Gideon, Judge In Yisrael (About 1120).
Part 2
The days of hardship and trial returned; the Bible tells us why and how: once again we find the theological development in four stages.
Sin.
The Yisraelites did what displeases YAHWEH.
Punishment.
For seven years YAHWEH gave over [the tribes of the north] into the hands of Midian, the nomads from TransYardenia, the 'Sons of the East'; mounted on their fast-moving camels they carried out swift and successful raids from this side of the Yarden; they destroyed the produce of the country as far as Gaza; they left Yisrael nothing to live on, not a sheep or ox or donkey.
Repentance.
The Yisraelites cried to YAHWEH.
Forgiveness of the sinner.
YAHWEH, after addressing bitter reproaches to his people ('Do not reverence the gods of the Amorites'. 'You have not listened to my words', 'I am YAHWEH your Sovereign Ruler') sends Gideon to give protection to the Yisraelite clans so hardly treated by the robbers on the plains.
Gideon was a poor peasant of the village of Ophrah to the south-west of the Lake of Gennesaret, near Mount Tabor. On the day in question he had secretly begun to thresh wheat which was scarcely ripe; he was concerned to get the grain to a place of safety before the arrival of Midianite brigands whose raid was to be expected at that season of the year. Suddenly, a few paces away, Gideon observed the malak of YAHWEH seated beneath a terebinth tree. 'YAHWEH is with you,' said the mysterious visitor by way of greeting, but received a sharp reply. 'If YAHWEH is with us ...where are all the wonders our ancestors tell us of...Egypt? ... Sinai? ...Now YAHWEH has deserted us. He has abandoned us to Midian.' A serious argument followed. More than once Gideon asked his visitor to furnish tangible proof of his spiritual origin. Patiently, and contrary to his usual manner of dealing with similar cases, YAHWEH complied with the requests of Gideon. The Book of Shophtim paints the scene vividly.
It was time to act. The Midianites on their camels had just invaded the Plain of Jezreel. Gideon decided to 'sound the horn' (a hollowed out goat's horn producing a harsh note which could be heard over a long distance and was used to give the signal for the beginning of a battle). By the dispatch of messengers the new Judge succeeded in gathering round him, in addition to his own tribe of Issachar, the neighboring tribe of Manasseh as well as the warriors of Asher, Zebulun and Naphtali (see map below).
Soon in fact he had too many soldiers. After a careful choice (its method was not without its picturesque side) he sent back to their fields and their vines all those he considered unsuitable for his secret expedition.
Gideon retained merely three hundred soldiers. At the appointed time each of these men was provided with an empty pitcher in which had been hidden a lighted torch. They were divided up into three groups of a hundred each and advanced noiselessly at dead of night towards the Midianite camp, approaching it from three different points. Just at the moment when the guard was being changed at the camp, Gideon sounded his horn. At once his men broke their pitchers and seized their torches in their left hands; with their right they raised their horns and blew a mighty blast. Terrified by the din and the unexpected lights the Midianites rushed from their tents and in their fright began fighting each other; finally they fled in disorder. Gideon hastened to warn the tribe of Ephraim to defend the water-points and in following this advice they succeeded in capturing the two Midianite chieftains Oreb (raven) and Zeeb (wolf). And they had every hope very shortly of wiping out the remainder of the Midianites.
Here we can observe how tenuous was the bond of brotherhood between the various Yisraelite groups. We have just seen the Ephraimites come on the scene in response to Gideon's summons. They had not forgotten that their eponymous ancestor, Ephraim, was the younger son of Joseph the Egyptian, specially singled out and blessed by his grandfather Yacob before his elder brother Manasseh. And so the Ephraimites were often contemptuous of the other members of the family, they did not hide their aspirations to leadership or even their tendency to separatism. Thus they adopted a haughty tone with the peasant leader of the tiny tribe of Issachar who, on his own account, had decided to wage a holy war against the common enemy, the nomad Midianites. Gideon was clever enough to extricate himself from this difficult situation: 'Into your power YAHWEH has given the chieftains of Midian, Oreb and Zeeb,' he told them. 'Can what I managed to do compare with what you have done?' His words calmed their anger. It is clear that Yisrael was far from that national unity which was then very necessary for them.
