Study Desk

When Gideon heard the account of the dream and its interpretation, he bowed in worship. He returned to Israel’s camp and said, “Get up, for the Lord has handed the Midianite camp over to you.”

When I and everyone with me blow our trumpets, you are also to blow your trumpets all around the camp. Then you will say, ‘For the Lord and for Gideon!’”

The three companies blew their trumpets and shattered their pitchers. They held their torches in their left hands, their trumpets in their right hands, and shouted, “A sword for the Lord and for Gideon!”

He said to the men of Succoth, “Please give some loaves of bread to the troops under my command, because they are exhausted, for I am pursuing Zebah and Zalmunna, the kings of Midian.”

He captured a youth from the men of Succoth and interrogated him. The youth wrote down for him the names of the seventy-seven leaders and elders of Succoth.

Then he said to Jether, his firstborn, “Get up and kill them.” The youth did not draw his sword, for he was afraid because he was still a youth.

Zebah and Zalmunna said, “Get up and strike us down yourself, for a man is judged by his strength.” So Gideon got up, killed Zebah and Zalmunna, and took the crescent ornaments that were on the necks of their camels.

Then the Israelites said to Gideon, “Rule over us, you as well as your sons and your grandsons, for you delivered us from the power of Midian.”

So Midian was subdued before the Israelites, and they were no longer a threat. The land had peace for forty years during the days of Gideon.

They did not show kindness to the house of Jerubbaal (that is, Gideon) for all the good he had done for Israel.

“Please speak in the hearing of all the citizens of Shechem, ‘Is it better for you that seventy men, all the sons of Jerubbaal, rule over you or that one man rule over you?’ Remember that I am your own flesh and blood.”

His mother’s relatives spoke all these words about him in the hearing of all the citizens of Shechem, and they were favorable to Abimelech, for they said, “He is our brother.”

“Now if you have acted faithfully and honestly in making Abimelech king, if you have done well by Jerubbaal and his family, and if you have rewarded him appropriately for what he did—

for my father fought for you, risked his life, and rescued you from Midian,

So Abimelech and all the troops with him got up at night and waited in ambush for Shechem in four units.

They shattered and crushed the Israelites that year, and for eighteen years they did the same to all the Israelites who were on the other side of the Jordan in the land of the Amorites in Gilead.

“Then they traveled through the wilderness and around the lands of Edom and Moab. They came to the east side of the land of Moab and camped on the other side of the Arnon but did not enter into the territory of Moab, for the Arnon was the boundary of Moab.

Isn’t it true that you can have whatever your god Chemosh conquers for you, and we can have whatever the Lord our God conquers for us?

Then she said to him, “My father, you have given your word to the Lord. Do to me as you have said, for the Lord brought vengeance on your enemies, the Ammonites.”

Then Jephthah said to them, “My people and I had a bitter conflict with the Ammonites. So I called for you, but you didn’t deliver me from their power.