Gideon: The Bad & the Ugly

Introduction

Last week we started our journey through the story of Gideon. I call Gideon’s story “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly”. We first looked at “The Good” part of Gideon’s story. He goes from zero to hero with a healthy amount of doubt mixed in. The Lord ultimately gives him victory with just a mere 300 men.

If the story had ended there, we’d have probably the best and most normal story of Judges. But even by the end we saw some darkness start to creep in. Gideon/Jerubbaal (‘He who Baal fights against) seems to start getting a little full of himself.

And so that leads us to the final parts of Gideon’s story which I coin “the bad” and “the ugly”.

The Bad (8:1-21)

The end of chapter 7 saw Gideon’s men defeating two Midianite princes, and they gruesomely beheaded them.

This served as identification, but also shows a level of ruthlessness from Gideon that we hadn’t seen previously.

Remember, when we first met Gideon he was hiding in a cave, and then later he tore down the idols at night because he was afraid of the townspeople.

The princes weren’t good enough. Gideon wants the kings. And so he keeps pursuing them, but he runs into a couple of roadblocks.

First, he encounters the tribe of Ephraim. Apparently they weren’t invited to the party, and so they turn into crybabies.

They get very angry with Gideon for not including them. It’s not clear why they are so angry, but they are. The ESV says, “They accused him fiercely”. The same Hebrew word translated “fiercely” is the word that described Sisera’s cruelty over the Israelites in the story of Deborah and Jael.

Ephraim is also going to get angry at another Judge later in the book for a very similar reason. So they are just perpetually unhappy.

Gideon for his part “contends” with them with a silver tongue. He’s very diplomatic, flatters them, and basically says that the victory really was theirs. It works!

Now that that’s out of the way, the men can keep up the pursuit...except now they are tired. So they come across two little towns. Succoth and Penuel.

Even though they were small, both towns were well known in Israelite history. Penuel was where Jacob had wrestled with God. Succoth was where he had briefly sojourned a little while later and built a “booth” (which is what the name means).

Perhaps this is why Gideon thought they might offer him rest. But they don’t. They apparently taunt him. Or do they?

The language they use isn’t all that different from what he said to Ephraim. “God is given the princes into your hands”/”Are the hands of the kings already in your hands?”

It doesn’t seem to matter the intent because Gideon doesn’t take it well. He threatens to punish them for this.

“When I come back in victory I’ll flail your flesh with thorns.” What a hero!

“When I come again in peace, I’ll break down this tower.” How Peaceful!

Notice his personality switch between these two groups. Against the big bad tribe of Ephraim he’s very diplomatic. But against the little towns who can’t fight back, he turns very cruel.

Ephraim showed mercy to him...but he couldn’t show mercy to these towns?

“Pick on someone your own size.” apparently doesn’t apply to Gideon.

It reminds me a lot of the Lord Jesus’ parable about the ungrateful servant who was forgiven much, but showed no mercy to anyone else.

Having vowed revenge, The Fighter moves on and catches the kings of Midian. But before dealing with them, he returns to Succoth and Penuel.

Just as he promised, he tortured the elders of Succoth.

And Penuel? He tore down their tower and killed all the men.

Towers and strongholds were common in the ancient world. They were places that the town could go and hide in for safety during foreign raids. But this raid wasn’t from a foreigner...it was from family.

Killing the men of the city essentially killed the whole city. When foreign raiders came through there’s no protection - no tower, no men.

The hero has officially become the villain.

But he was still a coward. Gideon turns his attention back to the kings of Midian.

Once again faced with someone his own size, Gideon...tries to have his young son kill them instead?

Even the kings recognize how cowardly this is and they taunt him until he finally does it himself.

Gideon, the “mighty man of valor” who was known for contending against the gods ends up picking on the little guys and trying to get out of fighting those who could actually take him. Had he really changed that much?

The Ugly: 8:22-35

Well, the people are free. So now what?

Also has anyone seen or heard from God lately? The last time the Lord was mentioned in the story was way back during the battle.

The less God is mentioned in the story, the worse things seem to get.

The people decide that they want Gideon to become their king.

They say it’s because he delivered them from Midian.

