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Gideon
Text:  called also Jerubbaal (Judg. 6: 29, 32), was the first of the 
judges whose history is circumstantially narrated (Judg. 6-8). His 
calling is the commencement of the second period in the history of the 
judges. After the victory gained by Deborah and Barak over Jabin, 
Israel once more sank into idolatry, and the Midianites (q.v.) and 
Amalekites, with other "children of the east," crossed the Jordan each 
year for seven successive years for the purpose of plundering and 
desolating the land. Gideon received a direct call from God to 
undertake the task of delivering the land from these warlike invaders. 

He was of the family of Abiezer (Josh. 17:2; 1 Chr. 7:18), and of the 
little township of Ophrah (Judg. 6:11). First, with ten of his 
servants, he overthrew the altars of Baal and cut down the asherah 
which was upon it, and then blew the trumpet of alarm, and the people 
flocked to his standard on the crest of Mount Gilboa to the number of 
twenty-two thousand men. These were, however, reduced to only three 
hundred. These, strangely armed with torches and pitchers and 
trumpets, rushed in from three different points on the camp of Midian 
at midnight, in the valley to the north of Moreh, with the terrible 
war-cry, "For the Lord and for Gideon" (Judg. 7:18, R.V.). 
Terror-stricken, the Midianites were put into dire confusion, and in 
the darkness slew one another, so that only fifteen thousand out of 
the great army of one hundred and twenty thousand escaped alive. 

The memory of this great deliverance impressed itself deeply on the 
mind of the nation (1 Sam. 12:11; Ps. 83:11; Isa. 9:4; 10:26; Heb. 
11:32). The land had now rest for forty years. Gideon died in a good 
old age, and was buried in the sepulchre of his fathers. Soon after 
his death a change came over the people. They again forgot Jehovah, 
and turned to the worship of Baalim, "neither shewed they kindness to 
the house of Jerubbaal" (Judg. 8:35). 

Gideon left behind him seventy sons, a feeble, sadly degenerated race, 
with one exception, that of Abimelech, who seems to have had much of 
the courage and energy of his father, yet of restless and unscrupulous 
ambition. He gathered around him a band who slaughtered all Gideon's 
sons, except Jotham, upon one stone. (See OPHRAH.) 





All profiles are taken from Easton's Bible Dictionary.