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Chapter 1: Who were the first four judges of Israel?
Hey Bible Readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble and I'm your host for the Bible Recap. Yesterday we learned about Israel's first four judges, and they were all pretty good by God's standards, especially the last one, Deborah. Forty years after Deborah, the Israelites fall into sin again and are oppressed by the Midianites, who are their distant relatives through Keturah.
Chapter 2: Why were the Israelites oppressed by the Midianites?
That's the woman Abraham married after Sarah died. The Israelites were so oppressed and afraid that they hid in caves to escape the Midianites. And the Midianites also ate all their food supply. Not cool. After seven years, as things went from bad to worse, the Israelites cried out to God. Maybe they expected him to send a judge again, a military leader to rescue them like he had in the past.
Chapter 3: How did God respond to the Israelites' cries for help?
But God doesn't owe them that, and he knows they need something different at this point. He sends a prophet, someone to speak truth and call out their sin. We have no idea how they responded to this when it happened because the text immediately takes us to the next scene. Cut to a man named Gideon, hard at work, beating out wheat in a wine press.
Which is an unusual place to do that kind of thing, by the way. It's kind of like when you put the Girl Scout cookies in your sock drawer so the kids can't find them. Much like you, Gideon was trying to hide the wheat from the Midianite food stealers. Meanwhile, the angel of the Lord shows up, and this appears to be God the Son. God the Father also seems to show up here, disembodied.
It's kind of a confusing text to navigate, but it seems likely that God the Father and God the Son are both on the scene. God the Son tells Gideon that God is with him. Gideon's response is something we've probably all thought before. He basically says, The great irony is that Gideon was questioning the presence of God to the very presence of God.
Chapter 4: Who is Gideon and what was his initial reaction to God's call?
God tells Gideon that he's the man to deliver Israel from this oppression, but Gideon pushes back. He's from the weakest clan in his tribe, and he's the least important person in that clan. God promises to be with him, but Gideon still doesn't know it's God he's talking to at this point, and he's skeptical.
Gideon obviously knows this man is someone important, possibly a prophet, because he offers to bake him some food. That's an especially big deal given the scarcity of food at this time. Gideon asks for a sign and offers the food. Then God the Son cooks it with his fire stick and disappears. Okay. Finally, Gideon recognizes who he's dealing with, and he panics.
God the Father tells him not to be afraid, to receive his peace. Then, in an act of worship, Gideon builds an altar there and calls it, The Lord is Peace. Yahweh Shalom. God also tells him to tear down his father's altar of Baal and his Asherah and to build an altar to God there. Then he's supposed to use the wood from the Asherah to offer a sacrifice to God.
As the least of his family, this is probably not going to earn him any brownie points with his dad. He obeys God, but he does it in the middle of the night so he doesn't get caught. But he does get caught, and the men of the town plan to kill him. But in an unexpected turn of events, his dad stands up for him.
Maybe his dad really thinks Baal will act to defend himself, but it seems more like he's admitting that this pagan god he's been worshiping is powerless. In all of this, God is preparing them for war here by ridding them of idols and calling them to worship him. He's aligning their hearts with the truth before the battle. Meanwhile, the Israelites' enemies are stacking up against them.
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Chapter 5: How did Gideon confirm God's message?
But God's spirit clothes Gideon, and his clan decides to follow him. They also rallied other people from their tribe and from other tribes to join them in pushing back the enemy. Gideon is still afraid, though. His fear is always with him. And he decides to test God's plan by asking him for a sign. Twice. He knows this is forbidden under Mosaic law.
Chapter 6: What role did fear play in Gideon's journey?
Plus, he's already received a direct call from God when he spoke with him face to face. So this is doubly disappointing. But God is patient with him because he knows the man he has appointed for this task is given to fear. He doesn't rebuke him or punish him for acting faithlessly. After God's double confirmation, Gideon and his men set out for war, all 32,000 of them.
But God tells Gideon his army is too big, which is something no one ever says. He has Gideon send home anyone who is afraid and anyone who drinks water in a certain way that seems to indicate they might be easier to attack or something. After all that, Gideon is left with 300 men, less than 1% of his original army. God decreases their army so he can increase his glory.
In this instance, it seems that he wants to get glory from the miraculous, not the logical. Gideon, on the other hand, is not excited about the miraculous. In fact, he's probably extra afraid now, but God still doesn't rebuke him. Instead, he decides to give him even more confirmation.
He tells him to go spy on the Midianites so he can hear what they say, because, of course, God knows what they'll say. God had given a Midianite soldier a dream, and God would prompt another Midianite soldier to interpret it. And God had arranged the timing of that conversation to happen at the very moment and in the very spot where Gideon approached the camp.
And what God brought Gideon there to overhear is the dream's interpretation that Israel would prevail over Midian. So Gideon preps his soldiers with their weapons, right? Nope. He makes a trip to Hobby Lobby to pick up some jars, candles, and trumpets, then passes them out to his guys. At 10 p.m., they station themselves around the camp and make all kinds of noise.
Some of the Midianites flee, but some get so confused that they accidentally start killing each other, which is a good thing because these 300 Israelites don't even have swords, remember? Gideon calls on the people from other tribes to capture and kill the Midianites who fled, and in tomorrow's reading we'll find out that 120,000 Midianites died in this battle.
And that's the story of one of the strangest military victories in all of history, led by a craft-loving coward and a mighty god. What was your God shot today? I found it so compelling that Gideon doubts God a lot, and God never gets angry with him for it. God meets him in his questions. He's never impatient with Gideon's doubts and fears.
He comes alongside him to embolden him, and he knows that what Gideon needs to hear most of all is who God is. God doesn't say, no, Gideon, you're awesome. You got this. Believe in yourself. You may be the least in your family, but it's just because they're all jealous of you. God doesn't counter Gideon's doubt by puffing him up with positive self-talk. He tells him, I am with you.
And he's with you. And he's where the joy is, you guys. He's where the joy is. Okay, Bible readers, it's time for our weekly check-in. How are you doing? And by the way, if you're using our printout plan or if you got the official journal for the Bible Recap, you got to turn a page today on the schedule. That's huge. It's clear that God has granted you a desire to know Him more.
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