Jg. 7: Gideon's Pityin' Midian...No kiddian'

Judges 7:2 "The LORD said to Gideon, "You have too many men for me to deliver Midian into their hands."

Well, with the dew soaking the fleece, that is as good an indicator as any to watch for as far as the LORD being with you. So Gideon gets ready for battle, and has 32,000 dudes at his disposal for war against the Midianites.

But God won't conquer the Midianites with that many men. And He tells Gideon as much. "You have too many men." God tells Gideon he has too great an advantage. Who gets the glory in a rout with that many men? The victory is easy. So God tells Gideon to cull the herd a little, and the people that are too scared go home.

With 10,000 men left, it was still too much. At the river, during a water break, God tells Gideon to send home those who stick their faces in the water to drink. So we have 300 men left to fight. We've seen that number before. Some say it was because they would be more alert to fight in battle, without their heads in the water, but would it matter, if God was already lengthening the odds against Gideon? God stacked the deck against Gideon. That's what's happening here. The longer the odds, the greater the victory, and the greater the glory given to God.

Anyway, that night, God sends Gideon and his armor bearer down to see what the scuttlebutt is down in the valley of the Midianite camp. God says he'll hear something encouraging. For sure.

One Midianite soldier has had a nightmare and is telling another Midianite soldier. And it went a little something like this:

"I had another dream about bread last night."

"You don't say. Please tell me all about it."

"OK, but this wasn't one of those good dreams with toast and fresh baked Italian bread with the oil for dipping."

"Oh, no? I loved that one."

"No, I saw this loaf of barley bread rolling down hill, and it knocked over a tent."

"You know what that means..."

"You don't think..."

"Oh yeah. Has to be the sword of Gideon son of Joash. God has turned our entire camp over to him."

"Ah."

The second Midianite soldier draws the only possible conclusion from a dream about a loaf of rolling bread. Its Gideon, and he's coming to clean house.

So Gideon is encouraged by this bit of gossip, and the very first thing he does is to stop, pray, and thank God. I would have been so excited to knock some heads together, I'da done that first. But anyway, Gideon surrounds the Midianite camp in silence, and then lets loose with trumpet blasts and shattering jars. The Midianites, already on pins and needles from the bread dream lose their minds and kill each other.

Since God had sent 99% of his army home, Gideon needed more Israelites to take over the Midianite land.

Then the Ephraimites capture Oreb and Zeeb, which is an awesome pair of names for military commanders.

Nu. 31: Midianite Massacre

Numbers 31:49 "..."Your servants have counted the soldiers under our command, and not one is missing."

Numbers 31 begins with a promise from God to Moses that once he took vengeance on the Midianites for the debauchery in chapter 25, then Moses would be gathered unto his people. Is this something to look forward to? A reward? Also, I'm not sure at this point of the relationship or the similarity between the Moabites and the Midianites, as in chapter 25, it says the Moabite women seduced the Israelite men, and Zimri did bring a Midianite woman back to his tent...maybe Midianite::Southerner as Moabite::Alabaman...or vice versa. That's my guess.

Anyway, Israel took 12,000 men into battle against Midian (1,000 from each tribe), and kicked hiney. The five kings of Midian were slain, and so was our dear "friend" Balaam. Apparently Balaam wasn't as pro-LORD as he appeared in previous chapters. They took all kinds of plunder, and brought it back home.

Moses wasn't too happy that the Israelites had allowed women and children to live. It was apparently these women that had "followed Balaam's advice" and brought the Israelites into idolatry.

I get it now. After Balaam couldn't curse Israel, he did advise the Midianites that Israel's men could be seduced. No wonder he had to die.

Anyway, Moses instructs them to kill all the boys, and kill the non-virgins. I imagine the boys had to be killed to not grow up to be Midianite men, and the non-virgins were responsible for Israel's slide into immorality. The virgins were fair game.

In accordance with the cleansing ritual, anyone who killed someone or touched someone who was killed had to go be purified, and any plunder that had done that touching had to be purified by fire or by the cleansing water...you know, the heifer ash tea.

Half the plunder went to the men who fought in the war, so among 12,000 dudes, they split a whole bunch of animals, and 16,000 virgin women. 32 of them went to God. I don't know if these women were burned as a sacrifice (I hope not, but what if they were?) or maybe they served the Levites in the temple. ("Served" used in the most holy way possible, by the way.) Maybe they were redeemed? I don't know. Up to this point, God has never accepted a human sacrifice. Only once as a test of faith has God commanded a human sacrifice (with Isaac). I don't know what was done with these women. What was the point of sacrifice...to honor God. To show devotion to Him. To make atonement. To establish or solidify a fellowship with God. To honor a command. In what way could these women serve those purposes? Maybe they were killed with a sword of justice as opposed to burned on the altar of sacrifice? Curious.

Also, not one soldier was lost in the battle. Which had to have been pretty fierce, to lay waste to five whole kingdoms. Imagine being one of those soldiers who went through it, and the wonder and gratitude you would have felt. Neither you or your brothers in arms were killed. Amazing.

Not only that, there was lots of gold seized that went into the service of the tent of meeting as well.