Judges 7

The TorahRooted Bible (TRB), translated directly from the Hebrew and Greek.

Gideon's three hundred

¹ Then Jerubbaal, that is Gideon, and all the people who were with him rose early and camped beside the spring of Harod; and the camp of Midian was north of them, by the hill of Moreh, in the valley.

² And Yahweh said to Gideon, "The people who are with you are too many for Me to give Midian into their hand, lest Israel boast against Me, saying, 'My own hand has saved me.' ³ Now therefore proclaim in the ears of the people, saying, 'Whoever is fearful and trembling, let him turn back and leave Mount Gilead.'" So twenty-two thousand of the people turned back, and ten thousand remained.

⁴ And Yahweh said to Gideon, "The people are still too many. Bring them down to the water, and I will test them for you there. Then the one of whom I say to you, 'This one shall go with you,' he shall go with you; and anyone of whom I say to you, 'This one shall not go with you,' he shall not go." ⁵ So he brought the people down to the water, and Yahweh said to Gideon, "Everyone who laps the water with his tongue, as a dog laps, you shall set apart by himself; likewise everyone who kneels down on his knees to drink." ⁶ And the number of those who lapped, putting their hand to their mouth, was three hundred men; but all the rest of the people knelt down on their knees to drink water. ⁷ Then Yahweh said to Gideon, "By the three hundred men who lapped I will save you, and will give Midian into your hand. Let all the other people go, each man to his place." ⁸ So the people took provisions in their hands, and their shofars; and he sent away all the men of Israel, each to his tent, but kept the three hundred men. Now the camp of Midian was below him in the valley.

The dream of the barley loaf

⁹ And it came to pass that same night that Yahweh said to him, "Arise, go down against the camp, for I have given it into your hand. ¹⁰ But if you are afraid to go down, go down to the camp with Purah your servant, ¹¹ and you shall hear what they say; and afterward your hands shall be strengthened to go down against the camp." Then he went down with Purah his servant to the outposts of the armed men who were in the camp. ¹² Now Midian and Amalek and all the people of the east lay along the valley as many as locusts, and their camels were without number, as the sand on the seashore for multitude. ¹³ When Gideon came, there was a man telling a dream to his companion. He said, "I just had a dream: a loaf of barley bread came tumbling into the camp of Midian; it came to the tent and struck it so that it fell, and turned it upside down, and the tent collapsed." ¹⁴ Then his companion answered and said, "This is nothing else but the sword of Gideon the son of Joash, a man of Israel. Into his hand Elohim has given Midian and all the camp."

The rout of Midian

¹⁵ And it came to pass, when Gideon heard the telling of the dream and its interpretation, that he worshiped. He returned to the camp of Israel and said, "Arise, for Yahweh has given the camp of Midian into your hand." ¹⁶ Then he divided the three hundred men into three companies, and he put a shofar into every man's hand, with empty jars, and torches inside the jars. ¹⁷ And he said to them, "Watch me and do likewise. When I come to the edge of the camp, you shall do as I do. ¹⁸ When I blow the shofar, I and all who are with me, then you also blow the shofars all around the whole camp, and say, 'For Yahweh and for Gideon!'"

¹⁹ So Gideon and the hundred men who were with him came to the edge of the camp at the beginning of the middle watch, when they had just posted the guards; and they blew the shofars and smashed the jars that were in their hands. ²⁰ Then the three companies blew the shofars and broke the jars; they held the torches in their left hands and the shofars in their right hands for blowing, and they cried, "The sword of Yahweh and of Gideon!" ²¹ And every man stood in his place all around the camp; and the whole camp ran, cried out and fled. ²² When the three hundred blew the shofars, Yahweh set every man's sword against his companion throughout the whole camp; and the camp fled as far as Beth-shittah toward Zererah, as far as the border of Abel-meholah, by Tabbath.

²³ And the men of Israel were called out from Naphtali, from Asher and from all Manasseh, and they pursued Midian. ²⁴ Gideon sent messengers throughout all the hill country of Ephraim, saying, "Come down against Midian and seize the waters before them as far as Beth-barah, and the Jordan." So all the men of Ephraim were called out, and they seized the waters as far as Beth-barah, and the Jordan. ²⁵ And they captured two princes of Midian, Oreb and Zeeb. They killed Oreb at the rock of Oreb, and Zeeb they killed at the winepress of Zeeb; and they pursued Midian, and brought the heads of Oreb and Zeeb to Gideon from beyond the Jordan.

Notes

• 7:3 "Trembling" is chared, the same root as the spring of Harod (charod, verse 1): the men who "tremble" go home from "Trembling Spring." Moses had commanded that the fearful be sent home before battle (Deuteronomy 20:8). "Mount Gilead" is puzzling, since Gilead lies east of the Jordan; many scholars think it was a local name for a height near Harod, or that the text originally read Gilboa.
• 7:6 The text does not explain why the lappers were chosen, and readers have long given different reasons, such as that they stayed alert while drinking. The point the chapter makes is the number: Yahweh chose the smaller group, so that the victory could only be His (verse 2).
• 7:13 Barley bread was the food of the poor and of farmers, while the tent stood for the nomad raiders of Midian. In the dream the farmers' humble loaf knocks down the tent of the camel riders, and the dreamer's friend at once sees in it Gideon, a farmer's son who had been threshing wheat in hiding (6:11).
• 7:19 Israel divided the night into three watches (compare Exodus 14:24; Lamentations 2:19), so "the beginning of the middle watch" is somewhere near ten o'clock at night. The fresh guards had just taken their posts, and the sleeping camp was at its least ready. By the first century the Romans' four watches were also in use (Mark 6:48).
• 7:25 Oreb means "raven" and Zeeb means "wolf." The places where they died kept their names, and the victory was remembered for centuries: Isaiah speaks of "the slaughter of Midian at the rock of Oreb" (Isaiah 10:26), and the psalmist prays, "Make their nobles like Oreb and like Zeeb" (Psalm 83:11).

Judges 6 · Judges 8

Open in the study app