DEPRAVITY WITHOUT GOD PART 6:UPS AND DOWNS OF A FLEECE FLINGER

When the men of the town rose early in the morning, behold, the altar of Baal was broken down, and the Asherah beside it was cut down, and the second bull was offered on the altar that had been built. And they said to one another, “Who has done this thing?” And after they had searched and inquired, they said, “Gideon the son of Joash has done this thing.” Then the men of the town said to Joash, “Bring out your son, that he may die, for he has broken down the altar of Baal and cut down the Asherah beside it.” Judges 6:28-30

When last we left Gideon there was an angry mob at his front door threatening to do him great bodily harm; in fact, kill him. These Israelites demanded blood because Gideon had destroyed his father’s alter to Baal and cut down the Asherah Pole. This was how far they had strayed from God’s Commandments, especially the first two:

I am the Lord thy God, which have brought you out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shall have no other gods before me.

Thou shall not make unto thee any graven image.

Now they were quite ready to brake Commandment Six: Thou shall not kill.

Things do look dire as Joash, Gideon’s father steps outside to face the mob.

And Joash said unto all that stood against him, Will ye plead for Baal? will ye save him? he that will plead for him, let him be put to death whilst it is yet morning: if he be a god, let him plead for himself, because one hath cast down his altar.

Therefore on that day he called him Jerubbaal, saying, Let Baal plead against him, because he hath thrown down his altar. (Judges 6:31-32)

Let’s keep things clear. Joash challenges the mob asking if any would pled for Baal. They know this goes against God’s commands. Joash then says if anyone steps up and pleads for Baal, that person should be put to death immediately. In the remaining part of that sentence, where he says “if he be a god”, Joash is now referring to Baal. If Baal is truly a god he can speak for himself. He doesn’t need a mob seeking vengeance for his fallen statue in his stead.

Now Joash gives another name to his son Gideon. He calls him Jerubbaal.

Why?

Okay, Jerubbaal is a theophoric name. Add that one to your vocabulary. Theophoric means a name that incorporates the name of a god within it. An easy example is Theodore. As a boy I had a good friend named Theodore. We called him Teddy and he bore a resemblance to Jerry Lewis, which is neither here or there, but I bet he didn’t know he had a Theophoric name.  Theodore, or Theodoros in Greek means God gift; Theo means god and doros means gift. We have a number of these kind of names and don’t realize it. Another is the name Jonathan, which is Yonatan in Hebrew, meaning Yahweh has given.

Gideon was given the name Jerrubbaal, which contains Baal, a god’s name, and means “Baal will contend”. It is a combination of two words.  The first comes from the Hebrew riyb or rub, meaning to grabble and the second is Baal, the Phoenician god. 

Alright then, the townspeople were satisfied with this and dispersed without killing Gideon, but this was not the end of any contenting. Over to the east of Israel, the Midianites and their allies, the Amalekites, along with several other eastern tribes gathered together in the Jezreel Valley. This is where the armies in the end times will gather just before Armageddon.

Why would they do this? because they were incensed by Gideon destroying an alter to Baal and were ready to fight the Israelites over this insult.

While this was happening, the Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon. First we had the Angel of God appear, so we have God the Father in all this and the Angel of the Lord was a physical being sitting there neath the Terebinth, which we said was the pre-incarnate Jesus, the Son and here comes the third person of the Trinty, the Holy Ghost. 

But the Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon, and he blew a

trumpet; and Abiezer was gathered after him. Judges 6:34

So Gideon has allies as well coming to contend with the enemy in the Jezreel Valley. The Angel of the Lord appeared again and this time blew a trumpet. At its sound all of the Abiezer gathered after Gideon, then God sent messages through all of the land of Manasseh and the tribes of Asher, Zebulun and Naphtali rallied to the cause.  (Judges 6:34-35)

If you remember I told you Gideon was a cautious fellow? Here is where he got really cautious and did what many people remember about Gideon; that is, if they don’t mix him up with Jason and the Golden Fleece.

And Gideon said unto God, If thou wilt save Israel by mine hand, as thou hast said,

Behold, I will put a fleece of wool on the floor; and if the dew be on the fleece only, and it be dry upon all the earth beside, then shall I know that thou wilt save Israel by mine hand, as thou hast said.

And it was so: for he rose up early on the morrow, and thrust the fleece together, and wringed the dew out of the fleece, a bowl full of water.

