March 16 Daily Devotional

Judges 6–8

Again the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord and again they had to suffer for their sins. They were given into the hands of the Midianites seven years. The Midianites lived on the border of the desert; from there they made their attacks.

One day a young man named Gideon was threshing wheat. He did it secretly, to hide it from the Midianites. Suddenly an angel appeared unto him and said, “The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valor … Thou shalt save Israel from the hand of the Midianites.” And Gideon said to God, “If thou wilt save Israel by mine hand … I will put a fleece of wool on the threshing floor; and if the dew be on the fleece only, and it be dry upon all the earth beside, then shall I know that thou wilt save Israel by mine hand.” It was so. Gideon rose up early in the morning, and pressed out the dew, a bowlful of water. And he said to God, “Let not thine anger be hot against me, and I will speak but this once: let me prove, I pray thee, but this once with the fleece; let it now be dry only upon the fleece, and upon all the ground let there be dew.” And God did so that night, for it was dry upon the fleece only, and there was dew on all the ground.

Gideon sent messengers to the northern tribes and the soldiers flocked to him. The mighty hosts of the Midianites were gathered in the plain of Jezreel. Gideon had thirty-two thousand men. But the Lord said, “The people that are with thee are too many,” Obtaining the victory, they might boast and say, “Mine own hand hath saved me.” God should have the glory. So the timid men, at the Lord’s order, were permitted to go home. Ten thousand were left. Again God told Gideon there were too many. He had to take them to the brook side to drink. Three hundred of the men lapped the water from their hands, as a dog laps. The others knelt and put their faces down to drink the water. And the Lord said to Gideon, “By the three hundred men that lapped will I save you.”

Gideon divided the three hundred men into three companies, and he gave them trumpets and empty pitchers with torches within them. He ordered the men to light the torches and to hide them in their pitchers, so that the enemy would not see them. In the middle of the night Gideon and his men slipped down the hillside and came to the very edge of the camp of the Midianites. At a given signal they blew their trumpets and shouted; they also broke their pitchers and waved the torches. As the war cry, “The sword of the Lord and of Gideon” rang through the night, the Midianites in wild confusion fled and used their swords against one another. A complete victory was gained by Gideon. The men of Israel said to him, “Rule over us.” He said, “The Lord shall rule over you.”