Ironic, because remember why the Lord only let Gideon take 300 men into battle? So that they wouldn’t take credit! But Gideon gets the credit anyway...

You also gotta wonder if the people saw what Gideon did to Succoth and Penuel and were afraid he might do the same to them if they didn’t make him king.

Surprisingly, Gideon isn’t interested in becoming king. He still has a little bit of sense in him: the Lord is their king!

Or does he actually want to be king?

The back and forth of Gideon’s story and personality continues when he still asks them a handsome reward, which the oblige him with.

He mixed their gold, and the spoils he took from victory and turns it into an ephod. This cloak like object was made of a bunch of different wartime memorials.

Also the fact that it was shaped like a cloak is very reminiscent of how the Spirit of the Lord “surrounded him” before the battle.

It’s kind of a weird thing to get made, but might have been acceptable...except it quickly turns into an idol that the people came and worshipped.

How do we prevent memorials from becoming idols?

The enemies were defeated, and the land had rest. But things don’t really feel great, do they?

For not wanting to be a king, Gideon ended his life...kind of acting like a king.

He went back home and got married. And he got married a lot! This was typical of kings (and warned against!). David and Solomon both had many wives.

He had 70 sons, a nice whole number that represents success, power, and even wealth in a sense.

But he also had another son with another woman, a concubine a few towns over name Abimelech.

Abimelech is going to be the next “main character” of Judges, and probably it’s most evil. His name literally means “My father is king.” So Gideon didn’t want to be king, but then name’s his son “My father is king”?

Gideon’s story ends very “ugly”. Despite the 40 years of rest, the people once again return to idolatry, worshipping Baal and then they forget Gideon’s family.

It’s almost like the author wants us to know that without the “Baal fighter”, Baal makes a come back.

Side Study: Concubines & Polygamy

The end of this story features polygamy, which is fairly prominent throughout the Old Testament. It also mentions a concubine. Concubines will show up later in Judges, so it’s worth a look at them, too.

There actually isn’t a strict prohibition on polygamy in the Old Testament. However, Scripture makes it clear that polygamy is not the design that God has for marriage.

The negativity of polygamy is often told through narrative form rather than explicitly.

We’ll see that Gideon’s many wives and children has a very negative outcome.

David & Solomon’s many wives cause only problems. Time and time again, polygamy just isn’t seen as a good thing.

This is even true at times when it appears the God allows or even offers to bless polygamy. That still doesn’t mean it is his design. It means he has lots of grace.

The New Testament makes it crystal clear that monogamy that is the ideal. Jesus points to the story of Adam and Eve as the true design of marriage.

This is important to understand because in our own day people will try to use polygamy (and other forms of marriage found in Scripture) to argue that there is no standard and therefore non-monogamous and non-heterosexual relationships are justified.

God does have a preferred design for marriage, and while He gives grace in letting cultures get to that design (as he does many other things, like idolatry even), we are still expected (especially as the Church) to move towards that ideal.

So what about concubines?

Many people tend to think that concubines were/are simply prostitutes, but that’s not true.

Concubines were legally wives. However they were considered secondary or auxiliary wives.

Often married for procreation, power, or status (from the male’s perspective). Still gave some protection to the woman.

Sometimes these wives didn’t even live with their husbands

This is the case with Abimelech’s mother. She lived in Shechem, but Gideon and his other wives/children lived in Ophrah.

We’ll see this be the case later in Judges, too.

Concubines, like other forms of polygamy, may have served certain necessary purposes in ancient cultures (or cultures where it is still practiced), but the reality is that it is not ideal. God’s ideal for marriage is for it to be between one man and one woman.

Conclusion

What do we do with Gideon? Is he a hero? Is he evil? Is he a coward? Is he a saint? Like most of the Judges, Gideon’s legacy is complicated. And yet, the author of Hebrews mentions him in his “Hall of Faith”. This is really something, not just because of Gideon’s actions, but also because for most of his life he actually seemed to have a lot of doubt!

Gideon’s story should make us start to question what “faith” actually means. We tend to equate faith with morality. But most of the faithful people mentioned in Hebrews 11 weren’t the most moral people! So faith has to be something more than simply “being a good person” - and for sinners like us, that should be a breath of fresh air. Thank God for his grace and mercy!