did evil: Jdg 2:13, Jdg 2:14, Jdg 2:19, Jdg 2:20, Lev 26:14-46, Deu 28:15-68, Neh 9:26-29, Psa 106:34-42

delivered: When God judges, he will overcome; and sinners shall be made either to bend or break before him. See the ensuing history.

Midian: Gen 25:2, Num 25:17, Num 25:18, Hab 3:7

Reciprocal: Gen 37:28 – Midianites Num 31:7 – the males Deu 28:29 – thou shalt be Deu 28:31 – ox Jos 23:15 – so shall Jdg 2:11 – did evil Jdg 4:1 – did evil Jdg 10:6 – did evil Jdg 13:1 – did 1Sa 8:8 – General 1Ki 8:33 – because they have 1Ch 1:32 – Midian Ezr 5:12 – he gave Neh 9:28 – did evil again Psa 106:41 – he gave Isa 2:10 – Enter Isa 9:4 – as in the day Isa 65:21 – General Heb 11:32 – Gedeon

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Subdivision 4. (Jdg 6:1-40; Jdg 7:1-25; Jdg 8:1-35; Jdg 9:1-57; Jdg 10:1-5.)

The Midianite Test: the Church in relation to the world.

The fourth subdivision gives us the Midianite oppression and the deliverance, with the failure of the deliverer himself, and its disastrous consequences, ending, however, in true and peaceful revival under Tola and Jair. The spiritual meaning, as we shall see, brings all this into a true unity. Israel sinks lower than ever before. Gideon also fails in the very hour of victory; and the reign of his son is a usurpation of Jehovah’s rights, begun in fratricide and closed in Divine judgment. Even in this way, the numerical structure vindicates itself; but there is much more than this.

Midian, a son of Abraham by Keturah, is, as we have seen, in Gen 25:1-34, in common with his other children, the witness and pledge of how the nations of the earth will find blessing at last in him. It is a picture of blessing, where Ishmael, as another son, comes in also as representing Israel themselves in the same millennial day. The history, however, both of Ishmael and Midian (as man’s history everywhere) speaks something very different from God’s grace. These two also are connected -in some sense, identified -in Scripture (Gen 37:28; Jdg 8:24), as we shall presently see. Midian in this way stands for the world, as its history has characterized it, and the name corresponds to this, meaning “strife.” “The corruption that is in the world” is “through lust” (2Pe 1:4); and “whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts which war in your members?” (Jam 4:1.) And especially do the lusts in the members war against Christ, and thus against the Church of Christ. These Midianites -“Midian” is supposed by some to have real connection with the modern word “Bedouin” -were Arab raiders, wandering pillagers, locust-like devouring what they had no will to produce, as the story here shows; and this is what the world is when admitted into the professing church: it has no community of interest in it, but the reverse; the effect is mere desolation. The Israelites were forced by the Midianites into dens and caves and fastnesses; and so, literally, have the true followers of the Lord in the times of the world-church, when rule was ravage merely, and when the “produce of the land” -the heavenly fruits of life, and the seed of the word from which they spring -were the special objects of the spoilers’ pursuit.

Notice, too, the connection with the Philistines, whose name we have seen is “wanderers,” and who are the type so near to this, of earthly men intruding into heavenly things. “Until thou come to Gaza” is no mere geographical limit. “Gaza formerly, as in later times, was the great bazaar of stolen wares, brought together there by the Bedouins from their expeditions.” (Cassel, in Lange’s Commentary.) Philistines would naturally league with Israel’s enemies, and typically are but another phase or aspect of the world-church. Other connections of the history here we shall find later in the story of Philistine-named Abimelech.

With the Midianites Amalekites also throng into the land. Familiar as we are with what Amalek stands for (see Exo 17:1-16, n), we have no difficulty in seeing that here we are plainly reminded how the world and the lusts of the flesh are found together. The children of the East -a general term for nameless marauders -represent, probably, the similarly nameless host of evils that follow in the train of those already named. No wonder Israel was “brought very low”; but they are brought thus to cry to God, and He comes in for them. A prophet is sent to put them in remembrance of what is indeed so plain and yet so easily forgotten -the secret of their present condition to be in their false gods. With us all, such desolation from the Lord’s hand means but this very thing, though it be in various ways disguised.

(b) Thus brought to repentance, the deliverer is now found for them. This deliverer is Gideon, the son of Joash, a Manassite; and it is simple enough, though none the less needful to be insisted on, that in Manasseh, the spiritual pressing on after the heavenly goal, is to be found the rescue from the spirit of the world. Gideon is the son of Joash the Abiezrite; and Joash may most simply mean “the despairing one,” though taken generally, from the alternation of the two names in the case of two kings of the after-history, to be simply a contraction for Jehoash, a name of very different meaning. But even in their case, is it so sure that one name is but the contraction for the other? True reverence for the Word would assure us that even there there must be a reason for the difference, and therefore a corresponding difference of meaning. The change, one familiar with the style of Scripture would say, is a paronomasia, or slight change in the name, given for the very purpose of conveying a different thought. Even here, though the double form does not occur, Joash, the “despairing” -meaning self-despair -might well become a Jehoash, whom “Jehovah supports.” And this, indeed, seems conveyed here, only after another manner: for Joash is “the Abiezrite;” and Abiezer means, as commonly given, “father of help,” or, more literally, “my father is help.” Certain it is that the true Abiezrite, or he who is able to trust thus confidently in God as his support, will be one weaned from self-confidence -from the thought of self-help.

Gideon springs thus from Joash; and his name is almost identical with that of a Benjamite already interpreted (Num 1:11), Gideoni, “the cutter down.” The application made of it there is to the judgment of the flesh, which the more literal meaning, “my cutter down,” may, indeed, more precisely indicate. This links Gideon and Joash in thought very closely together; but Gideon is more general: it is “the cutter down;” and if this imply in the first place the judgment of man as fallen, in the light of God, we can clearly understand that this is power over the world necessarily, and that Gideon is thus the proper name of the deliverer from the hand of Midian.

To Gideon the call is given in another mariner from that to any former judge. To him the angel of Jehovah appears -one who everywhere accepts the title, with all that belongs to it, of Jehovah Himself. Gideon the Manassite is thus shown the goal toward which the Christian Manassite runs. It is in the Lord’s presence alone that things take their true shape, and find their proper judgment. The angel appears sitting under the terebinth that was in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite. Elah, whether terebinth or oak, which is disputed, means, literally, a strong tree; Ophrah is generally taken as meaning “vigorous, nimble,” and so a “fawn”; but from another root may mean “crumbling,” akin to aphar, “dust.” The angel’s position may be thus another intimation of how, out of human weakness, strength is developed and maintained.

This is what is clearly before us, all through Gideon’s history. He is found beating out wheat in a wine-press, to keep it out of the hands of the Midianites, and the angel salutes him with the words, “Jehovah is with thee, thou mighty man of valor.” And when he objects their present condition as proof that Jehovah had abandoned them, the angel further bids him, “Go in this thy strength, and thou shalt deliver Israel out of the clutch of Midian.” What is this “strength”? It is the apprehension of the Lord’s presence as this, -the consciousness that without Him there is none. This realized, the spiritual vision clears: God is seen as the soul’s one necessity, and clung to, whatever else must be given up; there comes real strength to stand in the face of a hostile world, or against the opposition of the people of God themselves; and to stand with God means victory. Then the glorious face of God is turned upon us, as is said here with regard to Gideon; and every one so energized finds his call in this to aid in the deliverance of His people from the enemy: “Go, and thou shalt deliver; have not I sent thee?”

But it is easier to learn to answer to our name Jacob than it is to appropriate in simple faith that of Israel which God has given us; and so Gideon, mighty man of valor as he is yet to prove, shrinks from the place to which the voice of the Lord has called him, and opposes the very littleness which makes him a fit instrument in God’s hand, as an argument against this! “Ah, Lord,” he says, “wherewith shall I save Israel?” Why, with an ox-goad, as Shamgar once; or with a smooth stone from the brook, as David afterward. But it is not an inquiry merely as to the Lord’s will, although now he owns it to be the Lord that is thus speaking with him. Alas, little “I” can be great enough as an obstacle to faith, and assert itself how pertinaciously in the very presence of the grace of God! And so he goes on to talk about his family, and his own place in his father’s house. And how many are thus hindered from taking the place that God would give them by that littleness of theirs, which, after all, is of so much account! When shall we really learn that God’s great men are all little ones, only made great by His use of them? -and leave off this shameful idolatry of means which is so continually putting the creature into the place of God, to its own dishonor and the wreck of all that we can wreck?

The Lord keeps to His grace, and Gideon must rise up to this: “Nay, but I will be with thee,” He says; and there is all that need be said.

But Gideon’s doubts are not settled: is it, after all, Jehovah that talks with him? Yes; is there not, after all, such a thing as fanaticism? Can we not make mistakes? And how, then, shall we be sure, at any time, we are not making one? Dull enough, surely, we are, when that voice which there is not another like, can be heard with doubt in the soul that hears it! May we not learn by the connection, too, that it is just the making so much of man that makes God so little, and disables us from distinguishing the voice of God? His thoughts are not as our thoughts; yet we may refuse His thoughts because they are so unlike our own. And often, indeed, we do this.

Gideon would prove, then, his visitor with an offering, and significantly brings him Abraham’s offering of an ephah -that is, three measures -of flour; but Abraham’s gift is of fine flour; and instead of Abraham’s calf he brings a kid. Though less full a type than that in Genesis, Gideon’s offering still speaks of Christ. And on the angel’s part here there is more reserve than there, but still acceptance. At his direction it is placed upon the rock; and the angel touching it with his staff, it goes up in fire as an accepted offering. Then the angel himself departs: there is not power for sustained communion, as in Abraham’s case; yet Christ, as Representative of His people, accepted in sacrifice upon the cross, is declared the ground upon which God can be with them in delivering them. And this is the true assurance of competence for the Gideons of any generation.

He is assured now that he has seen the angel of Jehovah face to face, yet fears on that account, till quieted by His word, that he will not die. There is, indeed, for us ever in the apprehension of the Lord’s presence the apprehension also of the sentence passed upon the flesh; and here is the ability for all right walk, and energy for the warfare to which we are called. “Now mine eye seeth Thee, therefore I abhor myself.” And Christ crucified is the affirming of this sentence and for deliverance from ourselves, that “crucified with Christ” we may yet live, -no longer we, but Christ living in us.

