Gideon
A man of Manasseh who, according to Judges, routed the Midianites with three hundred men and refused to found a dynasty. He is also called Jerubbaal, from his attack on his father’s altar of Baal.
Gideon, son of Joash the Abiezrite, of the tribe of Manasseh, was called by an angel at Ophrah in years when Midianite raiders stripped the land at every harvest (Judges 6:1–6, 11–16). After he pulled down the local altar of Baal he was given the name Jerubbaal, “Let Baal contend against him” (Judges 6:25–32). He twice asked for a sign with a fleece of wool (Judges 6:36–40), and then attacked the Midianite camp by night with three hundred men (Judges 7:7, 16–22).
He refused an offer of hereditary rule with the words “Yahweh shall rule over you” (Judges 8:22–23). But the gold ephod he set up at Ophrah “became a snare” to him and his family (Judges 8:27). Judges gives the land forty years of rest in his days (Judges 8:28). Isaiah recalls “the day of Midian” (Isaiah 9:4), and Hebrews names him among those who acted through faith (Hebrews 11:32). His story is told in the Age of the Judges.
In the timeline
- c. 1375 or c. 1200 – c. 1050 BC, traditional dateThe Age of the Judges
After Joshua, Israel lives in its tribes without a king. The book of Judges tells of a repeated turn to other gods, foreign oppression, and rescue by leaders called judges, among them Deborah, Gideon and Samson.