Bible Commentaries

Gideon

Judges 6:2. Israel was dwelling in "the dens which are in the mountains, and caves, and strong holds." The proud and princely Israel was burrowing in the torrent gullies, instead of building cities that should have lifted their towers and spires like ascending psalms to the approving heavens. Think of it well! It is the same today. Men who might have been in the thoroughfare are hidden away in some distressing obscurity. Men who ought to have been foremost are left so far behind they can hardly be seen,—dim spectres in the far-away distance. The Midianites were coming up like locusts. No sooner did the Israelites sow their seed than the Midianites had their eye upon it; and it was only by strategy, cunning almost surpassingly human, that Israel could save a handful of corn for itself. Israel was "impoverished." A very remarkable word is that. It means that they were like a door swinging on broken hinges. Israel, the redeemed people, Israel without whom there might have been no history, Israel had so sinned as to be at last like a door swinging on hinges that were broken: the door could not be shut, the door was no security, the door was a perpetual irony, yea, a daily reproach and taunt. There is a poverty that is the result of what we call misfortune; that is to be pitied and to be assisted: there is a poverty that is only the social and punitive side of sin; that is to be recognised as such—a black blot on the snow of God's holiness, a sad brand on the righteousness of things. Or the figure may be changed, for it is a double one. Israel was like a sear leaf, just hanging by one frail thread to the branch, all the juice gone, all the beautiful green dead for ever, all possibility of fruitfulness exhausted; and there hung great Israel, a leaf—sear, yellow, dead, just hanging to drop! We must realise this condition of things before we can understand the arduousness of the mission of Gideon. If we do not understand the situation we cannot understand Gideon's distress, hesitation, hopelessness. The times were out of joint. All things beautiful were dead. The whole time was given over to idolatry. There was but one man who kept to the true faith, and he seemed to worship in secret; he alone was not swallowed up in the great idolatrous passion; his father had gone religiously astray, but he himself still thought of old histories, and had in him flickering, but, oh, quite dyingly, some hope of returning faith.

Then came the inevitable "cry ":—"The children of Israel cried unto the Lord" ( Judges 6:6). It was a mean prayer. Some cries must not be answered; they are unworthy screams or utterances of selfish desire. The Lord will not be too critical about these "cries," for who then could stand before him and hope for any thing from his hand? What prayer is there worth being heard, not to say worth being answered? Search it, probe it, and what is it but religious selfishness—a plea for self? But men must pray as best they can. We cannot expect perfect prayers from imperfect men. In the cry there may be something which God can hear to which he will make response. But prayers are not answered, because they are not prayers; they are self-excuses, self-pleadings, desires inspired by selfishness: so they are narrow, shortsighted, out of the rhythm of the music of the universe, notes that cannot be smoothed into the general utterance of the divine purpose; they may do the suppliant good by heightening his veneration or exciting within him some inexpressible desires, but as words they fall back again like birds whose wings have been broken.

Israel cried unto the Lord. What was the divine answer to that cry? It was a prophet. Jewish legend says it was Phinehas, son of Eleazar. The prayer was answered by a man:—"The Lord sent a prophet unto the children of Israel" ( Judges 6:8). A "prophet" is a teacher, a man who sees the largest relations of things, one who lives above the cloud and can see what is going on underneath it; a seer, a man of penetrating vision, a man whose eyes are within, and from whom God has hidden nothing of Judges 6:8-10).

Here you find a reminder,—that is to say, a reference to history. Memory was awakened and turned upon the days that had gone, God works through recollection. Marvellous are the miracles which God works by the power of memory: memory goes back, and brings to mind things forgotten, uses them in the light of today, observes their action upon the circumstances which make up the immediate present; and oftentimes a man needs no hotter hell than an awakened and stimulated memory. The recollection was followed by a reproof:—"But ye have not obeyed my voice," saying in effect: I have not changed; I was continuing the line; my purpose was one of deliverance and success and honour for Israel, but ye failed in obedience: first you became reluctant, hesitant, then weary, then you complained of monotony, then you said the yoke galled your shoulders, then you fell clean away, then you built Asherah and worshipped Baal; this is the reason of all that has come upon you; blame yourselves: for men who fall away from the road of obedience fail of the heaven of blessedness.

All this is intelligible. We have been accustomed to these reminding and accusing voices ourselves, and we do not hear in them anything that startles our reason or taxes our faith. Now the prophet is succeeded by an angel. A most mysterious instance occurs, challenging our faith in its loftiest moods. Gideon was threshing wheat by the winepress, to hide it from the Midianites. He was in a little sheltered corner, not daring to use a flail, perhaps, lest the beat of it should attract the attention of some listening Midianite; Gideon was almost rubbing the wheat between his hands. He was in a little cave rather than in a winepress, which is hardly the literal translation. He was in a corner by himself, rubbing out the wheat which he had industriously sown, painfully watched, and honestly gathered. It was weary work for Gideon. He felt that he was a prisoner, almost stealing his own bread. This is not unknown to ourselves. Men sometimes have to hide their food from their own relations. Some men dare not even seem to be prosperous, because they know what havoc would be wrought by those who have been watching their honourable and successful labours. Men sometimes have to hide themselves from their own flesh, and to rub out their little handful of wheat behind some sheltering crag. Some men are bound to look poor, because they know they would be fleeced and robbed. Is that not strictly according to our own personal experience? This is the picture presented by the position and action of Gideon [hewer]: a hidden Deuteronomy 21:17] and where be all his miracles which our fathers told us of, saying, Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt? but now the Lord hath forsaken us, and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites" ( Judges 6:13).

