I need to understand that this Sunday evening ministry is not a Sunday evening service per se. It is a Bible class, and so we are a little bit less formal here on Sunday evenings. I hope that you will feel free to respond when questions are asked. If you have a question along the way, just lift your hand and we will see if somebody here can answer it. Let's open our Bibles to judges.
We are looking at this Old Testament book that describes a period of time in Israel's history between the conquest of the land and the coronation of Saul as the king. It is a period of 350 years or so. It is a time when there was no centralized government in Israel, and so everyone did that which was right in his own eyes. That is the key sentence in the book of Judges.
I was reading a little bit ago about the archaeological diggings that have uncovered the villages that the Israelis built in this time period. It seems as though prior to this there were isolated villages of the Canaanites, but when the Israelites came with their hundreds of thousands of people, there were villages that began all over Palestine. Generally speaking, these villages were very poor villages. They did not have good defense systems.
The people did not have the homes like the Canaanites had. We have to remember that the Israelites had been in bondage in Egypt for many years, and then had been 40 years in the wilderness, then were seven years in gaining the land, getting the upper hand at least in the land. During that time, other than their worship of Jehovah, they did not have a central culture. The Canaanites were highly developed in their culture with literature, art, architecture, et cetera.
There is quite a contrast that archaeologists have found between the living standards and styles of the Israelites and the Canaanites. Now that may help explain why the Israelites so persistently went after false gods during this period. Because they looked around and saw the Canaanites worshipping their pantheon of false pagan deities, primarily the Baals, and they concluded that the worship of the Baals produced this rather luxuriant living, and they were poor.
I thought that was an interesting insight. It is something that we can learn from today because as we look around, sometimes we are tempted to say, well, those out there in the world have so much more, and it can lead us into spiritual apostasy as well. The blessings that believers have are not promised so much for this world, though God promises to meet our needs. Our blessings are for the world to come. It is good for us to keep that in mind.
As we come to Judges 7, we are in the midst of the text dealing with Gideon, who is also called Jeroboabel. It says, Then Jeroboabel, that is Gideon, and all the people who were with him rose early and camped beside the spring of Herod. You may recall that the Midianites, long-time enemies of the Israelis, for seven years now had been coming into the land during the harvest time and taking the animals and taking the grain, leaving these poor Israelites with nothing.
This has happened again, and God has called Gideon to lead war against the Midianites and to stop this oppression. It is important to understand why the oppression was there. What was the cause for the Midianites coming in and taking the crops and produce of the Israelites? What was the cause of that? It was the sin of the people of Israel. Remember the cycle. There is sin on the part of the people. They did not faithfully seek the Lord. They went after other gods.
Then there was servitude, as God brought punishment and oppression to them because of their apostasy. Following that, the people would repent and cry out to the Lord. God would then send a deliverer, a judge, and there would be peace in the land. Then the cycle would start all over again, it seems. Each time the cycle was a little bit further down. It was not a cycle that was level. It was a cycle spiraled downward morally for the nation.
Once again, God has raised up an oppressor to teach his people a lesson. They have cried out to him, and he has raised up a deliverer whose name is Gideon. The people who were with him camped beside a certain spring called the spring of Harad. The word Harad means fearing, and it tells you a little bit about the heart condition of this army that had gathered together. They were afraid, they were terrified of their enemies. Why was that? Do you have any idea?
What did the Midianites have going for them? A couple of things. Numbers. There were how many of them, roughly? About 180,000 of them. They were a lot of people, big numbers. Does anybody remember how they traveled? Camels. They had this huge herd of camels that they used to go quickly from place to place, and so it was a fearsome force. It says the camp of Midian was on the north side of them by the hill of Moray in the valley. That was three or four miles away.
The Lord said to Gideon, the people who are with you are too many for me to give Midian into their hands. God says you are going to have to go through a reduction of force, because Israel will boast and say, my own power has delivered me. God knew his people pretty well. Now therefore come, proclaim in the hearing of the people, saying, whoever is afraid and trembling, let him return and depart from Mount Gilead. Well, there's a wide open invitation.
