The Fourth Period of Disobedience

Click here to read Judges 6.

Chapter 6, the Fourth Rebellion.

1. Their sin:
   The people of Israel did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord.
2. Their servitude:
   This time God used the Midianites who destroyed their live stock and all their produce. So complete was their destruction that the Israelites were forced to flee to the mountains and live in caves.
3. Their repentance.
   The people cried out to the Lord and this time God sent a man by the name of Gideon.
4. Their restoration:
   One day the Angel of the Lord appeared to a man called Gideon. He was the son of Joash of the tribe of Manasseh. He was thrashing wheat by hand in the bottom of a wine press in order not to be discovered by the Midianites. The Angel said to Gideon, "I Am" will make you strong, go and save Israel from the Midianites. "I Am" is sending you." ("I Am" is the translation of "Yahweh" also used in Ex. 3:13-14 in the calling of Moses as God identified Himself as "I Am that I Am".) Gideon was very realistic about his own qualifications, how could he, a member for the least of the tribes of Israel, overcome the Medianites? Notice the questions in Gideon's mind:
   1. If the Lord is with us, why has all this persecution happened to us?
   2. Where are all the miracles our ancestors told us about?
   3. How can I, one man, save Israel?
   4. What are you going to do to prove that you are who you say that you are?

   Gideon needed to know that it really was Yahweh that was sending him. Notice how it was resolved:

   Gideon gets the Angel to agree to stay there under the oak tree while he went home and prepared a gift for him. He goes home and roasts a young goat and bakes some unleavened bread, which he took out and presented to the Angel. The Angel told Gideon to place the food upon a rock and he took his staff and touched the food and immediately fire consumed it. Then suddenly the Angel was gone. Gideon then knew that he had seen the Angel of the Lord and that it was the Lord who was sending him.

   Then Gideon built an altar and called it "Yahweh brings peace". The Lord tells Gideon to destroy the pagan altars to Baal and Asherah and use the wood to offer a burnt sacrifice unto the Lord. The next morning when the people saw what had been done to their altars they demanded to know who had dishonored Baal. When it was discovered that it was Gideon the people demanded that he be put to death.

   Gideon's father comes to his rescue. "It is you, not Gideon, that dishonors Baal. Does Baal need your help? If Baal is really a god, let him destroy the one that destroyed his altars." From then on Gideon was called "Jerub-baal", which means, let Baal take care of himself or the destroyer of Baal.

   Soon after that the armies of Midian, Amalek and other surrounding neighbors united in one vast alliance against Israel. They crossed the Jordan and camped in the Valley of Jezreel, south of the border of Zebulun and north of the city Megiddo. Then the Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon and he summoned the armies of Manasseh, Asher, Zebulun and Naphtali. Then Gideon said to the Lord, "Show me a sign." "I will put some wool fleece on the thrashing floor and in the morning if the wool is wet and the ground dry, I will know that you are with me.

   The next morning, the wool fleece was wet and the ground was dry just as Gideon had asked but he still was not sure. So again he asked the Lord to reverse the sign make the wool dry and the ground wet, and the next morning, that's the way it was.

5. Their rest:
   The end of Chapter 8 says that the people of Israel obeyed the Lord until the death of Gideon, approx. 1140 BC.

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