Judges 6:11 - Meaning and Application

It is not said what effect the prophet’s sermon had on the people, but we may hope it did some good. Perhaps some of them repented and changed their ways. Right after this, we see the first light of their deliverance, as Gideon is called to lead Israel’s army against the Midianites.

The man chosen for this work was Gideon, the son of Joash (Judges 6:14). His father was still alive, but God passed him by and gave this honor to the son. That was fitting, because the father kept Baal worship in his own house (Judges 6:25), while the son likely opposed it as much as he could. Gideon came from the half-tribe of Manasseh that lived in Canaan, from the family of Abiezer, the oldest clan in that tribe (Joshua 17:2). In earlier times, the judges had often come from the tribe suffering the worst oppression, and that seems true here too.

The one who gave Gideon his commission was the angel of the Lord. This seems to have been no created angel, but the Son of God himself, the eternal Word, Lord over the angels, appearing in human form on great occasions. As Bishop Patrick notes, this was a kind of preview of what Christ would do in the fullness of time, when he would take our nature on himself for good. This angel is even called Jehovah, the holy name of God that belongs to him alone (Judges 6:14, Judges 6:16). He said, “I will be with you.”

This divine person found Gideon in an unusual place. He was alone, away from the noise and rush of the world. God often shows himself to his people when they are quiet and alone, because silence and solitude help us draw near to him. Gideon was also busy at work, threshing wheat with a staff or rod, the kind used for smaller crops like fitches and cumin (Isaiah 28:27). He likely used it for wheat because he had only a little to thresh and did not need oxen. Though he was a man of some standing and “a mighty man of valor,” it was no disgrace for him to work with his hands. He had many servants later (Judges 6:27), yet he did not choose idleness. We often put ourselves in the way of God’s visits when we are faithfully doing honest work. The news of Christ’s birth came to shepherds while they were watching their flocks. Gideon’s work also pointed ahead to the greater task he was being called to, just as the disciples’ fishing did. From threshing grain, he was soon to thresh the Midianites (Isaiah 41:15).

He was also in distress. He was threshing his wheat not in the open threshing floor, the proper place, but by the winepress, hidden away for fear of the Midianites. He shared in the common suffering of his people, and so the angel came to stir him up against Midian, since he knew their hard condition so well. The time of greatest trouble is often God’s time for showing help to his people.

Now let us look at what passed between the angel and Gideon, who did not know for sure that this was an angel until after he had gone. He thought at first that he was speaking with a prophet. The angel greeted him with honor and assured him of God’s presence (Judges 6:12). He called Gideon a mighty man of valor, perhaps because he saw him threshing with all his strength. A person who is diligent in small duties may be fitted for greater ones later. He who is faithful in little will be ruler over much.

Gideon was brave and active, but the bad times had kept him hidden, as if he were buried alive. Still, the angel lifted him up with these words: “The Lord is with you.” The Chaldee version says, “The Word of the Lord is your help.” It was certainly true that the Lord was with Gideon when this angel was with him. In this message, the angel did three things. First, he gave Gideon his call, because God’s presence would justify and support what he was about to do. Second, he gave him the strength he would need, because the Lord would guide, strengthen, and uphold him. Third, he promised success, for if God is for us, who can stand against us? God’s presence is everything in our work and success. Gideon was strong in courage, but he could do nothing without God’s presence. That presence was enough to make him truly mighty.

Gideon answered with deep sorrow (Judges 6:13): “O my Lord, if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us?” The Chaldee reads this as, “Is the glory of the Lord our help?” He is asking why Israel is under such trouble from the Midianite raids, which forced him to thresh wheat in hiding. He feels the loss, grief, and fear of his people, and he also asks where the miracles their fathers told them about are now. He does not stop to praise his own valor, and this does not seem to encourage him at all. He likely did not even realize how the angel’s words matched the brave thoughts already stirring in his own heart. While his hands worked at the wheat, his mind and heart may already have been planning Israel’s rescue and Midian’s defeat. God, who knows the heart, meets him at just that moment and calls him a man of valor because of those noble plans, opening the way for him to act on them.

Yet Gideon does not think first of himself. He clings only to the promise that God is with them. The angel had spoken to him in particular, “The Lord is with you,” but Gideon answers for the whole nation: “If the Lord is with us.” He puts himself among all Israel and wants no comfort that he cannot share with his people. That is the mark of a public-spirited man. He counts it his honor and joy only if it helps the common good of God’s church.

Gideon was a mighty man of valor, but his faith was still weak. So it is hard for him to fit together the promise of God’s presence and the distress Israel is suffering. Why has all this happened to us? Such painful events are sometimes hard to reconcile with God’s favor, though never impossible.

