Judges6chapter 6

Judges 6:1-3

into the hand of Midian: The fifth of the seven times this book says Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, after 2:11, 3:7, 3:12 and 4:1, with 10:6 and 13:1 still to come. Midian descends from Abraham by Keturah at Genesis 25:2, and Moses kept the flocks of a priest of Midian at Exodus 3:1, so the raiders are distant kin. Seven years is the shortest servitude the book has recorded, against eight under Cushan at 3:8, eighteen under Eglon at 3:14 and twenty under Jabin at 4:3.

Judges 6:4-6

The raiding is timed to the harvest and aimed at the food supply, so the increase is destroyed and no sheep, ox or ass is left, which takes the seed and the plough animals together. Camels without number carries the picture, since mounted raiders cover ground a farmer on foot can never answer, and the same grasshopper image returns at 7:12. Verse 6 is the fourth of the six times Israel cries unto the Lord in this book, after 3:9, 3:15 and 4:3, and it is the one cry that brings a prophet before it brings a deliverer.

Judges 6:7-10

The prophet is unnamed, says nothing of a rescue, and is never mentioned again. His speech runs the same course as the angel's at 2:1-3: brought up out of Egypt, delivered from every oppressor, given the land, and then a charge that the voice was not obeyed. The charge is exact, fear not the gods of the Amorites, and verse 25 finds an altar of Baal standing in the house of the man God is about to call.

Judges 6:11-12

A threshing floor wants open ground and wind to carry the chaff away, and a winepress is a pit cut down into rock, so the detail says he is beating out grain in the wrong place to keep it out of sight. The angel of the Lord last spoke in this book at 2:1, coming up from Gilgal to rebuke the whole nation, and here he sits down beside one man. The greeting names him a mighty man of valour while he is hiding food from raiders, and it is spoken before he has done anything at all.

Judges 6:13-14

Gideon answers with the same history the prophet had just recited at verses 8 and 9, and draws the opposite conclusion out of it, that the Lord hath forsaken us. Deuteronomy 31:17 puts those very words in Israel's mouth as part of the covenant warning, so the complaint quotes the sentence he is living under. Verse 14 takes up none of the question and sends him regardless, Go in this thy might, and the last clause carries the whole answer, have not I sent thee.

Judges 6:15-16

The objection takes the shape Moses used at Exodus 3:11, and the reply is the reply Moses got, Surely I will be with thee against Certainly I will be with thee. Saul says nearly the same of himself at 1 Samuel 9:21, my family the least of all the families of the tribe of Benjamin, and the smallest house being chosen runs on from there to David. Thou shalt smite the Midianites as one man is read two ways by the commentators, that Israel strikes as a single body or that Midian falls as a single man, and the Hebrew carries both.

Judges 6:17-19

He asks for a sign here, well before the fleece of verses 36 to 40, and this one is given without a word said about the asking. An ephah of flour is a large measure and a kid is a costly animal in a year when verse 4 says no sustenance was left, so the present costs him real food. Genesis 18:6 has Abraham setting cakes and a dressed calf before three men at his tent door, and the word rendered present here is the word used of the meat offering carried to an altar.

Judges 6:20-21

The instruction turns a meal into an offering, since flesh laid on bare rock with the broth poured out over it has stopped being supper. Fire out of the rock is the mark of an accepted sacrifice at Leviticus 9:24 and again at 1 Kings 18:38, and the angel who comes to Manoah at Judges 13:20 goes up in the flame of the altar in the same manner. He touches the food with the end of a staff and then departs, so the food is consumed rather than eaten in front of Gideon.

Judges 6:22-24

His alarm rests on Exodus 33:20, that no man shall see God and live, and Manoah reaches for the same words at Judges 13:22. The answer, Peace be unto thee, fear not, is what the altar takes its name from, Jehovah shalom, which readers render either the Lord is peace or the Lord send peace. The line that it stands in Ophrah unto this day is the writer telling his own readers where they could go and look at it.

Judges 6:25-27

The altar of Baal and the grove beside it belong to his own father and stand at Ophrah, so what verse 10 charged against the nation is standing in the yard of the man being called. Deuteronomy 7:5 and 12:3 had commanded this exact act, break down their altars and cut down their groves, which makes the first order Gideon receives an old one nobody had carried out. The bullock is seven years old and Midian has held Israel seven years, and the text states plainly that he feared his father's household and the men of the city and so did the work at night.

Judges 6:28-30

Ophrah is an Israelite town in Manasseh, and it wakes up ready to prosecute a man for obeying Deuteronomy. They ask who did this thing, they enquire, and a name comes back the same morning, so the night work was known by daylight. Bring out thy son, that he may die is the sentence Deuteronomy 13:6-10 lays on a man who draws Israel after other gods, turned around here and aimed at the man who pulled the other god down.

Judges 6:31-32

Joash answers with a point of law rather than a defence of his son, that a god who can be robbed of his own altar is able to bring his own suit. Elijah presses the same argument at 1 Kings 18:27, and Isaiah 41:23 puts it as a challenge laid on the idols themselves. The new name Jerubbaal means let Baal contend, and it outlasts him: 2 Samuel 11:21 calls him Jerubbesheth, swapping the Baal element for the word for shame, the same swap that turns Ishbaal into Ishbosheth.

Judges 6:33-35

in the valley of Jezreel: Jezreel is the grain valley of the north, so the raiders pitch on the harvest itself. The Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon is the second of the seven times this book says it, after Othniel at 3:10 and ahead of Jephthah at 11:29 and Samson four times over at 13:25, 14:6, 14:19 and 15:14; the Hebrew verb is the word for putting on a garment, used again of Amasai at 1 Chronicles 12:18 and of Zechariah at 2 Chronicles 24:20. The first men to answer the trumpet are his own clan, the household whose altar he had torn down, and Asher, Zebulun and Naphtali are the northern tribes Deborah had summoned at 4:10 and 5:18.

Judges 6:36-38

The fleece is asked after fire had come out of the rock and after the Spirit had already come upon him, and he repeats the clause as thou hast said, so what he wants confirmed is a promise he is holding. A fleece left out overnight in that country draws dew on its own, which makes the first sign the easier of the two and explains why he asks again. The account records what he asked and what God did and adds no approval and no rebuke; Matthew Henry reads it as weak faith borne with, and the text leaves the question where it found it.

Judges 6:39-40

Let not thine anger be hot against me, and I will speak but this once stands close to Abraham pressing his request at Genesis 18:30-32, and Gideon knows he is asking a second time. The second test is the harder one, dry wool on wet ground, which a night's weather does not produce by itself. God does it without a word said, and at 7:10-11 he offers Gideon a further sign that was never asked for, sending him down in the dark to hear what the enemy is saying.