he land rested for forty years after the victory over Sisera. Then the Israelites turned away from Yahweh. Again, the judge tale is framed with the editor's pattern of faith statements.
1 The Israelites acted wickedly in YHWH's eyes. YHWH gave them over to the control of Midian for seven years. (6:1)
The first stage of the pattern is thus stated. The Midianites were marauders who would descend on the more settled Israelites, foraging grain and stealing livestock.
6 Israel became very poor on account of Midian, and the Israelites cried out to YHWH. (6:6)
The Israelites realized that they did, in fact, need Yahweh. He responded by sending an angel to commission Gideon, who was from the tribe of Manasseh. The setting of this encounter is very revealing of the conditions in Israel generally, and of the quality of Israel's leadership specifically. The angel confronted Gideon as Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress. A winepress is a depression carved out of rock. Normally threshing is done on a hard surface near the top of a hill, to catch the breeze. Gideon was obviously in hiding. The angel's words of address can only be heard as ironic in this context when he says, "Yahweh is with you, you mighty warrior!"
Gideon's first act in Yahweh's cause was to vandalize the local shrine of Baal. During the night he and a few of his servants sneaked up to the high place and pulled down the altar and its associated Asherah symbol. Again, the insecurity of Gideon comes to our attention. He did it at night because he was afraid otherwise someone might recognize and blame him. Only after the townspeople confronted him did he own up to his act and stand up publicly against Baal.
The Spirit of Yahweh empowered Gideon, and he mustered troops from the northern tribes to fight against the Midianites. But in another act of insecurity he asked Yahweh for a sign to signal whether or not he would find victory. He himself proposed the test of the wet sheepskin. He laid out a fleece overnight. If it were wet while the surrounding ground was dry, then he would take that as a sign of victory. It was so, but Gideon still was not convinced. He asked for just the opposite the next night, and when it happened Gideon had no choice but to acknowledge that Yahweh was signaling victory and that he would have to get on with the campaign.
Gideon then assembled a fighting force. But like Gideon, they were reluctant warriors. When the soldiers were given the opportunity to return home rather than fight, 22,000 out of 32,000 decided to leave. God told Gideon that this was still too many--he wanted to make clear that the victory would come from him. So the army experienced further attrition after Gideon observed them drinking water from a spring. Only those who brought water hand to mouth rather than by directly lapping the water from the pool were enlisted for the battle. The story seems to dwell on the timidity and even incompetence of these early "warriors," on the way to making the point that Israel's fighting men were less than valiant defenders of the Israelite federation.
Left with only three hundred men, Gideon devised a plan of attack that involved surprise and clever deception. He and his men surrounded the Midianite camp in the middle of the night. Armed with ram's horn trumpets, jars, and torches, on Gideon's signal they shocked the enemy out of sleep by smashing the jars, blowing the trumpets, and holding high the torches. Disoriented, confused, and seemingly outnumbered, the Midianites tried to flee. Gideon's three hundred gave chase and killed many of them. The chase became the occasion for the writer to illustrate the lack of cooperation, and even distrust, among the various tribes. The Ephraimites felt slighted because they had not been invited to the originating attack, and only got to be a part of the mopping up. Then the Israelites in Transjordan at Succoth and Penuel refused to help Gideon.
What happens next relates to the ideology of covenant and kingship, a major concern of the Deuteronomistic Historian. After he had killed the last kings of the Midianites, the Israelites begged Gideon to be their ruler. Although he took tribute from them--a share of the booty taken from the defeated Midianites--he refused to be king, saying, "Yahweh will rule over you" (8:23).
In the following story of Gideon's son Abimelech, (whose name means "my father is king"), we have the record of an individual's aborted attempt to establish a royal dynasty. Abimelech came to kingship by killing the other seventy sons of Gideon, though overlooking the youngest, Jotham. Abimelech assumed control of Shechem, and by various campaigns sought to control other villages. He died ignominiously after a defender dropped a millstone on his head. Perhaps written by an author critical of monarchy, the tale illustrates the violence-prone and typically self-important character of kings.
