Page 37 - The Divine Quest

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threshing grain in a hiding place when the angel of God appeared to him.

God knew that asking Gideon to take three hundred men into battle against more
than one hundred thousand of the enemy would require much faith in God. On top
of this, for Gideon’s entire life he had only seen the Israelites meet defeat at the
hands of the enemy. How could he now expect that God would bring them a great
deliverance with so few men? Gideon wanted to be certain that God was speaking to
him and that He would accomplish what He had said. He asked for confirmation and
Yahweh was pleased to give it to him.

Judges 6:36-40
Then Gideon said to God, "If You will deliver Israel through me, as You have spoken,
behold, I will put a fleece of wool on the threshing floor. If there is dew on the fleece
only, and it is dry on all the ground, then I will know that You will deliver Israel
through me, as You have spoken." And it was so. When he arose early the next
morning and squeezed the fleece, he drained the dew from the fleece, a bowl full of
water. Then Gideon said to God, "Do not let Your anger burn against me that I may
speak once more; please let me make a test once more with the fleece, let it now be
dry only on the fleece, and let there be dew on all the ground." God did so that night;
for it was dry only on the fleece, and dew was on all the ground.

This is the mercy, kindness and gentleness of Yahweh. He did not reprove Gideon in
this matter, but did according to what Gideon asked. Yahweh even went beyond what
Gideon had asked. The sign of the fleece was given before God had whittled Gideon’s
army of 32,000 down to just 300 men. In His mercy He gave him one more
tremendous confirmation that Gideon had not even asked for.

Judges 7:9-15
Now the same night it came about that Yahweh said to him, "Arise, go down against
the camp, for I have given it into your hands. But if you are afraid to go down, go
with Purah your servant down to the camp, and you will hear what they say; and
afterward your hands will be strengthened that you may go down against the camp."
So he went with Purah his servant down to the outposts of the army that was in the
camp. Now the Midianites and the Amalekites and all the sons of the east were lying
in the valley as numerous as locusts; and their camels were without number, as
numerous as the sand on the seashore. When Gideon came, behold, a man was
relating a dream to his friend. And he said, "Behold, I had a dream; a loaf of barley
bread was tumbling into the camp of Midian, and it came to the tent and struck it so
that it fell, and turned it upside down so that the tent lay flat." His friend replied,
"This is nothing less than the sword of Gideon the son of Joash, a man of Israel; God
has given Midian and all the camp into his hand." When Gideon heard the account