It was a right answer so far. It was better that Gideon should know the exact circumstances. "To know ourselves diseased is half the cure." Gideon must not have any false hopes. He must not be taking up any broken splinters of wood and saying: These splinters will be swords which we shall thrust through the bows of the enemy. It is well that he is driven into obscurity, that he is made to do his work with the utmost quietness, that he is compelled to act almost as a thief on the threshold of his own house. To be down so far is to be in that darkness which oft precedes the dawn.

What did the angel do? The angel did two things. (1) He "looked." Who can interpret that word? Some biblical words must remain without interpretation. Sometimes in translating books from foreign languages into our own we are obliged to quote certain words and let them remain untranslated; we hover over them, point to them, give clumsy paraphrases of their possible meaning, but think it better after all to set down the word itself, for it has no equivalent in our own language. It must be so with this word "look." That look begat attention, inspired confidence, elevated thought, stimulated veneration, and looked Gideon into a new man. There are looks which do so. There is one look which is yet to do this in all the fulness of its meaning: the day is to come when we shall be like Christ, for we shall see him as he is. These are spiritual looks that we read of in the Old Testament, and that we have experience of in the current of our own lives. (2) The angel, however, not only looked but "said"—changed his tone, used human speech, addressed the man in his mother tongue. He said, "Go in this thy might, and thou shalt save Israel from the hand of the Midianites: have not I sent thee?" ( Judges 6:14). But Gideon was astounded, and said in effect: Impossible—

"Oh, my Lord, wherewith shall I save Israel? behold, my family [my thousand] is poor [the meanest] in Judges 6:15).

This is quite in the line of biblical history. Sarah "laughed" when the angel said that she should be the mother of one who should be supreme in history; Moses was shocked when he was told that Judges 6:17). According to the laws of Oriental hospitality, Gideon withdrew to prepare refreshment for his wondrous visitor:—"Depart not hence, I pray thee, until I come unto thee, and bring forth my present, and set it before thee." And the angel said, "I will tarry until thou come again." "Gideon went in, and made ready a kid, and unleavened cakes of an ephah of flour:"—unleavened bread being more easily-prepared than any other—"the flesh he put in a basket, and he put the broth in a pot, and brought it out unto him under the oak, and presented it." The angel said, "Take the flesh and the unleavened cakes, and lay them upon this rock, and pour out the broth." And Gideon did so.

"Then the angel of the Lord put forth the end of the staff that was in his hand, and touched the flesh and the unleavened cakes; and there rose up fire out of the rock, and consumed the flesh and the unleavened cakes. Then the angel of the Lord departed out of his sight" ( Judges 6:21).

Now there came a practical test to be applied to Gideon. Sooner or later that test comes to every man. If we put God to the test, what if God should in his turn put us also upon our trial? The test to which Gideon was about to be put was a practical one. As the foreign invasion of Midian was traceable to Israel's evil-doing, so the beginning of the divine deliverance must be moral, spiritual, and religious. That same night the Lord said to Gideon: Take thy father's young bullock, even the second bullock of seven years old, attach it to the altar of Baal by rope or iron, and drag it down. That was a negative beginning. We must get down the old altar before we put up the new one. "And"—when thou hast done this—

"build an altar unto the Lord thy God upon the top of this rock, in the ordered place [build an altar with the wood laid in order]; and take the second bullock, and offer a burnt sacrifice with the wood of the grove which thou shalt cut down" ( Judges 6:26).

Gideon made one reservation. We do not wonder that he should have done so. He said, in effect: I cannot do this in the daytime; I will do it by night.—Who can blame him? Who will call him coward? It was a natural device. Men cannot be courageous all at once. Some men need to be trained and nursed into courage; be gentle with them, patient and hopeful,—who can spring into lionhood all in one sudden moment? "Gideon took ten men of his own," rather than "ten men of his servants," and pulled down Baal's altar by night. When night gives up her history, it may be found that many a man has attempted to begin a better life under the cover of darkness. We should not taunt men for want of boldness in spiritual things; sometimes they are bolder than we have imagined them to be: they may even have attempted to pray aloud when no one was present. That is a trial of a man's spiritual sincerity. It is not every man who can listen to his own voice in prayer and continue the supplication with any composure. A man's first audible prayer might smite himself down as by a great thunder-stroke: the voice seems so loud, the exercise so audacious; it is as if the universe had halted to hear the new appeal. Who shall say that men who are dumb in church have not tried in darkness and in loneliness to sing some little hymn of praise when they were quite unheard? Who knows what papers have been written, what plans of battle have been drawn up, at night-time, wherein men said they would certainly begin at this point, or at that point, to renounce a companionship, to change a custom, to release themselves from the tyranny of a habit: next time they would say No to the invitation which sought to seduce them to evil-doing. Who is not courageous when he is alone? Who is not most eloquent when there is none to hear him? We must not, therefore, fall foul upon the memory of Gideon and charge him with want of courage.

But the morning came. What the city then saw! The cathedral, so to say, was pulled down! When the men of the city arose early in the morning they missed the altar and the Asherah, "and they said to one another, Who hath done this thing?" And inquiry resulted in the information that Gideon the son of Joash had done it.

"Then the men of the city said unto Joash, Bring out thy Judges 6:30).

