delivered the children of Israel into the hands of the Madianites[1] on account of their sins[2].
The Lord sent an angel to Gedeon, as he was threshing and winnowing wheat at his father’s house[3]. The angel said to him: “The Lord is with thee, O most valiant of men. Go in this thy strength, and thou shalt deliver Israel out of the hands of the Madianites.” Gedeon asked how he could deliver Israel, seeing that his family was the lowest in the tribe of Manasses, and that he himself was the least in his father’s house. The angel assured him that God would be with him, and that the Madianites should be cut off to a man.
Soon after this the Madianites crossed the Jordan with a large army, and encamped in the valley of Jezrael. But the Spirit of the Lord[4] came upon Gedeon, and he sounded the trumpet, and calling together the Israelites, formed an army of thirty-two thousand men and drew them up in battle array. Before commencing the attack Gedeon said to God: “If Thou wilt save Israel by my hand, I will put this fleece[5] of wool on the floor[6]; if there be dew on the fleece only, and it be dry on all the ground beside, I shall know[7] that by my hand, as Thou hast said, Thou wilt deliver Israel. And it was so. The next day he asked God that the fleece might be dry and the ground wet with dew. And God did as Gedeon requested.
- ↑ Madianites . Who, with Amalekites, and other people, lived south-east of the Jordan, and “like locusts filled all places" (Judg. 6, 5).
- ↑ Their sins. Especially for having adopted the worship of the false god, Baal, and built altars to him, though they worshipped the true God as well.
- ↑ His father's house. In order to conceal it from the enemy. He did not dare do it on a threshing-floor in the open field, for fear of being seen.
- ↑ The Spirit of the Lord. Filling him with a great courage and confidence, and a burning zeal for God’s honour.
- ↑ This fleece. The skin of a lamb.
- ↑ The floor. The Israelites, like all Eastern nations, had their threshing-floors in the open field, and without a roof.
- ↑ I shall know. Gedeon asked for a sign from God not only for his own sake, but in order to give courage to the thirty-two thousand Israelites with him.
