Study Desk

Then the men of the city said to Joash, "Bring out your son, so that he may be executed, because he has torn down the altar of Baal and cut down the Asherah which was beside it."

So the Spirit of the LORD clothed Gideon [and empowered him]; and he blew a trumpet, and the Abiezrites were called together [as a militia] to follow him.

And it was so. When he got up early the next morning and squeezed the dew out of the fleece, he wrung from it a bowl full of water.

Then Gideon said to God, "Do not let your anger burn against me, so that I may speak once more. Please let me make a test once more with the fleece; now let only the fleece be dry, and let there be dew on all the ground."

God did so that night; for it was dry only on the fleece, and there was dew on all the ground [around it].

"So now, proclaim in the hearing of the people, 'Whoever is afraid and trembling, let him turn back and leave Mount Gilead.'" So twenty-two thousand men returned [home], but ten thousand remained.

So he brought the people down to the water, and the LORD said to Gideon, "You shall separate everyone who laps the water with his tongue as a dog laps, as well as everyone who kneels down to drink."

So the three hundred men took people's provisions [for the journey] and their trumpets [made of rams' horns] in their hands. And Gideon sent [away] all the other men of Israel, each to his tent, but kept the three hundred men. And the camp of Midian was below him in the valley.

When Gideon arrived, there was a man telling a dream to his friend. And he said, "Listen carefully, I had a dream: there was a loaf of barley bread tumbling into the camp of Midian, and it came to the tent and struck it so that it fell, and turned it upside down so that the tent lay flat."

So Gideon and the hundred men who were with him came to the edge of the camp at the beginning of the middle watch, when the guards had just been changed, and they blew the trumpets and smashed the pitchers that were in their hands.

Then Gideon sent messengers throughout the hill country of [the tribe of] Ephraim, saying, "Come down against the Midianites and take [control of] the waters before them [thereby cutting off the Midianites], as far as Beth-barah and the Jordan [River]." So all the men of Ephraim were assembled together and they took control of the waters, as far as Beth-barah and the Jordan.

But he said to them, "What have I done now [that is so significant] in comparison with you? Is not the gleaning (leftovers) of the grapes of [your tribe of] Ephraim better than the vintage (entire harvest) of [my clan of] Abiezer?

So Gideon came to the Jordan and crossed over [the river], he and the three hundred men who were with him—exhausted, yet [still] pursuing [the enemy].

So Gideon said also to the men of Penuel, "When I come again in peace, I will tear down this tower."

So [to humiliate them] Gideon said to Jether his firstborn, "Stand up, and kill them!" But the youth did not draw his sword, because he was afraid, for he was still [just] a boy.

Then Zebah and Zalmunna said, "Rise up yourself and strike us; for as the man is, so is his strength." So Gideon arose and killed Zebah and Zalmunna, and took the crescent amulets that were on their camels' necks.

So Midian was subdued and humbled before the sons of Israel, and they no longer lifted up their heads [in pride]. And the land was at rest for forty years in the days of Gideon.

So his mother's relatives spoke all these words concerning him so that all the leaders of Shechem could hear; and their hearts were inclined to follow Abimelech, for they said, "He is our relative."

When they told Jotham, he went and stood at the top of Mount Gerizim and shouted to them, "Hear me, O men of Shechem, so that God may hear you.

"So the bramble said to the trees, 'If in truth you are anointing me king over you, then come and take refuge in my shade; but if not, let fire come out of the bramble and devour the cedars of Lebanon.'