Gideon

Righteous Gideon, also called Jerubbaal, was a judge of Israel in the twelfth century before Christ, chosen by God to deliver the people from the oppression of the Midianites. His story is in the Book of Judges, chapters 6 to 8, and the Epistle to the Hebrews counts him among those who conquered kingdoms through faith (Hebrews 11:32). The Orthodox Church commemorates him on 26 September.

The calling

Gideon belonged to the tribe of Manasseh, the clan of Abiezer, and was the son of Joash of Ophrah. At that time Israel again did evil in the sight of the Lord, and God gave them into the hand of Midian for seven years. The Midianites, Amalekites and other people of the East invaded the land at harvest time, took the crops and seized the cattle, while the Israelites hid in caves and strongholds.

One day, as Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to hide it from the Midianites, the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said, "The Lord is with you, O mighty man of valour." Gideon answered humbly that his clan was the smallest in Manasseh and he the least in his father's house. God promised him, "I will be with you." To be certain, Gideon asked for a sign: he laid an offering on a rock, and fire came out of the rock and consumed it. Then, by night, he pulled down his father's altar of Baal, cut down the sacred pole beside it, and built an altar to the Lord. The men of the city wanted to kill him, but his father defended him, and from then on he was called Jerubbaal.

The sign of the fleece

Before the battle Gideon asked for yet another sign: he laid a fleece of wool on the threshing floor and prayed that dew might be on the fleece alone while the ground stayed dry. So it happened. The next night he asked for the opposite: the fleece dry and the ground wet with dew. This sign too was fulfilled. Church writers and the hymns saw in the dew coming down on the fleece a foreshadowing of the Nativity of Christ from the Virgin: God came down into the womb of the Virgin without harm to her, as dew falls silently on wool. In the hymns of the Church the Mother of God is called "the fleece of Gideon."

Victory with three hundred men

Of an army of thirty-⁠two thousand men God left only three hundred, so that the people would see that victory comes from the Lord. At night Gideon divided the men into three companies and gave each a trumpet and an empty jar with a torch inside. At the signal they blew the trumpets, broke the jars and cried, "A sword for the Lord and for Gideon." The Midianites, terrified, turned on one another and fled. Gideon pursued them beyond the Jordan and captured the two kings, Zebah and Zalmunna.

His end

The Israelites wanted to make him king, but Gideon answered, "I will not rule over you, and my son will not rule over you; the Lord will rule over you." From the gold he received he made an ephod, which became a snare to the people. The land had peace for forty years. He died at a good old age and was buried at Ophrah, in the tomb of his father. He had many sons, and after his death the people again turned to Baal (Judges 8:32-33).

Veneration

The Church commemorates him on 26 September as a righteous man of the Old Testament, and he is remembered together with the other righteous of the Old Testament on the Sunday of the Forefathers, before the Nativity of the Lord. In the hymns of the Church the fleece of Gideon is one of the best-⁠loved images of the Mother of God and of the Incarnation.