Joash was not a born Baal-worshipper; the foreign religion sat uneasily upon him. He had inwardly no great respect for Baal; outwardly he was addicted to his worship, but really he had serious misgivings about Baal's godhead. What if all idolators be afflicted with the same scepticism? Scepticism does not grow in the Church with relation to the true God alone; unbelievers in the true religion have scepticism often with regard to their own: they cannot tell what to make of their dumb gods; they have great philosophies about them, but no direct consequence comes of it all; so when an assault is made upon them the resistance is but reluctant or careless. Joash was a wise man; he said: Men of the city, hear me: my son has torn down the altar of Baal; if Baal be a god in very deed let him avenge the wrong himself; do not you interfere as to Baal's sovereignty and godhead: in so far as Baal is a true god he will see to it that the man who insulted his altar shall be punished for his sacrilege and audacity. The men thought this was a good answer, and they accepted it. This is the challenge of the God of the Bible. God is always challenging the false gods to come forward and show what they can do. God mocks them, taunts them, tells them they are nothing,—says they are things made out of iron and stone and wood, and not a single thought is in their carved heads. This is the challenge of Elijah; said Judges 6:33).

They were there first. They said, They will be well off who are soonest in the field. What had Gideon to present in reply to this tremendous muster? The story reads well at this point: "But the Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon," and he was a thousand men in himself. Inspired, he knew no fear; the tabernacle of the living God, he trembled not before the wind and the tempest. We need inspired men, mad men, enthusiasts, men who know not whether they are fasting or feasting, men who use the world as not abusing it, who hold every thing lightly but their trust from the living God. Gideon "blew a trumpet; and Abi-ezer"—his little flock—"was gathered after him. And he sent messengers throughout all Manasseh"—the people of the tribe—"who also was gathered after him: and he sent messengers unto Asher"—who once proved faithless—"and unto Zebulun, and unto Naphtali"—who had won immortal fame in the battle last fought by Israel—"and they came up to meet them" ( Judges 6:34-35). Spiritual endowment is power. It is of no consequence how many swords the Church has if it has not the living God: "Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword, shall perish with the sword." Christ's kingdom is not of this world: it is a kingdom of thought, feeling, love, sacrifice; be true to that spirit, and none can stand before you.

Now Gideon became afraid again, and must therefore be encouraged by another sign from heaven. We must not blame him. He is not the less earnest that he wants to be assured that he is right. Gideon invented a little test for God:—

"Behold, I will put a fleece of wool in the floor; and if the dew be on the fleece only, and it be dry upon all the earth beside, then shall I know that thou wilt save Israel by mine hand, as thou hast said" ( Judges 6:37).

Did God reply? God accommodated himself to human weakness as he has always done. Gideon arose early in the morning, "and thrust the fleece together, and wringed the dew out of the fleece, a bowl full of water" ( Judges 6:38). ["Wool, as a good radiator of heat, would, under ordinary conditions, receive a plentiful deposit of dew, but so would the surrounding grass and soil. The second miracle was still more remarkable, inferior radiators receiving dew, when a better radiator, wool, remained dry."] Gideon was half persuaded: Now, said Judges 6:39-40).

["The double sign in connection with the fleece, which Gideon asked of God, is an illustration of a tendency in him to ask for signs: and nothing could be more ingenious, nothing more satisfactory, than the alternate wetting by dew of the fleece and of the whole ground. Possibly he was led to use such boldness in repeated pleadings with God, by the example of Abraham's repeated requests when interceding for Sodom ( Genesis 18:23-33). And he may have asked for the dew first to concentrate on the fleece, then to spread out over the ground, as he saw how the grace bestowed first upon himself, was spreading out over Israel."

—Douglas.]