(c) Gideon, therefore, builds an altar, and calls it Jehovah-shalom, -“Jehovah is peace.” It is not merely that there is peace with God, nor would this be the expression for it, for Jehovah is already the covenant name. No; but Jehovah is peace: it is found in Him; He has produced and bestowed it: from all fear whatever the soul takes shelter in Himself. And this being so, the altar itself is now a challenge of the idols; Jehovah’s altar cannot abide in company with Baal’s, nor Israel’s deliverance be accomplished with a divided faith. Thus it was on the same night, the night of the day in which Jehovah had appeared, that Jehovah bade him throw down Baal’s altar, and cut down the asherah, -a pillar of wood, the symbol of the Ashtaroth worship with which that of Baal was conjoined, -and, building an altar to Himself on the top of the stronghold (to which they were accustomed to retire from the face of the Midianites), to offer upon it his father’s second bullock with the wood of the asherah he had cut down. Not to be interrupted by the unbelief of those around, he did it by night, and the next morning the challenge to Baal was apparent. Thus “to faith” Gideon had to “add virtue,” -the boldness needed by every good soldier of Christ; and this boldness is God’s means to awaken and embolden others, so that Joash, his father, steps into the ranks. To the cry for his son to be put to death, he answers that the pleader for Baal deserves that: it is for Baal himself to avenge the insult, -a sarcasm which smites down at once the opposition, and leaves to Gideon the title of idol-challenger, “Let Baal contend!” In the strife that is beginning, the very existence of the man of faith is a sign of victory already achieved, a pledge of one to come.

(2) The enemy now appears, and we are called to see, in the present section, the steps toward deliverance. There has to be preparation on Israel’s part, as is evident; and the separation of those whom God can use in the accomplishment of this. Gracious He is, but none the less careful as to the associations of those who are His instruments, to whom He incrusts the honor of His name.

(a) The Midianites and their confederates spread themselves in the valley of Jezreel. We have already seen who these are, and for what they stand in the divine vocabulary. The Spirit of Jehovah now endues Gideon; for no mere wisdom or might of man is sufficient in this contest, and only in dependence are we safe. He blows the trumpet, and first Abiezer, and then all Manasseh, are gathered after him. The fitness of Manasseh for this place is apparent in Gideon, himself a Manassite. The world can only be overcome by him whose goal is beyond it; and this we have abundantly seen is what Manasseh represents. Asher, the “happy,” Zebulon, the “dweller in relationship,” and Naphtali, the “struggler” who overcomes, follow after Manasseh, and the Israelites’ army of victory is gathered.

(b) But Gideon is not yet fully prepared, and urges upon the Lord his desire for a sign. He puts a fleece of wool upon the threshing-floor, and finds it in the morning wet with dew when all the ground is dry around. And again, at his further request, these conditions are reversed, and while all the ground is wet with dew, the fleece is dry. The fleece of the shorn sheep is the figure of forlorn Israel, which is to be filled with the dew of God’s blessing amid the drought upon the heathen around. But then this also may be of God, the while His mercies are refreshing the nations around, Israel for her sins may be left dry. This is, in either case, no mere natural occurrence: it is in His favor that there is life; He hideth His face, and we are troubled. To recognize His hand in all conditions, however opposite, -to own everywhere His power and sway: this is the secret of wisdom, and of strength no less. For the acts of His throne are not arbitrary. He is no mere personal fate, but righteous and holy in all His dealings, and desiring to be understood by His people, however men in their wanderings from Him may misconceive the One upon whom they have turned their back.

(c) With his faith refreshed, Jerubbaal, the challenger of the idols, who is thus Gideon, the “cutter-down,” rises up early, with all the people with him, and encamps opposite the enemy by the spring of trembling (Harod). And there, right in the presence of the vast host of Midian he is made by God to dismiss more than two thirds of his small army (at its best not a fourth part of the number of their adversaries), and that in obedience to a law of Deuteronomy. And what a humiliation and distress that 22,000 Israelites, come out expressly to battle, should on the plea of fear turn their backs upon their leader and his diminished force! But the design was not merely to get rid of the faint-hearted: for God’s hand to be manifest as He meant it to be, ten thousand men were still too many. At the word of the Lord they are brought down to the water, and tested there by their manner of drinking. Three hundred, instead of bowing down on their knees for a leisurely draught, merely, as in haste, lap the water from their hand. They are true Manassites, pressing on to what is before them; and “by the three hundred men that lapped will I save you,” is the Lord’s word to Gideon; “and let all the people go, every man to his place.” They do not seem to be sent home, however, but to their tents, as not needed for the battle that was before them.

(d) The Lord recognizes, however, the strain of all this upon Gideon’s faith, and Himself tenderly proposes now a means of encouragement. This the enemy themselves were to furnish. Going down with Phurah, his servant, to the outskirts of the camp, he arrives just in time to hear one of the men interpret to his comrade a dream. The dreamer had seen a round cake of common barley-bread roll against the tent and overthrow it; and his comrade interprets it of “the sword of Gideon, the son of Joash, a man of Israel, into whose hand God has given Midian and all the camp.” “Bread” and a “sword” seem most incongruous figures; and yet they are both figures of the word of God; and barley bread -bread of the poorest kind -may in this case either speak of it according to the estimation of its despisers, or more probably of even its simplest and lowest truths. For what more than these are needed as against Midian and Amalek; that is, the world and the lusts of the flesh, as here making inroad into the Church of God?

(3) (a) And now we come to realized deliverance, in which the hand of the Lord is most manifestly seen. The means of victory are so clearly interpreted for us by the apostle (2Co 4:4-12) that it is hardly possible to go astray, while it is true, and nowise strange, that the type is transcended by the antitype. The light, the earthen vessel, and the shining forth of the light, are sufficient points of resemblance; and while in the New Testament these are not looked at in connection with the discomfiture of the Church’s enemies, but in the building up of the Church itself, these things are not so far apart as to prevent very easy and, indeed, instructive comparison and connection with one another. To build up the Church aright is impossible without freeing it from the domination of the world: how could Israel be built up in the midst of Midianite devastation? Nor will the Church, if not built up, be long free from a foreign yoke. The demonic rulers of this world rule it by darkness (Eph 6:12). The inheritance of the saints is in light (Col 1:12), and their armor also is “the armor of light” (Rom 13:12). But that armor is not a mere wholly outside thing: it is light that is in the face of Christ Jesus, -objective there, indeed, but which is received into the believer’s heart, and received not simply for personal joy and blessing, but “for shining forth” (2Co 4:6, Gk). “The glory of God that is in the face of Jesus Christ,” has nothing to express it in the type here: we could scarcely expect it; but there is no other light for the Christian: there would not be even torchlight without this.

That the light is in an “earthen vessel” is abundantly plain. This treasure is enshrined in mere humanity with its manifest infirmity, liable to suffering and to death. But this, too, has its design, says the apostle: it is “that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of man.” This is in the very line of truth that the story of the Lord’s man of might enforces here. And yet the vessel, like the pitchers of the three hundred, tends indeed to shroud and bury the light so as to prevent its shining. What is needed, then, that the purpose of God may be fulfilled in this way? How plainly we see the spiritual requirement ruling here, for the vessel to be broken that the light may shine! And so the apostle dwells upon the afflictions of the Christian, always bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our body; for we who live are alway delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake, that the life also of Jesus may be made manifest in our mortal flesh.” Thus it is light shining forth in life that is spoken of here; and this life not that of nature merely, but Christ our life, which, the more the outward man is consumed, becomes the more lustrous, the more convincingly of God.

When the world has invaded the Church, and Israel is scattered in dens and caves, this light may be little seen. Its display will always be the confusion of Midian and its overthrow, accomplished as it must and will be by the voice of the trumpet, once so effective in the destruction of Jericho. The light and the trumpet -the testimony of the Word and the testimony of the life this is the double testimony which is true, and so effective, and which is the destruction of the world-church. Face to face with it, the mere godless profession, self-condemned, dies by its own hand.

(b) Hardly is victory achieved, and the fruits of it remain yet largely to be gathered, when opposition shows itself on the part of Israel themselves. Ephraim is now called to take part in the contest, and they respond and gain a decisive battle, taking two princes of Midian -Oreb and Zeeb, the “Raven” and the “Wolf,” -and bringing their heads to Gideon, on the other side of Jordan. There is, indeed, a place for Ephraim in such a contest as this, though it is not the first place. The spiritual meaning again illumines the history; and the names of the princes slain would seem to show them to represent only the ruder and lower of Israel’s -or the Church’s -enemies; indeed, according to the plain word, “princes,” and not “kings.”

But Ephraim is notorious also for pride, and it is that very first place that they fain would have. They contend vehemently with their deliverer, because they were not called when he went to fight Midian, and are only appeased by Gideon’s unpretending humility, who refers all to God, if in his eyes, in fact, Ephraim’s gleanings seem more than Abiezer’s vintage.

Thence he goes on to meet scornful refusal of even necessary food for his famishing company from the Israelite towns of Succoth and Penuel. But he does not pause for the retribution with which he threatens them: “faint though pursuing,” they press on.

(c) Of the completion of the deliverance from Midian little can be yet said. Much depends here upon the names, the meaning of some of which is hard to determine. Zebah means “sacrifice”; Zalmunna apparently “shadow [shelter?] withheld.” Karkor, from a root “to dig,” expresses deep, soft, level ground” (Fausset) -generally is given as “deep ground;” Jogbehah, “elevation,” or, “it is exalted;” Nobah, “barking.” The scoffers of Succoth and Penuel meet their threatened judgment after Midian.

(4) Gideon’s career, so bright and prosperous hitherto, ends yet, alas, in sudden and disastrous failure. What worm has been at the root of all this beauteous development, that collapse should be so immediate upon success? There must surely be in it deep lessons of utter self-distrust, that we are called to learn, lessons that so to learn would save us from how much, perhaps, of painful experience, much like that of the elders of Succoth, taught as with the thorns and briars of the wilderness, the fruit of the curse which has come through sin.

One test, and that a severe one, Gideon successfully resists. The people bid him rule over them, and would establish royalty in his family among them; but he declines so promptly as effectually to prevent any repetition of the offer: “I will not rule over you,” he says, “neither shall my son rule over you: Jehovah shall rule over you.” There it is plain he speaks out of the depth of strong conviction and loving obedience. And though God Himself had spoken permissively of a king for Israel some time in the future, Gideon had known too much of his own weakness, too much of the people with whom he had to do, and too well the Lord’s abundant care and interest in Israel, to entertain for a moment the thought of anticipating this.