And Gideon said unto God, Let not thine anger be hot against me, and I will speak but this once: let me prove, I pray thee, but this once with the fleece; let it now be dry only upon the fleece, and upon all the ground let there be dew.

And God did so that night: for it was dry upon the fleece only, and there was dew on all the ground. (Judges 6:36-40)

I saw someone ask what a fleece was. Is it a jacket, they wondered? You can’t take anything for granted that the people will know what is what, so just in case here is the definition. Of course, one can understand because we do often see ads for a fleece

jacket. I once had what was called a fleece jacket and it was very warm, but you can have a fleece-lined jacket or a fleece blanket or even fleece seat covers for your car. I had those once, too. But fleece is simply the woolly covering of a sheep  or goat; in other words, Gideon was laying out the wool shorn off a sheep.

But was this the right thing to do?  What do you think about this farm boy Gideon? Have you ever flung out a fleece before God?

I did compare Gideon to myself, didn’t I? I called him cynical, skeptical and cautious. Maybe in this world it doesn’t hurt to have a bit of such attributes. But there can be a point when you have to get pass those things and I’m thinking Gideon took his fearfulness a little far. He is skirting the edge of testing God here, which the Lord said we should not do. 

“You shall not put the Lord your God to the test, as you tested him at Massah. (Deuteronomy 6:16)

This is one of the rebuttals Jesus gave Satan when he was tempted in the wilderness. (Luke 4:12)

So, what happened at Massah?

The Israelites had been led by Moses out of Egypt and to the border of the Promise Land. They reject entry out of fear and were then sent by God on a 40 year journey of testing in the wilderness. They camped at a place called Rephidim and found no water to drink. The people got pretty gnarly about this and began a protest of whining, as usual, saying Moses had led them from Egypt to have them die of thirst. Moses asked why were they quarreling with him and why they were putting God to the test? God gave them water by having Moses strike a rock, which Moses in his own anger struck too many times. It was a bad scene all around. Here God was putting the faith and locality of the Israelites to the test and they were turning around and putting God to the test. Massah means testing.

So we shouldn’t be seeing Gideon putting God to the test in his situation. This wasn’t a decision Gideon had made and wished to see if God approve. The decision and approval had pretty clearly been made by God already in Judges 6:14 and 16.

14 And the Lord turned to him and said, “Go in this might of yours and save Israel from the hand of Midian; do not I send you?”

16 And the Lord said to him, “But I will be with you, and you shall strike the Midianites as one man.”

But we see that Gideon was a fearful sort and these fleeces weren’t the first time he demanded a sign from God. Look at 6:17-18:

17 And he said to him, “If now I have found favor in your eyes, then show me a sign that it is you who speak with me. 18 Please do not depart from here until I come to you and bring out my present and set it before you.”

And he (The Angel of the Lord) said, “I will stay till you return.”

Do you see how patient God was with Gideon? He did wait during all the time it took Gideon to prepare that sacrifice. This wasn't a couple of minutes, you know. Gideon had to kill the animal, skin and prepare it. Finally, he brought out the butchered meat and then God miraculously cooked the food Gideon presented. 

How much convincing did Gideon need?  Apparently a lot. He put out a fleece and said he would believe God if the fleece got wet with dew, but the ground didn’t.

Still not enough. Another day and another test and another fleece. This time he asks that God dry the fleece, but wet the ground. 

And very patient God does this.

And now it is God’s turn to test Gideon. Gideon has an army of 32,000 men at the ready. God is not going to let there be any mistake that what is to come is coming from Him, not from men and not from Gideon.  So God says to allow any men who are afraid to return home to their family. Can you imagine a modern General doing this, telling any of his troops who might be quaking a little to pack up and go home? 

Only 10,000 of the 32,000 remain, but God shakes his head and says, still too many. I want people to see something about my power here. He has Gideon go to the river with these 10,000 and have them drink.

And the Lord said to Gideon, “The people are still too many.

Take  them down to the water, and I will test them for you there, and anyone of whom I say to you, ‘This one shall go with you,’ shall go with you, and anyone of whom I say to you, ‘This one shall not go with you,’ shall not go.”  So he brought the people down to the water. And the Lord said to Gideon, “Every one who laps the water with his tongue, as a dog laps, you shall set by himself. Likewise, every one who kneels down to drink.”  And the number of those who lapped, putting their hands to their mouths, was 300 men, but all the rest of the people knelt down to drink water. And the Lord said to Gideon, “With the 300 men who lapped I will save you and give the Midianites into your hand, and let all the others go every man to his home.”  So the people took provisions in their hands, and their trumpets. And he sent all the rest of Israel every man to his tent, but retained the 300 men. And the camp of Midian was below him in the valley. (Judges 7:4-8)

So Gideon is left with 300 men with their provisions and trumpets in their hands. That night God came to Gideon telling him to get up and go down against the Midianites and the Amalakites. 

