Gideon: Called also Jerubbaal
(Judges 6:29,32) was the first of the judges whose
history is circumstantially narrated Judges 6-8. His calling is the
commencement of the second period in the history of the judges. After
the victory gained by Deborah and Barak over Jabin, Israel once more
sank into idolatry, and the Midianites (q.v.) and Amalekites, with
other "children of the east," crossed the Jordan each year for seven
successive years for the purpose of plundering and desolating the
land. Gideon received a direct call from God to undertake the task of
delivering the land from these warlike invaders. He was of the family
of Abiezer
(Joshua 17:2; 1 Chronicles 7:18) and of the little township of Ophrah
(Judges 6:11) First, with ten of his servants, he overthrew the altars of
Baal and cut down the asherah which was upon it, and then blew the
trumpet of alarm, and the people flocked to his standard on the crest
of Mount Gilboa to the number of twenty-two thousand men. These were,
however, reduced to only three hundred. These, strangely armed with
torches and pitchers and trumpets, rushed in from three different
points on the camp of Midian at midnight, in the valley to the north
of Moreh, with the terrible war-cry, "For the Lord and for Gideon"
(Judges 7:18) R.V. Terror-stricken, the Midianites were put into dire
confusion, and in the darkness slew one another, so that only fifteen
thousand out of the great army of one hundred and twenty thousand
escaped alive. The memory of this great deliverance impressed itself
deeply on the mind of the nation
(1 Samuel 12:11; Psalms 83:11; Isaiah 9:4; 10:26)
(Hebrews 11:32) The land had now rest for forty years. Gideon died in a
good old age, and was buried in the sepulchre of his fathers. Soon
after his death a change came over the people. They again forgot
Jehovah, and turned to the worship of Baalim, "neither shewed they
kindness to the house of Jerubbaal"
(Judges 8:35) Gideon left behind him
seventy sons, a feeble, sadly degenerated race, with one exception,
that of Abimelech, who seems to have had much of the courage and
energy of his father, yet of restless and unscrupulous ambition. He
gathered around him a band who slaughtered all Gideon's sons, except
Jotham, upon one stone.
