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Judges 6
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Chapter 6
6. GIDEON AND ABIMELECH
1. THE CALLING OF GIDEON
Israel oppressed by the Midlanites
1
The Israelites did what displeases Yahweh; Yahweh gave them over for seven years into the hands of Midian,
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and Midian bore down heavily on Israel. To escape from Midian the Israelites used the mountain clefts and the caves and shelters.
3
Whenever Israel sowed seed, Midian would march up with Amalek and the sons of the East; they would march up against Israel
4
and encamp on their territory and destroy the produce of the country as far as Gaza. They left Israel nothing to live on, not a sheep or ox or donkey,
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for they came up as thick as locusts with their own cattle and their tents; they and their camels were past counting, they overran and pillaged the country.
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Thus Midian brought Israel to great distress, and the Israelites cried to Yahweh.
A message from a prophet
7
When the Israelites cried to Yahweh because of Midian,
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Yahweh sent a prophet to the Israelites. This was his message, ‘Thus Yahweh speaks, the God of Israel. “It was I who brought you out of Egypt and led you out of a house of slavery.
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I rescued you from the power of the Egyptians and the power of all who oppressed you. I drove them out before you and gave you their land,
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and I said to you: I am Yahweh your God. Do not reverence the gods of the Amorites in whose land you now live. But you have not listened to my words.”‘
The angel of Yahweh appears to Gideon
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The angel of Yahweh came and sat under the terebinth at Ophrah which belonged to Joash of Abiezer. Gideon his son was threshing wheat inside the winepress to keep it hidden from Midian,
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when the angel of Yahweh appeared to him and said, ‘Yahweh is with you, valiant warrior!’
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Gideon answered him, ‘Forgive me, my lord, but if Yahweh is with us, then why is it that all this is happening to us now? And where are all the wonders our ancestors tell us of when they say, “Did not Yahweh bring us out of Egypt?” But now Yahweh has deserted us; he has abandoned us to Midian.’
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At this Yahweh turned to him and said, ‘Go in the strength now upholding you, and you will rescue Israel from the power of Midian. Do I not send you myself?’
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Gideon answered him, ‘Forgive me, my lord, but how can I deliver Israel? My clan, you must know, is the weakest in Manasseh and I am the least important in my family.’
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Yahweh answered him, ‘I will be with you and you shall crush Midian as though it were a single man’.
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Gideon said to him, ‘If I have found favour in your sight, give me a sign that it is you who speak to me.
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I beg you, do not go away until I come back, I will bring you my offering and set it down before you.’ And he answered, ‘I will stay until you return’.
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Gideon went away and prepared a young goat and made unleavened cakes with an ephah of flour. He put the meat into a basket and the broth into a pot, then brought it all to him under the terebinth. As he came near,
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The angel of Yahweh said to him, ‘Take the meat and unleavened cakes, put them on this rock and pour the broth over them’. Gideon did so.
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Then the angel of Yahweh reached out the tip of the staff in his hand and touched the meat and unleavened cakes. Fire sprang from the rock and consumed the meat and unleavened cakes, and the angel of Yahweh vanished before his eyes.
22
Then Gideon knew this was the angel of Yahweh, and he said, ‘Alas, my Lord Yahweh! I have seen the angel of Yahweh face to face!’
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Yahweh answered him, ‘Peace be with you; have no fear; you will not die’.
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Gideon built an altar there to Yahweh and called it Yahweh-Peace. This altar still stands at Ophrah of Abiezer.
Gideon and Baal[*a]
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Now that night Yahweh said to Gideon, ‘Take your father’s fattened calf, and pull down the altar to Baal belonging to your father and cut down the sacred post at the side of it.
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Then, on the top of this bluff, build a carefully constructed altar to Yahweh your God. Then take the fattened calf and burn it as a holocaust on the wood of the sacred post you have cut down.’
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Then Gideon chose ten of his servants and did as Yahweh had ordered him. But since he stood too much in fear of his family and the townspeople to do this by day, he did it by night.
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Next morning, when the townspeople got up, the altar to Baal had been destroyed, the sacred post that had stood beside it was now cut down, and the fattened calf had been burnt as a holocaust on the newly-built altar.
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Then they said to each other, ‘Who has done this?’ They searched, made enquiries and declared, ‘Gideon son of Joash has done it’.
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Then the townspeople said to Joash, ‘Bring out your son for he must die, since he has destroyed the altar to Baal and cut down the sacred post that stood beside it’.
31
Joash answered all those mustered round him, ‘Would you plead for Baal? Would you champion his cause? (Let anyone who pleads for Baal be put to death before dawn.) If he is a god, let him plead for himself, now that Gideon has destroyed his altar.’
32
That day Gideon was given the name of Jerubbaal,[*b] because, they said, ‘Baal must plead against him, seeing that he has destroyed his altar’.
The call to arms
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Then all Midian and Amalek and the sons of the East joined forces, crossed the Jordan and encamped in the plain of Jezreel.
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And the spirit of Yahweh came on Gideon; he sounded the horn and Abiezer rallied behind him.
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He sent messengers throughout Manasseh, and Manasseh too rallied behind him; he sent messengers to Asher, Zebulun and Naphtali, and they too marched out to meet him.
The trial with the fleece
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Gideon said to God, ‘If you really mean to deliver Israel by my hand, as you have declared,
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see now, I spread out a fleece on the threshing-floor; if there is dew only on the fleece and all the ground is left dry, then I shall know that you will deliver Israel by my hand, as you have declared’.
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And so it happened. Gideon rose the next morning, squeezed the fleece and wrung enough dew out of the fleece to fill a drinking cup.
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Then Gideon spoke to God again, ‘Do not be angry with me if I speak once again. Let me make trial with the fleece just once more. Let the fleece alone be dry, and let there be dew on the ground all round it.’
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And God did so that night. The fleece alone stayed dry, and there was dew on the ground all round it.
Chapters of Judges
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
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