Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Judges 6:37

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.

37. a fleece of wool on the threshing-floor ] We may think of Gideon sleeping out of doors on the airy threshing-floor near his home; it is a hot night in July, when the dews are heavy in Palestine; at any rate it is the harvest season, for the Midianites are in the land. Gideon has with him a fleece, perhaps his sheepskin cloak with the wool on it; he resolves to use it for the purposes of a ‘sign.’ No doubt he speaks with God in a dream.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

The threshing floors were and still are under the open air, and usually circular. The second sign Jdg 6:40, would be more convincing than the former, because it is the nature of fleeces to attract and retain moisture.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Upon all the earth beside, i.e. upon all that spot of ground which adjoineth to and encompasseth the fleece.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

Behold, I will put a fleece of wool on the floor,…. On the floor where he was threshing, where the angel first appeared to him, and which lay exposed to the open air, so that the dew might easily fall upon it:

and if the dew be on the fleece only; the dew that falls from heaven in the night, when he proposed it should lie on the floor till morning:

and it be dry upon all the earth beside; meaning not upon all the world, nor even upon all the land of Israel, but upon all the floor about the fleece: then shall I know that thou wilt save Israel by my hand, as thou hast said; for the dew being a token of divine favour, see Ho 14:5 it would show that Gideon would partake of it, while his enemies would be dry and desolate, and ruin and destruction would be their portion.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

(37) A fleece of wool.In works of art this is sometimes represented as an entire sheepskin, probably from an erroneous explanation of the Vulgate, Vellus lanae, and from Luthers rendering, ein Fell mit der Wolle. But the English version is correct.

In the floor.i.e., on the open threshing-floor. (See Note on Jdg. 6:11, and comp. Psa. 1:4; Hos. 13:3.)

If the dew be on the fleece only.The very fact that this circumstance might be a purely natural result only shows the simple truthfulness of the narrative. Gideon would hardly have asked for this sign if he had been aware that, taken alone, it would be no sign of supernatural guidance. Bishop Hervey quotes Lord Bacon, who says (Nat Hist.) that Sailors have used every night to hang fleeces of wool on the sides of their ships towards the water, and they have crushed fresh water out of them in the morning. Every one must have noticed flocks of wool on the hedges, sparkling with dewdrops long after the dew on the leaves around them has evaporated. In Psa. 72:6 (Prayer Book), He shall come down like the rain into a fleece of wool, the Hebrew word is the same as here, and the ancient version takes it in the same sense (LXX., epi plokon; Vulg., in vellus); but perhaps the true sense is there mown grass, as in Amo. 7:1 (mowings).

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

37. A fleece of wool A homely sign, indeed, but none the less natural and appropriate among a simple, nomadic people. Jehovah’s condescension in using a sign so simple, and yielding to this seemingly presumptuous request of Gideon, affords two lessons: 1. That he makes the weak things of the world confound the mighty, (1Co 1:27😉 2. That he never ignores the prayer of the humble.

The floor The threshing floor, a small plot of ground in the open air, smoothed down and beaten hard. See on Rth 3:2.

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

“ Behold, I will put a fleece of wool on the threshing floor, and if there be dew on the fleece only, and if it be dry on all the ground, then will I know that you will save Israel by my hand, as you have said.”

The thought that he had called all the tribes together made the inexperienced young man quail. What if he was making a fool of them all and of himself? Had he just dreamed what had happened? He was riddled with doubts. So he set a task for God so that He would prove whether the call had been genuine. It was a little late for it, for the tribes were gathering. But his mind was being torn apart by his doubts (nothing else could have excused his request for two extra signs).

His suggestion was that he lay out a fleece of wool on the threshing-floor. Then if it was dew-filled in the morning, but the ground was dry, he would know that Yahweh would deliver Israel by his hand. Israel was a land of heavy dews. Thus the situation would indeed require a miracle. Perhaps his mind went back to another young man who had been eager for a blessing, in Gen 27:28, and to the response that came to him, ‘God give you of the dew of heaven, and of the fatness of the earth, and plenty of corn and wine. Let peoples serve you and nations bow down to you. Be lord over your brothers.’ This was what he wanted too. The plentiful dew would signify that God was about to bring the people food through him as a result of him being lord over his brothers.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Judges

GIDEON’S FLEECE

Jdg 6:37 .