He had 30,000 people, a little more than that, who were with him in this army. How many of them left? 22,000. Two out of every three said, thanks for the invitation. See you later. And they took off. But 10,000 remain. Well, the Lord said to Gideon, the people are still too many. Wait a minute. Two-thirds of the army is gone, and God is still saying that's too many. Sorry. He says, bring them down to the water, and I will test them for you there.
Therefore it shall be that of whom I say to you, this one shall go with you, he shall go with you. But every one of whom I say to you, this one shall not go with you, he shall not go. He brought the people down to the water, and the Lord said to Gideon, you shall separate everyone who laps the water with his tongue as a dog laps, as well as everyone who kneels to drink. Now, the number of those who lapped, putting their hand to their mouth, was 300 men.
But all the rest of the people kneeled to drink water. Interesting test, huh? The first one was, are you afraid? Two-thirds of them said, we're terrified. Goodbye. They left. The others are there, and God gives a second test. This one's kind of odd, isn't it? It's how they drink their water. And he says, those who kneel down to drink have to go. And that was 9,700 of them. Only 300 lapped it like a dog. Now, it's unclear here, it's exactly what the picture was.
There are those who say that these people showed that they were vigilant and watchful, because they would reach down into the water and bring it up in their hand and drink it this way, and lap it with their tongues, rather than kneeling down on all fours. That kind of makes sense. That's the one I've heard all my life.
In my study for this, I found out that Josephus, who was a Jew, a writer, a historian, back in the first century, Josephus says just the opposite, that it was the people who got down and lapped who were the ones not being careful, and that was purposeful. God chose them because there was absolutely nothing then for Gideon to depend upon. Kind of an interesting twist, I had not heard that one before.
And the Lord said to Gideon, I will deliver you with the 300 men who lapped, and will give the Midianites into your hands. And let all the people go, each man to his own home. Where are you feeling outnumbered in your life tonight? Or do you feel like the enemy is bigger than you can possibly handle? This circumstance, this situation is so out of control, the enemy is so overwhelming, there's no way for you to handle it. Well, look what God promises to his people in those times.
He said, Gideon, I will deliver you. But over and over again, God has promised that to his people in the battle. He will deliver us. If God is for us, what? Who can be against us? Though the odds are overwhelming, who can be against us if God is for us? Jesus Christ, the right man, is on our side, as Luther said in the hymn that we looked at last week. And so the 300 men took the people's provisions and their trumpets into their hands.
In other words, the people who went home left behind their provisions and their trumpets. And Gideon sent all the other men of Israel, each to his tent, but retained the 300, and the camp of Midian was below him in the valley. And so you get a bit of the topography here. When it says he retained the 300 men, literally the Hebrew word there says he held them, which tells us that these 300 would like to have gone too. When they saw how this army was being depleted, they wanted to leave too.
But Gideon said, no, you're not going to leave. He wouldn't allow them to leave. And the enemy, three or four miles away, was down here from them, down in the valley. That gives us a bit of an understanding of how he was able to surprise them. The same night it came about that the Lord said to him, Arise, go down against the camp, for I have given it into your hands. Now God says the same thing again, I will deliver you. I will give them into your hands. But if you are afraid, ha-ha.
What have we learned about Gideon so far? Was he a big, brave warrior? Now when the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said, Almighty man of valor, it's what Gideon was going to be, not what Gideon was. Isn't it great that God sees what we're going to be and doesn't look at what we are at the time? Almighty man of valor, well, Gideon is still afraid, and that's proven. If you're afraid, go down. Go with Purah, your servant, down to the camp, and you will hear what they say.
So God says, you go and spy it out. You do a reconnaissance mission. And afterward your hands will be strengthened that you may go down against the camp. And so he went with Purah, his servant, to the outpost of the army that was in the camp. Now here you've got this huge army. The Midianites, the Amalekites, and all the sons of the East were lying in the valley as numerous as locusts. And their camels were without number as numerous as the sand on the seashore.