We may not set these fancy tests. They were proper enough at the time when Gideon applied them. The day was not then so far advanced; it was quite early morning, grey twilight, and men did not see clearly, so they asked for much assistance to their vision; and God graciously answered them. Even in apostolic days the freak of the lottery was tried, and we hear but little of the happy consequences which flowed from the adventure. We have nothing to do with putting tests for God now. Why? It would seem a natural and beautiful thing to say, as Gideon said, If the fleece be wet, or if all the earth be wet, and the fleece be dry, then God is with me, and the right way is open before mine eyes. Why may we not submit God to these tests? because the day is far advanced. This is the age of the Spirit, the age of true spiritual or religious faith. We have now to be guided by those inward and spiritual convictions which often have no words for their adequate and precise expression. We are to be students of providence. Providence itself is a succession of trials, tests, proofs. We are to see how things go, to watch their origin, sequence, consummation. We are to get rid of the superstition that life is a series of isolated incidents. Instead of being right in this particular case, or that, we ourselves are to be right, and all these things shall be regulated for us. The man who is anxious to know merely detailed right has not entered into the Spirit of Christ. He is a man who would keep a book regarding himself, and separate or distribute his life into independent lines and items. That is the Baal we must cast down,—the Baal of being right in instances, in mere details, and writing a little maxim-bible of our own. What, then, is the great aim of Providence today? To make right men, to create new and clean hearts and spirits, to make the soul right. Is that represented to us in any formal, quotable words? Surely:—"Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you." Expand that thought, and what happens but this great philosophy of life, namely: Be right in your soul, be right in your purpose, have a single eye, do not be playing a double game; "do justly, and love mercy, and walk humbly with thy God; "and as for the details of this opening life, they will fall into great laws of divine Providence, and will be ministers of grace to the trusting soul. What an insidious sophism lurks in this thinking, namely, that if we could have lotteries by which to test individual actions we could not go wrong. So long as you are meddling with individual actions, and trying to be guided by a kind of travelling time-bill, you cannot be right. Here is the distinctive glory of Christ's religion. "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." The man does not say, What shall I eat; what shall I drink; wherewithal shall I be clothed; what shall I do to-morrow; and on the second day how shall I be occupied; and in what spirit shall I encounter such and such a possible occasion? That is to live a little life,—to split up, and separate, and individualise, and to act cleverly, not religiously. Life is not to be a system of scheming, managing, arranging, balancing, outwitting those who are half-blind, outrunning those who are cripples or unable to run; life is a religion, a consecration, a spiritual sacrifice, a continual living in the sight and fear and love of God; that being granted, all the rest comes in musical sequence, everything else conies and goes by a rhythm divine in its swing and throb. Foolish are the men who want to be right in particular instances, who desire above all things not to be outwitted on set occasions. There was a time in human history when such desires were natural and wholly seasonable, but that time is not now; for Christ is amongst us, and says to us: Children, be the children of your Father in heaven; be ye holy, as your Father in heaven is holy; be ye perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect; trust your Father, little flock; be not disheartened; live in your Father's good pleasure: seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all details will settle themselves. Why, who would kindle a little fire in his own field to dissolve the snow, and say he will have at least a little garden there? Is the great snow to be broken up into patches in that way, and are we to have little summers and little forces of nature, and little clever attempts to grow something under the most discouraging circumstances? Do not interfere with God's law in that way. God will send a south wind and a warm sun, and the snow will flee away. There must be a great astronomic movement—a high, mighty far-reaching movement, a change of atmosphere: and that will drive back the winter, and in due time "throw a primrose on the bank in pledge of victory." So must it be with the winter-bound heart of man. It is not by lighting little fires here and there so as to warm great feeling, or create a momentary benevolence, or rise into a temporary ecstasy; the Spirit of the living God must descend upon the whole Judges 6:30).—The word ba"al, as it signifies lord, master, is a generic term for god in many of the Syro-Arabian languages. As the idolatrous nations of that race had several gods, this word, by means of some accessory distinction, became applicable as a name to many different deities. Baal is appropriated to the chief male divinity of the Phoenicians, the principal seat of whose worship was at Tyre. The idolatrous Israelites adopted the worship of this god (almost always in conjunction with that of Ashtoreth) in the period of the Judges ( Judges 2:13); they continued it in the reigns of Ahaz and 2 Chronicles 28:2; 2 Kings 21:3); and among the kings of Israel, especially in the reign of Ahab, who, partly through the influence of his wife, the daughter of the Sidonian king Ethbaal, appears to have made a systematic attempt to suppress the worship of God altogether, and to substitute that of Baal in its stead ( 1 Kings 16:31); and in that of Hoshea ( 2 Kings 17:16), although Jehu and Jehoida once severally destroyed the temples and priesthood of the idol ( 2 Kings 10:18, sq.; 2 Kings 11:18).

Prayer

Almighty God, thou hast made the sanctuary a place of explanation: within thy house we understand all that is needful for us to know. Outside of it we cannot tell what things really are; we are in the midst of tumult and strife and anger; wrath and malice and bitterness exclude thy presence, but when we come into the house of God we see in the true light, we know somewhat of thy meaning, we are privileged to behold the outworking of thy purposes, and as we look we wonder, and as we wonder we pray, and our prayer speedily becomes a song of praise, because we see that the Lord reigneth and that the end of things is in his hands. Enable us often to come to the sanctuary. Blessed be thy grace for establishing it, so that now we may say, the tabernacle of God is with men upon the earth; God's house is in the midst of our dwellings. When we come into the sanctuary may we find the spirit of the house there,—the spirit of reverence and love, the spirit that loves the truth and follows after it and will eventually establish it; and being in the spirit in thy house, may thy book appear to us in all its breadth and lustre: wide as the great heaven, brighter than the sun when he shines in his strength; and may our hearts be comforted by the messages which they most need; and if first we must be humbled and chastened, stripped and impoverished, that we may know our right condition, thou wilt not end the process there, but having shown us our blindness and nakedness and wretchedness thou wilt give us fine gold, and ointment wherewith to anoint ourselves, and truth upon truth, until the soul is filled with the riches of Christ. So let it be now and evermore. May the sanctuary be a place of elevation whence we can see afar, and a place of revelation where we can see sights let down from heaven and hear voices meant for our instruction and comfort. To the sanctuary we bring our sin. Here we leave it, because the Cross is here; we may not—need not—take it back with us; for the blood of Jesus Christ thy Son cleanseth from all sin. Here let our sin be crucified; here let our sin be pardoned.

This prayer we pray at the Cross; and we tarry at the Cross until the answer come. Amen.

Gideon—
(Continued)

Exodus 13:18. The probable meaning is arrayed in divisions] men that were in the host. And the Midianites and the Amalekites and all the children of the east lay along in the valley like grasshoppers [locusts. Compare Numbers 22:4-5] for multitude; and their camels were without number, as the sand by the sea side for multitude" ( Judges 7:11-12).

When Gideon came near a man told a dream to his neighbour; he said, "Behold, I dreamed a dream, and, lo, a cake of barley bread"—such bread as Israel has been reduced to, the bread of poverty—"tumbled into the host of Midian, and came unto a tent, and smote it that it fell, and overturned it, that the tent lay along." It is an extraordinary dream; what is the meaning of it? The other man had the faculty of interpretation; he said, "This is nothing else save the sword of Gideon the son of Joash, a man of Israel." Once let the enemy have within him the fear that the opposing host will succeed, and the battle is won. Battles are lost and won in the soul. The Church has feared, and the Church has lost.

