The Army God Made Smaller

Gideon had asked God for a sign with a wet sheep's fleece, and then for a second sign with a dry one, and God had given him both. So early one morning Gideon marched his army to the spring of Harod. Thirty-two thousand men camped by the water. Down in the valley lay the Midianites, thick as grasshoppers, with more camels than anyone could count.

Then God said a strange thing. "Gideon, you have too many men. If I give you the victory now, Israel will brag, 'We saved ourselves!' Tell them that anyone who is shaking with fear may go home."

Twenty-two thousand men packed up and left. (It turned out a great many people were shaking.)

"There are still too many," God said. "Take them down to the water."

So ten thousand thirsty soldiers went down to the stream. Most of them knelt and put their faces right down to drink. Three hundred scooped the water up in their hands and lapped it like dogs. None of them knew it was a test.

"With these three hundred I will save you," God said. "Send the rest home."

That night God spoke again. "Get up and attack the camp, because I have given it to you. But if you are afraid to go down, take your servant Purah and listen to what they are saying."

Gideon took Purah.

The two of them crept down to the edge of the enemy camp and listened.

"I had a dream," one man was saying. "A loaf of barley bread came tumbling into our camp. It hit a tent so hard that the tent flipped over and fell flat!"

(A loaf of bread knocking down a tent. Even he must have thought it sounded silly.)

His friend did not laugh. "That can only be the sword of Gideon," he said. "God has handed all of us over to him."

Gideon bowed down and worshiped. Then he ran back up the hill. "Get up! The LORD has given you the whole army of Midian!"

He split his three hundred into three groups and handed each man a trumpet and an empty clay jar with a burning torch hidden inside. "Watch me," he said. "When I blow my trumpet, you blow yours."

In the middle of the night the three groups stood in a ring around the sleeping camp. Then SMASH went the jars, and the trumpets blared, and three hundred torches blazed out of the dark.

"A sword for the LORD and for Gideon!"

Every man had a torch in one hand and a trumpet in the other, which left no hand for a sword. They did not need one. The Midianites woke up screaming and ran. In the dark and the noise, God turned their swords against each other, and many of them were killed. Other Israelites chased the rest and caught two of their princes, Oreb and Zeeb, and killed them.

Midian never troubled Israel again while Gideon lived. But after Gideon died, the people forgot the God who had won that battle and went back to their idols, and the enemies came again.

Rescuer after rescuer rose up and died, and none could set Israel free for good. Then, on another dark night, men carrying torches came into a garden looking for one man. His friends all ran away, until his army was down to no one at all. He died on a cross, broken like a clay jar. On the third day he rose, and God's light blazed out for the whole world to see. Nobody could say, "We helped." The rescue belonged to Jesus.