Gideon

Sunday school lesson from this morning, from Judges 6-7...


God had brought the Israelites through a lot. General Sisera did horrible things to the Israelites, and God sent Barak to defeat him. When Barak got scared, Judge Deborah went with him into battle, and with God’s help, they defeated Sisera’s army. But because Barak didn’t trust God enough, Sisera himself was defeated by a woman named Jael.

After that, there was peace for 40 years.

But then, as Israelites did often, they forgot God again. They did evil things, and God allowed the Midianites to do bad things to them. As soon as the Israelites’ crops were ready to harvest, the Midianites and Amalekites swooped in and stole it all. They stole their crops, livestock, and anything they could find to eat. This kept happening for seven years! Finally, the Israelites were so poor and starving that they cried out to God for help. So God sent them a prophet to remind them that He had brought them out of Egypt and provided for them, but they had decided to worship other gods.

Because the Israelites needed to eat, they had to get creative about where they put their food, to hide it from the invaders. One day, God sent an angel to the farm of a guy named Joash. The Midianites would expect to find lots of wheat to eat on the threshing floor where they separated the good wheat from the chaff, the skin of the wheat that wasn’t good to eat. So Joash’s son Gideon was threshing wheat in their winepress. The angel sat under a nearby oak tree and said to him, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.”

Gideon was pretty surprised. He said, “But sir, if that’s true, what happened to all the miracles? I’ve heard all kinds of great things He did for our ancestors when He brought them out of Egypt, but He seems to have abandoned us lately.”

“Go, save Israel from Midian,” said the angel. “I am sending you.”

Gideon wasn’t satisfied. “But, but…how do I do that? My family is the weakest in the tribe of Menasseh, and I’m the weakest in my family! Why call a wimp?”

But the angel said, “Go. I will be with you, and you will defeat the Midianites.”

“OK,” said Gideon, “I need a sign. I’ll go get an offering. Be right back.” He went in and cooked a goat and made some bread, and then brought it out to the angel. He put it on a rock, and the angel touched it. Fire came out of the rock and burned it up! Then the angel disappeared. So Gideon knew it really was an angel that God had sent. He was scared.

Then God told him to do something really scary. God told him to tear down the idols of the false god Baal, then sacrifice his father’s bull on a proper altar, using the idols as wood to burn it.

Gideon obeyed, but he was too scared to do it during the day, so he took ten of his servants, and they did it at night when everyone was asleep. When the neighbors got up the next day, they discovered their idols had been destroyed, and they were furious. They marched over to Joash’s house and demanded to have Gideon so they could kill him! Joash replied, “If Baal is such a powerful god, don’t you think he can deal out his own wrath? He shouldn’t need help killing someone who destroyed his altars.” So they called Gideon Jerub-Baal, which means “Let Baal contend.”

The Midianites were coming! Gideon was learning, and with God’s help, he started building an army to fight them. But he was still scared. He asked God for a sign again. “If You really want me to do this, show me. I’m putting a wool fleece on the threshing floor, and if the fleece is wet with dew and the ground is dry in the morning, I’ll know.” So God did it! Then he said, “OK, don’t be angry, but I need to double check. This time, I’d like you to make the fleece dry and the ground wet with dew.” God did that. So Gideon had no doubt this was what God wanted him to do.

He set out leading his army, but God had another surprise for him. There were too many people for God to show them that this was His plan! So God had Gideon tell everyone who was too scared to go home. 22,000 soldiers left, leaving only 10,000. But that was still too many! So God gave them a really strange test. 10,000 soldiers went down to the river to get a drink. 300 men lapped the water with their hands to their mouths, while everyone else knelt down to drink. The people who knelt down ended up having to go home. So that meant the army only had 300 people left!

God told Gideon to sneak into the Midianite camp during the night. When he did, he overheard two Midianites talking. One of them had just had a dream that a barley loaf had fallen into the Midianite camp and hit the tent so hard that it collapsed! The second person said, “That means that God has given our camp into the hands of Gideon son of Joash!”

