Gideon - Judges 6:1-21

Here we have another example of Israel turning away from God and worshipping the pagan idols of the Canaanites surrounding them. Because they turned away from God, God allowed them to be “delivered into the hand of Midian seven years.” It says that because of this oppression from the Midianites “Israel made them the dens which are in the mountains, and caves, and strong holds.” It says that the Midianites would come rob Israel every year at harvest and take all their food and animals that they had made for themselves, “and Israel was greatly impoverished because of the Midianites.” The IM explains, “The Midianites and Amalekites were the children of the desert who, through their roving habits which begot naturally a desire for plunder, led them into a systematic practice of robbing the Israelites… For seven years Israel was thus impoverished, and adopted every means at their command to conceal their property and to hide themselves from the dangers of slaughter by the Midianites. In that period, through southern Palestine, they made caverns in the earth that may still be seen.” These roving, robbing hoards would steal everything from the Israelites, and eventually, after 7 years, the people repented and “cried unto the Lord.”

The Lord responded by sending a new prophet who quoted God as reminding them that He delivered them from the Egyptians and to obey His voice. God calls this prophet by sending an angel to a guy named Gideon. I’m not exactly sure how old Gideon is when he’s called by God but I think that he’s pretty young, maybe not a teenager, but not old man age like Moses or Joshua. The angel goes to Gideon while he “threshed wheat by the winepress, to hide it from the Midianites.” TB goes into this extensively about what dire straits the people are in that they are using a winepress to grind wheat to hide it from the Midianites, it was pretty interesting. Usually grain is ground using huge swaths of land with some oxen and big stone rollers, but that would have been seen by wandering Midianites because it’s so large, so instead Gideon is using a small winepress that is so ineffective at grinding grain that it probably wouldn’t even be big enough to produce enough food for a small family.

The messenger is called “an angel of the Lord,” which I just take to mean any angel that appears to people, but TB is pretty sure that it is Jehovah Himself because he says that every instance in the Old Testament that says “Lord” or “God” it actually says Jehovah, so the “angel of the Lord” would be messenger of Jehovah, and in verse 14 when Gideon starts talking to Him, Gideon calls Him “Oh my Lord,” so he would have said, “Oh my Jehovah.” This is important because whenever angels appear to people and the people worship them or address them as some version of “God” the angel always corrects them, but the messenger doesn’t do that here. The angel makes no correction to Gideon, so TB assumes that the messenger is Jehovah Himself. All that makes sense, I’m not married to it either way, so I’m not going to get too invested in this.

The messenger says “The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valour.” Gideon hasn’t even done anything yet and he’s being given the title “mighty man of valour.” God sees us for what we truly are and designates us at that, whereas we are usually so hard on ourselves. Gideon was called by his version of what God saw, he was just sitting there grinding grain and probably thought “me?” That what I would do I think. Gideon is confused because if God is with him why is all this bad stuff happening. I ask myself this question a lot, I’m trying my best to be righteous, and I’m promised that if I’m trying God will be with me, then why all the bad stuff happening and there are a lot of reasons why bad things can happen even while God is with us. In this specific case with Israel, we are told that it was because they were wicked. But God tells Gideon that he is the one called to “save Israel from the hand of the Midianites.” Gideon is surprised that he is the one being called because he is poor and is the youngest in the household. God assures Gideon “Surely I will be with thee, and thou shalt smite the Midianites as one man.” The words “with thee” is cross referenced with Joshua 1:5 which says, “There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life: as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee: I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.” Interesting that this is the constant promise in so many different circumstances. I think an adaptation that’s applicable to us non-Moses types would be that there’s nothing that can happen to us that is not part of God’s plan for our lives and that He hasn’t already made accommodations for and that we’ll never be alone in our suffering, and that we won’t be asked to suffer beyond that which is absolutely necessary to fulfill His will, because there I no other way. That’s at least what I keep telling myself, this suffering, all my suffering is necessary to fulfill His will for whatever reason, and that it won’t last one second longer than absolutely necessary, because there is no other, less painful way to bring about His purposes.

Gideon is surprised at this calling and asks for a sign. I had/have a difficult relationship with “signs” because I’ve always been taught that asking for any type of sign is a lack of faith and tempting God so it’s absolutely forbidden. We read about Sherem and others who ask for a sign to prove that God exists and it’s punished severely. So imagine my surprise when Gideon asks for a sign and he’s given one, in fact, he’s given several, all at his request. Gideon asks this messenger for a sign and asks the messenger to wait while Gideon brings him back a present, and the messenger agrees to wait. Gideon goes and cooks a whole “kid” which is a baby goat, and brings unleavened flour cakes. This would have taken a lot of time to make and TB says that it was like 40 pounds of flour cakes, and a whole kid is a ton of food especially when the people of Israel were experiencing such great oppression at the time, having all their food stolen.

Gideon brings all that food back to the messenger who is still there. TB pointed out that bringing all this food for the messenger was Gideon’s demonstration that he thought that the messenger was in human form and would eat that food. The messenger tells Gideon to put all the meat and the bread and put it on a rock and then to pour the broth out over it, which he did. The messenger then takes his staff and touches the food “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.” This became, according to the IM, “into a miraculous burnt offering.” The messenger had the priesthood authority to offer a burnt offering sacrifice using Gideon’s ingredients.

Concerning seeking signs, and Gideon does this several times, the IM says, “When Gideon asked for a ‘sign’ he seemed only to want a sign that the messenger was a bona fide emissary of the Lord. On this point, note that messengers may sometimes be form the wrong source and discernment is important. Signs may be given, based upon man’s faith and the will of God.” D&C 63:10 is also noted here, which says, “Yea, signs come by faith, not by the will of men, nor as they please but by the will of God.” This to me seems like it’s saying, “don’t ask, you’ll get a sign when I think you need one.” I could be wrong but that’s how I’ve always taken it to mean. The new “scripture resource” that took the place of the IM says, “Was it appropriate for Gideon to ask God for a sign? There is a difference between sincerely seeking confirmation from God with real intent and demanding a sign from Him without faith. In Gideon’s case, he sought for a sign in faith. President Dallin H. Oaks taught that ‘signs are not acceptable to produce conversions, but they are acceptable – even promised- to confirm them.’ He also observed, ‘The Old Testament contains memorable examples of miracles that amounted to signs… Gideon asked for and received a sign that he was chosen to deliver Israel.’” Interesting, I’m going to have to think about this.