The decisive moment had come when Gideon, with his hastily gathered raw levies, was about to plunge down to the plain to face immensely superior forces trained to warfare. No wonder that the equally untrained leader’s heart heat faster. Many a soldier, who will be steadfastly brave in the actual shock of battle, has tremors and throbbings on its eve. Gideon’s hand shook a little as he drew his sword.

I. Gideon’s request.

His petition for a sign was not the voice of unbelief or of doubt or of presumption, but in it spoke real, though struggling faith, seeking to be confirmed. Therefore it was not regarded by God as a sin. When a ‘wicked and adulterous generation asked for a sign,’ no sign was given it, but when faith asks for one to help it to grasp God’s hand, and to go on His warfare in His strength and as His instrument, it does not ask in vain.

Gideon’s prayer was wrapped, as it were, in an enfolding promise, for it is preceded and followed by the quotation of words of the Angel of the Lord who had ‘looked on him,’ and said, ‘Go in this thy might and save Israel from the hand of Midian: have not I sent thee?’ Prayers that begin and end with ‘as Thou hast spoken’ are not likely to be repulsed.

II. God’s answer.

God wonderfully allows Gideon to dictate the nature of the sign. He stoops to work it both ways, backwards and forwards, as it were. First the fleece is to be wet and the ground to be dry, then the fleece is to be dry and the ground wet. Miracle was a necessary accompaniment of revelation in those early days, as picture-books are of childhood. But, though we are far enough from being ‘men’ in Christ, yet we have not the same need for ‘childish things’ as Gideon and his contemporaries had. We have Christ and the Spirit, and so have a ‘word made more sure’ than to require signs. But still it is true that the same gracious willingness to help a tremulous faith, which carries its tremulousness to God in prayer, moves the Father’s heart to-day, and that to such petitions the answer is given even before they are offered: ‘Ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.’ No sign that eyes can see is given, but inward whispers speak assurance and communicate the assurance which they speak.

III. The meaning of the sign.

Many explanations have been offered. The main point is that the fleece is to be made different from the soil around it. It is to be a proof of God’s power to endow with characteristics not derived from, and resulting in qualities unlike, the surroundings.

Gideon had no thought of any significance beyond that. But we may allowably let the Scripture usage of the symbol of dew influence our reading into the symbol a deeper meaning than it bore to him.

God makes the fleece wet with dew, while all the threshing-floor is dry. Dew is the symbol of divine grace, of the silently formed moisture which, coming from no apparent source, freshens by night the wilted plants, and hangs in myriad drops, that twinkle into green and gold as the early sunshine strikes them, on the humblest twig. That grace is plainly not a natural product nor to be accounted for by environment. The dew of the Spirit, which God and God only, can give, can freshen our worn and drooping souls, can give joy in sorrow, can keep us from being touched by surrounding evils, and from being parched by surrounding drought, can silently ‘distil’ its supplies of strength according to our need into our else dry hearts.

The wet fleece on the dry ground was not only a revelation of God’s power, but may be taken as a pattern of what God’s soldiers must ever be. A prophet long after Gideon said: ‘The remnant of Jacob shall be in the midst of many peoples as dew from the Lord,’ bringing to others the grace which they have received that they may diffuse it, and turning the dry and thirsty land where no water is into fertility, and the ‘parched ground’ into a ‘pool.’

We have said that the main point of Gideon’s petition was that the fleece should be made unlike the threshing-floor, and that that unlikeness, which could obviously not be naturally brought about, was to be to him the sure token that God was at work to produce it. The strongest demonstration that the Church can give the world of its really being God’s Church is its unlikeness to the world. If it is wet with divine dew when all the threshing-floor is dry, and if, when all the floor is drenched with poisonous miasma, it is dry from the diffused and clinging malaria, the world will take knowledge of it, and some souls be set to ask how this unlikeness comes. When Haman has to say: ‘There is a certain people scattered abroad and dispersed among the peoples . . . and their laws are diverse from those of every people,’ he may meditate murder, but ‘many from among the people of the land’ will join their ranks. Gideon may or may not have thought of the fleece as a symbol of his little host, but we may learn from it the old lesson, ‘Be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your minds.’

Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren

floor = threshing-floor.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

Behold: Deu 32:2, Psa 72:6, Hos 6:3, Hos 6:4, Hos 14:5

only: Psa 147:19, Psa 147:20, Mat 10:5, Mat 10:6, Mat 15:24

Reciprocal: Gen 24:14 – And let 2Ki 20:8 – What shall be Isa 38:7 – General Amo 4:7 – and I Luk 11:24 – dry

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge