Judges 7–8

Gideon Defeats the Midianites

7One day Gideon and all his men got up early and camped beside the Spring of Harod. The Midianite camp was in the valley to the north of them by Moreh Hill.

²The Lord said to Gideon, “The men you have are too many for me to give them victory over the Midianites. They might think that they had won by themselves, and so give me no credit. ^3*Announce to the people, ‘Anyone who is afraid should go back home, and we will stay here at Mount Gilead.’ ” So 22,000 went back, but 10,000 stayed.

⁴Then the Lord said to Gideon, “You still have too many men. Take them down to the water, and I will separate them for you there. If I tell you a man should go with you, he will go. If I tell you a man should not go with you, he will not go.” ⁵Gideon took the men down to the water, and the Lord said to him, “Separate everyone who laps up the water with his tongue like a dog, from everyone who gets down on his knees to drink.” ⁶There were 300 men who scooped up water in their hands and lapped it; all the others got down on their knees to drink. ⁷The Lord said to Gideon, “I will rescue you and give you victory over the Midianites with the three hundred men who lapped the water. Tell everyone else to go home.” ⁸So Gideon sent all the Israelites home, except the 300, who kept all the supplies and trumpets. The Midianite camp was below them in the valley.

⁹That night the Lord commanded Gideon, “Get up and attack the camp; I am giving you victory over it. ¹⁰But if you are afraid to attack, go down to the camp with your servant Purah. ¹¹You will hear what they are saying, and then you will have the courage to attack.” So Gideon and his servant Purah went down to the edge of the enemy camp. ¹²The Midianites, the Amalekites, and the desert tribesmen were spread out in the valley like a swarm of locusts, and they had as many camels as there were grains of sand on the seashore.

¹³When Gideon arrived, he heard a man telling a friend about a dream. He was saying, “I dreamt that a loaf of barley bread rolled into our camp and hit a tent. The tent collapsed and lay flat on the ground.”

¹⁴His friend replied, “It’s the sword of the Israelite, Gideon son of Joash! It can’t mean anything else! God has given him victory over Midian and our whole army!”

¹⁵When Gideon heard about the man’s dream and what it meant, he fell to his knees and worshipped the Lord. Then he went back to the Israelite camp and said, “Get up! The Lord is giving you victory over the Midianite army!” ¹⁶He divided his 300 men into three groups and gave each man a trumpet and a jar with a torch inside it. ¹⁷He told them, “When I get to the edge of the camp, watch me, and do what I do. ¹⁸When my group and I blow our trumpets, then you blow yours all round the camp and shout, ‘For the Lord and for Gideon!’ ”

¹⁹Gideon and his hundred men came to the edge of the camp a short while before midnight, just after the guard had been changed. Then they blew the trumpets and broke the jars they were holding, ²⁰and the other two groups did the same. They all held the torches in their left hands, the trumpets in their right, and shouted, “A sword for the Lord and for Gideon!” ²¹Every man stood in his place round the camp, and the whole enemy army ran away yelling.

²²While Gideon’s men were blowing their trumpets, the Lord made the enemy troops attack each other with their swords. They ran towards Zarethan as far as Beth Shittah, as far as the town of Abel Meholah near Tabbath. ²³Then men from the tribes of Naphtali, Asher, and both parts of Manasseh were called out, and they pursued the Midianites. ²⁴Gideon sent messengers through all the hill country of Ephraim to say, “Come down and fight the Midianites. Hold the River Jordan and the streams as far as Bethbarah, to keep the Midianites from crossing them.” The men of Ephraim were called together, and they held the River Jordan and the streams as far as Bethbarah. ²⁵They captured the two Midianite chiefs, Oreb and Zeeb; they killed Oreb at Oreb Rock, and Zeeb at the Winepress of Zeeb. They continued to pursue the Midianites and brought the heads of Oreb and Zeeb to Gideon, who was now east of the Jordan.

The Final Defeat of the Midianites

8Then the men of Ephraim said to Gideon, “Why didn’t you call us when you went to fight the Midianites? Why did you treat us like this?” They complained bitterly about it.

²But he said, “What I was able to do is nothing compared with what you have done. Even the little that you men of Ephraim did is worth more than what my whole clan has done. ^3*After all, through the power of God you killed the two Midianite chiefs, Oreb and Zeeb. What have I done to compare with that?” When he said this, they were no longer so angry.