Yet in the same breath, it would seem, in which he rejects the kingship, he stretches forth his hand to take the priesthood: for nothing short of this can be meant by the use to which he puts the gifts which he now solicits from them, being the rings of the spoil. They had, it is added, golden rings, because they were Ishmaelites. The identification of these with the Midianites has been before noticed: they were Ishmaelites as men of strife, according to their name not by descent, of course, but by habit. As warlike nomads it was natural for them to carry much of their wealth upon their persons. The use of all this gold shows clearly that it is a high priestly ephod that Gideon makes, not as intending to dispute the office with the high priest at Shiloh; and yet apparently claiming equal rank with his.

But what could lead a man like Gideon into such a course? That view is surely correct which finds this in a false interpretation of his past experience. He had actually offered sacrifice, as we remember, at Ophrah by the Lord’s command; and there the altar he had raised still stood. It is simple that for this he was providing according to the Mosaic ritual, God having, as he might judge, already ordained him to this office: a plausible, and yet false, inference from a real experience. We need not wonder to hear that this became a snare to Gideon and his house, nor that all Israel went whoring after it. We can find in it what the generations of an after-dispensation have but too faithfully repeated, and thus types written for our admonition.

God had appointed but one high priest for Israel, and the ordinary priesthood was confined to the same line, the family of Aaron. The essence of this priesthood was that they were mediators for the people, and, by sacrifice, a special, peculiar link between the people and God: in this way alone could they draw near to God.

For us as Christians all this is changed. In Christianity people and priests are one, and on this account the special priesthood has passed away. We are no longer at a distance, but brought nigh: the effectual sacrifice has been offered once for all -as on the day of atonement, by the High Priest alone, who has thereupon, as for a moment Israel’s high priest did, gone into the sanctuary, but a heavenly one, there to make intercession for us in the presence of God. The rent veil, the throned High Priest, the universal priesthood of the people of God, are essential characteristics of the period in which, through grace, we live.

But the Church has failed, and not proved able to retain for herself the apprehension of this grace. Mingled with and sunk into the world, the shadows of the past have been allowed to darken the light into which the goodness of God had introduced her. Distance has again come in between the people of God and God, the knowledge of the efficacy of the work of Christ has become obscured, and as a result the Jewish system, in the disguise of Christian names and forms, is found today firmly entrenched in the midst of Christendom. The old priesthood of a distinctive class, modified in various ways, is fully reinstated, and even exaggerated in the Romish and kindred ritualistic systems: an invasion of Christ’s office in the direction of what Gideon’s failure seems to point to typically in no uncertain way.

He had, indeed, been commanded to build an altar to Jehovah, and even to offer sacrifice upon it: and this was really putting him in a priestly place. But his sacrifice does not seem to have the mediatorial character which attached to the Aaronic priesthood, but to be rather eucharistic, or intended to vindicate the Lord’s claim to the worship of Israel in opposition to Baal, whose altar had just been overthrown. Gideon’s sacrifice, therefore, though in form such as that offered by the Aaronic priesthood, seems really different, and to approach in intent more truly to the “sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving” of the Christian man. But the ephod -clearly high-priestly -speaks far otherwise; the high-priest being manifestly the representative of the nation before God; and Israel going whoring after it, intimates how they understood it. Its being made with the spoils of victory -of which it would remain a perpetual trophy -may show how in Christendom, as faith lessened and grew rare, the very piety of individuals tended to put them into a place which, from being foremost, came to be official and representative. The ordinary Christians became the secular, the laity, dropped back into the old distance, needing a continually greater work to bring them nigh, until an official priesthood intruded upon the work of Christ without rebuke, and the process of Judaizing became as complete as may be seen in Romanism.

We need not wonder, then, to find this a snare to Gideon and his house, nor soon an Abimelech proceeding from the loins of Jerubbaal, the deliverer. This we are now called to consider.

2. Abimelech (“my hither [was] king”) in his name, carries us back to the Philistines. It was that of their kings, and speaks, as we saw in Genesis, of that successional claim in the world-church, the falsehood of which he so plainly represents. His succession is from one who refused power when offered him, and he makes it good by treachery and murder of those who stood in his way. His typical connection with his father’s ephod is easy to be seen, and confirms the application of the whole history here.

Israel had once again lapsed into idolatry, and taken Baal-berith to be their god. The words mean “lord of the covenant,” which may be simply equivalent to “covenant-lord,” and may go beyond this. The worship of Baal was at least a sign of covenant with the Canaanites, whose god he was, and the history here gives manifest proof of alliance with the heathen. The “men of Hamor, the father of Shechem,” are known and in estimation among them (Jdg 9:28); and the word for “lords” (baale), unusual in Hebrew, is “often found in the Phoenician dialect.” It is applied, says Fausset, “to the men of Gibeah (Jdg 20:5), and the Canaanite citizens of Jericho (Jos 24:11), and to the men of Keilah (1Sa 23:11-12). The continual recurrence of this word (ver. 2, 6, 7, 18, 20, 23, 24, 25, 26, 39, 46, 47, 51) can hardly be accidental; it probably alludes to the majority of them being Canaanites, and connects with the Phoenician Baal-worship of Canaan” -Baalites, as it were. In this way, also, the name Jerubbaal is so often harped upon. Baal-worship and intermixture with the Canaanites are certainly found at their worst in the story of crime and bloodshed following here.

Idolatry and the reign of Abimelech are thus connected, as in the dispensational fulfillment; and Shechem, at the very spot where the law of Jehovah was proclaimed, is now the center of apostasy.

(1) The sources of his power are plainly that he is half Canaanite, half Israelite, son of Gideon on the one side, though son of the bondwoman on the other. He is, in this respect, another Ishmael; and with the same typical meaning that the apostle (Gal 4:1-31) gives to the former one. How plainly we have in him, then, the Jewish-Christian-Pagan abomination that has arisen in the bosom of Christianity to lord it over the Israel of God. Naturally his way must be prepared by the extermination of Jerubbaal’s true successors, although a remnant escapes into hiding at Beer, the “well,” -a good place for God’s refugees, -in the person of Jotham, who yet is able to make heard his testimony against the usurper.

Jotham (“Jehovah is perfect”) bears in his name the character of a true witness. The Shechemites, with shameless audacity, gather at the stone set up by Joshua, to make the fratricide Abimelech king; and there Jotham appeals to them from Gerizim in the fable of the trees.

The tendency of man’s heart is to make another king than God, to put leaders in His place, and thus to destroy the use and blessing for which the olive, the fig, the vine, the various gifts of God, are given. But just those who are really worthiest will most surely refuse to leave their spheres of happy service, their sweetness, and their fruit, to go to “wave over,” -to flutter idly in the wind over the trees. Thus royalty comes naturally to the thorn-bush, which need give up nothing, but which has thus nothing in its gift but thorns, -such as, indeed, the men of Succoth were taught with. But worse would come than this, -the fire of God’s wrath, which, from this side and from that, would destroy both king and people.

(2) The Jothams are seldom listened to; and the men of Shechem and Abimelech go on to the end of which they have been warned. Three years pass, and the prediction is fulfilled: the people of Shechem act treacherously toward Abimelech, and Abimelech wars against and destroys Shechem. This is all described with a fullness of detail which shows that there is much more in it than the concerns of a petty Israelitish city; yet as little more than this do the commentators treat it. Nor can we expect that full light upon it all should be acquired at once. But taking Abimelech as depicting in brief the growth and catastrophe of Romish power in Christendom, we may perhaps see in Gaal, the son of Ebed, the “loathing” bred of “servitude,” which is but indeed the translation of his name, and which incites the nations to cast off their allegiance to him whom they first lifted into power. Well may the descendants of the “wild ass” (Hamor) rebel against so harsh a yoke as they had put their necks into! But it is another matter to escape from it; and Zebul (which looks like Zebulon, but a little clipped), whose character throughout is that of craft, and who is Abimelech’s officer to retain the city in obedience, may easily represent the apparent sanctity wherewith a power like that of Rome so well knows how to enforce its claims. Look but a little closer, and the ambiguity begins to appear. Zebul is nearly allied to Jezebel, still more evidently to Beelzebul,* -being identical, indeed, with the last part of this name, and thus may be really “dung,” as it is there.

{*The true reading, as is well known, of Mat 10:25. Notice that Jezebel has also this sinister ambiguity: it may mean “chaste,” her pretension, or “dung-heap,” the reality. And this, too, is a symbol of Romanism!}

It is not the power that makes Abimelech that can unmake him. He prevails against Shechem, only to perish by a woman’s hand at Thebez.* Here the millstone reminds us of Babylon’s overthrow, where, in Rev 18:21, the symbol of the Old Testament prophet is taken up by the New. In these Babylon herself is figured by the millstone, as the hard and merciless grinder of God’s wheat. In the story in Judges, the millstone is the cause of Abimelech’s destruction; yet these two things are almost one: it is character that brings destruction from God; and the woman’s hand, what is it but the Church of God whose cries have gone up to God, and who in this way brings the punishment? The mill-stone and the woman’s hand are thus really complementary thoughts that perfect the application.

{*Suggested by another: Thebez, “brightness,” aiming at glory: in contrast with a glorified church, Rome meets her doom.}

3. Tola and Jair, following Abimelech, are in most marked and significant contrast with him. No warlike deeds are recorded of them: Israel seems to have enjoyed the most entire peace during the forty-five years of their united judgeship. Absolutely nothing is recorded of Tola except his descent, the place of his residence and burial, and the length of time during which he judged Israel. Of Jair personally even less is given; but the fact is noticed of his thirty sons who all attained to dignity in Israel. Out of these few and apparently not very important items we are to gather whatever spiritual lessons they can furnish.

That it is a flourishing period for the nation is quite consistent with there being but little history. Man’s record is largely one of sorrows and crimes; and men whose names are written in large letters across the page get mostly their place there through either their own sins or those of others. Of these men their names are their sufficient witness, evidently because they answer to them: they are what they profess to be. Of each it is said that “he arose,” and of Tola that he “arose to save Israel,” -more, perhaps, by what he was than by what he did; but the words mark, evidently, a resurrection time in Israel; the words “there arose after Abimelech to save Israel,” seem to connect also in some way the previous section with the present; in what manner we may shortly learn.

(1) The name of Tola has already been before us, as that of the head of a family in Issachar, to which tribe the present Tola also belongs. His name is that of the crimson “worm,” the coccus of the oak, which yielded the “scarlet” or crimson employed in the tabernacle. The cry of the twenty-second psalm, “I am a worm, and no man,” indicates the self-chosen humiliation of the blessed victim. The name Tola here, as that of the judge in Israel, shows at once the most striking contrast with Abimelech. It is lowly self-surrender, not self-exaltation, that marks this man of Issachar, a tribe which speaks to us also, as we have seen, of practical walk. He is the son of Puah, “utterance,” who is himself the son of Dodo, “his beloved.” Thus out of the consciousness of divine love in the soul comes the “utterance” which in the practical life becomes self-surrender to God. The Shamir in Mount Ephraim, in which he dwells, though different from that which we have before had,which was in Judah (Jos 15:48), should speak as that does of unchangeableness; yet not in God as in the Judean city, but rather, as its place in Ephraim would imply, of human character. If such were, indeed, that of Tola, it is easy to understand the twenty-three years’ revival under his judgeship.

