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"Arise, get thee down unto the house; for I have delivered it into thine hand."

The stirring command was Gideon's signal to act. From the peaceful life of a country farmer he had emerged, by appointment of the Lord, as the military leader of thirty thousand men eager to deliver their homeland from the invading Midianites. But the Lord had reduced his army to a mere three hundred, telling him that these would be enough to achieve the victory he planned. Now this small force was gathered on the northern slopes of Mount Gilboa overlooking the valley where the enemy was encamped. The nature of his instructions was unusual and the manner in which he was to launch the attack would seem laughable if judged by normal standards of warfare, but this was the Lord's war and Gideon knew his God well enough to be persuaded that his way was right. The Lord had told him that the victory was as good as accomplished and now gave him the word to advance, and, as it were, left the whole issue in his hands.

There was no hesitation; Gideon went immediately into action. He might well have pleaded that his men needed a night's rest before engaging the enemy. They had started out early in the morning (Jud. 7.1) after their journey to the site of the coming battle and spent the rest of the day eliminating the unwilling and the unready and now it was night (ch. 7.9), probably soon after six o'clock, which is the approximate time of darkness in Israel. The attack took place between ten and eleven the same night (ch. 7.19) and there was much to be done before that. First of all Gideon with his attendant Phurah made a personal reconnaissance of the enemy camp. Overhearing a Midianite recounting his dream and his fellow interpreting it to signify Midianite's defeat at the hands of Israel, Gideon rightly deduced that the host was at least in a state of apprehension. He could go back to his men elated and summon them to attack; he did not do so at once. First of all, we are told "he worshipped ‑ and returned to the host of Israel". In the midst of the enemy, in imminent danger of detection and capture, he nevertheless found time to pause and render thanks to God and doubtless supplication for continued guidance and support. Only then did he make his way back to his own followers and safety.

Now Gideon prepared for battle. The Lord had given him three hundred men with assurance that no more were needed; even though the Lord had guaranteed victory it still devolved upon Gideon to make the best possible use of his three hundred men. Whether the subsequent course of action was suggested to him by inspiration of the Holy Spirit and so God-given, or was the outcome of his own strategic ingenuity, we do not know, but probably the former. The account says that he divided his forces into three companies of a hundred men each and provided each individual with a trumpet, a torch and an empty pitcher. Where he obtained three hundred pitchers and trumpets at such short notice does not readily appear, but remembering that he had lately dismissed nearly thirty thousand men who had come from fairly distant parts of the country prepared for a possibly lengthy campaign it may well be that plenty were available in the general camp impedimenta. What is more important is the fact that no provision seems to have been made for weapons. Certain it is that with a trumpet in one hand, a pitcher in the other, and a torch held somehow, there was not much manoeuvring space for a sword. It is evident that the initial attack, at least, devised to put the enemy to fight, was going to be launched without the assistance of the traditional weapons of war and in fact it was this completely different and unexpected technique which accomplished the desired end. There is something here which was echoed in the confident words of the boy David when he faced the giant Philistine Goliath. "Thou comest to me with a sword and with a spear, and with a shield; but I come to thee in the name of the Lord of Hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou has defied."

A hasty instruction to the warriors and the three companies were dispatched to their positions. One party of a hundred men was to station itself on the slopes of Mount Moreh to the north of the enemy camp, one on the slopes of Mount Gilboa to the south, and one across the head of the valley to the west. The torches were to be concealed in the pitchers so that no light showed. The Midianites lay in the valley, but they were surrounded on three sides by a handful of men probably well spaced out. The only avenue of escape was to the east, towards Jordan. The narrative itself does not give these geographical details; it tells only of the three companies and that, when stationed according to Gideon's instructions. "they stood every man in his place about the camp", but it only needs a glance at a large scale map of the district to see that this clearly was the plan of campaign. So, by ten o'clock, "the beginning of the middle watch" (ch. 7.19) all was ready. (Unlike the system in Roman times, ancient Israel had three "watches" in the night, six to ten, ten to two, two to six). The first shift of sentries had gone off duty, doubtless reporting to their successors "a fine night and all's well", oblivious of the silent watchers on the hillsides, and the second shift began to make themselves as comfortable as they could, shrouding themselves in their long robes from the night cold and hoping for a swift passing of the next four hours. And Gideon, at the head of his own party ‑ it has been remarked in our own times that Israeli officers in action are always in front of their men and never behind ‑ moved silently towards the outskirts of the Midianite camp "when they had but newly set the (middle) watch". . . .