I'll try to get the picture of that. Here you've got Gideon and his 300 men, knees knocking, trembling, up on the higher ground looking down on this camp that is spread out as far as they can see. And wrapped in their robes are these Midianites, Amalekites, and other peoples from the East, soldiers wrapped up in their robes sleeping for the night. And the camels are there around them in this huge camp. Now Gideon came, behold a man was relating a dream to his friend. God is in charge here.
God's arranging this whole thing. And he said, behold I had a dream. Now Gideon and Purah are just listening, see. They're out here beyond the fire in the darkness, just listening to what these people are talking about. I had a dream. A loaf of barley bread was tumbling into the camp of Midian and it came to the tent and struck it. So that it fell and turned it upside down so that the tent lay flat. What an odd dream. He dreamed about a loaf of bread. Have you ever dreamed about a loaf of bread?
I don't recall having that dream lately. And it was a loaf of barley bread. Now barley was the food of the poor and was identified with the Israelites. It was the food given to animals. And there was this loaf of barley bread and it came tumbling out of the hills and fell against this tent that was Midianite and the whole thing collapsed flat. And his friend answered and said, this is nothing less than the sword of Gideon, the son of Joash, a man of Israel. Now why did he say that?
Well you see they were aware that Gideon had rounded up some men and planned to fight them. That was knowledge of these people. And he may have meant this as sort of a joke, a jest. Oh well, that's Gideon. That's Gideon. And it's his sword. God has given Midian and all the camp into his hand. Ha, ha, ha. You see. However he meant it, when Gideon heard that account and the interpretation, it says that he bowed in worship. He bowed in worship. What a great phrase. What a great response.
And Gideon is learning something. Gideon is here responding from his heart to the Lord. And his heart response is one of worship. And he returned to the camp of Israel and he said, arise for the Lord has given the camp of Midian into your hands and he divided the 300 men into three companies. That was typical strategy, divide. And he put trumpets and empty pitchers into the hands of all of them with torches inside the pitchers. Now this is not typical strategy.
They went into battle with their hands filled but not with spears and swords and armament, rather with pitchers that had torches inside of them hidden so they could not be seen. And on the other hand a trumpet. Now the trumpet here is the shofar. That is that horn that is blown into. Perhaps you've seen pictures or heard them. Shofars are not musical instruments. They are a means of assembling people or ordering troops in warfare. They would give these rather loud and odd sounds on the shofar.
And so those are what they had their hands filled with. And he said, look at me and do likewise. Behold when I come at the outskirts of the camp, do as I do. When I and all who are with me blow the trumpet, then you also blow the trumpets all around the camp and say, for the Lord and for Gideon. You see the Midianites knew his name and the Lord's name. And so that is the strategy. They're going to go on three sides. Gideon's going to give the signal. He will start. He will break this pitcher.
Suddenly there will be a torch. There will be light. And there will be the sound of the trumpet. And that will happen then all around on three sides. And so Gideon and the hundred men who were with him came to the outskirts of the camp at the beginning of the middle watch. This is the watch that went from 10 o'clock at night to 2 o'clock in the morning. This is the swing shift. When they had just posted the watch, and so these guys hadn't really gotten into their routine yet.
This was sort of in transition. It was a critical moment of weakness. When there would be movement in the camp as the guards were going back to their places to sleep, and just at that moment they blew the trumpets and smashed the pitchers that were in their hands. And when the three companies blew the trumpets and broke the pitchers, they held the torches in their left hands, and the trumpets in their right hands were blowing and cried, A sword for the Lord and for Gideon.
And each stood in his place around the camp, and all the army ran, crying out as they fled. Now why did they flee? What was so scary about this? Well first of all there was the element of surprise. Here it is a quiet night. The stars are out. The watch has just changed. Everything's okay. And suddenly around them there's all of this noise. There are people crying out for the sword of the Lord and Gideon. There's the sound of trumpets. There are these torches held high. It is a surprise attack.
And they would normally have expected that behind each one of those torches would come several thousand Israeli warriors. They had no idea who was there, who wasn't there, but that's what they would expect. And I can't help but think that God also put panic in their hearts. And there was movement already in the camp as their own soldiers were coming back to rest, and when they woke up were startled, shocked. There are these people moving around.
