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deliverance, but is also an account of de- beginning and end of his story. At the
terioration – a downward spiral, not just beginning, Gideon is introduced as his
a loop. “Judges is not, of course, relating a father’s son: “There came an angel of the
simplistic history in which everything be- LORD, and sat under an oak which was in
fore Gideon is good and everything after Ophrah, that pertained unto Joash the Ab-
Gideon is bad” – the narrator of Judges iezrite: and his son Gideon threshed wheat
3
is far too subtle and skilful to adopt such by the winepress, to hide it from the Midi-
a simplistic approach. But the symmetry anites” (6:11). At the end of his life, he is
underscores the inexorable religious and linked again with his father: “And Gideon
political decline of the nation in the days the son of Joash died in a good old age,
when the judges ruled. This is further and was buried in the sepulchre of Joash
emphasised by the fact that the expression his father, in Ophrah of the Abiezrites”
“the land had rest” (3:11,30; 5:31; 8:28) 4 (8:32). Between these bookends we get an
which punctuates the earlier section of unparalleled amount of information about
the book does not appear again after the Gideon’s family. Gideon tells the angel,
account of Gideon. “My family is poor in Manasseh, and I am
This last fact also serves to highlight the least in my father’s house” (6:15). We
the second important implication of this hear more about his father and his Baal
chiastic structure: the centrality of the worship, and his intervention is important
Gideon narrative to the book as a whole. in saving Gideon from lynching (6:25,31).
This is further confirmed by the length Later in the narrative, we will encounter –
and scope of the account of his judgeship. if only posthumously – Gideon’s brothers,
Though his is not the longest account (one “the sons of my mother” (8:19), who, we
of the interesting features of Judges is the are told in a highly suggestive aside, were
way in which the accounts of the major like Gideon in resembling “the children
judges increase in length throughout the of a king” (8:18). In the same context, we
book), the amount of detail included about encounter Jether, Gideon’s firstborn. As
Gideon and his preparation for service the Israelites ask Gideon to be their king,
mark a clear step-change from what has they will speak of his sons and his sons’
gone before. In addition, the changing sons (8:23), with tragic irony, given the
moral trajectory of Gideon’s life, begin- near-total extirpation of Gideon’s line as
ning with his delivering Israel from the a result of Abimelech’s monarchical am-
consequences of their idolatry and ending bitions. And, at the end of his story, and
with the construction of the golden ephod again uniquely in the context of Judges,
after which “all Israel went … a whoring” we are told of his seventy sons “of his
(8:27), seems to echo in miniature that of body begotten” and of his “many wives”
the book as a whole. (8:30), and ominously of his son, “whose
With all of this in mind, and the focus name he called Abimelech” (8:31 – Abi-
of the present series of articles, it is signifi- melech meaning ‘my father is king’). If
cant that family plays an important role in the story of Gideon is central to the book
the account of Gideon’s life. In a unique of Judges, family is central to the story
way, he is linked with his family at the of Gideon. In the articles that follow we
will seek to learn some very important –
3 Gooding, 74 and very solemn – lessons from Gideon’s
4 Bible quotations in this article are from the KJV. family life.

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