Gideon led three hundred Israelites to defeat Midian. He was Joash’s son, from the Abiezrite clan of Manasseh. After Israel did evil in God’s sight, God gave them into Midian’s hands for seven years. Midianites, Amalekites, and eastern peoples destroyed crops and took away the means to live, while Israelites sheltered in caves and strongholds. When they cried out, God sent a prophet to rebuke them for not listening to him despite their rescue from Egypt. Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to hide it from Midian.
The LORD’s angel appeared and called Gideon a mighty man of valor. Gideon asked why these troubles had come if God was with them. When God sent him to save Israel, he said his family was the poorest in Manasseh and he was the least in his father’s household. He requested a sign and prepared a young goat and unleavened bread. The angel touched the food with a staff, and fire rose from the rock and consumed it. Gideon feared because he had seen the angel face to face, but God assured him he would not die. He built an altar and named it The LORD is Peace.
That night God ordered Gideon to tear down his father’s altar to Baal and cut down the Asherah beside it. He was to build another altar and offer a bull using the Asherah’s wood. Fearing his household and the townspeople, Gideon carried out the command at night with ten servants. When the people demanded his death, Joash said that if Baal was a god, he could contend for himself over the ruined altar. Gideon was therefore also called Jerubbaal. When Midian’s coalition assembled in the Jezreel Valley, the LORD’s Spirit came on him. He blew a trumpet and sent messengers to gather troops.
Gideon requested two signs with a fleece to confirm that God would save Israel through him. First he asked for dew on the fleece while the ground stayed dry. Then he asked for the fleece to stay dry while dew covered the ground. God fulfilled both requests.
When the troops assembled, God reduced their numbers so that Israel would not boast that its own strength had saved it. Twenty-two thousand fearful men left, and ten thousand remained. At the water, three hundred who lapped with their hands to their mouths were kept, while those who knelt to drink were sent away. God said he would save Israel with the three hundred.
God told Gideon that if he was afraid, he should take his servant Purah down to hear what was being said in the enemy camp. Gideon heard a man describe a barley loaf rolling into the camp and overturning a tent. His companion interpreted it as Gideon’s victory. Gideon worshiped, returned to his troops, and said God had given Midian into their hands. He divided the three hundred into three companies, each carrying trumpets and jars with torches inside.
As the night watch changed, Gideon and his men blew their trumpets and broke the jars. They held their torches and shouted about the sword of the LORD and Gideon as they stood around the camp. God set the enemy soldiers against one another with swords, and they fled. Other Israelite troops pursued them. At Gideon’s request, the Ephraimites seized the Jordan crossings and captured and killed Midian’s commanders Oreb and Zeeb.
The Ephraimites challenged Gideon for not calling them at the start. He replied that their achievement surpassed his own, pointing to their capture of Oreb and Zeeb. Their anger subsided. Gideon and his three hundred men crossed the Jordan, exhausted but pursuing the kings Zebah and Zalmunna. Succoth and Penuel refused to feed his men because he had not yet captured the kings. Gideon threatened to punish Succoth with thorns and briers and pull down Penuel’s tower when he returned.
Gideon attacked the enemy camp, captured the two kings, and returned to Succoth. He seized the elders and punished the men with thorns and briers. At Penuel he destroyed the tower and killed the town’s men. Asking Zebah and Zalmunna about men they had killed at Tabor, he identified the victims as his own brothers. He ordered his firstborn, Jether, to kill the kings, but the boy was too afraid to draw his sword. When the kings challenged Gideon to do it himself, he killed them.
The Israelites asked Gideon, his son, and his grandson to rule them. He refused for himself and his son, saying the LORD would rule them. Yet he collected gold earrings from the plunder, weighing 1,700 shekels, and made an ephod which he placed in Ophrah. Israel was unfaithful to God and served the ephod. Judges describes it as a snare to Gideon and his household.
With Midian subdued, the land rested for forty years during Gideon’s lifetime. He had many wives and seventy sons, and a concubine in Shechem also bore him Abimelech. Gideon died at an old age and was buried in Joash’s tomb at Ophrah. Afterward Israel returned to the Baals and made Baal Berith their god. They did not remember the God who had rescued them or show kindness to Gideon’s household.
Abimelech asked his mother’s relatives at Shechem whether rule by one man was preferable to rule by Gideon’s seventy sons. His relatives persuaded the people, who gave him seventy pieces of silver from Baal Berith’s temple. He used the money to hire followers and went to Ophrah, where he killed his brothers on one stone. The youngest, Jotham, hid and survived. The people of Shechem and Millo made Abimelech king.