The Living Bible (80 page)

Judges
7

Jerubbaal (that is, Gideon—his other name) and his army got an early start and went as far as the spring of Harod. The armies of Midian were camped north of them, down in the valley beside the hill of Moreh.

    
²
 The Lord then said to Gideon, “There are too many of you! I can’t let all of you fight the Midianites, for then the people of Israel will boast to me that they saved themselves by their own strength!
³
 Send home any of your men who are timid and frightened.”

    
So twenty-two thousand of them left, and only ten thousand remained who were willing to fight.

    
⁴
 But the Lord told Gideon, “There are still too many! Bring them down to the spring and I’ll show you which ones shall go with you and which ones shall not.”

    
^5-6
 So Gideon assembled them at the water. There the Lord told him, “Divide them into two groups decided by the way they drink. In Group 1 will be all the men who cup the water in their hands to get it to their mouths and lap it like dogs. In Group 2 will be those who kneel, with their mouths in the stream.”

    
Only three hundred of the men drank from their hands; all the others drank with their mouths to the stream.

    
⁷
 “I’ll conquer the Midianites with these three hundred!” the Lord told Gideon. “Send all the others home!”

    
^8-9
 So after Gideon had collected all the clay jars and trumpets they had among them, he sent them home, leaving only three hundred men with him.

    
During the night, with the Midianites camped in the valley just below, the Lord said to Gideon, “Get up! Take your troops and attack the Midianites, for I will cause you to defeat them!
¹⁰
 But if you are afraid, first go down to the camp alone—take along your servant Purah if you like—
¹¹
 and listen to what they are saying down there! You will be greatly encouraged and be eager to attack!”

    
So he took Purah and crept down through the darkness to the outposts of the enemy camp.
^12-13
 The vast armies of Midian, Amalek, and the other nations of the Mideast were crowded across the valley like locusts—yes, like the sand upon the seashore—and there were too many camels even to count! Gideon crept up to one of the tents just as a man inside had wakened from a nightmare and was telling his tent-mate about it.

    
“I had this strange dream,” he was saying, “and there was this huge loaf of barley bread that came tumbling down into our camp. It hit our tent and knocked it flat!”

    
¹⁴
 The other soldier replied, “Your dream can mean only one thing! Gideon, the son of Joash, the Israeli, is going to come and massacre all the allied forces of Midian!”

    
¹⁵
 When Gideon heard the dream and the interpretation, all he could do was just stand there worshiping God! Then he returned to his men and shouted, “Get up! For the Lord is going to use you to conquer all the vast armies of Midian!”

    
¹⁶
 He divided the three hundred men into three groups and gave each man a trumpet and a clay jar with a torch in it.
¹⁷
 Then he explained his plan. “When we arrive at the outer guardposts of the camp,” he told them, “do just as I do.
¹⁸
 As soon as I and the men in my group blow our trumpets, you blow yours on all sides of the camp and shout, ‘We fight for God and for Gideon!’”

    
^19-20
 It was just after midnight and the change of guards when Gideon and the hundred men with him crept to the outer edge of the camp of Midian.

    
Suddenly they blew their trumpets and broke their clay jars so that their torches blazed into the night. Then the other two hundred of his men did the same, blowing the trumpets in their right hands, and holding the flaming torches in their left hands, all shouting, “For the Lord and for Gideon!”
*

    
²¹
 Then they just stood and watched as the whole vast enemy army began rushing around in a panic, shouting and running away.
²²
 For in the confusion the Lord caused the enemy troops to begin fighting and killing each other from one end of the camp to the other, and they fled into the night to places as far away as Beth-shittah near Zererah, and to the border of Abel-meholah near Tabbath.

    
²³
 Then Gideon sent for the troops of Naphtali, Asher, and Manasseh and told them to come and chase and destroy the fleeing army of Midian.
²⁴
 Gideon also sent messengers throughout the hill country of Ephraim summoning troops who seized the fords of the Jordan River at Beth-barah, thus preventing the Midianites from escaping by going across.
²⁵
 Oreb and Zeeb, the two generals of Midian, were captured. Oreb was killed at the rock now known by his name, and Zeeb at the winepress of Zeeb, as it is now called; and the Israelis took the heads of Oreb and Zeeb across the Jordan to Gideon.

