Chapter six reminds me of the experience of moving into a new house, and staring at boxes stacked to the ceiling, covering the entire living room, and being completely overwhelmed and clueless as to where I should start. Which is a long-winded way of saying that there’s a lot to unpack. For example, this is one of the many places in the Old Testament where we see evidence that the Trinity was not a Christian invention, but a concept rooted in Jewish tradition. The angel of the Lord appears (Judg 6:11) and speaks to Gideon, but then the text says “And the Lord turned to him and said…” (Judg 6:14). Then, in verse 34, “the Spirit of the Lord took possession of Gideon.” So we have three beings that are God, but are also distinct from God. This is a big theological rabbit hole that I’d prefer not to go down, but it would be irresponsible not to at least point it out. Another topic, is Gideon’s example of honoring one’s parents when they are not believers (this will be a bonus post available exclusively to paid subscribers). Then there’s the question of how Gideon managed to see the Lord face-to-face without dying (Judg 6:22), which hyperlinks to several earlier verses worth reading (see Gen 16:13, Gen 32:30, Ex 20:19, Ex 33:20, Deut 4:33, and Deut 5:24-26). It probably has something to do with the peace offering he made to the Lord (which demonstrates some knowledge of Lev 1-7, and also shows that he’s on good terms with God). Back to the house analogy: if I can get the boxes into the right rooms and get a few big things unpacked, then I’ll consider it a success. With that said, I’ll try to stay true to the running theme of understanding the causes and effects of apostasy and how to combat it.
There’s a certain irony worth calling out in chapter 6. In light of being on the brink of starvation, one has to wonder why the sons of Israel continue seeking fertility and prosperity via Baal and Asherah. To paraphrase the warning from Deuteronomy 11:13-17: worship the one true God and have plentiful harvest, but turn to false gods and “the land [will] yield no fruit, and you [will] perish quickly off the good land which the Lord gives you.” And yet, they stubbornly continue worshiping false gods. Trying to break a brick wall by punching at it will only hurt your fist. Self-reflection and re-assessment are typically not our first instinct; the solution is usually to punch harder. This is the snare of idol worship: idols always demand more from us and fail to deliver on the promises.
By the time of the Midianite oppression, we see a clear evolution of the consequences of idol worship. Since idol worship is fundamentally about the worship of self, all idol worship eventually leads to human sacrifice; distinction is on the severity. Idolatry requires that some humans be more valuable than others, and in the early chapters, we saw this in the form of slavery (Judg 3:8 & 3:14). To be a slave means one’s intrinsic worth is reduced to a purely economic metric. In chapter 4 the oppression took a subtle turn, when Sisera “oppressed the sons of Israel cruelly” (Judg 4:3). An implicit right of the slave is the right to exist, so long as he remains useful—whether it be it purely economical, as in chapter 3, or whether it’s to satisfy the wicked whims of other men, as we saw emerge in chapter 4. By chapter 6, the human sacrifice evolves to its final stage. No longer is it sufficient or satisfactory to take pleasure in the suffering of one’s enemy. The sons of Israel have had multiple successful rebellions by this point. They’re dangerous. Their very existence is a threat the Medianites’ continued idol worship. The implicit guarantee, the right to exist, is no longer binding.
You may be asking, how is this different than when God commanded the sons of Israel to kill every Canaanite? The key distinction is the Canaanites (a term we use loosely to refer to occupiers of the promised land) have already chosen death for themselves. They have rejected God. They have abandoned absolute morality. They disdain truth. God, in his infinite wisdom and foresight, can see the outcome of every permutation and combination of choices that the Canaanites will make, and every single path leads to destruction. The sons of Israel, on the other hand, are not so immersed in sin that they can’t repent. Yes, they “did what was evil in the sight of the Lord” (Judg 6:1), but there is still a path back to God. They can and will choose God, but they lack courage. God will use Gideon to spread courage among the sons of Israel.
Morale is clearly low among the sons of Israel. They’ve taken refuge in caves in the hillside (6:2) while the Midianites and Amalekites destroy their food, ravage the land, and kill every form of livestock (Judg 6:3-5). It’s not just the food, but the means of producing food. The situation is so bad the Gideon is threshing wheat in a winepress (6:11). If you can imagine how long it would take to mow a football field with a pair of scissors, then you have some idea of how difficult it would be to generate enough wheat to subsist via threshing it in a winepress. When the sons of Israel cry out to the Lord for help, the Lord sends a prophet to to the sons of Israel (Judg 6:7-10). His message is effectively an “I told you so,” which leaves us wondering what the point of it is. Yes, there is some foreshadowing (God often sends a prophet before he rescues the people), but the point has less to do with the message and more about how the message was received. Oddly enough, no response, positive or negative, is mentioned. And that is the crux of it: the sons of Israel were suffering from apathy, so much so that they wouldn’t even bother to reach for a lifesaver.
Perhaps now is a good reminder of the words God spoke to Joshua (Josh 1:9), which you might remember from a previous post: “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and of good courage; be not frightened, neither be dismayed; for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”
When courage is lacking, and the sons of Israel are drowning in their own apathy, God inspires them to courage, not through a naturally valiant man like Othniel, but through the weakest man of the weakest tribe (Judg 6:15), who God non-ironically refers to as a “mighty man of valor” (Judg 6:12). Gideon is a humble and faithful, yet apprehensive character. He’s familiar with the stories of his forefathers (Judg 6:13), even though his own father worships Baal (Judg 6:25). When Gideon suspects he is speaking to the angel of the Lord, he offers the Lord a gift, echoing Abraham in Genesis 18. In a time when food is scarce, he offers an ephah of unleavened bread (an ephah is about 432 eggs in weight, so roughly 54 pounds), a goat, and broth. And more, when his neighbors are sacrificing to Baal—a god depicted as a bull and allegedly responsible for good weather and crops—Gideon tears down the altar of Baal, he tears down the Asherah pole, and he slaughters two bulls.1
Gideon’s bold actions, which initially angered his neighbors to the point that they wanted to kill him (Judg 6:30), were not a mere act of defying the false god Baal. By demonstrating that he was willing to suffer and die, Gideon brought his fellow Israelites out of their trance of darkness and towards the light. No lies however potent, no men however strong, no enemy however powerful, can stand against the truth, which is revealed by faithful and upright men who are willing to suffer for it. This is what true courage and true valor looks like: the willingness to suffer and even die for what is true and good. After Gideon’s outward demonstration of valor he sounds the trumpet of war. Thousands volunteer fight—and even lay down their lives—by his side. That’s the power of courage and truth. It’s a sobering message, and perhaps one that we’d rather not think about. It’s not easy to have valor, but if it’s any consolation, remember: God is with us.
The slaughtering of a bull hyperlinks to Levitical law; see Lev 4:13-21). More generally, this hyperlinks to Deut 12 on destroying pagan shrines.