The delay in Israel’s rescue led the people to wonder where all the miracles their fathers had spoken of were. They asked why the same power that brought their ancestors out from under Egypt’s rule did not now free them from Midian. Because God did not at once work miracles for their relief, they were tempted to doubt whether those older wonders had really happened, or whether God still had the same wisdom, power, and love for his people.

That was a serious weakness. We should not expect the same miracles that were done when the church was first being formed, or when some great truth was first being established, to keep being repeated after that work is finished. Nor should we expect the mercies shown to our faithful ancestors to be repeated to us if we have turned away from God. Gideon should not have said that God had handed them over to Midian, because their own sin had sold them into that bondage. He also should not have said that, since they were now in Midian’s hands, God had abandoned them, because God had just sent them a prophet (Judges 6:8), which showed plainly that he had not forsaken them.

The angel answered Gideon’s objections very effectively by giving him a commission to rescue Israel from the Midianites and by promising success in it, in Judges 6:14. At this point the angel is called the Lord, because he speaks with authority, not merely as a messenger. There was something special in the look he gave Gideon. It was a kind, approving look that lifted Gideon’s sinking spirit and quieted his fear, like the look with which God watches the upright (Psalm 11:7). He looked at Gideon and, as it were, smiled at his objections. He gave no direct answer to them, but instead filled Gideon with power that would soon help him answer them himself and feel ashamed that he had ever made them.

There was even more in what he said. First, he called Gideon to act as Israel’s deliverer. Some thoughtful people in the nation, Gideon among them, were expecting God to raise up such a leader, as he had done before in answer to oppressed Israel’s cries. Now Gideon is told, “You are the man. Go with this strength,” meaning the strength he had as he was threshing wheat, and use it for a nobler purpose. God was, in effect, saying he would turn Gideon from a wheat thresher into a man who would thresh his enemies. Or the angel may have meant the strength Gideon had just received through this look from God. God gave Gideon his commission by giving him the gifts needed to carry it out, and that is more than any earthly ruler can do for the people he appoints. When God fits a person for a task, that is a sure sign that he is calling that person to it. “Go,” in other words, “not relying on your natural strength or your own courage, but go in the strength you have now received, the strength of the Lord God, the strength you must use to strengthen yourself.”

Second, the angel assured Gideon of success. That was enough to give him courage. He could be confident that he would not fail in the attempt, and that the outcome would bring him honor and bring his people good, not shame or loss. “You shall save Israel from the hand of the Midianites,” and so you will not only see the wonders your fathers told you about, you will be an honored instrument in them. Gideon likely stood amazed at this surprising authority given to him, wondering whether he could trust what he had heard. The angel confirmed his commission with his own authority, as if saying, “Have I not commanded you?” He who has all power in heaven and earth, and who gives commissions here as Israel’s King, had spoken. It was the same Lord who had said to Moses, “I am who I am” (Exodus 3:14).

Gideon then made a very modest objection to the commission, in Judges 6:15: “My Lord, how can I save Israel?” This question may show distrust of God’s power, as if even with God beside him, the task were still impossible. True faith is often weak, yet God does not reject it. He encourages it and makes it stronger. Or Gideon may have been asking how he was meant to carry out such a calling. He felt the many disadvantages against him and was saying, “If I am to do this, you must show me the way.” Those who receive a calling from God should expect instruction from him and seek it from him. More likely, though, Gideon was speaking with humility, self-distrust, and a willingness to put himself aside. The angel had honored him, but Gideon spoke of himself as small and unworthy. His family was poor in Manasseh, perhaps even poorer because of Midian’s oppression, and he was the least important person in his father’s house. What could he possibly do? He felt completely unfit for the work and undeserving of the honor. God often chooses to do great things through people who seem small, especially through those who see themselves that way. He delights to lift up the humble.

This objection was quickly answered by repeating the promise that God would be with him, in verse 16. Do not object that you are poor and insignificant. Those things often stop men in great undertakings, but they are nothing to a man who has God’s presence with him. God’s presence makes up for every lack of status or wealth. “Surely I will be with you,” God says, to guide you, strengthen you, and give you such standing that, however weak your own influence is, you will still have enough men to follow you. You will surely strike the Midianites as if they were only one man, as easily and completely as if they were one person. All the thousands of Midian will be as if they had one neck, and you will have the power to cut it off.

Gideon then asked for his faith to be strengthened concerning this commission. He did not want to be too quick to believe something that would bring him so much honor. He also did not want to rush into an undertaking far beyond himself, and one that would involve many others, without first being fully sure of his authority and able to reassure others about the one who had sent him. So he humbly asked this divine person, whoever he was, to give him a sign (Judges 6:17).

Because Gideon received this call by an unusual act of providence, he could reasonably expect God to confirm it by an unusual act of power. So he asks for a sign to prove that this was more than talk, and that the messenger was serious. Under the time of the Spirit, we should not expect outward signs like Gideon wanted. Instead, we should earnestly pray that if we have found favor with God, he would show us a sign in our hearts by the powerful work of his Spirit, strengthening our faith and completing what is lacking in it.