"The sword of the Lord and Gideon!" the stentorian cry rang out loud and clear in the quietness of the night. In a moment, as the dazed sentries sprang up, the cry was echoed and re-echoed from every side. As the awakened Midianites tumbled out of their tents and began feverishly to collect accoutrements and weapons there came what sounded like the clashing of the arms of a mighty host. Looking up they perceived a myriad points of light on the hillside around the camp. Gideon's men, following instructions, had dashed their pitchers on the rocks and revealed their torches, at the same time sounding their trumpets and shouting their battle cry. In the same dense darkness the twinkling lights, the noise of splintering earthenware and strident blast of trumpets, the shouting of men, must have seemed to the Midianites as though a vast avenging host was converging upon them from all directions, save one. Only toward the east were there no shouts, no trumpets, no lights. And so the entire host, in sudden panic, fled in utter and indescribable confusion that way in an instinctive bid to escape. The River Jordan was only twelve miles away and an easy ford existed there. Once across Jordan they could be measurably safe and on the way to their own land. So they ran, in the darkness of the night, ran as they had never run before, leaving behind them all their property, their tents and possessions, their camels and asses and beasts of burden on which they had expected to carry home the spoils of the raid on Israel's land. Now all these things were left behind to be a spoil for Israel. So they pressed on, looking back from time to time only to see those flickering torches and hear those piercing trumpets as the three hundreds pursued them through the valley.

It would seem from Ch. 7.22 that in the confusion and the dense darkness the Midianites and Amelekites mistook each other for pursuers and began to fight among themselves, added to which the thousands of Israelites who had been rejected by Gideon at the waters of Harod now joined in the pursuit and assisted in the discomfiture of the fugitives. It is here that a rather strange factor is introduced. According to ch. 7.22 the fleeing hosts most unaccountably turned aside from the direct route across Jordan and made their way towards Abelmeholah, on the Israeli side of Jordan and some twenty miles to the south, thus placing themselves at the mercy of the pursuers. Why they thus failed to cross the river into relative safety at the easiest point is incomprehensible save for one element in the story. Ch. 7.24 says that Gideon sent messengers to the tribe of Ephraim upon the mountains, bidding them come down and hold the fords of Jordan at Beth-barah, the crossing point in question. The narrative reads as if Gideon sent this message after the attack and whilst the flight was in progress, but another glance at the map shows the unlikelihood of this. Long before the messengers could have climbed the twenty miles to the fords, the host would have cleared the dozen miles which lay between them and safety. The probable conclusion is that Gideon had sent his messengers before he attacked the Midianites and the men of Ephraim were already in position when the fight began. The tenses in Hebrew are not so exact as in English and the preterite form which speaks of past time does not always indicate clearly the relation of two past events to each other in a narrative. In this case vs. 24 probably is better rendered in English "and Gideon had sent messengers", i.e. before he advanced to the attack. In consequence the fleeing Midianites found their channel of escape across the Jordan blocked by another force of armed men and so were compelled to turn southward in their search for a way out. They had now roused all Israel against them and were more or less surrounded. Out of that hundred and thirty-five thousand fugitives only fifteen thousand succeeded in getting across the river. The remainder were slain by the now thoroughly aroused Israelite population.

The significance of this apparent outcome of the debacle lies in the demonstration it affords of Gideon's implicit faith in God's promise that He would deliver. Gideon was so sure he would rout the invaders that he stationed the Ephraimites along the river in advance to ensure that they did not get away. He evidently intended to make certain that the Midianites would never invade again. And they did not. The settled nations, Moab, Ammon, Edom, Syria, do figure in later struggles with Israel but not Midian or the peoples of the East. The victory was complete, and it never needed to be repeated.

But Gideon was not finished yet. He meant to destroy Midian utterly. He pursued the pitiable remnant from Abel-meholah across Jordan to Succoth, from Succoth to Penuel, from Penuel to Karkar, and there he caught up with them. There he "discomfited" the remaining fifteen thousand and slew their chiefs Zebah and Zalmunna. It was a terrible slaughter and probably in great part unnecessary, but this was the spirit of the times and there was memory of the past seven years of oppression to be avenged.