There was another typical example of this lack of solidarity. During a second, campaign against the Midianites, but this time on the other bank of the Yarden,5 Gideon's men, who obviously had no supply lines, were hungry, thirsty and exhausted. Gideon asked the citizens of Succoth (of the Yisraelite tribe of Gad) for a few loaves of bread. He explained that he was pursuing Zebah and Zalmunna, the kings of Midian. The elders of Succoth answered ironically: 'Are the hands of Zebah and Zalmunna already in your grasp?' (The hands of a vanquished enemy, it should be explained, were cut off.) And the citizens, on the fortifications, invited Gideon and his men to go on their way. To this insult Gideon replied that on his return he would halt at Succoth and tear the backs of its elders 'with desert thorn and briar'. It was an ancient custom, we are informed, which had still continued in use for some time on the plains of Moab.
A little further on, at the Yisraelite city of Penuel (near the ford where Yacob had made his mysterious crossing of the Jabbok by night), Gideon again made his request for food, only to receive the same negative answer as before. 'Very well,' replied Gideon, 'the conversation shall be continued later.'
Soon Gideon came up with the enemy and totally destroyed their army. With his own hand he put their two leaders to death. On the return journey he had several accounts to settle. First there were the citizens of Penuel; in revenge for the cold reception that he had received Gideon slaughtered the townsmen. With the elders of Succoth he confined himself to beating them with desert briars. All this hardly seemed the best way to encourage the unity of the Yisraelite people.
And yet just then there were certain realists who were well aware of the urgency of political reform: they felt that at all costs it was necessary to set up a permanent central authority capable of organizing the scattered Yisraelite forces.
A delegation attended on Gideon: 'Rule over us,' they said to him, 'you and your sons and your grandson, because you have rescued us from the power of Midian.'
Gideon took good care not to accept at once; on the other hand, he was ambitious enough not to refuse so attractive an offer straight off. 'It is not I who shall rule over you,' he replied, 'nor my son; YAHWEH must be your ABBA.' It was a clever reply: it seemed to give satisfaction to the old nomad section of the population who imagined themselves still living in the tents of Sinai. Thus Gideon ostensibly refused to assume the official title of king for, according to Yahwistic tradition, it belonged to YAHWEH alone. In recompense for his refusal Gideon, like the astute peasant that he was, made certain of a considerable personal fortune. After which, with considerable cunning he assumed openly the reality of the royal power whose various prerogatives he exercised in complete freedom. Two of them were characteristic of monarchy at this period. In the first place there was the ephod; this was probably a statue of gold set up in Gideon's personal tabernacle at Ophrah. The second manifestation of Gideon's royal power was his harem; it must have been numerous since he had seventy sons.
The land enjoyed rest for forty years, as long as Gideon lived. ...Gideon, son of Joash was blessed in his old age; he died and was buried in the tomb of Joash his father, at Ophrah of Abiezer.
Directly after Gideon's death the Yisraelites once more began to prostitute themselves to the Baals (that is, to worship idols) and took Baal-berith for their god.
The Yisraelites no longer remembered YAHWEH their Sovereign Ruler, who had rescued them from all the enemies round them.
Gideon had just died. One of his sons, Abimelech, a native of Shechem, seized the power; he, however, had no scruple in proclaiming himself king. To make certain of his crown he hastened to murder sixty-eight of his brothers; only the youngest, Jotham, managed to escape. At the head of a band of robbers Abimelech extorted money from the people, besieged cities and masset apart whole populations. During the siege of Thebez, a small town about ten miles from Shechem, Abimelech was hit on the head by a millstone thrown down from the ramparts by a woman. As he was dying he summoned one of his armour bearers and said to him: 'Draw your sword and kill me, that no one may say of me, "A woman killed him".' It was considered a disgrace in the East for a soldier to be killed by a woman. None of this was very encouraging for the Monarchist party, which with increasing insistence was demanding a king. It seemed that a new Judge was needed to deal with a political situation which once again had grown dangerous.
CAMPAIGN OF GIDEON THE 'JUDGE' AGAINST THE MIDIANITES (about 1120)
At Ophrah (south-west of the lake of Gennesaret in the Mount Tabor region) Gideon, a young peasant, was threshing his corn when unexpectedly he received from YAHWEH the task of repulsing the Midianite raiders who each year brought desolation to the plain of Jezreel. With a handful of followers Gideon crossed over to the left bank of the Yarden and followed down the course of the river. At Succoth (a little to the north of the Jabbok) and at Penuel (on the bank of the river) Gideon's co-religionists refused to supply his troops with food. Gideon defeated the Midianites at the mouth of the Jabbok. On the return journey he exacted terrible vengeance from the inhabitants of Penuel and Succoth.
5 The writer has conflated Gideon's first and second expedition. But they were very different; the enemy leaders had not the same names in the one and the other. On the other hand, in the second campaign -it was in TransYardenia- Gideon was acting as an avenger. He is clearly the instrument of justice, the avenger of blood.
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