But is not this a prophetic glance on to the time when not Israel only, but the whole world, shall know the blessing of the rule of the incorruptible judge, of whom we cannot but have been reminded in this picture, and of whom we know that He transcends it? The reign of the thorn-bush has been all that yet man has seen, and the result of his choice of rulers will be nothing else until the Abimelechs have received their judgment. Then, indeed, the time of revival shall come with the presence of the Risen One, once crowned with the thorn, and now with glory forever. If Tola be a type, of whom else can he be a type but this? He who has “learned obedience by the things that He hath suffered,” shall yet bring to obedience, and thus to blessedness in the time to which we hasten. Who but He can do this?

(2) Jair, the Gileadite, seems now to confirm this witness. His name, “enlightener,” is only to be applied in any full way to Him who is the One Light of men. And that he is the Gileadite may speak of the “heap of witness” (see Jos 13:1-33 n.) which Jair’s burial would seem to remind us of being buried in Camon (the place of resurrection) the grave that could not hold Him.

The thirty sons on thirty ass-colts, with their thirty cities, is in this case also plain. “They rode,” says Cassel, not merely as men of quality, -the usual explanation, -but as chiefs, governors, and judges. It was peculiar to such persons especially, that they made use of the ass, as the animal of peace. Their very appearance on this animal was expressive of their calling -to reconcile and pacify. The sons of Jair judged their thirty cities.” The Lord’s own riding into Jerusalem, and His parable of the pounds (Luk 19:1-48) show us very simply the application here. Of the havvoth Jair, or “Jair’s lives,” we have spoken before (Jos 13:11, n.).

Tola and Jair are thus the twofold witnesses of Him to whom yet the disorder of man’s rule will give way, though it will be still and truly man’s, the kingdom of the Sou of man. For the Son of man cometh in the clouds of heaven, and henceforth they “shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending [in attendance] on the Son of man.”

Fuente: Grant’s Numerical Bible Notes and Commentary

GIDEON AND THE MIDIANITES

The old story of sin and suffering is repeated after the death of Deborah. The Midianites occupied territory on the south and east, contiguous to Moab, and were wandering herdsmen like the modern Bedouins, who, in connection with the Amalekites, harassed Israel at every opportunity with the results indicated in Jdg 6:1-6.

God sends a prophet to His people in this case before He sends a Savior (Jdg 6:7-10), for they must be brought to repentance before deliverance can be vouchsafed.

GIDEON CALLED (Jdg 6:11-24)

An angel of the Lord (Jdg 6:11), should read The angel, for the context shows this to be another manifestation of the Second Person of the Trinity. Study the context for evidences of this. Observe Gideons consciousness of it, the angels assumption of it (Jdg 6:14; Jdg 6:16), and its final demonstration (Jdg 6:21-23). Note Gideons modesty and diffidence (Jdg 6:15), suggesting Moses at the burning bush. His request for a sign (Jdg 6:17) is neither wrong nor unreasonable as the event shows. Although the acceptance of his sacrifice meant the acceptance of himself (Jdg 6:21), yet so deep-seated is fear in the heart because of sin (Jdg 6:22), that he needs a special assurance from Jehovah to restore his peace after he has become conscious of the Divine Presence (Jdg 6:23).

THE ENSIGN RAISED (Jdg 6:25-32)

Immediately upon his call Gideon enters upon service (Jdg 6:25). The second bullock of his father is named probably because the first had been stolen by the enemy. The father was an idolator like the rest, it would appear, and the altar on his ground may have been one for public use. Secrecy is necessary in destroying this altar (Jdg 6:27), as the commotion following evidences (Jdg 6:28-30). Joashs defense of his son suggests Elijah on Matthew Carmel (1 Kings 18), and, in another sense, Gamaliel before the Sanhedrin (Acts 5), or the town clerk at Ephesus (Acts 19).

THE BATTLE ARRAYED (Jdg 6:32-40)

The Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon (Jdg 6:34). The margin of the Revised Version says, The Spirit of the Lord clothed Himself with Gideon, an Old Testament way of speaking of the filling of the Spirit of which the New Testament so often speaks in connection with Christian experience (see Eph 5:18). No wonder that Gideon could do exploits (Dan 11:32), under such circumstances. This explains the gathering of the people to Gideons standard (Jdg 6:35).

And yet Gideons weak faith calls for another sign two of them indeed (Jdg 6:36-39) For he has reached a second crisis in his career, and God condescends to manifest it (Jdg 6:38; Jdg 6:40).

THE VICTORY WON (Jdg 7:1-23)

This must be Gods victory and not mans, therefore, although 32,000 men (Jdg 7:3) were few enough against an army as grasshoppers for multitude (Jdg 6:5), they must be reduced still further. For the first test (Jdg 7:3), compare Deu 20:8, the second (Jdg 7:4-7) was unique. Wandering tribes in Asia, when in haste, do not stoop deliberately on their knees to drink water, but only bend forward to bring their hand in contact with the stream, and throw up the water rapidly and with great expertness into their mouths. The Israelites who chose to do so on this occasion were the earnest and energetic ones fitted for the expedition God now had in mind.

What a trial of faith to attach an overwhelming force with only three hundred men! No wonder Gideon needed another sign to reassure him for the engagement, which God now vouchsafed to him.

Observe the expression in Jdg 7:9 : Arise, get thee down unto the host. The latter were in the valley and attention to this is of importance to understand something of what follows. The dream and its interpretation in their effect on Gideon require no explanation. They were Gods way of animating the little band of Israelites and they had such result.

But if the smallness of the army is astonishing, what shall we say of the foolishness of their armament (Jdg 7:16-18)? Compare 1Co 1:18-31. The pitchers concealed the lamps, which were what we call torches, and being earthenware were easily broken. The three hundred men were divided into three bands that they might seem to be surrounding the camp. Suddenly, in the darkness and stillness of the night, a loud echo of trumpets is heard, followed by a mighty shout from every side; a blaze encircles the camp, and the sleepers started from their rest and supernaturally alarmed as they doubtless were, run tumultuously hither and thither, not knowing friend from foe, and soon precipitately flee (Jdg 7:19-22). The men of Israel who pursued after them, were either the 10,000 or the 32,000 who had lingered near the scene and were now ready to join in the fight when everything appeared so hopeful.

THE CAMPAIGN EXTENDED (Jdg 8:1-21)

Jdg 8:1-4 require little comment, but should not be passed over without observing Gideons modesty and greatness in soothing the wounded pride of Ephraim (compare Pro 15:1 and Php 2:4).

The men of Succoth (Jdg 8:5) and those of Penuel (Jdg 8:8), were of the tribe of Gad, but one would hardly think they were of Israel at all by the way they acted in this case. They were afraid of the Midianitish kings, and doubted Gideons ability to overcome them. Verse 14 shows that it was the chief men of these places that had treated him thus, and whom he now returns to punish. He taught the men (Jdg 8:16) means according to the margin that he threshed them. The method was placing thorns and briers on the naked body and pressing them down by heavy implements of some kind. Cruel torture, but we can say nothing more about it than in the cases of cruelty mentioned earlier.

The Midianitish kings had slain Gideons brothers (Jdg 8:18-19) and it was his duty as nearest of kin to take requital, although he offered the honor to his son (Jdg 8:20). Jether failing in the premises, Gideon acted the part (Jdg 8:21).

END OF GIDEONS LIFE (Jdg 8:22-32)

The tribes would have made Gideon king (Jdg 8:22) had not the latter showed his loyalty to God, and to them also by declining the offer (Jdg 8:23). He would be judge, but Jehovah must be King. And yet he made a mistake, though not intentionally perhaps, in what follows (Jdg 8:24-27). In other words, there seems no reason to believe that he had idolatry in view in what he did, although after his decease it worked that way (Jdg 8:33). What he had in mind apparently was an ephod for his use as a civil magistrate as in Davids case later (1Ch 15:27).

QUESTIONS

1. Where were the Midianites located with reference to Israel?

2. How many signs in all does God grant Gideon?

3. To what tribe did the men of Succoth belong?

4. Give two or three illustrations of Gideons modesty.

5. How long did he judge Israel?

Fuente: James Gray’s Concise Bible Commentary

When Israel again did evil in the sight of God, he delivered them into the hands of the Midianites, who were descendants of Abraham and Keturah ( Gen 25:1-2 ). They were allied in the oppression of Israel with the Amelekites and the children of the East, which is the general name of the people who lived in the desert east of the promised land. Because of seven years of severe treatment, the children of Israel made homes out of the caves and ravines they found in the mountains. Their enemies came every time they planted and destroyed their crops, not even leaving the sheep, ox or ass. They came in such large numbers that they could be said to be as locusts in the land. Their large herds would have eaten much, if not all, of the available grasses ( Jdg 6:1-5 ).

Israel cried out to God for help during this time of great poverty. He sent a prophet who reminded them of the deliverance from Egyptian bondage ( Exo 20:2 ) and conquest of the land of Canaan. The prophet further reminded them of God’s injunction for them to not fear the gods of the people in whose land they were dwelling, but they had failed to heed his voice ( Jdg 6:6-10 ).

God sent his angel to call Gideon to deliver his people. It is reassuring to note God is well acquainted with Gideon’s life and character (Verses 11-12). Gideon’s knowledge of the suffering under Midian, and perhaps God’s warning issued through Moses ( Deu 31:17 ), led to the questions of verse 13. Keil says Gideon did not recognize his visitor as an angel, so he addressed him as “Sir.” The Lord said he would be with him and he could go in that might. Gideon then realized who he was talking to and addressed him as “Lord,” while still doubting his own abilities because he was from such a lowly family. However, God again told him he would be with him and said the Midianites would be defeated as if they were one man being killed by a blow.

Gideon’s request for a sign might be viewed today as a lack of faith, however, Thomas presents a different view. “There is a great difference in a humble believer’s seeking more information regarding a given situation, and one who questions that which God proposes to do.” He sites the difference in God’s reaction to the questions of Mary and Zacharias in Luk 1:1-80 . Mary was given an answer while Zacharias was stricken dumb because of his lack of belief (Verses 20, 38).