^4*By this time Gideon and his 300 men had come to the River Jordan and had crossed it. They were exhausted, but were still pursuing the enemy. ^5*When they arrived at Sukkoth, he said to the men of the town, “Please give my men some loaves of bread. They are exhausted, and I am pursuing Zebah and Zalmunna, the Midianite kings.”

⁶But the leaders of Sukkoth said, “Why should we give your army any food? You haven’t captured Zebah and Zalmunna yet.”

⁷So Gideon said, “All right! When the Lord has handed Zebah and Zalmunna over to me, I will beat you with thorns and briars from the desert!” ⁸Gideon went on to Penuel and made the same request of the people there, but the men of Penuel gave the same answer as the men of Sukkoth. ⁹So he said to them, “I am going to come back safe and sound, and when I do, I will tear your tower down!”

¹⁰Zebah and Zalmunna were at Karkor with their army. Of the whole army of desert tribesmen, only about 15,000 were left; 120,000 soldiers had been killed. ¹¹Gideon went along the road by the edge of the desert, east of Nobah and Jogbehah, and attacked the army by surprise. ¹²The two Midianite kings, Zebah and Zalmunna, ran away, but he pursued them and captured them, and caused their whole army to panic.

¹³When Gideon was returning from the battle by way of Heres Pass, ¹⁴he captured a young man from Sukkoth and questioned him. The young man wrote down for Gideon the names of the 77 leading men of Sukkoth. ¹⁵Then Gideon went to the men of Sukkoth and said, “Remember when you refused to help me? You said that you couldn’t give any food to my exhausted army because I hadn’t captured Zebah and Zalmunna yet. Well, here they are!” ¹⁶He then took thorns and briars from the desert and used them to punish the leaders of Sukkoth. ¹⁷He also tore down the tower at Penuel and killed the men of that city.

¹⁸Then Gideon asked Zebah and Zalmunna, “What about the men you killed at Tabor?” They

answered, “They looked like you—every one of them like the son of a king.”

¹⁹Gideon said, “They were my brothers, my own mother’s sons. I solemnly swear that if you had not killed them, I would not kill you.” ²⁰Then he said to Jether, his eldest son, “Go ahead, kill them!” But the boy did not draw his sword. He hesitated, because he was still only a boy.

²¹Then Zebah and Zalmunna said to Gideon, “Come on, kill us yourself. It takes a man to do a man’s job.” So Gideon killed them and took the ornaments that were on the necks of their camels.

²²After that, the Israelites said to Gideon, “Be our ruler—you and your descendants after you. You have saved us from the Midianites.”

²³Gideon answered, “I will not be your ruler, nor will my son. The Lord will be your ruler.” ²⁴But he went on to say, “Let me ask one thing of you. Every one of you give me the earrings you took.” (The Midianites, like other desert people, wore gold earrings.)

²⁵The people answered, “We’ll be glad to give them to you.” They spread out a cloth, and everyone put on it the earrings that he had taken. ²⁶The gold earrings that Gideon received weighed nearly 20 kilogrammes, and this did not include the ornaments, necklaces, and purple clothes that the kings of Midian wore, nor the collars that were round the necks of their camels. ²⁷Gideon made an idol from the gold and put it in his home town, Ophrah. All the Israelites abandoned God and went there to worship the idol. It was a trap for Gideon and his family.

²⁸So Midian was defeated by the Israelites and was no longer a threat. The land was at peace for 40 years, until Gideon died.

The Death of Gideon

²⁹Gideon went back to his own home and lived there. ³⁰He had 70 sons, because he had many wives. ³¹He also had a concubine in Shechem; she bore him a son, and he named him Abimelech. ³²Gideon son of Joash died at a ripe old age and was buried in the tomb of his father Joash, at Ophrah, the town of the clan of Abiezer.

³³After Gideon’s death the people of Israel were again unfaithful to God and worshipped the Baals. They made Baal-of-the-Covenant their god, ³⁴and no longer served the Lord their God, who had saved them from all their enemies round them. ³⁵They were not grateful to the family of Gideon for all the good that he had done for Israel.