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view to dodging the divine draft? As is even by the heathen.
so often the case in Judges, there is a real In this, Gideon is the rule, not the excep-
risk that the view we take will say as much tion. It is still the case that God equips for
about us as it does about the text, but His service those He enlists in His service,
Gideon’s response does not seem an alto- and it is still true that His servants find no-
gether inappropriate one, as he struggles bility in that service. In the centuries that
to process the Angel’s strange salutation, followed Gideon’s lifetime, God would
“thou mighty man of valour” (6:12). His again and again produce mighty men of
words to the angel reveal an acute sense valour out of the most unpromising and
of the depths of Israel’s need. His occupa- unprepossessing material. He elevated a
tion of threshing wheat, though a laudable shepherd boy, an unremarked youngest
example of doing with his might what son, to the throne of Israel, a prisoner of
his hands found to do, hardly suggests a war to Babylonian prime minister, and
very military disposition, an impression an assorted bunch of Galilean fishermen
abundantly reinforced by his subsequent to become the men who turned the world
conduct. It seems safest – as well as upside down. And He has done so, not
kindest – to see in Gideon’s words the only in the pages of Scripture, but through
confession of a man who felt unqualified two millennia of Christian testimony. And
to be a deliverer for Israel because he was He does so still.
only the most insignificant member of an We can sometimes feel like Gideon did.
insignificant and undistinguished family. In a world where who we are and where
Gideon, it turned out, had no need to we are from still matter – and matter far
worry about his lineage; God was well more amongst the Lord’s people than they
able to equip the man whom he had ever should – it is easy to feel that we are
chosen and, with His help, Gideon was no one from nowhere. Perhaps with sad-
able to transcend his humble origins. ness, perhaps with a secret feeling of relief,
The text leaves us in no doubt about this. we conclude that God could never use
Judges 8 records a striking occurrence. nonentities like us, that we can be forgiven
After Gideon has captured Zebah and for sitting out the conflict. The story of
Zalmunna, he interrogates them about the Gideon leaves no room for this idea; God
men that they had killed at Tabor. Their still uses humble means to mighty ends.
response is striking: “As thou art, so were In a more important way, however,
they; each one resembled the children of Gideon refused to allow himself to be
a king” (8:18). This answer seals their fate defined by who – and by what – his father
and provides a touching demonstration of was. Following his encounter with the
Gideon’s affection for his brothers: “And angel of the Lord in chapter 6, Gideon
he said, They were my brethren, even the is instructed, “Take thy father’s young
sons of my mother … if ye had saved them bullock, even the second bullock of seven
alive, I would not slay you” (v19). But the years old, and throw down the altar of
words of these pagan kings of Midian also Baal that thy father hath, and cut down
register the transformation that has taken the grove that is by it: and build an altar
place in Gideon. Ennobled in divine ser- unto the LORD thy God” (6:25-26). The
vice, the least of the poor of Manasseh now language used here and the reaction of the
possesses a regal bearing that is marked, men of the city (vv29-30) to the discovery
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