Gideon asked his visitor to stay long enough for him to prepare a gift for him. Keil says the word used indicates he was speaking of a sacrificial gift which, if accepted, would prove God was speaking to him. The angel directed Gideon to place the gift on a rock much like a sacrifice on an altar and the burning of it proved to him God was sending him. As the angel departed, Gideon became afraid because he had seen the Lord’s angel face to face but God assured him he would have peace and not die. In gratitude, Gideon built an altar he named “The Lord send peace” ( Jdg 6:14-24 ).

That same night, God gave him instructions to tear down the altar to Baal, erect one to God and offer a sacrifice using the wood from Baal’s altar. This Gideon did at night with the help of ten servants. The next day, the men of the city intended to kill Gideon, but his father, Joash, said it was none of their business. If Baal was offended, he could deal with him, so he was named Jerubbaal, which means “Let Baal plead.” At that time, a fresh invasion occurred but, instead of fleeing to the caves and ravines, the people answered the call of Gideon’s trumpet and prepared for battle. The text tells us this call went out as a result of Spirit of the Lord coming on him ( Jdg 6:25-35 ).

Gideon still felt he needed one more sign from God that he was to lead the people into battle against the Midianites. He asked God let dew only be on a wool fleece in the morning and all the ground be dry. When God met that request, Gideon asked for one more. This time the ground should be wet and the fleece dry. God answered in just the way he asked and Gideon had assurance the Lord would fight for Israel ( Jdg 6:36-40 ).

Fuente: Gary Hampton Commentary on Selected Books

Jdg 6:1. And the children of Israel did evil The Israelites, having forgot the signal deliverance which God had wrought for them by Deborah and Barak, were condemned to a new state of misery and oppression, compared to which that under Jabin may almost be called freedom, Deborah being then allowed to judge Israel in the face of the sun; whereas now they were not only destitute of a judge, but were often without habitations, except those they were forced to seek for among the clefts and caverns of rocks, and in some few strong holds or fortresses, Jdg 6:2; and if they found time and convenience for sowing their lands, their enemies poured in upon them, and wrested from them the fruits of their labour. Into the hand of Midian For although the generality of the Midianites had been cut off by Moses about two hundred years ago, yet many of them doubtless fled into the neighbouring countries, whence afterward they returned into their own land, and in that time might easily grow to be a very great number; especially when God furthered their increase, that they might be a scourge for Israel when they transgressed. Let all that sin, expect to suffer; let all that turn to folly, expect to return to misery.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Jdg 6:1. The Lord delivered them into the hand of Midian, the descendants of Abrahams fourth son by Keturah, who oppressed them for seven years. Gen 25:2.

Jdg 6:3. The children of the east, with Amalek, bloody Amalek and Midian. Some of Moab, of Ammon, and Ishmael, sister nations, leagued for death and hell. This invasion of plunder, war, and murder, extended from the Jordan to Gaza, and shows us by its characters what is in the heart of man. They brought their cattle, being prepared for booty rather than war.

Jdg 6:8. The Lord sent a prophet. Gods first step is to bring men to reason and repentance for all the sins connected with the worship of Baal and Venus. His name is unknown, but the glory of his work remains.

Jdg 6:11. An Angel of the Lord. The same as in chap. 2., of which Dr. Lightfoot says, Christ himself came up from the camp of Judah in Gilgal, to the people assembled in Shiloh. Vol. 1. p. 45. Ed. fol. This Angel is the WORD or Wisdom of God, though now disguised as a princely stranger. He sat under an oak, as at Mamre, waiting to be gracious.

Jdg 6:14. Go in this thy might. So says David: I will go in the strength of the Lord God. So says Paul; being strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man.

Jdg 6:22. Alas, I have seen (the) Angel of the Lord. Callimachus cites the like sentiments of heathens, as of holy patriarchs, who feared to die after seeing the angelic glory in which the divinity was veiled.

Jdg 6:24. Gideon built an altar, and called it Jehovah-shalom, the Lord of peace. David afterwards built an altar, when the plague was stayed. Elijah also built one on mount Carmel, to commemorate the defeat of idolatry.

Jdg 6:26. Build an altaron the top of this rock. Though he was not a priest, Messiah made his call special. God having commanded high places to be built, and the holy patriarchs having worshipped there, occasioned a long contest in future ages when God had chosen Jerusalem as the only place of sacrifice. The people were not willing to give them up; and they became snares of idolatry.

Jdg 6:32. Jerubbaal; that is, pleading, contending, or fighting against Baal.

Jdg 6:34. The Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon. The Hebrew is, the Spirit of the Lord clothed Gideon. The garments of our Saviour at his transfiguration were blanched beyond conception. St. Paul alludes to those ideas, when he says, Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ. Rom 13:14.

Jdg 6:37. I will put this fleece. The ancients often slept on skins: it was at hand, and for the increase of his own weak faith, he asked this double sign of an indulgent God.

REFLECTIONS.

Scarcely had thirty years elapsed from the salvation effectuated by Barak, than inconstant Israel repeated their former sins, and God repeated his former strokes, and with severities greater than before. Midian, Amalek, and their neighbours oppressed them with a heavy hand, consuming for seven years the produce of the nation, and the blessings of a violated covenant. Ah, little did those robbers think that their measure was full. Little did they know that the tears of contrite Israel had brought the Lord to fight against them.

The consequences of this long and great affliction were weakness, fear, and gloom. The light was considered as departed from Israel. So we are apt to fear the worst in the day of adversity; but God has treasures of mercy in store. And even now, in those great calamities, Gideon had a vineyard and a little corn. God is never unmindful of his people, and especially in the day of trouble.

Mark also how the care of providence was extended to an oppressed people. He sent his prophet to bring them to recollection and repentance, while he himself hasted to commission and encourage their deliverer. Surely there never was a trait in history which marks in fairer characters the special interposition of heaven, nor was there ever a prince raised up by a more signal call than Gideon. The Lord approached his trembling servant in the character of a stranger, as he had often approached the patriarchs. And in the gracious salutation, well might he say, the Lord is with thee, when JEHOVAH the angel was seated at his side. Let us never be discouraged in the day of adversity, for when things, to human appearance, are come to the worst, God often opens a way far above our expectation. And why should we fear; for whether known or unknown, he is still present with us, and will be so to the end of time. The first step towards either national or personal salvation, is to put away our sins, and to call upon the name of the Lord: the altar of Baal must be thrown down, and an altar raised to the Lord, lest the people should say, that Baal had wrought for Israel that great salvation. May God, in like manner, cleanse our hands and our hearts, that our services may be acceptable in his sight. May the angel of his presence who kindled the sacrifice by a touch, grant us the supreme token that our devotion is accepted, by shedding abroad his love in our hearts.

But oh, how much of heaven it takes to raise a desponding mind. Gideon, seeing the multitude of the enemy, and conscious of his own weakness, asked an additional sign, that his army, small in comparison of Midian, might be relieved of all their fears. He required that his fleece might be watered while all the ground was dry; and again, that his fleece might be dry, while the dew lay thick on all the ground. In an age of discouragement his faith was weak; but out of weakness he waxed strong. Nothing less than the divine presence could have emboldened him to throw down the altar of Baal; now he asked these new tokens of the divine presence, that he might break in pieces the power of Midian. At all times the Lords presence is the purest source of comfort, and the best pledge of salvation to an afflicted people.

Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Jdg 6:1-6. The Depredations of the Midianites.D, whose phrases occur in Jdg 6:1 f., Jdg 6:6, sees in the ebb and flow of Israels fortune an index of their moral and spiritual condition. National suffering he regards as the punishment of national sin; the hand of Midian is in a sense the hand of God; yet, while he blames, he cannot help sympathising.

Jdg 6:2. Dens, caves, and mountain fastnesses were the only refuges for peaceful citizens, fleeing in terror from hearth and home (cf. 1Sa 13:6, Heb 11:38). The invaders swarmed like locusts, which devour every green thing and turn a fertile, smiling country-side into a bare waste. The spoilers left no sustenance for man or beast in Israel. [Observe that the ass was at this time used for food in Israel, cf. 2Ki 6:25. It is still eaten by the Arabs and Persians. It is forbidden in Leviticus 11, Deuteronomy 14.A. S. P.]

Jdg 6:5. They came unto the land to destroy it, as the Huns in the fourth century overran France and Italy, and the Germans in the twentieth century devastated Belgium.

Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible

THE OPPRESSION OF MIDIAN

(vv.1-10)

However, Israel again repeated the evil of departing from the Lord. This time the Lord used Midian to put them under a yoke of oppression which lasted seven years (v.1). Midian also attacks the saints of God today.Its name means “strife,” so it speaks of the spirit of quarreling that too frequently arises in the Church of God, and often results in divisions and separations.

Because of the Midianites the children of Israel made dens, caves and strongholds in the mountains (v. 2). Thus the spirit of strife makes us draw back, tending to isolate ourselves from others.We know this attitude comes from our fleshly nature desiring evil things, so that unity among the people of God suffers deeply. We foolishly want our own way, and this infringes on what someone else wants.God’s way is forgotten.

When crops had been sown, the Midianites would come, accompanied by Amalakites and others from the east, destroying the produce of the earth (vv. 3-4). Amalek speaks of the lusts of the flesh, which we may always expect to accompany an attitude of strife (Midian).The results of such an attack will also always be to destroy all spiritual growth and prosperity.

It does not appear that Midian was interested in settling in the land, but they came as marauders, taking what they could and destroying everything else. They came with their own live stock and their tents, staying long enough each time to destroy all that Israel had. How striking a picture is this of the painful desolation that takes place when the spirit of strife and quarreling gains a foothold among God’s people! What need there is then of peace makers, who are indeed called “the sons of God” (Mat 5:9)

When Israel finally cried out to the Lord (v. 7), they cried simply because of their misery. The Lord did not therefore immediately relieve them, but sent a prophet for the purpose of pressing on Israel the fact of their own guilt being responsible for these troubles (vv. 8-10). As He had done many times before, He reminded them by the prophet that He had brought Israel up from Egypt, from the house of bondage, bringing them to their present land and driving out their enemies before them.The amazing wonder of all this had failed to so impress Israel as to cling firmly to the Lord. Yet God had told them, “I am the Lord your God:do not fear the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. “How little effect God’s Word had in their hearts:they did not obey His voice.This message should certainly have brought them down in repentant confession of their guilt, and it may have been so in some measure, for it was this that God was seeking.

GIDEON CALLED TO DELIVER ISRAEL

(vv. 11-23)

The Lord does intervene for Israel’s deliverance. The angel of the Lord, who is the Lord Himself, came to the home of Gideon the son of Joash, sitting down and appearing to Gideon as he was threshing wheat by the winepress, where he could be hidden from the Midianites (v.11). Gideon’s threshing wheat is a picture of one studying the Word of God, separating the chaff of one’s one conceptions from the pure seed of the truth of God.