There's all of this noise, the torches around the camp, and they suddenly began to fight each other. The Lord set the sword of one against the other even throughout the whole army. And they began to kill each other. And all the Israelites did was to stand there and blow trumpets and hold up torches. Isn't that amazing? What an amazing story. And it says that they fled in two different directions, and the men of Israel were summoned from Naphtali, Ashur, and Al-Manasseh, and they pursued Midian.
Now these may have been some of the guys who had gone home. We're not sure, but he got some help and they took out after the fleeing army. And Gideon sent messengers throughout the hill country of Ephraim saying, come down against Midian. Take the waters before them as far as Beth-Berah and the Jordan. So this is the crew that was to cut off the Jordan. They were to wade at the Jordan River at the ford so they could catch the army coming across that direction. And they did that.
And they captured the two leaders of Midian, Orab and Zeab. Orab means raven, Zeab means wolf. Sounds like a motorcycle gang, doesn't it? Wolf and raven were killed, one at a rock and another at a wine press that bore their names from that time on. And there was a great victory. Now interestingly in chapter 8 we begin by the men of Ephraim coming with a complaint. There's just been this wonderful victory and suddenly there is criticism. And does that ever happen to you?
He says, what is this thing you've done to us, not calling us when you went to fight against Midian? And they contended with him vigorously. What do you think is the motive on the part of these Ephraimites? Why are they so upset? They want to get on the glory. Their pride was hurt. They were jealous. They were jealous of what had happened and they didn't get to share in it. How do you handle criticism? When people criticize and complain to you, what do you do?
Now I respond to that, I'm sorry to say, measures something about us, doesn't it? I've tried to learn not to react quickly. I've had to apologize too many times. I don't like apologizing so I try not to react too quickly. Now in this case what Gideon did was to give a very soft answer. Proverbs 15.1 says, a soft answer turns away wrath, grievous words stir up anger. And in the midst of all this anger and jealousy, Gideon responds, what have I done now in comparison with you?
He says, I haven't done anything. You've really won the battle. Is not the gleaning of the grapes of Ephraim better than the vintage of Abaezer? That was his household. He says, you've done so much more. God has given the leaders of Midian, Orab and Zeb into your hands. And what was I able to do in comparison with you? He gives an easy answer and it says their anger toward him subsided when he said that. Now that's a good lesson for us.
That when we are criticized, when people come with this remark or that one, that we give a soft answer. And Gideon and the 300 men who were with him came to the Jordan and crossed over, weary yet pursuing. Now here's the deal. Gideon and his band are still going after some of the fleeing army. They have now gone those miles eastward to the Jordan. They cross the Jordan into the Transjordan and they are pursuing some of the army.
And they come to the city of Sukkoth, some of their own people that was on the east side of the Jordan River. And they said to these people, give loaves, please, of bread to the people who are following me for they are weary and are pursuing Zeba and Zalmunna, the kings of Midian. And the people of that village said, are the hands of Zeba and Zalmunna already in your hands that we should give bread to your army?
You see there was this little custom that you would cut off the hands of your captives. They were leaders. It's just saying, do you have their hands in your hands? And of course the answer was no. The point is, how do we know if you're going to win this battle? Besides, we live right on the border with these people and you're asking us to take sides and get involved? Well that wasn't a real good answer. Because God is the one who had ordered them to fight against the Midianites.
And now the opportunity is there to assist in the battle and they're not willing to do their part. And so Gideon said, all right, when the Lord has given Zeba and Zalmunna into my hand, then I will thrash your bodies with thorns of the wilderness with briars. Now that sounds nasty, but it doesn't sound as nasty as it really was. It undoubtedly resulted in the death of the people who were punished this way. These thorns of the wilderness were nasty thorns, big thorns.
And it's not certain exactly how this was accomplished, whether they were laid down and the thorns were dragged over them, or whether they were laid onto thorns and sledges then were drawn over them. But the point is that this was a torturous way to die. And he went up from there to Penuel. This was only about three or four miles away. And he spoke similar to them and the men of Penuel answered in a similar manner. And so he said to them, when I return safely, I will tear down this tower.
