Lecture XV: Gideon (part 1)

by Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D.D.

 In the defeat of Sisera the last attempt of the old     
inhabitants to recover their sway was put down.  The     
next event is wholly different.  It is the invasion of     
the tribes of the adjoining desert.  The name       
of Midian, though sometimes given peculiarly      
to the tribe on the south-east shores of the Gulf of       
Akaba, was extended to all Arabian tribes on the east     
of the Jordan, - "the Amalekites, and all the children     
of the East."  They have already appeared at the       
time of the first passage of Israel through the Trans-     
jordanic territory.  In this, as on the former occasion,           
they are governed by Princes or Chiefs whose names     
are preserved.  Two superior chiefs having the title      
of "king," Zeba and Zalmunna; two inferior, Oreb     
and Zeeb, - 'the Raven and the Wolf," - bearing the         
title of "princes."  Their appearance is brought vividly       
before us.  Like the Arab chiefs of modern days, they       
are dressed in gorgeous scarlet robes; on their necks       
and the necks of their camels are crescent-like orna-        
ments, such as were afterwards worn by Jewish ladies     
of high rank.  All of them wore rings, either nose-     
rings or ear-rings of gold.        
   When these wild tribes, taking advantage perhaps of      
the weakening of the intervening kingdoms of Am-     
mon and Moab, burst upon the country, their fierce       
aspect struck consternation wherever they went.  "Let       
us take to ourselves the pastures of God," - so in      
true nomadic phrase they are supposed to speak.      
They over-ran the whole country.  Like the Bedouins      
who now make incursions into the plains of Esdraelon      
and Philistia; like the Scythians, who in the reign of         
Josiah spread southward "as far as Gaza;" so they,       
reaching to the same limits, were to be seen every-              
where, with their innumerable tents and camels, like            
the sand in the bay of Acre, - like one of those ter-      
rible armies of locusts described by the Prophet Joel.         
   The panic was proportionably great.  The Israelite     
population left the plains and took refuge      
in the hill.  Three places of refuge are spe-     
cially mentioned.  First, the catacombs or galleries      
which they cut out of the rock, which are mentioned only      
in this place, and which, apparently, were pointed out,      
in after-times, as the memorials of those troubled days.       
Secondly, the craggy peaks, such as the rock of Rimmon      
and the inaccessible Masada.  Thirdly, the limestone       
caves, here first mentioned, and afterwards often used,     
like the Corycian cave in Greece, during the Persian       
invasion, and the caves of the Asturias in Spain, during        
the occupation of the Moors.  It was returning to the      
old Troglodyte habits of the Horites and Phœnicians.       
   From this great calamity Israel was rescued by a        
great deliverer - the most heroic of all the      
characters of this period.         
   As in the other invasions and oppressions, so here,       
the deliverer is to be sought in the locality nearest     
to the chief scene of the invasion.  Overhanging the       
plain of Esdralon, where the vast army of the Mid-      
ianites was encamped, were hills of the Western        
Manasseh.  It was from a small family of this proud      
tribe that the champion of Israel unexpectedly rose.        
There had already been collisions between     
them and the invaders.  As in the time of      
Barak, so now the northern tribes seem to      
have met at the sanctuary of Mount Tabor, and there      
the elder sons of Joash the Abiezrite had been over-      
taken and slain by the Midianite kings.  They were        
a magnificent family - every one of them was like a         
Prince.  And not the least regal was the sole survivor,     
Gideon.  He was apparently the youngest; but had        
already one high-spirited son, - the boy Jether.  Even     
in the depressed state of his country and family, he       
kept up a dignity of his own.  He had ten slaves       
and his armor-bearer, whose name, Phurah, has been       
preserved to us in the celebrity of his master.  His       
name was already great, as a "mighty hero," both     
amongst the Israelites and their invaders.  It was     
whilst he was brooding over the wrongs of his family     
and his country that the call came upon him.  The     
scene was long preserved, and the manner of the      
call carries us back to the visions of the Patriarchal     
age.       
   There were vineyards round his native Ophrah,       
and by the wine-press, in which the grapes would      
be trodden out in the coming autumn, he now,      
in the summer months, doubtless with his     
father's bullocks, was threshing out the newly gath-      
ered wheat.  Close by the smooth level was a cave,       
into which the juice of the grapes ran off through a       
channel cut in the rocky reservoir, and which Gideon      
now used to hide the corn from the rapacious invad-     
ers.  Above this cave, as it would seem, stood a rock,       
in the midst of a grove of trees, amongst which the         
most conspicuous was a well-known terebinth, spread-     
ing its wide branches alike over the rock and the        
wine-press.  The grove was dedicated (so deeply had          
the Canaanitish worship spread even into the purest      
families) to Astarte.  The rock, with an altar on its      
summit, was consecrated to Baal, and was venerated      
as a stronghold or asylum by the neighborhood.  A      
Prophet - whose name is not preserved to us - had      
already been amongst the people, with warnings and     
encouragements.  The message to Gideon is described      
in language of a more mysterious and solemn kind.       
"A messenger of the Lord" - a youth, according to      
the tradition in Josephus - suddenly appears, leaning     
on a staff.  The meal which Gideon had prepared for      
him beneath the terebinth becomes a sacrifice.  The     
sacrifice is laid on the summit of the consecrated rock,       
as upon a natural altar.  At the touch of the way-      
farer's staff it is consumed in flames, and the heavenly      
messenger vanishes amidst the cries of alarm which     
the terrified Gideon utters at the consciousness of the        
Divine Presence, till he receives the assurance of "the      
Peace of Jehovah."       
   There may be difficulties in the details of this nar-        