One who is prepared in secret by meditation on God’s Word is the one who will be fitted for conflict on God’s behalf.

The Angel’s greeting must have been rather a shock to Gideon, “The Lord is with you, you mighty man of valor!” (v. 12). Hiding as he was, he certainly would not feel mighty. But his response is most admirable, “O my Lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us.” Gideon was not thinking from a personal point of view, but was concerned about his nation Israel, God’s miracles of the past, His bringing Israel out of Egypt, etc., yet now leaving them under the oppressive yoke of Midian (v. 13).

The Lord answered him, “Go in this might of yours, and you shall save Israel from the hand of the Midianite. Have I not sent you?” (v. 14). Gideon might well wonder what might the Lord was speaking of, for Gideon only felt weakness. But Gideon had strength he was not aware of. The fact of his having a heart of true concern for his people, while feeling his own helplessness, was strength in God’s eyes. Paul later learned this valuable lesson — “when I am weak, then I am strong” (2Co 12:10).

However, Gideon protested to the Lord that his family was the weakest in Manasseh and that he himself was the least in his father’s house (v. 15). Perhaps this was true, but he did not understand that God chooses the foolish things of the world, the weak things, the base things, and things that are despised, to bring to nothing the things that are naturally dominating (1Co 1:27-28).God does not choose those who are naturally the most competent in order to do His work, for if he did, we would attribute that person’s success to his own ability, and God would not have all the glory.

The Lord allows Gideon no excuse. He has called Gideon and Gideon must obey. But He encourages Gideon by His Word, “Surely I will be with you, and you shall defeat the Midianites asone man” (v. 16).

But Gideon desires more confirmation, as though it was necessary when God had given him His word! The Lord graciously responded to Gideon’s request, however, to remain until Gideon brought an offering (v. 18). To Gideon’s credit, the offering was very appropriate. The young goat is typical of Christ as the Substitute for the sinner (and Gideon knew that he needed a Substitute). Unleavened bread speaks of Christ as the perfect, sinless Man, while the broth seems to indicate the offerer’s appreciation of the sacrifice, being easy to assimilate. Gideon presented all these to the Angel of the Lord (v. 19).

When Gideon obeyed the Angel in laying the meat and unleavened bread on a rock, the Angel used His staff to touch the offering, which was immediately consumed by fire that came out of the rock (vv. 20-21). The broth had been poured out, but the meat and unleavened bread went up totally to God in fire.

Certainly this signified that God had accepted Gideon’s offering and Gideon had every right to be at peace, as believers have now in realizing that God has accepted the sacrifice of Christ on our behalf. But Gideon was troubled in realizing the greatness of this person whom he had seen, — the Angel of theLord, — not simply “an angel” (v. 22). For God had said to Moses “no man shall see Me, and live” (Exo 33:20). But while it is true that God’s glory is so great that it is impossible for us to contemplate, yet it was in manhood form that the Angel (the Lord Jesus) had appeared to Gideon, so that Gideon did not see the greatness of God’s glory, but only a very limited manifestation of God. Therefore the Angel set Gideon at rest, telling him, “Peace be with you; do not fear, you shall not die” (v. 23). Of course he would not die. The Lord had told him he would deliver Israel

Gideon did not rush into service for theLord. Instead he built an altar to the Lord, calling it “The Lord is peace” (v. 24). The altar speaks of Christ, and Gideon’s building it speaks of his building a relationship with the Lord Jesus on the basis of His sacrifice, for sacrifices were made on the altar. Now, from the place of peace, Gideon is preparing for war.

IDOLATRY JUDGED: THE LORDEXALTED

(vv. 24-35)

However, there was another matter that the Lord required Gideon to face before he could depend on God to give him a victory, for there was idolatry in the house of Gideon’s father. Gideon must tear down an altar of Baal that was there and demolish a wooden image which was beside it (vv. 25-26). This was a negative work, but absolutely necessary. Then he was to replace this with an altar to the Lord, and offer the second bull that belonged to his father. Thus, what was positive was to replace the negative.The wood of the image was to provide the fire for the sacrifice.

Gideon obeyed, taking ten men who were his servants to accomplish this serious work. They did this at night, however, because Gideon feared the opinions of the men of the city.There was timidity in his faith, but nevertheless faith acted. True courage does not mean having no fear, but is seen rather in acting rightly in spite of fear.

When the destruction of the image and of Baal’s altar was discovered in the morning, the men of the city demanded of Gideon’s father that he must deliver up Gideon to be executed (vv.28-30).

Certainly God would not allow this, for He had chosen Gideon as deliverer of Israel, and He will fully honor obedience to His Word.So that it was God who disposed Joash to answer as he did. Rather than be on the defensive, Joash took a firm, decided stand with his son. He was no doubt dissatisfied with his own idol, and told the men to let Baal plead for himself if he was really a god. In fact he demanded that anyone who would plead for Baal should be put to death! (v. 31).This decided language evidently silenced all opposition. From that time Gideon was given the name Jerubbaal, signifying his contention against Baal (v.32).

The Lord then moved the Midianites and Amalekites and other peoples from the east to gather a great army in the Valley of Jezreel, for the defeat of these enemies was not to be partial, but total (v. 33). When this tremendous army was gathered, we are told “But the Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon” (v. 34). This is really the deciding factor, as is confirmed by Isa 59:10 : “when the enemy comes in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him.” Overwhelming numbers mean nothing to God. Gideon blew a trumpet and the men of Abiezer were gathered to follow him. Also, he sent messengers to all Manasseh, Asher, Zebulon and Naphtali, and found a willing response from these (vv. 34-35).

THE WET AND DRY FLEECE

(vv. 36-40)

In spite of these encouraging signs, Gideon felt he needed something more than this, and asked the Lord to cause dew to fall only on a fleece he laid on the threshing floor, leaving all the surrounding area dry (vv. 36-37). If so, he said, this would be assurance that God would save Israel by Gideon’s hand. The Lord graciously answered, so that Gideon wrung out a bowl full of water from the fleece in the morning, while all the surrounding area was dry (v. 38).

Yet even then Gideon’s apprehensions were not fully relieved. He asked God (apologetically) to give him one more sign, that this time the fleece might be dry and the ground wet with dew. Again God showed Gideon the kindness of answering just as he desired (vv. 39-40).

Today there are some Christians who use this history as an excuse for expecting some material sign from God as to what His will may be in a certain matter.But let believers remember that we have the Spirit of God dwelling in us, and we may fully depend on God’s Word in connection with the leading of the Spirit, so that we need no confirming signs, but simply a genuine communion with the Lord and faith in His Word.

Fuente: Grant’s Commentary on the Bible

1. The story of Gideon 6:1-8:32

Paul Tanner pointed out that the Gideon narrative consists of five primary structural sections.

"The first section (Jdg 6:1-10) provides the introduction and setting before Gideon’s debut, the second section (Jdg 6:11-32) gives the commissioning of Gideon as deliverer of Israel, the third section (Jdg 6:33 to Jdg 7:18) presents the preparation for the battle, the fourth section (Jdg 7:19 to Jdg 8:21) recounts the defeat of the Midianite army, and the fifth section (Jdg 8:22-32) records the conclusion to Gideon’s life after the victory over Midian. Yet thematic parallels exist between the first and fifth sections and between the second and fourth sections, thus giving the whole narrative a symmetrical pattern:

    A    6:1-10

        B    6:11-32

            C    6:33-7:18

        B’    7:19-8:21

    A’    8:22-32" [Note: Tanner, p. 151.]

Other scholars divide the Gideon narrative into three parts: God’s punishment and deliverance of Israel (Jdg 6:1 to Jdg 8:3), Gideon’s punishment and subjugation of Israel (Jdg 8:4-28), and Gideon’s legacy (Jdg 8:29 to Jdg 9:57). [Note: Block, Judges . . ., pp. 250-307. See also O’Connell, p. 139.]

"The history of Gideon and his family is related very fully, because the working of the grace and righteousness of the faithful covenant God was so obviously displayed therein, that it contained a rich treasure of instruction and warning for the church of the Lord in all ages." [Note: Keil and Delitzsch, p. 326.]

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

Renewed apostasy and its punishment 6:1-10

The Midianites were Bedouin nomads and descendants of Abraham and Keturah (Gen 25:1-2) who occupied the plains that bordered the Arabian Desert to the east of Moab and Ammon. They were raiders who descended on the Israelites at harvest times, stole their crops and possessions, and then retreated to their own land (cf. Isa 9:4; Isa 10:26; Isa 60:6). They did not want to kill the Israelites and take over their land. They preferred to let the Israelites sow and harvest their crops and then steal what God’s people had labored so hard to produce. The Midianites conducted their raids on camels that made them very hard to overtake in pursuit.

"This is the earliest instance of such a phenomenon of which we have record. The effective domestication of the camel had been accomplished somewhat earlier deep in Arabia and had now spread to tribal confederacies to the south and east of Palestine, giving them a mobility such as they had never had before." [Note: Bright, p. 158.]

To conceal their harvested crops and other valuable possessions, the Israelites hid them in caves and other holes in the ground. Many of the mountainous areas of Israel abound with natural caves and dens.

The Amalekites and other tribes that lived in the Arabian Desert east of Canaan joined the Midianites in their raids. These desert-dwellers were the "sons of the east" (Jdg 6:3). The raids extended all the way to Gaza on the Mediterranean coast (Jdg 6:4), far into Israel.

After seven years of these locust-like devastating raids (cf. Deu 28:31; Deu 28:38; Joe 1:4), the Israelites were at their wits end and called out to Yahweh in their misery (Jdg 6:6). In response to their cries God sent an unnamed prophet (Jdg 6:8) to explain the reason for their discipline. They had again disobeyed the Lord (Jdg 6:10). Yet now the prophet God sent did not deliver the people (cf. Jdg 4:4-7), but chastened them. This is another subtle sign that things were getting worse in Israel. The Book of Judges portrays a God who cannot help but be generous in spite of His people’s waywardness.

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

D. The fourth apostasy 6:1-10:5

The writer of Judges structured this book so the story of Gideon would be its focal center. Robert Chisholm Jr. argued that the events described in Jdg 6:1 to Jdg 16:31 were chronologically parallel to those in Jdg 3:7 to Jdg 5:31, thus harmonizing the events in Judges with 1Ki 6:1. [Note: Robert B. Chisholm Jr., "The Chronology of the Book of Judges," Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 52:2 (June 2009):247-55.]

"Within the main body of the book, seven major narrative blocks can be noted. Moreover, there are certain parallel features between these narratives so that the entire book reflects a carefully worked symmetrical pattern. Furthermore this pattern has as its focal point the Gideon narrative in Jdg 6:1 to Jdg 8:32.

