Gideon Series

We will be starting at Judges 6. If you have been with us for a while, you know we are going through the series called Extraordinary People. Basically, the series is about the lesser known people of the Bible who, because of their faith and obedience, God used in extraordinary and unexpected ways. Last week, we looked at the character of Samson. You may recall that Samson was a guy who started out pretty strong, but toward the end of the story he became kind of weak. Today, we are going to look at the character of Gideon who really started out very weak and by the end of the story was very strong. Just as the story of Samson takes places in the book of Judges, the story of Gideon takes place in the book of Judges. As a reminder, when we talk about the book of Judges, we are not talking about the people that sit in a court of law and oversee court proceedings. During that time, the judges were more like military leaders. They were more like Majors or Generals that would protect the people and the property and that sort of thing so just keep that in mind. As we talked about last week, we see in the book of Judges that there is a pattern in Israel and not a very good pattern. We see a pattern where the people have done evil in the eyes of the Lord and consequently what happens is the Lord allows some sort of oppressor, a foreign enemy, to come in and put a heavy hand on the people and after a certain period of time, the people are frustrated so they cry out to the Lord for deliverance. What we saw happen last week and we see happen this week is that God sends in a deliverer. He sends in somebody to deal with what is going on in that particular situation.

In today’s passage, starting out in chapter 6, verse 1, we see a similar situation. We see again that the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord and for seven years he gave them into the hands of the Midianites. Last week with Samson, the enemy was the Philistines. This week, the enemy is the Midianites. The Midianites are a group of people we don’t know a whole lot about other than they generally occupied what we would know as Arabia. They were considered nomads. They would travel throughout the desert with their camels and tents and caravans. In this particular time, they were the enemies of Israel. They were fierce in their tactics when they would go on the attack of Israel. As Israel began to plant their crops and grow their crops, they would come in with their camels and their men and cross the River Jordan and basically consume all the crops. They would destroy the animals. Basically, they would wreak a path of destruction in their wake. The Bible talks about how they were like a swarm of locusts coming in. It is in that situation that we see the Midianites so impoverished the Israelites that they cried out to the Lord for help. It is in this particular setting that we are introduced to the character of Gideon. You may recall last week Samson was introduced by an angel that came and visited Samson’s mom before he was even born. Today, we see an angel visiting Gideon directly in a very strange setting. The word goes on to say “An angel of the Lord came and sat down under the oak of Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, where his son Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to keep it from the Midianites.” Let me stop right there and explain a few things.

The reader of ancient times would read this and say something is not quite right here. Modern day readers, if they are really reading with observing eyes, would say something doesn’t sound right. He is threshing wheat in a winepress. There is a disconnect there. I didn’t really understand quite the difference so I thought I would look it up and saw the difference between a winepress and a threshing place. I came up with a couple of images that might clarify some things. What you have here is a graphic of an ancient winepress. People pull the grapes off the vine and let them fall to the ground. They stomp on the grapes and the juice would flow out and somebody would gather it into some sort of a jar. But the key thing to remember here is that the pressing of the wine happened in an enclosed environment. On the other hand, threshing of wheat took place outside. Here is a picture of what happens in threshing wheat. On the right side you have some oxen that would be trembling over the wheat stalks trying to separate the grain from the husks. On the other side you have them using winnowing forks that would throw the stuff up in the air and the grains would fall and separate from the husks. Someone would come along and pick it up. The main point here is that threshing best occurred on the outside because there was open air and you had the animals around to stomp on it and you could throw it up in the air and the wind would catch it and easily separate the grain. When you see this situation when the angel appears, he is appearing to Gideon who is afraid. He is hiding out in an enclosed place called a winepress instead of outside because he is fearful of the Midianites. So the word goes on and says “When the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon, he said, ‘The LORD is with you, mighty warrior.’” He doesn’t go up to Gideon and say the Lord is with you coward because you are hiding in a winepress. He says the Lord is with you mighty warrior.