rative.  But it faithfully exhibits the twofold call to     
Gideon which forms the framework of the rest of his     
history.        
   1.  The first call, which is less distinctly described,     
is the mission - almost of a prophetic charac-     
ter - to strike a decisive blow at the growing      
tendency to Phœnician worship in the central        
tribes of Palestine.  On the morning , we are told, of     
the following day, the villagers assembled for their     
worship.  They found that the consecrated trees were       
cut down.  Their ashes were seen on the rock.  A            
bullock had been consumed whole in the flames of     
the pile that had been heaped up.  The altar had     
been swept away, and another new altar reared in its      
place to receive the sacrificial pile.  The answer of     
Joash to those who charged his son with this act of       
sacrilege is based on that grand principle which uns      
through so large a part of the history of the Jewish      
Church, - that the real impiety is in those who believe      
that God cannot defend Himself.  "Will ye take upon     
yourselves to plead for Baal's cause?  Let Baal plead      
for himself."  Of this struggle, and of this icono-     
clasm, two distinct memorials remained.  One was the       
new altar, which remained into the times of the mon-     
archy on the sacred rock, bearing in its name an     
allusion to the events which caused its erection, -       
JEHOVAH, PEACE.  The other was the name adopted by    
Gideon, and perpetuated in different forms as Jerub-      
baal, Jerub-bosheth, Hierobaal, and Hierombal.  Either       
as the destroyer of the old, or the constructor of the      
new sanctuary, of which he afterwards became the      
Priest and Oracle, this name remained side by side      
with that which he bore as the deliverer from Midian,       
and was the one which, alone of the names of this     
period, penetrated into the Gentile world.         
   2.  The second call is that by which in later times     
Gideon has been chiefly known, - the war of      
insurrection against Midian.  His own char-      
acter is well indicated in the sign of the       
fleece - cool in the heat of all around, dry when all      
around were damp with fear.  Throughout we see     
three great qualities, decision, caution, and magnanimity.      
The summons, as usual, by the well-known horn, first       
convenes his own clan of Abiezer; next, his own       
tribe of Manasseh; and lastly, the three northern     
tribes.  Zebulun and Naphtali are still the faithful      
among the faithless, the nucleus of independence,       
as in the war of Deborah, as in the final war of Jew-     
ish patriotism against Rome.  Asher has this time left      
his home by the shores of Accho; but Issachar, over-      
run by the Arab tribes, is absent.          
   The career of Gideon is more than a battle, it is      
a campaign or war, which divides itself into three     
parts.      
   The first is the battle of Jezreel.  The Midianite     
encampmet was on the northern side of the        
valley, between Gilboa and Little Hermon.       
The Israelite encampment was on the slope of Mount      
Gilboa, by the spring of Jezreel, called, from       
the incident of this time, "the Spring of Trem-         
bling."  There had been the usual war-cry - "What      
man is there that is fearful and faint-hearted?  Let     
him go and return unto his house, lest his brethren's       
heart faint as well as his heart."  It was modi-        
fied on this occasion by its adaptation either to the       
peculiar war-cry of Manasseh, or to the actual scene      
of the encampment - "Whosoever is afraid, let him     
return to Mount Gilead," or (according to another       
reading) "from Mount Gilboa."  This had removed      
the cowards from the army.  The next step was to     
remove the rash.  At the brink of the spring, those      
who rushed headlong down to quench their thirst,     
throwing themselves on the ground, or plunging     
their mouths into the water, were rejected, those       
who took up the water in their hands, and lapped      
it with self-restraint, were chosen.         
   Gideon, thus left alone with his three hundred men,     
now needed and augury for himself.  This was granted      
to him.  It was night, when he and his armor-bearer     
descended from their secure position above the spring      
to the vast army below.  They reached the outskirts         
of the tents amidst the deep silence which had fallen      
over the encampment, where the thousands of Arabs    
lay rapt in sleep or resting from their plunder,       
with their innumerable camels moored in peaceful     
repose around them.  One of the sleepers, startled       
from his slumbers, was telling his dream to his fellow.        
A thin round cake of barley bread, of the most home-       
ly bread, from those rich cornfields, those nu-     
merous threshing-places, those deep ovens sunk in    
the ground, which they had been plundering, came        
rolling into the camp, till it reached the royal tent     
in the centre, which fell headlong before it, and was       
turned over and over, till it lay flat upon the ground.       
Like the shadow of Richard, which, centuries later      
was believed to make the Arab horses start at the       
sight of a bush, one name only seemed to occur      
as the interpretation of this sign: "The sword of       
Gideon, the son of Joash."  The Awful Listener heard      
the good omen, bowed himself to the ground in      
thankful acknowledgement of it, and disappeared up      
the mountain-side.  The sleepers and the dreamers      
slept on to be waked up by the blast of the pas-     
toral horns, and at the same moment the crashing       
of three hundred pitchers, and the blaze of the      
three hundred torches, and the shout of Israel, always     
terrible, which broke through the stillness of the mid-     
night air from three opposite quarters at once.  In a      
moment the camp was rushing hither and thither in      
dark confusion, with the dissonant "cries" peculiar to      
the Arab race.  Every one drew his sword against     
every other, and the host fled headlong down the        
descent to the Jordan, to the spots known as the       
House of Acacia, and the margin of the Meadow        
of the Dance.          

from The History of the Jewish Church, Vol. I : Abraham to Samuel,
"Lecture XV: Gideon"
by Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D.D., Dean of Westminster
Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1879, pp. 374-381