"A Introduction, Part I (Jdg 1:1 to Jdg 2:5)

B Introduction, Part II (Jdg 2:6 to Jdg 3:6)

C Othniel Narrative (Jdg 3:7-11)

D Ehud Narrative (Jdg 3:12-31)

E Deborah-Barak Narrative (Jdg 4:1 to Jdg 5:31)

F Gideon Narrative (Jdg 6:1 to Jdg 8:32)

E’ Abimelech Narrative (Jdg 8:33 to Jdg 10:5)

D’ Jephthah Narrative (Jdg 10:6 to Jdg 12:15)

C’ Samson Narrative (Jdg 13:1 to Jdg 16:31)

B’ Epilogue, Part I (Jdg 17:1 to Jdg 18:31)

A’ Epilogue, Part II (Jdg 19:1 to Jdg 21:25)

"This arrangement suggests that the Gideon narrative has a unique contribution to make to the theological development of the book. As the nation went from one cycle of discipline to the next, there was a continual deterioration. Also there was a shift in the ’quality’ of the judges themselves as the book advances. The Gideon narrative seems to mark a notable turning point." [Note: Tanner, p. 150. See also D. W. Gooding, "The Composition of the Book of Judges," Eretz Israel 16 (1982):70-79; and Barry G. Webb, The Book of Judges: An Integrated Reading, JSOT Supplement Series 46 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1987).]

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

THE DESERT HORDES; AND THE MAN AT OPHRAH

Jdg 6:1-14

JABIN king of Canaan defeated and his nine hundred chariots turned into ploughshares, we might expect Israel to make at last a start in its true career. The tribes have had their third lesson and should know the peril of infidelity. Without God they are weak as water. Will they not bind themselves now in a confederacy of faith, suppress Baal and Astarte worship by stringent laws and turn their hearts to God and duty? Not yet: not for more than a century. The true reformer has yet to come. Deborahs work is certainly not in vain. She passes through the land administering justice, commanding the destruction of heathen altars. The people leave their occupations and gather in crowds to hear her: they shout, in answer to her appeals, Jehovah is our King. The Levites are called to minister at the shrines. For a time there is something like religion along with improving circumstances. But the tide does not rise long nor far.

Some twenty years have passed, and what is to be seen going on throughout the land? The Hebrews have addressed themselves vigorously to their work in field and town. Everywhere they are breaking up new ground, building houses, repairing roads, organising traffic. But they are also falling into the old habit of friendly intercourse with Canaanites, talking with them over the prospects of the crops, joining in their festivals of new moon and harvest. In their own cities the old inhabitants of the land sacrifice to Baal and gather about the Asherim. Earnest Israelites are indignant and call for action, but the mass of the people are so taken up with their prosperity that they cannot be roused. Peace and comfort in the lower region seem better than contention for anything higher. In the centre of Palestine there is a coalition of Hebrew and Canaanite cities, with Shechem at their head, which recognise Baal as their patron and worship him as the master of their league. And in the northern tribes generally Jehovah has scant acknowledgment; the people see no great task He has given them to do. If they live and multiply and inherit the land they reckon their function as His nation to be fulfilled.

It is a temptation common to men to consider their own existence and success a sort of Divine end in serving which they do all that God requires of them. The business of mere living and making life comfortable absorbs them so that even faith finds its only use in promoting their own happiness. The circle of the year is filled with occupations. When the labour of the field is over there are the houses and cities to enlarge, to improve, and furnish with means of safety and enjoyment. One task done and the advantage of it felt, another presents itself, Industry takes new forms and burdens still more the energies of men. Education, art, science become possible and in turn make their demands. But all may be for self, and God may be thought of merely as the great Patron satisfied with His tithes. In this way the impulses and hopes of faith are made the ministers of egoism, and as a national thing the maintenance of law, goodwill, and a measure of purity may seem to furnish religion with a sufficient object. But this is far from enough. Let worship be refined and elaborated, let great temples be built and thronged, let the arts of music and painting be employed in raising devotion to its highest pitch-still if nothing beyond self is seen as the aim of existence, if national Christianity realises no duty to the world outside, religion must decay. Neither a man nor a people can be truly religious without the missionary spirit, and that spirit must constantly shape individual and collective life. Among ourselves worship would petrify and faith wither were it not for the tasks the church has undertaken at home and abroad. But half-understood, half-discharged, these duties keep us alive. And it is because the great mission of Christians to the world is not even yet comprehended that we have so much practical atheism. When less care and thought are expended on the forms of worship and the churches address themselves to the true ritual of our religion, carrying out the redeeming work of our Saviour, there will be new fervour; unbelief will be swept away.

Israel, losing sight of its mission and its destiny, felt no need of faith and lost it; and with the loss of faith came loss of vigour and alertness as on other occasions. Having no sense of a common purpose great enough to demand their unity the Hebrews were again unable to resist enemies, and this time the Midianites and other wild tribes of the eastern desert found their opportunity. First some bands of them came at the time of harvest and made raids on the cultivated districts. But year by year they ventured farther in increasing numbers. Finally they brought their tents and families, their flocks and herds, and took possession.

In the case of all who fall away from the purpose of life the means of bringing failure home to them and restoring the balance of justice are always at hand. Let a man neglect his fields and nature is upon him; weeds choke his crops, his harvests diminish, poverty comes like an armed man. In trade likewise carelessness brings retribution. So in the case of Israel: although the Canaanites had been subdued other foes were not far away. And the business of this nation was of so sacred a kind that neglect of it meant great moral fault, and every fresh relapse into earthliness and sensuality after a revival of religion implied more serious guilt. We find accordingly a proportionate severity in the punishment. Now the nation is chastised with whips, but next time it is with scorpions. Now the iron chariots of Sisera hold the land in terror; then hosts of marauders spread like locusts over the country, insatiable, all-devouring. Do the Hebrews think that careful tilling of their fields and the making of wine and oil are their chief concern? In that they shall be undeceived. Not mainly to be good husbandmen and vine dressers are they set here, but to be a light in the midst of the nations. If they cease to shine they shall no longer enjoy.

It was by the higher fords of Jordan, perhaps north of the Sea of Galilee, that the Midianites fell on western Canaan. Under their two great emirs Zebah and Zalmunna, who seem to have held a kind of barbaric state, troops of riders on swift horses and dromedaries swept the shore of the lake and burst into the plain of Jezreel. There were no doubt many skirmishes between their squadrons and the men of Naphtali and Manasseh. But one horde of the invaders followed another so quickly and their attacks were so sudden and fierce that at length resistance became impossible, the Hebrews had to betake themselves to the heights and dwell in the caves and rocks. Once in the desert under Moses they had been more than a match for these Arabs. Now, although on vantage ground moral and natural, fighting for their hearths and homes behind the breastwork of lake, river, and mountain, they are completely routed.

Between the circumstances of this oppressed nation and the present state of the church there is a wide interval, and in a sense the contrast is striking. Is not the Christianity of our time strong and able to hold its own? Is not the mood of many churches of the present day properly that of elation? As year after year reports of numerical increase and larger contributions are made, as finer buildings are raised for the purpose of worship, and work at home and abroad is carried on more efficiently, is it not impossible to trace any resemblance between the state of Israel during the Midianite oppression and the state of religion now? Why should there be any fear that Baal worship or other idolatry should weaken the tribes, or that marauders from the desert should settle in their land?

And yet the condition of things today is not quite unlike that of Israel at the time we are considering. There are Canaanites who dwell in the land and carry on their debasing worship. These too are days when guerilla troops of naturalism, nomads of the primaeval desert, are sweeping the region of faith. Reckless and irresponsible talk in periodicals and on platforms; novels, plays, and verses, often as clever as they are unscrupulous, are incidents of the invasion, and it is well advanced. Not for the first time is a raid of this kind made on the territory of faith, but the serious thing now is the readiness to give way, the want of heart and power to resist that we observe in family life and in society as well as in literature. Where resistance ought to be eager and firm it is often ignorant, hesitating, lukewarm. Perhaps the invasion must become more confident and more injurious before it rouses the people of God to earnest and united action. Perhaps those who will not submit may have to betake themselves to the caves of the mountains while the new barbarism establishes itself in the rich plain. It has almost come to this in some countries; and it may be that the pride of those who have been content to cultivate their vineyards for themselves alone, the security of those who have too easily concluded that fighting was over shall yet be startled by some great disaster.

“Israel was brought very low because of Midian.” A travellers picture of the present state of things on the eastern frontier of Bashan enables us to understand the misery to which the tribes were reduced by seven years of rapine. “Not only is the country-plain and hillside alike-chequered with fenced fields, but groves of fig trees are here and there seen and terraced vineyards still clothe the sides of some of the hills. These are neglected and wild but not fruitless. They produce great quantities of figs and grapes, which are rifled year after year by the Bedawin in their periodical raids. Nowhere on earth is there such a melancholy example of tyranny, rapacity, and misrule as here. Fields, pastures, vineyards, houses, villages, cities are all alike deserted and waste. Even the few inhabitants that have hid themselves among the rocky fastnesses and mountain defiles drag out a miserable existence, oppressed by robbers of the desert on the one hand and robbers of the government on the other.” The Midianites of Gideons time acted the part both of tyrants and depredators. They “left no sustenance for Israel, neither sheep nor ox nor ass. They entered into the land for to destroy it.”

“And the children of Israel cried unto the Lord”; the prodigals bethought them of their Father. Having come to the husks they remembered Him who fed His people in the desert. Again the wheel has revolved and from the lowest point there is an upward movement. The tribes of God look once more towards the hills from whence their help cometh. And here is seen the importance of that faith which had passed into the nations life. Although it was not of a very spiritual kind, yet it preserved in the heart of the people a recuperative power. The majority knew little more of Jehovah than His name. But the name suggested availing succour. They turned to the Awful Name, repeated it and urged their need. Here and there one saw God as the infinitely righteous and holy and added to the wail of the ignorant a more devout appeal, recognising the evils under which the people groaned as punitive, and knowing that the very God to Whom they cried had brought the Midianites upon them. In the prayer of such a one there was an outlook towards holier and nobler life. But even in the case of the ignorant the cry to One higher than the highest had help in it. For when that bitter cry was raised self-glorifying had ceased and piety begun.