Now something kind of odd happens, which raises again questions about Gideon’s faith. In a sense he has to have another reassuring sign. God tells him to do something if he is still afraid, and obviously Gideon is still being overcautious because he does the thing.

God told him if he still was fearful, to go with his servant Purah down to the Midianite camp and listen to what is said and whatever is said will strength his hands. There is not much to tell about Purah, except he was a servant of Gideon’s, probably his armor bearer. But Gideon accompanied by Purah does go down by the Midian camp and he overhears something strange, a Midianite telling about a dream he had. (Judges 7:13-14)

When Gideon came, behold, a man was telling a dream to his comrade. And he said, “Behold, I dreamed a dream, and behold, a cake of barley bread tumbled into the camp of Midian and came to the tent and struck it so that it fell and turned it upside down, so that the tent lay flat.” And his comrade answered, “This is no other than the sword of Gideon the son of Joash, a man of Israel; God has given into his hand Midian and all the camp.”

When Gideon heard this dreams interpretation, he took time out to worship God. He returned to the Israel camp and called out to his 300 men to arise, because God had delivered Midian into their hands. This is pretty audacious if you think about it. The Midianite and Amalikite army covered the eastern part of the valley like locust and their camels were as numerous as the sand along the seashore.(Judges 7:12).]

It is an interesting battle plan. Gideon divided his troops into three and sent them to surround the enemy on each side. Each man carried, beside his sword, a trumpet and a jar. The jars hid the torches they carried in their left hands. They ran, then, yelling, “A sword for the Lord and for Gideon”. They blew the trumpets and at the same time smashed the jars, exposing the torches. (This all seems somewhat reminiscent of Jericho with a limited number blowing trumpets, shouting and marching around Jerhico [Joshua 6]). All this noise accompanied by torch lights suddenly  appearing all about spooked the Midian and Amalikite soldiers. They panicked and ran in such a panic they began cutting down their own comrades

While they fled into the distance, messengers were sent and the Israelites came from Naphtali, Asher and Manasseh, joining the

300 and destroying the Midianites right and  left. Then Gideon called out the men of Ephraim to take the fleeing enemy as far as the Jordan River, which was done. Ephraim captured two of the Midian princes, Oreb and Zeeb, whose heads were sent as trophies to Gideon. (Judges 7:23-25). Now we are getting bloody again!

So everyone was content and happy after such a great victory.

We will see.

DEPRAVITY WITHOUT GOD PART 5: Hewers or Drivers and Filler of Drawers

Pictured are a group of "Hewers or Drivers" standing on or by their work. These are members of my family. The man standing beneath the X is my great grandfather, William Townsley. He and his brother, Jim, owned the lumber business.

 Chapter 5 of Judges ends with these word in Verse 31 according to the English Standard Version: And the land had rest for forty years

In the NIV the is translated as: Then the land had peace for 40 years.

Rest and peace do not last.

Chapter 6: 1-2 begins with the old familiar reframe with the usual result: The people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord gave them into the hand of Midian seven years. And the hand of Midian overpowered Israel, and because of Midian the people of Israel made for themselves the dens that are in the mountains and the caves and the strongholds.

See the map. Midian would have covered a large chunk of what is

now Saudi Arabia and Yemen, running north from the Gulf of Aqaga along the east shore of  the Red Sea. It was located in part of what was called the Levant, which we spoke of before in our studies. When you hear the name ISIL remember it stands for the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant. See, this stuff goes back to the beginnings. There is nothing new under the sun. 

