Judges Chapter 6 Part Two (Verses 11-13)

A Brief recap
The first 10 verses explain that after 40 years of rest against foreign oppressors, Israel went right back to their old ways. They again worshiped the Canaanite gods, and the LORD responded by drawing nomadic marauders from the east and the south to plunder Israel's food supply. These invaders did this for seven years, always coming at harvest season. The marauders are identified as Midian (which would have been the head of the coalition), Amalek and some other smaller bands of robbers called the "sons of the east".

Their behavior was metaphorically described as that of locusts--they would descend in countless numbers (from seemingly nowhere) upon the Hebrews in Canaan and would stay until they had collected all the food they could eat and carry away. What they could not haul away, they destroyed.

Israel was depressed and feeling hopeless. All lost the will to resist these thorns in the flesh who came riding upon their fearsome camels. Now whether it was from remembering the earlier generations when their ancestors would sin, be punished by conquerors and find themselves in a deplorable state, or it may have been more of a knee-jerk reaction to the condition of being so deep into a pit of despair, Israel finally cried out to God for help. I am sad to think that the human way of exhausting all other possibilities BEFORE finally submitting to God is generally how it has always been among mankind. It is this way in our day even among those of us who know God.


Syncretism
I would like to remind you of a word I discussed many weeks ago: syncretism. Syncretism is the act of blending. It is what happens when one culture assimilates into another. Israel was blending their way and worship with that of the Canaanites. At its core, it was blending God with the Ba'als. It was not done with some kind of official council meeting which resulted in a well-defined decision. It was not something that the leaders of the 12 tribes of Israel ordered their people to do. Rather, slowly it happened. A compromise here, and an attempt to show respect to another's religion there. Marriage between a lovely Hebrew girl and a nice Canaanite boy. They formed friendly and prosperous business relationships with Ba'al worshippers. And very slowly, that is how it happened.

Typically, no Hebrew set out to offend God and submit to Ba'al and Ashtoreth, but they all wanted peace and good relations with their neighbors. This meant tolerance for all the gods that were so very valued by each culture. Canaanites were not horrible people. They were not barbarians and murderers. Canaanites and Hebrews were very much alike, both coming from Mesopotamian roots. They were farmers, herders, craftsmen and merchants. Their societies were much more complementary then contrasting.

Syncretism has happened and is happening to the Body of Believers. For centuries we have slowly integrated and adopted pagan worship practices and traditions that (in Christianity's infancy) were considered outlandish abominations. They were thoroughly rejected. But with the passing of time, a compromise here and a hope to appeal to seekers in order to expand our numbers there, these practices have become a regular part of us for so long, they are not only considered normal but also necessary and desired. Most Christians have no idea where some of these cherished traditions have come from, what they meant in their original form and why they were ever introduced. And quite frankly, most Christians do not want to know because it might mean being faced with some unpopular (if not drastic) changes in our lives, in our congregations and in our doctrines. It would mean things that we truly enjoy and are more comfortable with might be challenged. This is called religious syncretism.

I am discussing all of this so that you can picture what was going on during the Time of the Judges. Today, we are reliving that same time and doing essentially the same things.


B. The deliverer is called

1. (Judges 6:11-13) The Angel of the LORD appears to Gideon
Then the angel of the LORD came and sat under the oak that was in Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abierzite as his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the wine press in order to save it from the Midianites. The angel of the LORD appeared to him and said to him, "The LORD is with you, O valiant warrior." Then Gideon said to him, "O my lord, if the LORD is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all His miracles which our fathers told us about, saying, 'Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt?' But now the LORD has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian."

The angel of the LORD: God begins the process of delivering His people in verse 11. The Angel of the LORD presents Himself to Gideon near a tree. (The exact type of tree is subject to interpretation of the Hebrew.) This Angel of the LORD is NOT the prophet from God that was spoken of in verse seven. Some time after the prophet came and chastised the people of Israel, the Angel of the LORD came to Gideon and spoke ONLY to Gideon. (The Angel of the LORD did not speak to the leaders of Israel.)

Ophrah: This is a village located in the territory of western Manessah. (Side note: there are several places throughout Canaan with the name of Ophrah. This particular Ophrah belonged to Joash the Abierzite.)

Gideon was beating out wheat in the wine press: When the Angel of the LORD showed up, Gideon is threshing wheat in a wine press. This small statement tells us a few things. First, this event happened in the summertime around the month of June. This is the time of the wheat harvest. 

Another thing it tells us is that something is drastically wrong because we have Gideon using a wine press to thresh wheat. Wheat is normally threshed by being laid out on a well-tamped and slightly elevated piece of ground or on a large section of rock outcropping that has been flattened. This is done so that as the wheat is beaten, the breeze will blow away the chaff. Furthermore, for even a relatively small family unit, it takes a lot of wheat stocks to be threshed to obtain a useful amount of wheat kernels. Therefore, an animal (preferably an ox) is used to pull a log over the wheat in order to separate the heads of wheat from the stalks.

Here, however, we have a situation whereby a wine press is being used for threshing. Therefore, only a very small amount of wheat could be processed at one time. Thus, this would take an incredibly long time to obtain enough wheat to supply a family with its bread needs.

