". . . the heroic women of the song [of Deborah, ch. 5] give way to an unheroic man of Israel' (7:14) who not only does all he can to evade the call of Yahweh but in the end abandons God. . . . In the person of Gideon the narrator recognizes the schizophrenic nature of Israel's spiritual personality. On the one hand she treasures her call to be God's covenant people; on the other she cannot resist the allurements of the prevailing Canaanite culture."138
The writer presented Gideon as sort of a second Moses in his calling. Both men were very reluctant to lead God's people (cf. Exod. 3-4).
"As the reproof of the prophet was intended to turn the hearts of the people once more to the Lord their God and deliverer, so the manner in which God called Gideon to be their deliverer, and rescued Israel from its oppressors through his instrumentality, was intended to furnish the most evident proof that the help and salvation of Israel were not to be found in man, but solely in their God."139
Gideon's name means "Hewer."It is interesting that God used him to cut down the altar of Baal and then the Midianites.
In calling Gideon to deliver the Israelites God revealed Himself twice. First, God appeared to Gideon and spoke directly to Him through the Angel of the Lord (vv. 11-24). Second, He commanded Gideon to destroy the local Baal worship and renew the worship of Yahweh (vv. 25-32). In the first case God acknowledged Gideon, and in the second He called on Gideon to acknowledge Him as his God.
Ophrah was a village over which Gideon's father, Joash, exercised a strong influence (v. 11; cf. v. 24). Its exact location is uncertain, but it appears to have been in the Jezreel Valley.
Normally the Israelites beat out their wheat in the open field or on a raised piece of ground. The prevailing wind would blow the lighter chaff away while the heavier grain would fall to the ground. However, Gideon was beating out his grain in a wine press. The Israelites built wine presses in lower lying areas so the juice of the grapes would not run off. Gideon's use of a wine press for threshing grain points to the Midianite threat that he felt. To remain unnoticed he beat out his grain in a less conspicuous place (v. 11).
The Angel in His greeting (v. 12) addressed Gideon as the man he would become by God's enablement, not the man he was then.140In the same way God had called Abraham the father of a multitude before he had any children. He called Peter a rock before he behaved as one. He also calls Christians saints even though we are not yet as saintly as God will make us.
"One of the great truths of Scripture is that when God looks at us, He does not see us for what we are, but for what we can become, as He works in our lives."141
Gideon could not understand why the Israelites were suffering as they were if Yahweh was indeed with His people (v. 13; cf. Deut. 31:17). He failed to realize that their condition was the result of their abandoning God, not His abandoning them.
"Sins, not afflictions, argue God's absence.'"142
The strength of Gideon to which the Angel referred (v. 14) was what God's promised presence and commission guaranteed (vv. 14, 16).
Gideon did not disbelieve the Angel as much as he failed to understand how he could be God's instrument of deliverance. He was the youngest and therefore the least esteemed in his father's household. Furthermore his family was a comparatively insignificant one in Manasseh (v. 15). Gideon was looking for natural signs of leadership, but God was promising supernatural enablement.
To confirm that the Angel really was a divine messenger Gideon requested some supernatural confirmation that this calling was from God (v. 17). He then prepared to offer his guest a token of his hospitality (v. 18).
The food Gideon offered his visitor was what a person would normally set before a guest one wished to honor in a special way in that culture. The Angel directed Gideon to place the food on the rock as though it was a sacrifice on an altar.
The Angel's miracle convinced Gideon that He was God and that He would fulfill His promises to be with Gideon and to grant him victory. Perhaps Gideon remembered how God had consumed the sacrifice on the brazen altar similarly when the Israelites dedicated the tabernacle in the wilderness. If so, this memory might have encouraged him to believe that the same God who had delivered Israel then was still with His people and could deliver them again.
"The acceptance of the sacrifice was also a token of the acceptance of his person; it went to confirm the commission now given him, and to afford him every needed assurance of success."143
This miracle strengthened Gideon's faith greatly. In building an altar to Yahweh Gideon acknowledged Him as his God.
"God had taught Gideon that it was not his inadequacy but God's adequacy that really counted."144
God presented Himself to Gideon as the same God who had appeared to the patriarchs and had fulfilled His promises to them (cf. Gen. 18).
"Under normal circumstances the narrative should have proceeded directly from v. 24 to vv. 33-35, and then on to 7:1. But the normal sequence is interrupted twice to deal with a pair of abnormalities. The first is an objective issue, the presence of a pagan cult installation in Gideon's father's own backyard. The second is a subjective problem, Gideon's persistent resistance to the call of God."145
After the Angel had vanished, the Lord appeared to Gideon again the same night. He commanded him to tear down his family's pagan altar and its accompanying Asherah pole, build an altar to Yahweh, and offer his father's bull as a burnt offering of worship. This would constitute a public confession of Gideon's commitment to the Lord. It was necessary for him to take this stand personally before the nation would follow him as its judge.146The real problem in Israel was not the Midianites' oppression but Israel's spiritual bondage due to idolatry.
Probably Gideon used one bull to pull apart the Canaanite altar, which he then offered as a burnt offering to Yahweh.147This sacrifice served a twofold purpose. Burnt offerings of worship made atonement and symbolized the offerer's total dedication to the Lord. Gideon's sacrifice also constituted a rejection of Baal worship since the bull was the sacred animal in the Baal fertility cult.148The fact that the bull was seven years old, strong and healthy, may have symbolized that the current seven-year oppression by Israel's enemies was about to end. On the other hand it may have indicated that the destruction of Baal worship to follow would be an act of God.
Gideon's fear of being observed as he obeyed God (v. 27) was natural since veneration of Baal was strong in his family and town (vv. 28-30).
"How different from Deuteronomy 13:6-10, where Moses commanded that even close relatives must be stoned for idolatry! The heresy had become the main religion."149
"The sentence that should have been imposed on idolators [sic] is pronounced upon the one who destroys the idol!"150
However, Gideon's daring act of faith inspired his father Joash to take a stand for Yahweh (v. 31) even though Joash had been a leader of Baal worship (v. 25). The person Gideon probably feared most, namely, his father, became his most outspoken defender.
"The probability, we think, is that Gideon, perceiving in the morning to what a pitch of exasperation the citizens were wrought, and how seriously they threatened his life, took occasion frankly to inform his father of the visit of the angel, and of all the circumstances of his call and commission, and that this, added to his feelings as a father, had served at once to convince him of his former error and to determine to stand by his son against the rage of the populace."151
"There are some profound spiritual implications in Gideon's assignment. 1. Baal must go before Midian can go. . . . 2. God's altar cannot be built until Baal's altar is destroyed. . . . 3. The place we must start is in our own backyard."152
