Don't Leave Home Without Him
Gideon is threshing wheat, trying his best to keep his activities secret. If the Midianite oppressors discover what he is doing, they will destroy the crop and quite possibly punish his impudence. The Israelites have cried out to God because of the seven years of suffering they have endured under the harsh hand of Midian. He heard those cries, sent a prophet to remind them that they brought all this on themselves because they had assimilated the local gods into their daily worship (Judges 6:10). When the angel appears to Gideon, he greets the farmer with " The Lord is with you, mighty warrior" to which Gideon responds, "If the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us… " (6:13, NIV). I guess Gideon must have missed the sermon delivered by the prophet, or he hadn't received the memo. His own father had an image of Baal and an Asherah pole (6:25). All that aside, when the angel tells Gideon to go and rescue Israel from her oppressors, there begins a leng...