Wine press: An ancient winepress was basically a hole in a rock where grapes were placed. Then, someone would either trample on the grapes with bare feet or use something like a staff to squish the grapes for their juice. Typically, the rock receptacle was slightly slanted so that as the process proceeded, gravity would cause the juice to run down towards another depression in the rock where it would pool.

Thus, what we have is that not only is the wheat in short supply due to invaders, but the threshing had to be done in an improvised way in which attention was not drawn to the person threshing the wheat.

The LORD is with you, O valiant warrior: The Angel of the LORD appears to Gideon and sits under a tree. The Angel of the LORD then begins the conversation with calling Gideon a valiant hero and tells Gideon the LORD is with him. 

Nothing in this scene would illustrate Gideon as anything but a typical member of a passive and oppressed population. So why is Gideon called a "valiant warrior"? This was a prophetic statement of what Gideon was about to become. Or, in another respect, it was who Gideon already was but could not manifest until the LORD intervened. It was an honest expression of how God viewed Gideon as opposed to how Gideon viewed himself. One of the greatest aspects of God is that He sees us for who He made us to be, and that may be completely different from the way we have lived our lives.

In verse 12, the man who was hiding from the nomads who plundered his family, the man who was merely surviving and was to himself nothing special, this man was to God a valiant hero. He would courageously lead His people in battle. It had just not happened yet.

My dear friends, the LORD sees you in light of your role in the Kingdom of Heaven. And every one of those roles is glorious and important. He sees you for the wondrous way in which He made you and for who you really are, if you are willing to trust Him and believe in Him. Gideon was thinking of himself as anything but a valiant warrior. Essentially, what was spoken to Gideon was a promise from God.

The LORD apparently appeared as a traveler to Gideon in much the same way as He did to Abraham about 800 years earlier, although He was not specifically called the Angel of the LORD in that instance (see Genesis 18 for more details). Some Rabbis say that the Angel of the LORD did not appear as a heavenly angel to Gideon because angles are always spoken of as either flying, floating in the air or they are standing erect. They are never sitting. Furthermore, Gideon did not see all that taken aback by this person. The nearly universal reaction to the appearance of an angel is for the viewer to fall to pieces in fright and awe.

In any case, this is a visible revelation of the LORD in human (and not angelic) form. And besides giving a promise to Gideon that he is a valiant warrior, the mysterious traveler also tells Gideon that the LORD is with him. 

If the LORD is with us, why has all this happened to us: Gideon says to the divine traveler, if what you say is true, why is all this terrible oppression happening to us? When the Angel of the LORD said, "The LORD is with you" to Gideon, Gideon took it as a reference to God being present with Israel and not with him individually. He did not understand that the LORD had come to strengthen and empower Gideon, as an individual, to deliver Israel. 

Where are all His miracles: Is this not something we have all probably wondered in our thoughts from time to time? Why, when a growing part of the world and even our American society openly shuns the concept of God, doesn't He show up and humiliate His doubters in some spectacular way like He did in Bible times? Why is the Bible loaded with dazzling appearances of angels, the parting of waters, entire wicked cities being leveled, an enemy army of 185,000 suddenly dying, men like Samson given superhuman abilities to carry out God's will, and men speaking words which cause the blind to see and the lame to walk?

Gideon looked around him and asked a very reasonable question: if God is here among us, why are we so down-trodden and under the oppression of foreigners? If God is present, why do foreigners mock Him and get away with it? Gideon answers his own question: No. God is not here with us. He has abandoned us.

In some ways, Gideon's thinking was correct. Even though God was still there, He had turned His back on Israel. He had turned them over to the Midianites for punishment. Where Gideon was wrong was that he blamed God for this, not Israel--Israel is the one Gideon should have blamed for their troubles.

In Judges chapter six, it shows us that it is only the generations where obedience and a singular faithfulness to the Father are actively practiced that miracles abounded. We can look around us and know that there is a problem today between the LORD and His followers. The miracles and God's powers are in short supply. In traditional Christianity, they revile the concept of obedience. They believe obeying God's commands equals legalism. In Gideon's time, God's people did NOT stop believing in God. Rather, they stopped being obedient to God's Word. They became unfaithful by adding other gods to their lives. Second Chronicles chapter seven verses 13-15 expounds on this concept.

If I shut up the sky, so that there is no rain; or if I order locusts to devour the land; or if I send an epidemic of sickness among my people; then, if my people, who bear my name, will humble themselves, pray, seek my face and return from their evil way, I will hear from heaven, forgive their sin and heal their land. Now my eyes will be opened and my ears will pay attention to the prayer made in this place. (2 Chronicles 7:13-15)

Notice in 2 Chronicles chapter 7 verse 15 it says that only after returning to the LORD in obedience (turning away from evil) will the Father's eyes be open and His ears ready to pay attention to our prayers. This is the principle being spoken about here in Judges chapter six. Great miracles in days gone by happened when God's people called upon Him AND due to their turning from their evil ways, He listened. The general weakness in the Church today is precisely as it was for Israel in the era of the Judges. We insist we are worshiping God properly. We insist we are following Him sincerely. But, when our actions and traditions are held down under the light of Holy Scripture, too much of what we follow are actually doctrines of men.