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Judges 7:1 – 22 Numbers Don’t Count

by fol CHURCH on December 12, 2019

When in battle, the general rule is to ensure you have more men than your enemy e.g. strength in numbers.  Yet God’s way is different. To prevent Israel from boasting, He instructs Gideon to ‘release’ those soldiers who were too frightened to fight. The Midianite army was a formidable force, and twenty-two thousand men ran away in fear, with only ten thousand remaining (7:2-3).

Gideon knows that God will save Israel by his hand (Judges 6:30–40), and even though his army has now been decimated in numbers, surely God wouldn’t want Gideon to go into battle with less than ten thousand men?  But God informs Gideon he still has too many men! – now it’s all very well having confidence in God, but when standing and facing a formidable enemy with an army that God keeps ‘trimming down’(7: 4-8), this must have begun to cause some anxiety in Gideon.

Gideon now has an army of just three hundred men (remember he started out with thirty-two thousand!).  Gideon and his servant Purah go to the outpost of the Midianite camp and overhear a discussion about a dream.   Barley was food of the poor and a round loaf of barley represented oppressed Israel. Yet the image of the loaf rolling down and smashing the tent convinces both sides that God has given the victory to the Israelites (Judges 7:13-14).

Gideon, now fully assured in God, surrounds the Midianite camp and with three hundred trumpet blasts accompanied by a loud shout ‘A sword for the Lord and for Gideon’, the enemy becomes terrified and turns on itself.  Those that are left flee, but when the Israelites from Ephraim see what is happening, they join in the battle and pursue the Midianite army until they are all killed, bringing the heads of Oreb and Zeeb to Gideon as proof.

The mention of the three hundred trumpet blasts reminds me of a similar victory – the fall of Jericho.  After six days of marching around the city blowing trumpets, something significant happens on the seventh day. When the trumpets sounded and the Israelites shouted, the walls of the city of Jericho collapsed (Joshua 6:20-21). Thus victories are achieved with the blowing of horns and shouting out, and it has been suggested that this ‘shouting out’ is not merely a loud cry, but more of a triumphant Holy Spirit declaration!

‘Not by might nor by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord Almighty’ (Zech 4: 6).

 

 

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Heavenly Father, thank you that I never fight life’s battles alone.  Help me to trust in you always, knowing that by your Holy Spirit power within me, I can be victorious, to your glory.

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