The name Midian came from a son of Abraham, who had that name. He was the fourth son of Abraham and his wife Keturah. Yeah, you don’t hear much about this woman. We hear about Sarah, who bore Abraham’s promised son Isaac and we hear about Hagar, with whom he had Ishmael, but Keturah kind of gets lost in the shuffle. He married her after the death of Sarah. The name may mean incense. There are even some who claim Keturah was really Hagar come back reformed, but that is not a general belief. It is mostly based because in 1 Chronicles 1:32 Keturah is called Abraham’s concubine. Concubine was a subtle way of saying “kept woman”. But In Genesis 25: we are told Abraham took another wife, whose name was Keturah. Again, her spousal status was challenged because in Genesis 25:5-6 we are told: Abraham gave all he had to Isaac. But to the sons of his concubines Abraham gave gifts, and while he was still living he sent them away from his son Isaac, eastward to the east country. The east country most likely would have been Midian. No further Scriptural references are made to Keturah. 

This is the 1630 “Venice Haggadah” illustration depicting Abraham and his wives and sons.  In the center are Abraham with Sarah and Isaac. To the left stand Hagar and Ishmael, while on the right is Keturah with her six sons. The fourth boy from the left with Keturah is Midian. (Haggadah means “telling” and are used to set the order of the seder at the Jewish Passover.) 

We have touched on Midian in other lessons. Midianites had come across Joseph and purchased him from his brothers, later selling him to Ishmaelites, who took him to Egypt. (Genesis 37: 28) Midian is where Moses fled after he killed the Egyptian and where he met his wife, Zipporah (Exodus 2:11-22). You may remember we talked about Moses father-in-law, Jethro, being a Midian Priest (Exodus 2:16). Jethro was also called Reuel and was a founder of the religion Druze.

Anyway there was along history between Israel and Midian and now God had given the Israelites over to the Midianites for seven years .The Midianites in turn destroyed everything Israel had, coming like a swarm of locust and the Israelites fled into the mountains, dwelling in caves. And of course,  they again turned to God and begged for relief.

God sent a prophet. He is the unknown prophet, probably raised up by God for this purpose. There are Jewish claims that this prophet was Phinehas, a grandson of Aaron. Phinehas is most noted for his fury at a Israelite man who brought a Midianite woman

home as his wife. Phinehas grabbed a spear, went to the man’s tent and ran both through as they were making love. (Numbers 25:1-18) But by the time of the Midianites oppression in Judges, Phinehus would have had to be over 200 years old, so it is unlikely this prophet was him. This prophet, whomever he was, declared:

“Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: I led you up from Egypt and brought you out of the house of slavery. And I delivered you from the hand of the Egyptians and from the hand of all who oppressed you, and drove them out before you and gave you their land. And I said to you, ‘I am the Lord your God; you shall not fear the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell.’ But you have not obeyed my voice.”(Judges 6:8-10)

A new hero is about to be called to rescue the Israelites. Verse 11 of Chapter 6 states: Now the angel of the Lord came and sat under the terebinth at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the winepress to hide it from the Midianites.

Who is the angel of the Lord? Throughout the Scriptures you will find references to “angels of the Lord”, “an angel of the Lord” and “the angel of the Lord.” The angel of the Lord is first used in Genesis 16:7, appearing before Hagar, “The angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, the spring on the way to Shur;” and lastly in Zechariah 12:8, where Zechariah is giving a vision of the future, “On that day the Lord will protect the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the feeblest among them on that day shall be like David, and the house of David shall be like God, like the angel of the Lord, going before them.”

Whenever the definite article is used, “THE angel of the Lord”, it tells us this is a physical appearance of God who is seen or speaking. The angel of the Lord is a term never used in Scripture after the birth of Jesus. (Some Bible versions did use The angel of the Lord in Matthew 28:2, but most translations have corrected this to “An angel of the Lord.”)

So what we have here is God sitting under the terebinth, which is a tree in the cashew family and once a source of turpentine, in case you wanted to know.

Joash, the owner of the tree, has a son who is beating out wheat in the winepress at that moment. Now why is he beating out wheat in the winepress, you may ask. He is trying to hide the wheat from the Midians; otherwise, they will swoop down and take it like they have been taking everything else of the Israelites. The angel of the Lord called to this young man and said, “The Lord is with you, O mighty man of valor.” 

Th young man is Gideon, probably the second best known hero in

Judges. We will get to the first in a later lesson. People may be familiar with Gideon’s fleeces, but they probably  know him best from finding Bibles in hotel and motel rooms when they travel. A lot less such places do this now than years ago, but there are still a lot of hotels and motels that do; although these days you might find a Book of Mormon in the desk drawer along with the Gideon Bible. I am not certain why the Gideons choose his name for their organization. I don’t see anything related to this Bible distribution in his story. 

I do find Gideon something like myself, cynical, skeptical and cautious. Look at the cynicism in Gideon’s conversation with the angel of the Lord.