Gideon also asks the angel to stay for a meal, hoping for more time to speak with him (Judges 6:18). Those who have known fellowship with God want it to continue and hate to part from it. Gideon says, in effect, “Please do not leave yet.” He wants to bring out some food for this stranger, and he does it himself, rather than sending a servant. Perhaps his father’s household was not friendly to him and his friends, or perhaps he wanted to speak with the stranger alone. It may also remind us of Abraham, who once entertained angels without knowing it (Genesis 18:8).

When the angel agreed to stay for dinner, Gideon hurried to bring a young goat, probably already cooked for his own meal, along with bread and broth (Judges 6:19). He wanted to show thankful and generous respect to the stranger, and through him to the God who had sent him. Gideon had just spoken of his family’s poverty to excuse himself from becoming a leader (Judges 6:15), but he did not use poverty as an excuse for lack of hospitality. Out of the little the Midianites had left him, he gladly shared a meal, especially with a messenger from heaven. He also wanted to find out who this extraordinary visitor really was.

What Gideon brought is called his present, and that word can also mean a grain offering (Judges 6:18). That may be used on purpose, because Gideon may have left it to the visitor to show what it would be. If the stranger ate it as ordinary food, Gideon might take him for a man, perhaps a prophet. If he did not, as happened, Gideon would know he was an angel. The angel then gave Gideon a sign through what he had prepared for him. What we offer to God in thankfulness is often turned by his grace into our own comfort and peace.

The angel told Gideon to take the meat and bread out of the basket and lay them on a rock, then pour the broth over them, even though it would quickly cool there (Judges 6:20). Gideon obeyed, trusting that the angel was not insulting his kindness, but giving him a sign. The angel then turned the food into a sacrifice burned by fire, a pleasing offering to himself. This showed that he was not merely a man who needed food, but the Son of God, who was to be honored by sacrifice and would one day offer himself as a sacrifice. He also brought fire out of the rock to consume the offering (Judges 6:21). He did not strike the rock as we strike a flint. He touched the offering gently with the end of his staff.

This was a clear sign that Gideon had found favor with God. God showed his acceptance of sacrifices by fire, sometimes from heaven, as with Moses and Elijah, and sometimes, as here, from the earth, which meant the same thing. Both were signs of divine power. This acceptance of Gideon’s sacrifice also showed that God accepted Gideon himself, confirmed his call, and may have pointed to the success of his mission. Gideon and his army would become a sudden terror and judgment to the Midianites, like fire from the rock. Then the angel left him at once. He did not walk away like an ordinary man, but vanished like a spirit. Gideon had received as much of a sign as he could have hoped for.

Even though all this strengthened Gideon’s faith in the divine nature of the one who had spoken with him, it also filled him with fear for the moment, until God kindly calmed him. When Gideon realized that he had seen an angel, which he did not know until the angel had gone, he cried out in fear, “Alas, Lord God, I am ruined, for I have seen an angel” (Judges 6:22). This was like Jacob, who marveled that his life had been preserved after seeing God (Genesis 32:30). Since sin has made people subject to God’s wrath and curse, a message from heaven can strike fear into them. At the least, in this world of physical things, it is a serious matter to have direct contact with the world of spirits, which we know so little about. Gideon’s courage failed him there.

But God spoke peace to him (Judges 6:23). The sight might have harmed him, but God assured him it would not. The Lord had already departed from his sight, so Gideon could no longer live by sight, but he could still live by faith, the faith that comes by hearing. The Lord said to him, perhaps in an audible voice, “Peace be with you. All is well. Do not fear. I did not come to kill you. You will not die.” God is quick to revive the hearts of those who tremble at his word and presence, and to give mercy to those who stand in awe of his majesty.

Gideon then set up a memorial to this vision in the form of an altar, mainly to preserve the memory of what had happened (Judges 6:24). It was especially fitting because the angel had accepted him by a kind of sacrifice on a rock, without the usual altar. In that moment, an altar was not needed, since the angel’s staff was enough to set apart the offering. But now the altar served to keep the vision in mind. Gideon named it Jehovah-shalom, meaning “The Lord is peace” (Judges 6:24). This was the title of the Lord who had spoken to him, as in Genesis 16:13. The same Lord who is our righteousness is also our peace (Ephesians 2:14), our one who brings us back to God and so becomes our Savior.

Or, second, this is the substance of what he said to him: “The Lord spoke peace, and created that fruit of the lips,” that is, he told me to be calm when I was so troubled. Or, third, it may mean a prayer based on what God had said, as the margin explains it: “The Lord send peace,” that is, rest from the present trouble, for the public good was still nearest to his heart.