Now people here in this village had a tower of some sort of fortress in which they would go to hide when the Midianites came through. Yes. What made him such bold to come across with this type of retaliation when he was going to die? Revenge. Well, what do you think changed him? He knew God was on his side. He had seen an amazing victory. He had become pretty convinced, hadn't he? Even though at first he was timid and tentative, we don't see that in him at this point. You're right.
There was quite a change. In the case of these people of Penuel, he wasn't going to kill them that way, but he was going to tear down the tower that they depended upon. And so it says that these two kings were at Karqor and their armies with them, about 15,000 men, just a fraction of the original. And all those who were left, the entire army of the sons of the East, for the following were 120,000 swordsmen.
So there were 135, I think I said 180, or more, I was thinking the Assyrians, 135 of these Midianites. And most of them are gone. And Gideon went up by the way of those who had lived in the tents in the east of Noba and Jug Bihah and attacked the camp when the camp was unsuspecting. And so another surprise attack and the result was he took these two kings. And Gideon, the son of Zilash, returned from the battle by the assent of Horus and he captured a youth from Sukkoth.
This is the first village he had come to that denied them provision. And they asked this youth to write down the names of the elders of that village. There were 75 of them. Just an insight here, there are some liberal theologians who try to tell us how illiterate the Israelites were at this particular period of time in their history.
This would be an argument against that, that here is a youth who was able to write probably on a piece of pottery or on something like that, but he wrote down the names of the 75 elders of the city. And he came to the city and showed them his captives and he took the elders of the city and did what he had threatened he would do. And when he came to Penual he did exactly the same thing there that he said he would do. He tore down their tower, leaving them without that mechanism of defense.
And then he said to these two captives, Zeba and Zalmunna, what kind of men were they whom you killed at Tabor? Now we have some information here that we don't have anywhere else in Judges. We don't exactly know when this happened, but at some time these two guys, these two kings had come to Mount Tabor, which is where Gideon was from. And they had attacked Mount Tabor.
And so Gideon is thinking back to that occasion, knowing who these two are, and he says what kind of men were those that you killed? And he said they were like you, each one resembling the son of a king. That's an idiom, an expression that means that they were like you, they were strong, they were good looking, they were privileged people. It tells us a little bit about Gideon as we saw before when we studied him. His father was wealthy and well known there in that city.
And he said they were my brothers, the sons of my mother. So Gideon now brings a charge against these two and is going to do the duty of the avenger under the law of Moses. Now these were Midianites, not Israelites, but he's applying the law nonetheless that God gave in Deuteronomy 19 verse 6 verse 12 in which he had authority and right to punish these men for killing his next of kin. He says as the Lord lives, if only you had let them live, I would not kill you.
But now they're about to get punishment that is commensurate with their murderous act. And so he said to Jethro, his firstborn, rise and kill them. Now in doing this, Gideon was giving to his firstborn son a privileged action. It was considered to be an honor to kill the kings of the opposing army. But it was also a disgrace to the kings to have a young man kill them, not a seasoned warrior. Furthermore, a young man who wasn't used to warfare may have done it in a way that was not quick.
He may have blown it the first time, see. And so Gideon says to them, rise and kill them, but the youth did not draw his sword. He was afraid. I don't know where he learned that. But he was still a youth and you can understand even the child of a very brave warrior, which Gideon had not been most of his life, would still be reticent because of his youthfulness. The two kings pleaded, rise up yourself and fall on us. For as the man, so is his strength. And Gideon arose and he killed them both.
And he took the ornaments that were on their camels' necks. These were crescent, sort of half-moon ornaments out of silver gold, something like that. And he took them. And so we have the conquest of Gideon. Now there's an interesting thing that happens. The people of Israel say to Gideon, rule over us. They're willing to make him their king at this point. Rule over us. You have brought great deliverance. And Gideon, to his credit, does not accept that offer.
He says, I will not rule over you, nor shall my son rule over you. He says, I will not rule over you. I do not want a dynasty of my household ruling over this people. Why? He says, the Lord shall rule over you. Gideon understands that basic premise that God wanted to rule over his people. And he did say to them, each of you give me an earring from the spoil. And so this was a form of reward, or maybe even taxation it might be called.
