Gideon (Judges)

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Gideon (גִּדְעוֹן, Standard Hebrew Gidʻon, Tiberian Hebrew Giḏʻôn), also known as Jerubbaal, is a character that appears in the Book of Judges, in the Bible. His story is treated in chapters 6 to 8. He is also named in the Epistle to the Hebrews as an example of a man of faith. He is the son of Joash, from the clan of Abiezer in the tribe of Manasseh. Manasseh, son of Joseph with the Midianite Zipporah, was the forefather of this tribe. Although it may appear important to the western mind that Gideon himself has Midianite blood, ancestry was not viewed in this way in ancient Israel.

As is the pattern throughout the book of Judges, the Israelites turned away from God (Yahweh) at the beginning of the narrative in Judges 6, and as a result, were allowed to be attacked by the neighbouring Midianites and Amalekites. God chose Gideon, a young man from an otherwise unremarkable clan from the tribe of Manasseh, to free the people of Israel and to condemn their worship of idols. Very unsure of both himself and God's command, he requested proof of God's will by a miracle:

³⁶Then Gideon said to God, "You say that you have decided to use me to rescue Israel. ³⁷Well, I am putting some wool on the ground where we thresh the wheat. If in the morning there is dew only on the wool but not on the ground, then I will know that you are going to use me to rescue Israel." ³⁸That is exactly what happened. When Gideon got up early the next morning, he squeezed the wool and wrung enough dew out of it to fill a bowl with water. ³⁹Then Gideon said to God, "Don't be angry with me; let me speak just once more. Please let me make one more test with the wool. This time let the wool be dry, and the ground be wet." ⁴⁰ That night God did that very thing. The next morning the wool was dry, but the ground was wet with dew. (Judges 6:36-40, Good News Bible)

On God's instruction, Gideon destroyed the town's altar to the foreign god Baal and the symbol of the goddess Ashera beside it. He went on to send out messengers to gather together men from the tribes of Asher, Zebulun, and Nephtali, as well as his own tribe of Manasseh in order to meet an armed force of the people of Midian and the Amalek that had crossed the Jordan River and were encamped in the valley of Jezreel.

God instructed Gideon that the men he had gathered were too many. With so many men, there would be reason for Gideon's army to claim the victory as their own, instead of giving the credit to God. He instructed Gideon to send home those men who were afraid. 22,000 men returned home and 10,000 remained:

⁴Then the Lord said to Gideon, "You still have too many men. Take them down to the water, and I will separate them for you there. If I tell you a man should go with you, he will go. If I tell you a man should not go with you, he will not go." ⁵Gideon took the men down to the water, and the Lord told him, "Separate everyone who laps up the water with his tongue like a dog, from everyone who gets down on his knees to drink." ⁶There were three hundred men who scooped up water in their hands and lapped it; all the others got down on their knees to drink. ⁷ The Lord said to Gideon, "I will rescue you and give you victory over the Midianites with the three hundred men who lapped the water. Tell everyone else to go home." (Judges 7:4-7, Good News Bible)

God waited until night fell before instructing Gideon to attack the Midianite camp. Gideon gave each of his men a trumpet, a torch, and a clay jar. They quietly surrounded the enemy camp, each torch hidden inside a jar. At Gideon's signal, every man blew his trumpet and broke his jar. God confused the Midianites, and made them turn on one-another. The confused enemy ran and continued to retreat across Israel.

Although God did not instruct him to do so, Gideon then called for a large number of men to pursue the Midianites and cut off their retreat. He eventually caught them and subsequently murdered Zebah and Zalmunna, the two Midianite Kings, in cold blood, in order to avenge his brothers, who had been killed in battle.

The Israelites pleaded with Gideon to be their king, but he refused, telling them that only God was their ruler. Interestingly, however, he carries on to make an idol out of the gold won in battle, which causes the whole on Israel again to turn away from God, and marries a large but unspecified number of women. He also had a concubine who bore him a son that he named Abimelech ("my father is king").