Judges
8

But the tribal leaders of Ephraim were violently angry with Gideon.

    
“Why didn’t you send for us when you first went out to fight the Midianites?” they demanded.

    
^2-3
 But Gideon replied, “God let you capture Oreb and Zeeb, the generals of the army of Midian! What have I done in comparison with that? Your actions at the end of the battle were more important than ours at the beginning!”
*
So they calmed down.

    
⁴
 Gideon now crossed the Jordan River with his three hundred men. They were very tired, but still chasing the enemy.
⁵
 He asked the men of Succoth for food. “We are weary from chasing after Zebah and Zalmunna, the kings of Midian,” he said.

    
⁶
 But the leaders of Succoth replied, “You haven’t caught them yet!
*
If we feed you and you fail, they’ll return and destroy us.”

    
⁷
 Then Gideon warned them, “When the Lord has delivered them to us, I will return and tear your flesh with the thorns and briars of the wilderness.”

    
⁸
 Then he went up to Penuel and asked for food there, but got the same answer.
⁹
 And he said to them also, “When this is all over, I will return and break down this tower.”

    
¹⁰
 By this time King Zebah and King Zalmunna with a remnant of fifteen thousand troops were in Karkor. That was all that was left of the allied armies of the east; for one hundred twenty thousand had already been killed.
¹¹
 Then Gideon circled around by the caravan route east of Nobah and Jogbehah, striking at the Midianite army in surprise raids.
¹²
 The two kings fled, but Gideon chased and captured them, routing their entire force.
¹³
 Later, Gideon returned by way of Heres Pass.
¹⁴
 There he captured a young fellow from Succoth and demanded that he write down the names of all the seventy-seven political and religious leaders of the city.

    
¹⁵
 He then returned to Succoth. “You taunted me that I would never catch King Zebah and King Zalmunna, and you refused to give us food when we were tired and hungry,” he said. “Well, here they are!”

    
¹⁶
 Then he took the leaders of the city and scraped them to death
*
with wild thorns and briars.
¹⁷
 He also went to Penuel and knocked down the city tower and killed the entire male population.

    
¹⁸
 Then Gideon asked King Zebah and King Zalmunna, “The men you killed at Tabor—what were they like?”

    
They replied, “They were dressed just like you—like sons of kings!”

    
¹⁹
 “They must have been my brothers!” Gideon exclaimed. “I swear that if you hadn’t killed them I wouldn’t kill you.”

    
²⁰
 Then, turning to Jether, his oldest son, he instructed him to kill them. But the boy was only a lad and was afraid to.

    
²¹
 Then Zebah and Zalmunna said to Gideon, “You do it; we’d rather be killed by a man!”
*
So Gideon killed them and took the ornaments from their camels’ necks.

    
²²
 Now the men of Israel said to Gideon, “Be our king! You and your sons and all your descendants shall be our rulers, for you have saved us from Midian.”

    
^23-24
 But Gideon replied, “I will not be your king, nor shall my son; the Lord is your King! However, I have one request. Give me all the earrings collected from your fallen foes”—for the troops of Midian, being Ishmaelites, all wore gold earrings.

    
²⁵
 “Gladly!” they replied, and spread out a sheet for everyone to throw in the gold earrings he had gathered.
²⁶
 Their value was estimated at $25,000, not including the crescents and pendants, or the royal clothing of the kings, or the chains around the camels’ necks.
²⁷
 Gideon made an ephod
*
from the gold and put it in Ophrah, his hometown. But all Israel soon began worshiping it, so it became an evil deed that Gideon and his family did.

    
²⁸
 That is the true account of how Midian was subdued by Israel. Midian never recovered, and the land was at peace for forty years—all during Gideon’s lifetime.
²⁹
 He returned home
³⁰
 and eventually had seventy sons, for he married many wives.
³¹
 He also had a concubine in Shechem, who presented him with a son named Abimelech.
³²
 Gideon finally died, an old, old man, and was buried in the sepulcher of his father, Joash, in Ophrah, in the land of the Abiezrites.

    
³³
 But as soon as Gideon was dead, the Israelis began to worship the idols Baal and Baal-berith.
³⁴
 They no longer considered the Lord as their God, though he had rescued them from all their enemies on every side.
³⁵
 Nor did they show any kindness to the family of Gideon despite all he had done for them.