The battle opened. Israel, represented by three hundred men, did according to the instructions of Gideon:—"When I blow with a trumpet, I and all that are with me, then blow ye the trumpets also on every side of all the camp, and say, The sword of the Lord, and of Gideon,"—and that will correspond in instructive harmony with the dream which I have overheard; the name of Gideon has entered into the speech of the Midianites; associate that name with this great battle, and say, "The sword of the Lord, and of Gideon." So the battle opened. "And the three companies blew the trumpets, and brake the pitchers, and held the lamps in their left hands, and the trumpets in their right hands to blow withal: and they cried, The sword of the Lord, and of Gideon;" and as the torches were shaken in the air, for they were torches rather than what we understand as lamps, and as the sound came from every quarter at once, Midian was afraid, and Midian was destroyed. Make the most of yourselves. You are but three hundred, but symbolically you are all heaven. This manner of assaulting the enemy is no dramatic manner, no pretence or affectation; this is a battle which is being fought on divine principles: therefore, if three hundred men seem to be three millions, they are such, multiplied by themselves and multiplied by infinity in their symbolical and representative capacity.

Gideon took princes that day, even "Oreb and Zeeb," the Raven and the Wolf. The heads of the raven and the wolf were brought to Gideon on the other side Jordan,—see him with the one in one hand and the other in the other. It was an old and barbarous plan to bring the head of the enemy to the hand of the conqueror. It is not a thing to be reproduced or countenanced by Christanised civilisation; but it was the ancient mode of warfare, and must be judged by the morality of the age. This is typical. "Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? this that is glorious in his apparel, travelling in the greatness of his strength? "He has trodden the winepress alone. He is mighty to save; he is mighty also to destroy. "His enemies will I clothe with shame: but upon himself shall his crown flourish." In this faith all Christians live and work, serve and suffer, and, blessed be God, the inspiration is in us also. Men call themselves by symbolical names, as Midian was called "the Raven," but God's hand is in the heavens, and the air shall be cleansed of his enemies:—"the Wolf," but God's eyes are in the forest and the jungle and the wilderness, and he will destroy the ravenous beast. Men have called themselves by ideal and typical names, as the "Gracchi"—the jackdaws. We respect them under the name of the Gracchi, because we do not know what it means, but when it is understood that the interpretation thereof is "jackdaws" we feel that we ourselves might encounter them in battle. The Aquilini—the eagles. So our great warriors have called themselves bull, and wolf, and lion. All these names have histories behind them; but we can never fight with names only: they must represent realities, spiritual inspirations, moral convictions, gospels we have died for, heavens we have seized with crucified hands; then the battle will go the right way. Enter the fight and always turn your eyes to the blood-stained banner on which is written, as with pen of lightning, The battle is not yours, but God's. Fighting under that banner and in its spirit, the fight can have but one end—grand, complete, eternal victory.

Prayer

Almighty God, evermore be with us; evermore give us the bread of life: evermore keep us within the hollow of thy hand. We have learned to distrust ourselves. We have hewn out to ourselves cisterns, but have found them to be broken cisterns that could hold no water. We have thought to plant gardens and sow fields of our own, and behold thou hast withheld thy sun, and all our efforts have perished in darkness. So now, if thou wilt not disdain so mean an offering, we would, under the drawing of a power not our own turn to thy grace, and offer ourselves in sacrifice unto thee: do thou now accept the oblation and give us answers from heaven. We thought our life would never end, and behold we have come to know that it is but a breath in our nostrils. We said of our strength, It is enduring, and cannot fail; and behold, whilst the boast was upon our lips our juice was dried up and there was no sap in all the life. We all do fade as a leaf. We are but as the wind, blowing for a little time: or a vapour dying upon the breeze. We cannot tell what we are, for there is no language that can set forth our poverty, and feebleness, and littleness; yet, when we come to know thy Son Jesus Christ our Saviour, and by living faith in him enter into the mystery of his being, then are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be, but our hope is that we shall be like our Saviour, for we shall see him as he is. So we are little, and great; worthless, yet all-worthy; children of time, yet sons of immortality. Help us to understand somewhat of this mystery, to accept it, to walk in its spirit, to pray mightily unto God that we may grow in all purity, nobleness, and holy power. Thy hand has been outstretched to us in all goodness; no good thing hast thou withheld from us. If we judge by thy rain we cannot tell the just from the unjust; if we judge by thy sunshine we know not the difference between the good and the evil: for thou art kind unto all, and thy tender mercies are over all thy works; the mercy of the Lord endureth for ever, and to his love there is no measure. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name. We confess our sins, and mourn them with bitterest lamentation, and seek thy pardon at the cross. God forbid that we should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ: it is the hope of the sinner; it is the way to heaven; it is the very glory of the divine love. Help us to handle our life with great sagacity, understanding the mystery of it as revealed in thy holy book; may we see its littleness, yet its infinite possibilities; may we judge between that which is for a moment and that which is for ever; as wise builders, may we build upon the rock and not upon the sand; may it be found at last that through apparent folly we have been practising the most solid Judges 8:22). That was his opportunity. All great prophets and soldiers have had such chances; John the Baptist had when he was asked if he was "that prophet." Then, everything depended upon his answer; and he answered, "I am not" The people would have taken Jesus and made him a king "by force," but he stood back from the mob and disdained their crown. "And Gideon said unto them, I will not rule over you, neither shall my son rule over you: the Lord shall rule over you" ( Judges 8:23). There is the real quality of the man. Probe him where you will, you find his motive to be inspired by a consciousness of God's sovereignty and control. Gideon might have been a king, but was not; and, because he was not, he really was. There are many kingships, some crowned, some uncrowned; some material, imperial; some spiritual, intellectual, moral: the crown is in the man rather than upon him; if only upon him, the wind may blow it off, or some fool's hand may suddenly dash it to the ground. Gideon believed in what is known as the Theocracy,—that Judges 8:27). We did not expect this. Yet we might have expected it had we studied human nature closely. The very man who pulls down one idol sets up another. Gideon had an eye for colour. He liked the sleeveless coat of the priest. He noted its beautiful structure, its marvellous adornment, its oracular gems; and he was minded to make an ephod of all the gifts the people had given. This ephod became an idol, a charm, an amulet. It was looked at as if the very spirit of Gideon was in it. He who disestablished the national idol set up an ephod of his own! Alas for human inconsistency! The same Gideon, the man who took one of the bullocks and yoked it to Baal and dragged down the helpless god manufactures a little idol of his own! It was a shame; and yet it seems to be partly well, for now we can join Gideon at the point of his imperfection; perhaps we can get further into his character, and pray with as intense an energy, and grasp the eternal with as strong a faith. Take the man in the entirety of his character, in the sum-total of his being, and not in points and phases. Is it not so with all great reformers? The men who can finance the affairs of Europe can very seldom pay their own private accounts! The great and mighty reformers who could reconstruct the universe sometimes omit to wash their own hands! Are we not all human? Is it not perfectly possible to be both great and small—to have dragged down a god and to have set up an ephod?

