Gideon's Three Hundred

Years later the people had forgotten God again, and this time it was Midian that came against them. Every year, as soon as the grain was ripe, the Midianites came swarming up out of the east with their camels — more camels than anybody could count — and ate up everything growing in the land, and left nothing behind, not a sheep, not an ox, not a donkey. The people of Israel hid in caves and cracks in the mountains, and they grew very poor and very frightened, and they cried out to the Lord.

Now there was a young man named Gideon. One day he was beating out a little wheat down in a winepress, hiding it so the Midianites would not find it — and a messenger of the Lord came and sat down under the tree beside him and said, “The Lord is with you, mighty man.” Gideon nearly laughed. He said, “Please, sir — if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his wonders that our fathers told us about, when they said, ‘Did the Lord not bring us up out of Egypt?’” And the messenger turned to him and said, “Go in this strength of yours, and you will save Israel out of the hand of Midian. Look — I am the one sending you.” And Gideon said, “Please, sir — how can I save Israel? My family is the weakest one there is, and I am the very smallest in my father’s house.” And the messenger said, “The Lord will be with you.” Then Gideon ran and cooked a young goat and baked bread and brought it out and set it on a rock. And the messenger stretched out the tip of his staff and touched the meat and the bread — and fire came up out of the rock and burned it all up, and the messenger was gone. And Gideon was very much afraid; but the Lord said to him, ‘Peace to you. Do not be afraid.’ And Gideon built an altar there and named it The Peace of the Lord.

Now Midian and all their friends came up and camped in the wide valley below. And Gideon blew a horn, and men came from all over the hills to follow him. But Gideon was still not sure, and he asked God for a sign — twice. He said, “Look, I am putting a fleece of wool out on the threshing floor tonight. If in the morning there is dew on the fleece and the ground all around it is dry, then I will know you are going to save Israel by my hand.” And in the morning the ground was dry, and Gideon picked up the fleece and wrung it out — and squeezed out a whole bowlful of water. And Gideon said, “Do not be angry with me — let me ask just once more. This time let the fleece be dry, and let the dew be all over the ground.” And God did that too. In the morning the fleece was dry as a bone, and every blade of grass around it was wet with dew.

So Gideon marched out with all his men. And the Lord said to him, “There are too many people with you. If I give Midian to that many, Israel will say, ‘My own hand saved me.’ Tell whoever is afraid that he may go home.” And twenty-two thousand men went home, and ten thousand were left. And the Lord said, “There are still too many. Take them down to the water, and I will sift them for you there.” So Gideon took them down to the stream to drink. Most of them knelt right down and put their faces to the water. But some scooped the water up in their hands and lapped it quickly, watching all the while — and there were three hundred of those. And the Lord said, “By the three hundred men who lapped, I will save you, and I will give Midian into your hand. Send all the rest home.” Three hundred men — against a valley full of Midianites lying spread out like locusts, with camels beyond counting.

That night God said to Gideon, ‘Get up and go down to the camp — and if you are afraid to go, take your servant with you and listen to what they are saying.’ So Gideon took his servant Purah and crept down in the dark to the edge of the enemy camp. And there was a man telling his friend a dream. He said, “Listen — I dreamed a dream. A loaf of barley bread came rolling into the camp of Midian, and it came right up to a tent and struck it, and the tent turned over and fell flat.” And his friend answered, “That is nothing else but the sword of Gideon, the man of Israel. God has given Midian and this whole camp into his hand.” And when Gideon heard it, he bowed down right there in the dark and worshiped. Then he ran back and woke his three hundred men and said, “Get up! The Lord has given the camp of Midian into our hands.”

And this was Gideon’s plan. He split the three hundred into three companies, and he gave every single man a horn to blow, and an empty clay jar, and a burning torch to hide inside the jar. And he said, “Watch me, and do the same. When I get to the edge of the camp, whatever I do, you do. I will blow my horn, and then all of you blow your horns, all the way around the camp, and shout: A sword for the Lord and for Gideon!” So in the middle of the night, when the guard had just changed, the three hundred crept up all around the sleeping camp, each one holding a jar with a torch hidden inside it. And Gideon blew his horn. And three hundred horns blew, and three hundred jars smashed on the ground all at once, and three hundred torches flared up out of the darkness on every side, and three hundred voices shouted, “A sword for the Lord and for Gideon!” And every man stood still in his place, holding his torch high and blowing his horn. And the whole enemy camp woke in terror, and cried out, and ran — all of them, running away into the night. And Israel was saved, and it was plain to everybody who had done it: not three hundred men, but God.