Such wholesale massacre, however, does involve the question as to what extent the Lord was responsible. Did God in fact command and empower Gideon to embark upon this career of carnage and destruction. The first hasty answer in most minds might well be "yes" on the strength of the angelic visit to Gideon and the Divine assurance that by his instrumentality Israel was to be delivered. A deeper study of the narrative, however, suggests flaws in this conclusion. There were two phases of this conflict; the first putting of the Midianites to flight by the three hundred men, without the use of arms but solely by trumpets, torches and pitchers, and second, the slaughter of the host which was effected, not only by the three hundred but all the other thousands of Israelites who at first had been eliminated from the campaign. It is carefully to be noted that the Lord's instructions were limited entirely to the use of torches, with no mention of other armed force. The remaining thirty-odd thousand were expressly ruled out. These, said the Lord, "are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hands, lest Israel say. . . . mine own hand hath saved me". With the panic flight of the enemy the deliverance was accomplished; had there been no opposing force of Ephraimites at Beth-barah they would have got clean across Jordan and away. They would not have come back that year at any rate. The Lord would have fulfilled his promise to deliver, and that without the use of weapons of war. It is significant that this is as far as the Lord's instructions went; there is nothing said about bringing back the rejected thirty thousand and in fact He did definitely say hat He did not want them to participate in the victory. It might well be therefore that this part of the campaign was not of the Lord's command and measurably heedless of his will. Having got the enemy on the run, Israel could not resist the temptation to finish them off in traditional fashion.

This was always Israel's undoing. At the Exodus God told them they had no need to fight when they entered the Promised Land; He himself would go before them and give them entrance, and He himself would eliminate the inhabitants "by little and little" - evidently by natural decrease ‑ so that they could enter into full occupancy without war. They would not have it that way; they relied rather upon their own war-like propensities and in consequence they spent ten years in savage warfare and even then never really succeeded in completely eliminating the idolatrous inhabitants from the land. The same experience befalls Christians, collectively and individually. The Lord will fight for us if we let him, but if on the contrary we insist upon employing the arm of the flesh He will leave us to do so and experience the consequences. It worked that way with Gideon and his men. That failure to know the Divine leading implicity all the time led later to misappropriation of the spoils of war and that in turn to a new idolatry which, as the old chronicler says regretfully "became a snare to Gideon and to his house".

For when those thousands came back to their own land rejoicing in their victory and began the work of sharing out the spoil gathered from the Midianites' abandoned camp, it is evident they had completely forgotten the part God had played in this whole affair and were crediting the outcome to their own valour and power, just as the Lord had foretold in ch. 7.2. "Rule thou over us" they said to Gideon "both thou and thy son, and thy son's son also; for thou hast delivered us from the hand of Midian" (ch.8.22). How evident it is that their success had gone to their heads and they were now dreaming of a nation organised on a basis of military strength and governed by a king like the nations around them. Several centuries later Israel was to ask Samuel to make them a king for the same reason and it is not always realised that the first attempt of Israel to choose themselves a king was here in the days of Gideon. So soon after their deliverance were they forgetting the basic principle of their nationhood, that the Lord was their king and they themselves all brethren together. So it has been, sadly, so many times with Christian believers through the centuries, the urge to set up visible leaders who will head a group or company gathered around some particular thesis or ideal, which itself takes on such an importance that the headship and guidance of Christ is forgotten and the power of the Holy Spirit in the community becomes submerged under the more immediate appeal of human power and policies. "Make us gods to go before us" was the cry of Israel in the wilderness; the cry is still raised and with equally lamentable results.

It is to the honour of Gideon that he flatly declined their offer. "I will not rule over you, neither shall my son rule over you: the Lord shall rule over you". He, at least, knew that the survival of the nation depended on their allegiance to God and the Covenant, and he would not be a party to any innovation which denied that basic principle. He was prepared to remain a military leader, a "judge" in the sense of this term in the Book of Judges - the word really means one who stands up to defend the right and deliver the oppressed and was applied to all the deliverers of Israel from enemy oppression in the period preceding the monarchy ‑ and so classed himself with Joshua, Othniel and others who before him had delivered the nation but accepted no election to high office nor suffered the creation of a hereditary kingly dynasty in Israel. Gideon had been an instrument in the Lord's hands for the deliverance of Israel; he gave all the glory to the Lord and took nothing for himself and with that he was content.

But he made one sad mistake. The final episode in the story shows how fatally easy it is for even the most ardent and faithful follower of the Lord to be taken off his guard in some perhaps seemingly insignificant thing which mushrooms into a serious breach of the Divine standards or some deep-rooted canker in the life. In Gideon's case it may have seemed quite harmless at the time, just a somewhat irregular means of giving honour to God admittedly not altogether in line with his precepts, but in its effect, as the chronicler says in ch. 8.27 it "became a snare unto Gideon, and to his house"

That story must form the subject of another chapter. It must tell, not of a resounding victory and mighty deliverance wrought in faith and by the power of God, consequent upon careful adherence in the first place to the leading of God, but of an endeavour to do honour to God in a manner not commanded by him and in violation of his ordained arrangements. It reveals how the highest ideals can become polluted by the lowest of standards if they are not fashioned in accordance with the expressed will of God and what could have become the greatest triumph lead at last into deepest tragedy.

AOH

To be concluded

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