Now surely Israel will be good. Israel has had schooling enough, and the time has now come when Israel will take up the policy of good behaviour, and be honest and true evermore. "Gideon the son of Joash died in a good old age, and was buried in the sepulchre of Joash his father, in Ophrah of the Abi-ezrites" ( Judges 8:32). Now Israel will remember the old man's grave, and never be insincere or faithless any more. The thirty-fourth verse will disillusion us: "And the children of Israel remembered not the Lord their God, who had delivered them out of the hands of all their enemies on every side." Well, they may have gone down theologically, but still they are men. Agnostics claim to be men, and honourable men. History has never been very much on the side of those persons who imagine that theology can be given up and yet morality retained. We are bound to accept the evidence of the ages. What was the case of the children of Israel? They "remembered not the Lord their God," but they remembered Gideon. They will be kind to his children. They will say, We may have changed our theological views, but we are still men; we may have left the church, but we are still honourable citizens. The thirty-fifth verse will disenchant us: "Neither shewed they kindness to the house of Jerubbaal, namely, Gideon, according to all the goodness which he had shewed unto Israel." The retirement from the soundly religious point of view is accompanied by lapses of another kind. A man cannot close the Bible and say, Though I have abandoned that book, yet I am as honourable and true and pure and good as I ever was. If Judges 6:1).

GOD punishes indirectly as well as directly. He has agents—strange, rude servants of his, who unconsciously do his will. He can turn the wrath of man as it doth please him. According to the text it hath pleased God sometimes to punish man by man. Instead of calling Israel up into a mountain apart, and there with some great scourge chastising Israel for iniquity, he chooses to hand over his people to the rod of the tyrant; he allows Midian for seven years to torment Israel. We can punish one another. We do not know always what we are doing; sometimes in our apparent lawlessness and riotousness we are actually carrying out some divine decree, and God has chosen us, in the very intensity of our madness, to do some terrible thing for him, that some side or other of his holy government may be fully vindicated.

"And the hand of Midian prevailed against Israel: and because of the Midianites the children of Israel made them the dens which are in the mountains, and caves, and strong holds" ( Judges 6:2).

If we had looked at the dens, and caves, and strongholds, we should have said: "Some wild beasts have made these; we see the marks of their great paws; see how they have torn the mountains and made themselves beds and chambers in the strongholds." So rudely and mistakenly do we interpret some things. The rough homes, these poor hiding places, that the wind could get at so fiercely, and the storm could rage in, were made by men. They who ought to have made the Most High their refuge, who ought to have made God himself their sanctuary, dug in the earth for a home and sought shelter among the rocks, when they might have rested in the secret places of heaven. We are doing every day—in so far as we are doing wrong—very much of the same thing. We are seeking to ourselves hiding places, we are planning for our own security, we have taken the defence of our life into our own hands, and we have said to money, "Thou shalt be my sanctuary;" to the poor power of our own arm, "Thou shalt be my defence," and we have said with pagan Ajax to his sword, "Thou art my God." Alas! poor Judges 6:6).

Then comes a most beautiful arrangement: Gideon was threshing wheat, and as he was pursuing his business the angel of the Lord appeared unto him and said, "The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valour." God answers the prayers of the many by touching the life of one. As God had tormented man by Judges 6:13).

Gideon approached the proposition of the angel very cautiously. He said, "If thou art an angel of the Lord, give me some proof of thine identity as such." He put God to the test. He was so startled by the revelation of God, that he was to be the deliverer of Israel, that he proposed test after test. He was a cautious man. Let us beware lest our caution be mere pedantry, and lest it degenerate into sophism. It is right to be cautious. Make sure, in the first instance, and then, having made your ground secure, proceed, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against you. But Gideon, having put the angel to the test, was in his turn put to the test. The angel told Gideon that he was to do a work at home. The idol had been worshipped by Israel, and now the idol was to be torn down. The angel said unto him, "Take thy father's young bullock, even the second bullock, of seven years old, and throw down the altar of Baal that thy father hath, and cut down the grove that is by it: and build an altar unto the Lord thy God upon the top of this rock, in the ordered place, and take the second bullock, and offer a burnt sacrifice with the wood of the grove that is by it" ( Judges 6:25-26). What was the meaning of all this? "Gideon, you must be tested." He who would make great revolutions must begin at home; he who would go out and strike a foreign enemy must begin reformation within his own circle. If you are going to fight the Midianites successfully you must reform at home. Take down the idol that thy father hath set up; tear down the idol from the elevated place; begin at home. He who begins there will fight well abroad. But if a man shall leave the idolatry in his own house, and go to fight some enemy that is on the outside, behold his victory shall perish, his renown shall be but the flash of a moment, and he shall have no real and abiding success. So must it be with us; we must go into our own hearts and do the great work of demolition there, so far as the empire of the devil is concerned, before we go out to revolutionise, to correct and to educate the public. How is it with our home life? How is it with the condition of our hearts? Are we preaching against idolatry in others and yet falling down before Baal ourselves? Are we filled with righteous indignation because of the evil doing of persons who are far away, whilst we ourselves have temples in our hearts set up to the idol gods? These inquiries search the very secrets of our lives; these questions are like the candle of the Lord held over the depths of our own being. Gideon will have a powerless arm when he challenges the Midianites if he go not forth and begin this moral revolution at home.

