Upon hearing this interpretation Gideon received courage to believe that God would indeed grant him victory (v. 15).
"No character in the book receives more divine assurance than Gideon and no one displays more doubt. Gideon is, significantly, the only judge to whom God speaks directly, though this privilege does not allay his faintheartedness."167
Gideon's strategy was so effective that the Lord must have revealed it to him, though the text does not state this. Almost equally amazing is that fact that Gideon's 300 followers obeyed his bizarre instructions. This too had to have been from the Lord. The three companies of Israelites may not have completely encircled the enemy. Nevertheless the presence of three widely separated groups of soldiers gave the Midianites the impression that a very large number of Israelites was out there in the dark. The trumpets were rams horns that the Israelite soldiers tied around their necks. The empty pitchers concealed and protected the torches until the soldiers broke them. The light from the torches combined with the noise of the breaking pitchers, the blowing of trumpets that made each soldier sound like a company commander, and the shouting of the soldiers. All this led the sleepy Midianites to conclude that a vast host of Israelite warriors surrounded them.
"Gideon had moved from fear to faith, and that is precisely the point of the section 6:33-7:18. . . .
"The textual patterning of the Gideon narrative is carefully composed to highlight not the deliverance from Midian but the change that transpired in Gideon's heart, and it is precisely there that the greatest theological lesson in these chapters is found. The fear in Gideon's heart held him back from being able to trust the promise God had given about his delivering Israel from the Midianites. To overcome this deficiency in Gideon's life, God uniquely worked to expose the problem of fear in his life and to bring him to a point of worship and faith. Then and only then was Gideon ready to lead Israel in battle. . . . Furthermore all the struggles in the book result from a lack of faith. This struggle is most fully spelled out in the Gideon narrative, which accords with this event (his religious struggle) being put in the very center of the book.
". . . the narrator leaves the reader with a penetrating message: God must bring His servant to a moment when all human confidence is stripped away, he sits silently in humble adoration of his God as the One who is totally sufficient against all odds to accomplish His divine will. Then and only then is he ready to move forward to taste God's victory, though that victory is no more secure or certain than before."168
