Deborah judged Israel for forty years, and during that time the people were not troubled any more by their enemies. But after she died they grew careless again and soon forgot about God’s goodness to them. They made images of the gods that the Canaanites worshiped, and served them. They even built altars and offered sacrifices to the gods, just as their wicked neighbors were doing all around them. God was much displeased with them, and he forsook then entirely.
About this time the Israelites began to have trouble with the Midianites. These Midianites came from the country east of the land of Israel. They lived in tents like gipsies, and roamed about wherever they could find pasture and water for their cattle and sheep and camels. The land of Israel had much beautiful pasture-land, and streams of clear water, so the Midianites came with all their tents and cattle and sheep and camels and camped along the borders of Israel. The Israelites were too weak to drive them away, and the Midianites grew bolder all the while. First they allowed their flocks and herds to graze on the pasture-lands of Israel; then they began to rob the Israelites of the food that grew in Israel’s fields and vineyards; and finally they even crowded the people out of their homes and drove them away to hide in dens and caves in the mountains. Like grasshoppers they filled the valleys of eastern Israel with their tents and ate up everything that the Israelites had raised in their gardens and fields. What a time of trouble this was!
As at other times when trouble came upon them, now the Israelites remembered God and cried again to him for help. But God knew they had forsaken him and brought this great trouble upon themselves. He sent a prophet to remind them of the wonderful things that he had done for their fathers and yet they had forsaken him and turned to other gods. Now those gods could not help them.
One day after the prophet had spoken to the people, an Israelite named Gideon was threshing wheat by a wine-press, to hide it from the Midianites lest they come and take it away from him. While he worked, an angel came and sat down under an oak-tree near by. Presently Gideon looked up and saw the angel. He did not seem to know at first that his visitor was from heaven. But as they talked together the angel told Gideon that he should deliver the Israelites from their enemies. Gideon answered, “How can I do such a great work? for I am of a poor family, and am the least in my father’s house.” Then the angel told him that by God’s help he would be able to do this great work.
Gideon had been so greatly discouraged because of the troubles and poverty of his people that he was not very quick to believe the angel’s word. Perhaps he thought it seemed too wonderful to be true that God would use him to bring about such a deliverance. So he asked for a sign from the angel. “If you will remain here until I return again and bring you a present,” he said, “then I will believe that you have surely spoken to me the words of God.” And the angel waited until Gideon returned with some food. Then, instead of eating it, the angel told Gideon to place the meat and bread upon a rock near by, and to pour out the broth. Gideon obeyed, and the angel touched the meat and bread with the staff that he carried in his hand. Like a flash the rock flamed up in fire and burned the meat and bread. And the angel disappeared out of sight.
When Gideon knew he had been talking to a messenger from God he was afraid; but God spoke to him and comforted him. Then Gideon built an altar at that place and called it by a name which meant, “The Lord send peace.’
Now the people where Gideon lived were worshiping the idol called Baal. Even Gideon’s father had an altar of Baal standing in his yard. God told Gideon to tear this altar down and destroy the trees near by where the people bowed before the images of Baal.
Gideon was a brave man, yet he knew the people would be angry if they should see him tearing down their idol, so he waited until night, and then he called ten servants to help him. They took one of his father’s oxen and tore the altar of Baal in pieces. Then they cut down the trees where the idols had stood and built a large altar to the true God. On it they placed the wood from the trees to make a fire, and they killed another ox that belonged to Gideon’s father and offered it for a sacrifice to God.
When the people of the neighborhood came the next morning to worship Baal they found his altar torn down and all the places to bow before him lying in ruins. “Who has done this?” they asked angrily, and some one answered, “Gideon, the son of Joash.” Then they hurried to Joash and demanded that he bring out Gideon at once. “He has torn down Baal’s altar, and we want to kill him,” they said.
But Joash answered bravely, “If Baal is a god, let him help himself. Why should you try to save him?” And the people, when they saw that Baal could not harm the one who destroyed his altar, were no longer angry with Gideon. Perhaps they felt foolish because they had been worshiping such a god.
After this had happened Gideon sent messengers to the different parts of the land and called the soldiers of Israel together. But first he wanted to be very sure that God would be with him before he Should try to drive the Midianites away. So he asked again for a sign from God. This time he placed a piece of wool at nightfall on a smooth floor where no roof had been built overhead. He asked God to cause only the fleece of wool to become wet with dew. When morning came he found the ground dry everywhere, but the fleece of wool was covered with dew. Gideon Still Gideon was not satisfied. He prayed that God might not be angry with him if he should ask the third time for a sign. Now he placed the fleece of wool out as before, and he asked God to cause the dew to lie everywhere except on the fleece. And when morning came the fleece was dry while the ground about it was wet. Then Gideon believed that surely God was ready to help him.