How did Gideon proceed? He was cautious here again. We shall find that caution was a characteristic trait in Gideon. He did not like to do this in the daytime because he feared his father's household and the men of the city. So what was he to do? The angel had appeared unto him, and a new light had shed itself over his life; a great destiny was proposed to him; he himself had suggested a test of the credentials of the angel, and had been satisfied with that test; in his own turn he himself was to be tested. Now what did he do? He said, "If I go out in the daytime the men of the city will seize me. What am I in their hands? Yea, my own father's household will fall upon me, and I shall be crushed by their cruel power. What shall I do? "And because he could not do it by day he did it by night. Earnest men can find opportunities if they want to do so. He is making a frivolous and impious excuse who says, "I do not like to do it; I am afraid to attempt it; I shrink from going forward; I prefer a modest retirement;" and so lets the work and the call of God slip out of his fingers. If you cannot do it in the morning brightness, you may do it in the evening twilight; if you cannot do it in the noontide glory, you may do it in the midnight darkness. Earnestness always finds opportunities; earnestness always finds the sycamore tree up which it can climb and see Christ. There is always a course open to tact, to reality, to sincerity, to determination. If any man is saying that he cannot make his way through all the difficulties that beset his life so as to get near to God, in the name of all history that is true, in the name of all history that is holy, in the name of all history that is worth preserving, I charge him with a mistake or a lie.

There was sad excitement on the morning of the next day. People finding that Baal had been overthrown were all astonished, and inquiry proceeded. How had this thing been done so suddenly? Done in the night-time? When it was discovered who had done it, they went to the father of Gideon and said, "Now shall thy son be slain for this. Bring out thy son that he may die, because he hath cast down the altar of Baal, and because he hath cut down the grove that was by it." And Joash was changed in a moment: you can touch a man through his child. You can touch his keenest sympathies. When they proceeded to lay a bloody hand upon the head of Gideon, he said, "If Baal be a god let him plead for himself." A grand tone, a right tone! If Baal be a god let him plead his own cause. What is a god worth if he cannot gather himself up again when somebody has thrown him down? The grandest things have been said by men when they have been cut to the quick, when their child's life has trembled in the balance. Joash was a new man from that moment. He made the grandest proposition that ever was made in the whole kingdom of idolatry. He saw Baal on his face. He said, "If Baal be a god let him get up again!" This is exactly what we say to all the gods of England. Have you been trusting to money, to power, to health, to friends, to luck, to chance? Let them help you in the hour of extremity, but, beware, there was once a scornful laugh among the nations, a scornful laugh ringing along the courses of the whirlwind: It was this, "Thy calf, O Samaria, hath cast thee off!" Samaria had worshipped the calf; God had risen in judgment to vindicate his government, to vindicate his claim to human attention, and when Samaria went to the calf it turned Samaria off. He is but a poor god who cannot save us in extremity—who cannot speak for himself—in whose arm there is no. power of self-defence.

