A reluctant hero whom God called to deliver Israel from the Midianites. Despite testing God twice with a fleece, Gideon obeyed and led a famously reduced army of just 300 men—armed with torches, jars, and trumpets—against a vast enemy host. The resulting victory demonstrated that God’s power is made perfect in weakness. Gideon is remembered in the ‘hall of faith’ in Hebrews 11, though his later years were marked by the creation of an idolatrous ephod.
Then the LORD said to Gideon, “With the three hundred men who lapped the water I will save you and deliver the Midianites into your hand. But all the others are to go home.”Judges 7:7 · Berean Standard Bible
Then the angel of the LORD came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, where his son Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to hide it from the Midianites. And the angel of the LORD appeared to Gideon and said, “The LORD is with you, O mighty man of valor.” “Please, my Lord,” Gideon replied, “if the LORD is with us, why has all this happened to us? And where are all His wonders of which our fathers told us, saying,…
An angel finds Gideon hiding in a winepress and calls him a mighty warrior. God sees what you will become, not what you are.
Early in the morning Jerubbaal (that is, Gideon) and all the men with him camped beside the spring of Harod. And the camp of Midian was north of them in the valley near the hill of Moreh. Then the LORD said to Gideon, “You have too many men for Me to deliver Midian into their hands, lest Israel glorify themselves over Me, saying, ‘My own hand has saved me.’ Now, therefore, proclaim in the hearing of the men: ‘Whoever is fearful and trembling may turn back…
God thins Gideon's army from thirty-two thousand to three hundred. Torches, jars, and trumpets. The victory must be unmistakably God's.
Then the men of Ephraim said to Gideon, “Why have you done this to us? Why did you fail to call us when you went to fight against Midian?” And they contended with him violently. But Gideon answered them, “Now what have I accomplished compared to you? Are not the gleanings of Ephraim better than the grape harvest of Abiezer? God has delivered Oreb and Zeeb, the two princes of Midian, into your hand. What was I able to do compared to you?” When he had said…
Gideon wins the battle but loses the peace. He makes a golden ephod that becomes a snare. The hero becomes the problem.
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