Worshiping God, Gideon snuck back up to his camp and laid out his plan. It was the middle of the night at this point. He split the small army into three groups and gave each of them trumpets and empty jars. The three groups surrounded the camp, and at a cue from Gideon, they blew 300 trumpets and smashed 300 clay jars! 300 voices shouted, “A SWORD FOR THE LORD AND FOR GIDEON!” The Midianite army awoke with a start and panicked. They were so scared that they grabbed their swords and started to fight…but in their fear and confusion, they forgot that they were killing each other! The survivors fled, and the Israelites chased them. Gideon called for more men in the area, and the men of the tribe of Ephraim answered. The Israelites defeated Midian that day, but there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that it was God who had won the battle.

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The following pictures are of a threshing floor and the process of threshing, or separating the grain from the stalks and chaff. I printed them to show the class. Click on them to see them larger.

Source: Fletcher, Elizabeth. "Bible Archaeology: The First Farmers: Food in the Ancient World." Bible Archaeology. Web. 17 Feb 2013. http://www.bible-archaeology.info/agriculture.htm

A stone threshing floor surrounded by a low stone wall to contain the grain

Threshing: woman with grain on a threshing floor, Israel, 19th century photograph

Deborah and Barak

Sunday school lesson from February 10, from Judges 4-5...

Israel had come a long way. God brought them out of Egypt, and He used Moses and Joshua to lead them to the Promised Land and then go through the long and difficult process of conquering it. They saw the Red Sea and the Jordan River part. God gave them manna and quail in the wilderness, and He made water come out of rock. He made the thick walls of Jericho fall with trumpet blasts! He even made the sun stand still so they could defeat six cities in one day. After that, God led them to defeat more enemies until they conquered the land. But after Joshua died, the Israelites started to forget everything they had seen. They worshiped statues instead of God, and He wasn’t very happy about that. In fact, He became so angry that He sent more enemies against them, and the Israelites became slaves to a new enemy. But then, they remembered God and prayed. So He heard them and raised up a judge named Othniel. He was Caleb’s little brother. Othniel led the Israelites to victory, and they defeated their enemy. After Othniel died, Israel forgot God again, so He sent them another enemy. Then they prayed, and God sent Ehud to be their judge and lead them to victory. After Ehud came Shamgar. But then, Israel forgot God AGAIN! You’d think they’d learn their lesson!

This time, God punished them again by sending a Canaanite King named Jabin to attack them. His army general was named Sisera, a nasty character. Sisera did terrible things with his chariots and army, and for twenty years, Israel was miserable under his cruelty. By this point, there was a new judge named Deborah. She was also a prophetess, and she got a message from God. She obeyed what He told her to do. She sent for a man named Barak of the tribe of Naphtali, and when he arrived she told him, “God commands you to go, lead the men of the tribes of Naphtali and Zebulun to Mount Tabor. God will lure Sisera and his army to the Kishon River, and you will defeat them.”

But Barak was scared out of his mind. He responded, “I’ll go, but only if you come with me.”

Deborah said, “OK, I’ll go, but since you don’t trust God enough, a woman will defeat Sisera!”

So Deborah and Barak set out, leading the armies of the Israelite tribes of Naphtali and Zebulun, and they went to Mount Tabor. When Sisera got word that they had gone there, he led his army to the Kishon River, just as God had said would happen.

Deborah told Barak, “Go! This is the day God promised! He has given Sisera into your hands!” So Barak led his army of ten thousand soldiers down the mountain to meet their enemy. God sent an earthquake and a powerful rainstorm. Barak’s army defeated Sisera’s, and many of the enemy soldiers were swept away by the river! Israel chased the survivors of Sisera’s army, and not one of them survived.

But Sisera got away! He escaped to the tent of Heber, the man who had warned him that the Israelites were coming. Heber’s wife Jael welcomed him in. Sisera was all tired out from fighting and running, and he asked her to hide him and to give him a drink. She gave him some milk and let him get some sleep, covering him. Once he had fallen asleep, Jael took a tent peg, quietly snuck up to him, and…

Pretty soon, Barak and his army arrived in pursuit of General Sisera. Jael ran out of her tent and told Barak, “Come see! I have something to show you!” He stepped into her tent and found the evil Sisera, dead, with a tent peg in his head.

So, just as God promised, He helped Barak and Deborah to defeat Sisera’s army, but Sisera himself was defeated by a woman.

That day, Deborah and Barak sang a song of praise to God for saving them from their evil oppressor and leading them to victory.