Gideon, having been satisfied that he was called of God to do this great work, betook himself to it. But there was one difficulty in the way,—a strange difficulty, too, and peculiarly worthy of note. The Lord said, "Gideon, the people that are with thee are too many." When did God ever complain of having too few people to work with? Tell me. I have heard him say, "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I." I have heard him say, "One shall chase a thousand, and two shall put ten thousand to flight" But I never heard him say, "You must get more men, or I cannot do this work; you must increase the human forces, or the divine energy will not be equal to the occasion." I hear him say, in the case before us, "Gideon, the people are too many by some thousands. If I were to fight the Midianites with so great a host, the people would say, after the victory had been won, "Mine own hand hath saved me."" Now the Lord proposed that a proclamation should be made unto the people, saying, "Whosoever is fearful and afraid, let him return and depart early from Mount Gilead." How many of the people think you returned? Twenty-two thousand went off at once. You cannot do much with a crowd. The crowd never did anything for the world or for itself. Twenty-two thousand went away, ten thousand remained. Now the Lord will say ten thousand is just enough. No. He said, "Gideon, the people are yet too many; they will still boast of their 1 Chronicles 21:28, 1 Chronicles 22:1), was perhaps made the beginning of a system of sacrifices there; at all events, he prepared an ephod, the well-known high-priestly garment used in consulting God ( Exodus 28:6-30; 1 Samuel 23:6, 1 Samuel 23:9). Whether he meant no more than to have a memorial of the divinely-appointed ephod, and the way of approaching God by it, as the eastern tribes had built an altar merely for a memorial ( Joshua 22:26-29), it is impossible to tell; even Judges 20:28); and long before Gideon's time there had been a schismatical and even idolatrous priestly system set up by the tribe of Dan in the town to which they gave their patriarch's name, and this, too, arose out of an unlawful family sanctuary and its ephod ( Judges 17:5, Judges 18:30-31). There is no warrant whatever for imputing the same sin to Gideon; yet he did something which looked in that direction, possibly bringing the high priest from Shiloh to use his ephod at Ophrah, possibly using it himself. Even if he himself escaped the more serious consequences, yet ( Judges 6:27), all Israel went a-whoring after it there, and it became a snare to himself and his house, with evil lurking in it, and ere long bursting forth with lamentable results. The high priest's ephod, with all its attendant ornaments in the breastplate, and with its precious stones, must have been very costly; we need feel no surprise that Gideon laid out upon his ephod1 ,700 shekels of gold, or about53lb. avoirdupois; nor that so much gold was obtained from this vast multitude of the enemy, since the Arabs to this day manifest an extraordinary love for golden ornaments. Perhaps Gideon thought himself like Moses, when he received the contributions for the tabernacle ( Exodus 35:20-23), many of those also being the spoils taken from their oppressors; while the men of war who willingly responded to his request may have felt like their ancestors when they made a similar free-will offering after an earlier Midianite war ( Numbers 31:48-50). There were other dangers in Gideon's position, of which his polygamy is an evidence. Even had he been king, the law of God against multiplying wives was explicit ( Deuteronomy 17:17): yet though he refused to be ruler, in those forty years of rest and prosperity, he must have assumed something of royal state in its worst oriental form, with a harem. And there is enough in the language of the original (comp. Nehemiah 9:7; Daniel 5:12) to lead to the conjecture that the name Abimelech, "A king's father," was one which he gave to his concubine's son in addition to the name given to him originally, one of those epithets or descriptive names which were common among the Jews: if 1 Kings 1:6), who brought misery and shame upon their families. Gideon himself died "in a good old age," an expression used elsewhere only of his father Abraham ( Genesis 15:15, Genesis 25:8), and of David ( 1 Chronicles 29:28); but his death was the signal for the renewed outbreak of all evil. It seems to have taken the form of open apostasy, substituting "Baal of the Covenant" as their covenant God instead of Jehovah; though possibly there was an attempt to combine the worship of the two. And when the people did not remember Jehovah their deliverer no surprise need be felt at their thankless forgetfulness of his earthly instrument and representative, whose two names seem united into one at ver35 , as if to recall and combine all that he had procured for Israel both of temporal and of spiritual blessings.—Rev. Principal Douglas, D.D.

"And Israel was greatly impoverished because of the Midianites" ( Judges 6:6).—The Midianites had oppressed Israel so grievously that the people were forced to flee from the open country, and to seek an asylum in mountain fastnesses, in caves, and in fortified cities (vi. I, 2). Midian was now at the head of a great confederacy, comprising the Amalekites and the leading tribes of Arabia, called by the sacred historian Beni Kedem ("children of the East," [ Judges 6:3]). In early spring the confederates assembled their vast flocks and herds, descended through the defiles of Gilead, crossed the Jordan, and overran the rich plains of central Palestine, plundering and destroying all before them ( Judges 6:5). In their distress the Israelites cried unto the Lord, and he sent a deliverer in the person of Gideon (8-13). The invaders were concentrated on Esdraelon—their flocks covering the whole of that splendid plain, and their encampment lying along the base of "the hill of Moreh," now called little Hermon ( Judges 6:33; Judges 7:1, Judges 7:12). Gideon assembled his band of warriors at the well of Harod, or fountain of Jezreel, situated at the foot of Gilboa, and famed in after days as the scene of Saul's defeat and death ( Judges 7:1). Gideon having collected the forces of Israel, followed the fugitives across the Jordan, up the hills of Gilead, and away over the plain into the heart of their own country. There he completely overthrew the whole host ( Judges 8:12). The power of Midian was completely broken. In a single campaign they lost their princes, the flower of their warriors, and their vast wealth. "Thus was Midian subdued before the children of Israel, so they lifted up their heads no more" ( Judges 8:28). Their name as a nation appears no more in history.

Prayer

Almighty God, is not all our life a parable, full of instruction, full of rebuke, yet full of comfort? Thou art always coming to us in figures and incidents, and in things we cannot explain, mysteries that darken upon us, and lights above the brightness of the sun. Thou dost whisper to us in the night-season, when the darkness is round about us like prison walls; then thou dost call us out into the warm morning, into the liberty which is beyond, large and glorious liberty. Thou dost teach us by our disappointments and sorrows: our losses thou dost make eloquent with instruction; and, behold, night and day thy purpose is to make us wise unto salvation. O that we had the hearing ear, the understanding mind, the attentive heart; then thy gospels would not be lost upon us, but would be to us as light from heaven. Make thy word live as we read it May we know it to be true because of the answering voice within. May our judgment witness, and our conscience testify, that this is none other than the voice of the living God. So shall our life be strengthened, beautified, and introduced into great freedom. We come before thee evermore to seek thy pardon, for our sins are as numerous as our days: we spoil every hour by some touch of rudeness, some act of violence, some aversion of soul from light and truth. But that we know this sinfulness is itself a blessing: if we confess our sin, we know that whilst we are confessing it at the cross of Jesus Christ thy Son, our Saviour, thou dost look upon him rather than upon us, and for the sake of his work thou dost pardon the iniquity which we repent This is our joy, this is the good news from heaven: we accept it, and answer it, and are glad because of thy forgiveness. Direct us all our days. Their number dwindles; their light is uncertain; their messages are more urgent. Help us to seize the passing time, and inscribe it with love and service and sacrifice. Dry the tears of our sorrow. Lift the burden from us when it is more than we can carry. Attemper the wind to the shorn lamb. Undertake for us in all perplexities and embarrassments and difficulties, and give us the joy of those whose perfect trust is in the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ Amen.