Ignorant indeed is much of the faith that still expresses itself in so-called Christian prayer, almost as ignorant as that of the disconsolate Hebrew tribes. The moral purpose of discipline, the Divine ordinances of defeat and pain and affliction are a mystery unread. The man in extremity does not know why his hour of abject fear has come, nor see that one by one all the stays of his selfish life have been removed by a Divine hand. His cry is that of a foolish child. Yet is it not true that such a prayer revives hope and gives new energy to the languid life? It may be many years since prayer was tried, not perhaps since he who is now past his meridian knelt at a mothers knee. Still as he names the name of God, as he looks upward, there comes with the dim vision of an Omnipotent Helper within reach of his cry the sense of new possibilities, the feeling that amidst the miry clay or the heaving waves there is something firm and friendly on which he may yet stand. It is a striking fact as to any kind of religious belief, even the most meagre, that it does for man what nothing else can do. Prayer must cease, we are told, for it is mere superstition. Without denying that much of what is called prayer is an expression of egotism, we must demand an explanation of the unique value it has in human life and a sufficient substitute for the habit of appeal to God. Those who would deprive us of prayer must first remake man, for to the strong and enlightened prayer is necessary as well as to the weak and ignorant. The Heavenly is the only hope of the earthly. That we understand God is, after all, not the chief thing: but does He know us? Is He there above yet beside us, forever?

The first answer to the cry of Israel came in the message of a prophet, one who would have been despised by the nation in its self-sufficient mood, but now obtained a hearing. His words brought instruction and made it possible for faith to move and work along a definite line. Through mans struggle God helps him; through mans thought and resolve God speaks to him. He is already converted when he believes enough to pray, and from this point faith saves by animating and guiding the strenuous will. The ignorant abject people of God learns from the prophet that something is to be done. There is a command, repeated from Sinai, against the worship of heathen gods, then a call to love the true God the Deliverer of Israel. Faith is to become life, and life faith. The name of Jehovah which has stood for one power among others is clearly reaffirmed as that of the One Divine Being, the only Object of adoration. Israel is convicted of sin and set on the way of obedience.

The answer to prayer lies very near to him who cries for salvation. He has not to move a step. He has but to hear the inner voice of conscience. Is there a sense of neglect of duty, a sense of disobedience, of faults committed? The first movement towards salvation is set up in that conviction and in the hope that the evil now seen may be remedied. Forgiveness is implied in this hope, and it will become assured as the hope grows strong. The mistake is often made of supposing that answer to prayer does not come till peace is found. In reality the answer begins when the will is bent towards a better life, though that change may be accompanied by the deepest sorrow and self-humiliation. A man who earnestly reproaches himself for despising and disobeying God has already received the grace of the redeeming Spirit.

But to Israels cry there was another answer. When repentance was well begun and the tribes turned from the heathen rites which separated them from each other and from Divine thoughts, freedom again became possible and God raised up a liberator. Repentance indeed was not thorough; therefore a complete national reformation was not accomplished. Yet as against Midian, a mere horde of marauders, the balance of righteousness and power inclined now in behalf of Israel. The time was ripe and in the providence of God the fit man received his call.

Southwest from Shechem, among the hills of Manasseh, at Ophrah of the Abiezrites, lived a family that had suffered keenly at the hands of Midian. Some members of the family had been slain near Tabor, and the rest had as a cause of war not only the constant robberies from field and homestead but also the duty of blood revenge. The deepest sense of injury, the keenest resentment fell to the share of one Gideon, son of Joash, a young man of nobler temper than most Hebrews of the time. His father was head of a Thousand; and as he was an idolater the whole clan joined him in sacrificing to the Baal whose altar stood within the boundary of his farm. Already Gideon appears to have turned with loathing from that base worship; and he was pondering earnestly the cause of the pitiful state into which Israel had fallen. But the circumstances perplexed him. He was not able to account for facts in accordance with faith.

In a retired place on the hillside, where a winepress has been fashioned in a hollow of the rocks, we first see the future deliverer of Israel. His task for the day is that of threshing out some wheat so that, as soon as possible, the grain may be hid from the Midianites; and he is busy with the flail, thinking deeply, watching carefully as he plies the instrument with a sense of irksome restraint. Look at him and you are struck with his stalwart proportions and his bearing: he is “like the son of a king.” Observe more closely and the fire of a troubled yet resolute soul will be seen in his eye. He represents the best Hebrew blood, the finest spirit and intelligence of the nation; but as yet he is a strong man bound. He would fain do something to deliver Israel he would fain trust Jehovah to sustain him in striking a blow for liberty; but the way is not clear. Indignation and hope are baffled.

In a pause of his work, as he glances across the valley with anxious eye, suddenly he sees under an oak a stranger sitting staff in hand, as if he had sought rest for a little in the shade. Gideon scans the visitor keenly, but finding no cause for alarm bends again to his labour. The next time he looks up the stranger is beside him and words of salutation are falling from his lips-“Jehovah is with thee, thou mighty man of valour.” To Gideon the words did not seem so strange as they would have seemed to some. Yet what did they mean? Jehovah with him? Strength and courage he is aware of. Sympathy with his fellow Israelites and the desire to help them he feels. But these do not seem to him proofs of Jehovahs presence. And as for his fathers house and the Hebrew people, God seems far from them. Harried and oppressed, they are surely God-forsaken. Gideon can only wonder at the unseasonable greeting and ask what it means.

Unconsciousness of God is not rare. Men do not attribute their regret over wrong, their faint longing for the right to a spiritual presence within them and a Divine working. The Unseen appears so remote, man appears so shut off from intercourse with any supernatural Cause or Source that he fails to link his own strain of thought with the Eternal. The word of God is nigh him even in his heart, God is “closer to him than breathing, nearer than hands and feet.” Hope, courage, will, life-these are Divine gifts, but he does not know it. Even in our Christian times the old error which makes God external, remote, entirely aloof from human experience survives and is more common than true faith. We conceive ourselves separated from the Divine, with springs of thought, purpose, and power in our own being, whereas there is in us no absolute origin of power-moral, intellectual, or physical. We live and move in God: He is our Source and our Stay, and our being is shot through and through with rays of the Eternal. The prophetic word spoken in our ear is not more assuredly from God than the pure wish or unselfish hope that frames itself in our minds or the stern voice of conscience heard in the soul. As for the trouble into which we fall, that too, did we understand aright, is a mark of Gods providential care. Would we err without discipline? Would we be ineffective and have no bracing? Would we follow lies and enjoy a false peace? Would we refuse the Divine path to strength, yet never feel the sorrow of the weak? Are these the proofs of Gods presence our ignorance would desire? Then indeed we imagine an unholy one, an unfaithful one upon the throne of the universe. But God has no favourites; He does not rule like a despot of earth for courtiers and an aristocracy. In righteousness and for righteousness, for eternal truth He works, and for that His people must endure.

“Jehovah is with thee”: so ran the salutation. Gideon, thinking of Jehovah, does not wonder to hear His name. But full of doubts natural to one so little instructed he feels himself bound to express them: “Why is all this evil befallen us? Hath not Jehovah cast us off and delivered us into the hand of Midian?” Unconstrainedly, plainly as man to man Gideon speaks, the burdensome thought of his peoples misery overcoming the strangeness of the fact that in a God-forsaken land anyone should care to speak of things like these. Yet momentarily, as the conversation proceeds, there grows in Gideons soul a feeling of awe, a new and penetrating idea. The look fastened upon him conveys beside the human strain of will a suggestion of highest authority; the words, “Go in this thy might and save Israel, have not I sent thee?” kindle in his heart a vivid faith. Laid hold of, lifted above himself, the young man is made aware at last of the Living God, His presence, His will. Jehovahs representative has done his mediatorial work. Gideon desires a sign; but his wish is a note of habitual caution, not of disbelief, and in the sacrifice he finds what he needs.

Now, why insist as some do on that which is not affirmed in the text? The form of the narrative must be interpreted: and it does not require us to suppose that Jehovah Himself, incarnate, speaking human words, is upon the scene. The call is from Him, and indeed Gideon has already a prepared heart, or he would not listen to the messenger. But seven times in the brief story the word Malakh marks a commissioned servant as clearly as the other word Jehovah marks the Divine will and revelation. After the man of God has vanished from the hill swiftly, strangely, in the manner of his coming, Gideon remains alive to Jehovahs immediate presence and voice as he never was before. Humble and shrinking-“forasmuch as I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face”-he yet hears the Divine benediction fall from the sky, and following that a fresh and immediate summons. Whether from the tabernacle at Shiloh an acknowledged prophet came to the brooding Abiezrite, or the visitor was one who concealed his own name and haunt that Jehovah might be the more impressively recognised, it matters not. The angel of the Lord made Gideon thrill with a call to highest duty, opened his ears to heavenly voices, and then left him. After this he felt God to be with himself.

“The Lord looked upon Gideon and said, Go in this thy might and save Israel from the hand of Midian: have not I sent thee?” It was a summons to stern and anxious work, and the young man could not be sanguine. He had considered and reconsidered the state of things so long, he had so often sought a way of liberating his people and found none that he needed a clear indication how the effort was to be made. Would the tribes follow him, the youngest of an obscure family in Manasseh? And how was he to stir, how to gather the people? He builds an altar, Jehovah-shalom; he enters into covenant with the Eternal in high and earnest resolution, and with a sudden flash of prophet sight he sees the first thing to do. Baals altar in the high place of Ophrah must be overthrown. Thereafter it will be known what faith and courage are to be found in Israel.

It is the call of God that ripens a life into power, resolve, fruitfulness-the call and the response to it. Continually the Bible urges upon us this great truth, that through the keen sense of a close personal relation to God and of duty owing to Him the soul grows and comes to its own. Our human personality is created in that way and in no other. There are indeed lives which are not so inspired and yet appear strong; an ingenious resolute selfishness gives them momentum. But this individuality is akin to that of ape or tiger; it is a part of the earth force in yielding to which a man forfeits his proper being and dignity. Look at Napoleon, the supreme example in history of this failure. A great genius, a striking character? Only in the carnal region, for human personality is moral, spiritual, and the most triumphant cunning does not make a man; while, on the other hand, from a very moderate endowment put to the glorious usury of Gods service will grow a soul clear, brave, and firm, precious in the ranks of life. Let a human being, however ignorant and low, hear and answer the Divine summons and in that place a man appears, one who stands related to the source of strength and light. And when a man roused by such a call feels responsibility for his country, for religion, the hero is astir. Something will be done for which mankind waits.

But heroism is rare. We do not often commune with God nor listen with eager souls for His word. The world is always in need of men, but few appear. The usual is worshipped; the pleasure and profit of the day occupy us; even the sight of the cross does not rouse the heart. Speak, Heavenly Word! and quicken our clay. Let the thunders of Sinai be heard again, and then the still small voice that penetrates the soul. So shall heroism be born and duty done, and the dead shall live.

Fuente: Expositors Bible Commentary

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