CHAPTER IV.

_INVASION OF THE MIDIANITES. GIDEON._ JUDG. VI.–VIII. B.C. CIRC. 1256–1249.

AS so often before, the effects of this last great deliverance were but transitory. Again the Israelites relapsed into idolatry, and in consecrated groves practised all the abominations that disgraced the worship of Baal. The national punishment they thus drew down upon themselves was more severe than anything they had yet endured. Since the sacred war led by Phinehas against the Midianites[195] (Num. xxxi. 1–13), that people had recovered much of their ancient strength, and now in concert with the Amalekites, and _the children of the East_ (Judg. vi. 3), or the Arabian tribes beyond the Jordan, they determined to invade the territory of Israel. Led by two superior chiefs, having the title of king, ZEBAH and ZALMUNNA, and two inferior chiefs, OREB and ZEEB (_the Raven and the Wolf_), they poured into the country with their herds, their flocks, and their camels, like locusts for multitude, and gradually overran it from the plain of Jezreel down the valley of the Jordan, and southward as far as Gaza in the fertile Lowlands of the west. Here they established themselves, destroyed the crops[196], and for a period of seven years reduced the Israelites to the greatest straits, so that they left the plains, and fled for refuge to dens or catacombs, which they cut out of the rocky mountains, to inaccessible strongholds, and the limestone caves with which Palestine abounds[197] (Judg. vi. 2).

As so often before, the Deliverer came from the quarter most exposed to the ravages of the invaders. At Ophrah, in the hills of western Manasseh, not far from Shechem, and overlooking the plain of Jezreel, the head-quarters of the Midianitish host, lived a high-born Abi-ezrite, a descendant of one of the princely families of Manasseh (Josh. xvii. 2; Num. xxvi. 30), named JOASH. The invasion had brought not only impoverishment but dire bereavement into his home. In a skirmish near the heights of Tabor the Midianite kings, Zebah and Zalmunna, had slain all his noble sons save one, GIDEON (Judg. viii. 18, 19).

On one occasion, as Gideon was threshing wheat, not in the open summer threshing-floor, but by the winepress[198] near his native Ophrah, to hide it from the Midianites, an Angel appeared and saluted him with the words, _The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valour_. In reply Gideon contrasted the present degraded condition of the nation with the glorious days when Jehovah brought them out of Egypt, and complained that He had now deserted them, nor was there any hope of deliverance. Thereupon the Angel informed him that _he_ was the destined Saviour of his people, that the Lord would be with him, and that he should _smite the Midianites as one man_ (Judg. vi. 16). Unable to believe that such a mission could be designed for himself, Gideon requested a sign to assure him that the Speaker was a messenger of Jehovah, and by direction of the Angel made ready a kid, and cakes of unleavened bread, and presented them under the oak. The Angel then bade him lay the flesh and unleavened cakes upon the rock and pour the broth over them, and when he had done so touched them with a rod he bore in his hand. Instantly there rose up fire from the rock, and consumed the offering, in the midst of which the Angel suddenly disappeared. The fact that he had thus been permitted to converse face to face with Deity filled Gideon with alarm, but the Lord reassured him, and he built an altar there which he called Jehovah-Shalom, or, the _Lord send Peace_, in memory of the salutation of the Angel (Judg. vi. 24).