And they did that, and they spread it out, and there was a good deal of gold that was there as a reward to Gideon. And in verse 27 it says, Gideon made it into an ephod. What in the world is an ephod? You may recall that the high priest of Israel was given an ephod to wear. It was a piece of clothing, sort of a vest. And on that ephod were precious stones, and the names of the tribes of Israel were on it, you remember? Here we have another ephod. It is a vest.
And from this material that he got as plunder, Gideon made this particular piece of clothing. Perhaps he did this so that as he went to his duties as judge, as he would perform his civil duties, that would be his vestment. We don't have any indication here that Gideon did this in rebellion against God. There's no indication that he did it to establish a false religion, an idolatrous worship in Israel, but the fact is that that ephod later on did become an object of idolatry.
And it became a snare, as it says here, to Gideon and his household. And Gideon was subdued, the lamb was undisturbed for 40 years. Perhaps the last time this expression is found in judges, there were other judges that came later, but they were not periods of peace who followed them, as we shall see. But this time there were 40 years of peace following Gideon. It says that he went down, lived in his house, and had 70 sons who were his direct descendants. He had many wives.
He may not have accepted the position of king, but he lived like a king. He had all of his wives and children, and he died at a ripe old age. He was buried in the tomb of his father, Joash. Oh, by the way, he had a son named Abimelech. We're going to learn about him in the next chapter. And so there is this record of the conquest of Gideon, and after he is off the scene, what happens? The sons of Israel again played the harlot with the bales, and made Baal Barith their god.
Thus the sons of Israel did not remember the Lord their god, who had delivered them from the hands of all their enemies on every side, nor did they show kindness to the household of Jehovah-Bel that is Gideon in accordance with all the good that he had done to Israel. Well, the end of our study for tonight. I have some other questions I was hoping you would get to, but I can't do that this evening. We're going to have to close right on time. Yes, Joanne?
When I ask you a question, so often in Israel, like, who would go to battle and they wouldn't battle, God would not allow them to do anything of the evil man they would be. He allows them to conquer. Why did he sometimes and other times not? I don't know the answer to that. I know that earlier on in the book of Joshua that was the case, and the fact that, what was his name? He took some of the goods from Ai. Aiken. How can you forget a name like that? Aiken was a real pain.
And he did take some of the goods and brought judgment upon the house of Israel because of it, but here God allows Gideon to do it. Does anyone have an insight there regarding this? I don't know. When we started judging that the battles of Joshua would cleanse the land, and now these again were trying, it was a different scene here where it was God restoring the people of Hebron.
Good point, and he allowed them to take plunder from the Egyptians, didn't he, when they left in order to repay them, so to speak, because of their slavery there. He arranged it so that they could just enforce the plunder on them. That's true. That's true. Please take this and get out. Any other closing thoughts? Questions? Why do you think God wanted the numbers reduced? So that it would be proved that it was God who had it. Any other thoughts about that?
Don't you think it reinforced the presence of God with them? The fact that the only three hundred men was really sure that God was present with them. You and God are a majority. That's all it takes. If you're in the will of God, you're the majority. That's possible. The fact that they were surrounded on all sides, kind of like the nation of Israel today is surrounded by a lot of people. It doesn't matter today.
We are in a cultural war, as we hear about, but it doesn't matter that we're outnumbered. What matters is that we are on the right side. That's God's side. Whichever way God allows the battles to go, in this vote or that one or this issue or that one, we know that in Jesus Christ we're on the right side. That ours is the victory in him. We must close, and I would invite you to bow with me. Lord, we give thanks to you for the experiences of life and the way that you teach us about yourself.
We confess to you that there are times when we have taken the glory from battles that we have won. We want to learn the lesson that Gideon did that it doesn't depend upon us, it depends upon you. We pray that you will simply make us courageous believers of your promises and enable us in the battles of our lives, whether they seem small or large, to believe you and to not be afraid and to press on.
Even when the odds are great, enable us to see you above all of that and to know that in you we have the victory. In Jesus' name, amen. Blessings and Shalom.