Judges Chapter 6 Part Four (Verses 22-27)

4. (Judges 6:22-24) Gideon reacts with awe and worship to the miraculous sign
When Gideon saw that he was the angel of the LORD, he said, "Alas, O Lord God! For now I have seen the angel of the LORD face to face." The LORD said to him, "Peace to you, do not fear; you shall not die." Then Gideon built an altar there to the LORD and named it The LORD is Peace. To this day it is still in Ophrah of the Abiezrites.

When Gideon saw that he was the angel of the LORD: In his lifetime, Gideon most likely had witnessed a lot of sacrifices to all kinds of Canaanite gods and also to the God of Israel. But NOTHING like this had ever happened before! It must have struck Gideon like a lightning bolt that indeed this was God. God had appeared to him and talked to him. God had given Gideon encouragement as well as instructions. It probably scared Gideon out of his wits. Gideon believed he would not survive this encounter. Why would Gideon believe he would die?

But Moses said, "I beg you to show me your glory!" He replied, "I will cause all my goodness to pass before you, and in your presence I will pronounce the name of ADONIA. Moreover, I show favor to whomever I will, and I will display mercy to whomever I will. But my face," he continued, "you cannot see, because a human being cannot look at me and remain alive." (Exodus 33:18-20)

This understanding must have had a very strong tradition within he Hebrew community. Just like in Christianity, we have certain Bible stories that are the most common among even our children, so it was with the Israelites. Gideon knew he was a dead man, but God assured him he would not die.

Peace to you, do not fear; you shall not die: God tells Gideon, shalom. Remember, while we often translate shalom as "peace", it means much, much more. It means well being, abundance, harmony with God, favor with God and completeness. This promise of shalom was a positive assurance from God.

Then Gideon built an altar: Gideon builds an altar and names it The LORD is shalom. It says that "to this day" the altar remains there. What the phrase "to this day" means is that the writes of the Book of Judges personally knew of the place in his day. As explained in the introduction to the book of Judges, it was a Hebrew writer or editor who pieced together the Book of Judges from various documents. The events of the Book of Judges spans as many as 350 years. 

This altar was not intended to be a new place of sacrifices to God. Rather, it was a memorial that commemorated this awesome revelation of God. But that very night, Gideon had another encounter with God.

A brief summary
Due to the religious syncretism that had occurred over the last many years in the Promised Land, the Hebrews had blended their religion with the religion of the Canaanites. The Hebrews worshiped and accepted a combination of gods including the God of Israel. Their rituals incorporated some elements of the Law of Moses and some elements of Baal worship. The Israelites' general understanding of gods and what they wanted and how they behaved blended Torah with the standard pagan customs of the Mystery Babylon religions. So, as difficult as it is for mere man to comprehend God under any circumstance (even from a pure and unadulterated Scriptural perspective), it is utterly impossible when pagan practices have become entwined with Biblical truth. It is hard to tell where one ends and the other begins.

The Torah teaches that when the principle of illicit mixtures (sha'atnez) is violated whether the mixture consists of people, animals, seeds, food, relationships or anything that attempts to rationalize or join together God's principles with humanistic ideas, it inevitably leads to tevel (confusion). Gideon was totally confused because he (and all Israel) had mixed the worship of God with the worship of Baal. He did not know how to recognize God, or how to approach God.

This is a huge flashing red warning sign for us as Believers. It is not a question of whether or not we have mixed pagan religion with Christianity, it is how do we untangle it all? Just as with Gideon, the first step is to recognize (and end the denials) that syncretism had occurred. Then, we must determine to re-dedicate ourselves to the pure ways of the LORD and cut down and burn all those things in our congregations and in our lives which are not of God if we ever expect to please Him and be blessed by Him. As we will see in the story of Gideon, it is easy to say and to write down on paper, but it is much, much harder to actually accomplish such a task.


C. The beginning of Gideon's ministry

1. (Judges 6:25-27) Removing Baal worship from his midst
Now on the same night the LORD said to him, "Take your father's bull and a second bull seven years old, and pull down the altar of Baal which belongs to your father, and cut down the Asherah that is beside it; and build an altar to the LORD your God on the top of this stronghold in an orderly manner, and take a second bull and offer a burnt offering with the wood of the Asherah which you shall cut down." Then Gideon took ten men of his servants and did as the LORD had spoken to him; and because he was too afraid of his father's household and the men of the city to do it by day, he did it by night.

Now on the same night: God spoke again to Gideon and gave him specific instructions stating the purification process in order to re-educate and disentangle Gideon and Israel from the idolatrous mess they had created for themselves.

The first thing Gideon must do is to destroy the altar to Baal because an altar to God was about to be constructed on that very same spot. It is impossible that the two could co-exist. The LORD tells Gideon to destroy the altar to Baal, cut down the sacred pole that stands next to it and the replace it with a proper altar to God. Furthermore, when Gideon does this task, he is to take with him his father's bull; it would be used as a sacrifice.

A second bull seven years old: There has been much written about this aspect of the bull (or bulls) because the word construction in the Hebrew is very strange. It literally says "the bull of bullocks". The difficulty also is that the phrase usually translated as "the second bull" comes from the root word shanah that can carry the meaning of "exalted" or "higher rank". Thus, it is very likely from the context that there were NOT two bulls involved, but only one. It was the highest-ranking bull of the bullocks owned by Joash, Gideon's father. Rank was determined by the age when it comes to bulls and many other animals. The older the animal, the greater its worth. Thus, a seven-year old bull was extremely valuable.

Also, it is not coincidence that the number of years of oppression from the Midianites was also seven. Not only would this bull have been born in the first year of the oppression, but also the purpose of the bull was to be an atonement. Each year of its life would pay for one year of Israel's rebellion and the accompanying death that was pressed upon the people by means of the invading Midianites and their cohorts.

Cut down the Asherah: Before the bull was to be sacrificed, it would be used to pull down the sacred pole of the pagan god. The sacred pole in Hebrew is called Asherah. Asherah is the fertility goddess and the wife of Baal that was normally expressed in the form of a tree. This combination of an altar to Baal accompanied by an Asherah next to it was rather typical. God orders Gideon to not only remove the Asherah but also chop it up and use it for firewood for God's sacrificial fire.

Gideon obeys, but he is cautious. He knows full well that this is not going to settle well with anyone--his father, his family, the nearby Israelites and especially their Canaanite neighbors. It appears that Joash was actually this pagan holy site's protector and caretaker. And although I say pagan, understand that Joash did this willings and with the blessing of the Hebrew people.

We are told that Joash was of the clan of Abierzite, which was part of Manasseh. This place where Gideon lived was his own clan's village. They owned it, they controlled it and they had adopted Baal, Asherah and many other elements of Canaanite worship to go along with the traditional worship of God. This high place where the Baal altar was located was revered by Joash and his clan. It was not despised in any way. Despite any erroneous depiction to the contrary, Israel was NOT forced to worship other gods; they did it because they wanted to. They had no concept that what they were doing was wrong.

Then Gideon took ten men of his servants: Gideon took along ten servants to help the bull up to the Baal altar, and he did it at night. Now, I cannot help but point out that Gideon told God earlier that maybe he was not the best choice to be Israel's savior because he was from the poorest clan in Manasseh, owned at least ten male servants. Most male servants had families who were also in servitude to the master. The Hebrew word ebed means servants of slaves. So, these ten men were in no way traditional family members.

Tearing down the altar and the Asherah was not that big of a job, especially with using a bull to do the heavy work. But, Gideon wanted some protection when he did it. Was the fear unwarranted? Not at all!