And Gideon said to him, “Please, my lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all his wonderful deeds that our fathers recounted to us, saying, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the Lord has forsaken us and given us into the hand of Midian.” Judges 6:11-13

A lot of terrible things are happening to Israel at that time. Those Midianites are swooping in and snatching up all the products Israel produces, leaving them with little. And Israel has been so terrified by these Midianites that they are fleeing into the mountains and living in caves. I think a lot of us might ask God the same question in our times. Maybe the answer would be we are basically engaged in the same thing, disobedience.

Take note, God doesn’t give Gideon any direct answer.

And the Lord turned to him and said, “Go in this might of yours and save Israel from the hand of Midian; do not I send you?” Judges 6:14 

So Gideon asks the next logical question. Probably just what I would ask if God told me to go save the United States.

And he said to him, “Please, Lord, how can I save Israel? Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house.” Judges 6:15

Gideon gets the answer that Israel had forgotten since they crossed the Jordan River, the thing we need to remember ourselves when faced with difficulty. It is certainly something I often struggle with remembering.

And the Lord said to him, “But I will be with you, and you shall strike the Midianites as one man.”

And [Gideon] said to him, “If now I have found favor in your eyes, then show me a sign that it is you who speak with me. Please do not depart from here until I come to you and bring out my present and set it before you.”

And [The Angel of the Lord] said, “I will stay till you return.” (Judges 6:16-18)

This is where the skepticism and caution comes in.

So Gideon went into his house and prepared a young goat and unleavened cakes from an ephah of flour, which is a little more than a bushel. The meat he put in a basket, and the broth he put in a pot, and brought them to him under the terebinth and presented them.

And the angel of God said to him, “Take the meat and the unleavened cakes, and put them on this rock, and pour the broth over them.” And he did so. Then the angel of the Lord reached out the tip of the staff that was in his hand and touched the meat and the unleavened cakes. And fire sprang up from the rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened cakes. And the angel of the Lord vanished from his sight.

Then Gideon perceived that he was the angel of the Lord. And Gideon said, “Alas, O Lord God! For now I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face.” But the Lord said to him, “Peace be to you. Do not fear; you shall not die.” Then Gideon built an altar there to the Lord and called it, The Lord Is Peace. To this day it still stands at Ophrah, which belongs to the Abiezrites. Judges 6:19-24

Ophrah is a city near Mount Moreh in the Valley of Jezreel, where Taybeh, a Palestinian city stands today. Abiezrite was a grandson of Manasseh and the son of Gilead. Joash and Gideon were of this clan.

When the Angel of the Lord vanished, Gideon realized who had been speaking to him. That night the Lord came back to him and said: Take your father's bull, and the second bull seven years old, and pull down the altar of Baal that your father has, and cut down the Asherah that is beside it and build an altar to the Lord your God on the top of the stronghold here, with stones laid in due  order. Then take the second bull and offer it as a burnt offering with the wood of the Asherah that you shall cut down.” So Gideon took ten men of his servants and did as the Lord had told him. But because he was too afraid of his family and the men of the town to do it by day, he did it by night. (Judges 6:25-27).

What can we gather from this passage?

Well, for one, despite the Lord calling Gideon mighty, he was more like mighty fearful. He is afraid of his family and he is afraid of the townspeople. He does what God told him, but he waits until night when he won’t be seen, except by his ten servants. 

It also tells us his father was like the other Israelites in having other gods before The Lord. He has his own alter to Baal and an Asterah Pole. Such poles were set up as religious locations to honor the mother-goddess Asherah. Jeremiah referred to Asherah as the Queen of Heaven (jeremiah 7:18; Jeremiah 44:17-25)  She was also known as Hera, Astarte and Isis. Modern Pagans consider  her the Great Goddess.

Modern Asherah Poles.

When the men of the town rose early in the morning, behold, the altar of Baal was broken down, and the Asherah beside it was cut down, and the second bull was offered on the altar that had been built. And they said to one another, “Who has done this thing?” And after they had searched and inquired, they said, “Gideon the son of Joash has done this thing.” Then the men of the town said to Joash, “Bring out your son, that he may die, for he has broken down the altar of Baal and cut down the Asherah beside it.” Judges 6:28-30 

Ut oh! What is going to happen to our boy Gideon now. The mob has come with torches and pitchforks demanding his life?

As the movie serials use to say: To be continued…