Deliverer - Not King - Judges 8:4-35

Sermons Series: In Need of a Greater Rescue

When we concluded our examination of chapter 7 and the first few verses of chapter 8 the last time we met together we were left with the impression that the battle with the Midianites and the Amalekites was over. Two of the Midianite princes had been captured and killed and the tribe of Ephraim had come to Gideon frustrated that they had not been invited to play a more prominent role in the battle that had just taken place. But 8:4 tells us that from Gideon’s perspective the battle was not complete and as the text continues we discover that Gideon continues to pursue two of the kings of Midian in order that he might take out his own personal vengeance upon them. “And Gideon came to the Jordan and crossed over, he and the 300 men who were with him, exhausted yet pursuing” (8:4).

The battle and the pursuit of their enemies had taken a toll on Gideon and the 300 men who had earlier been set aside by God (men that Gideon now seems to have set aside for his own personal vendetta). [*Note that the reference to the 300 men here doesn’t mean that the entire battle had been fought solely by them. 7:23-25 clearly demonstrated that a great number of Israelites had been called out by Gideon to join the battle. 8:4 simply suggests that Gideon had taken the 300 men who had originally surrounded the enemy camp with him to carry out personal revenge upon the kings of Midian.] Gideon and his 300 men were traveling through Israelite territory (land that had been allotted to some of the Israelite tribes east of the Jordan) hungry and tired, and so we find them asking fellow Israelites for some food to help refresh them in their pursuit. “So he said to the men of Succoth, ‘Please give loaves of bread to the people who follow me, for they are exhausted, and I am pursuing after Zebah and Zalmunna, the kings of Midian’” (8:5). But the response of the officials of Succoth was shocking! “And the officials of Succoth said, ‘Are the hands of Zebah and Zalmunna already in your hand, that we should give bread to your army?’” (8:6). Gideon’s polite request for assistance was answered with a harsh rejection. These Israelites refused to respond to Gideon’s request without any proof – they wanted to see these two kings in Gideon’s possession before they would consent to providing them with any food. This is an unbelievable response for two reasons. The first is that these are fellow Israelites. Such a harsh rejection is completely unexpected from another Israelite tribe. The second reason is that only a few verses earlier Gideon had made a far more challenging request and 32,000 Israelites (some who were angry with Gideon for destroying their objects and places of false worship) had responded favorably (see 6:34-35 and 7:23). We earlier noted that the reason for the Israelites’ favorable response in those verses was the fact that “the Spirit of the Lord clothed Gideon” (6:34). So this rejection by the officials at Succoth begs the question, “Has the Spirit of the Lord which was earlier clothing Gideon left him?” And the answer appears to be ‘yes.’

Further evidence that the Spirit of the Lord had left Gideon can be found in Gideon’s response to the officials at Succoth. Instead of answering these officials with a gentle word Gideon fires back angrily at his fellow Israelites. “So Gideon said, ‘Well then, when the Lord has given Zebah and Zalmunna into my hand, I will flail your flesh with the thorns of the wilderness and with briers’” (8:7). Gideon promised this group of Israelites that after he had taken possession of these Midianite kings he would return and physically punish them for their rejection of his authority. Verses 8-9 then reveal that this wasn’t an isolated event. Gideon and the 300 men made there way to another Israelite town (Penuel), made the same request, and received the same rejection. So in like manner Gideon promised to return to Penuel as well and to punish them for their rejection of his authority by tearing down their defensive tower.

In 8:10-12 the text tells us that Gideon and his army of 300 men caught up with the two kings of Midian (and the remaining 15,000 soldiers of the original 135,000) and that they were able to capture the two kings. So in 8:13-17 Gideon returned to Succoth and to Penuel with these kings in tow. And in these verses we discover the one who was supposed to be the deliverer of Israel inflicting incredible punishment upon his fellow Israelites. The one who had been appointed to rescue the Israelites was in verse 16 flailing his fellow Israelites, and was in verse 17 killing them. This is unbelievable behavior from one who had been appointed to rescue and deliver Israel from those who were physically oppressing them.

Verses 18-21 are incredibly important for understanding the context of what is transpiring in chapter 8. Gideon, having inflicted unbelievable punishment upon other Israelites, now turns his attention to the kings of Midian. “Then he said to Zebah and Zalmunna, ‘Where are the men whom you killed at Tabor?’” (8:18). We discover in this verse that the Midianites had done more than just come into Israelite territory to take their produce and leave the Israelites without any sustenance (see 6:3-4), they had also murdered some of the Israelites. The question Gideon asks is an interesting one because the men were dead, so it’s unclear exactly what he was after. Whatever it was that he was asking, it appears that the answer of the Midianite kings doesn’t really address Gideon’s question. Instead it appears to be some kind of mocking flattery. The kings of Midian answer Gideon that the men they killed all resembled him – they all appeared to be “sons of a king.” While to some degree this appears to be flattering, it was also a direct shot at Gideon’s character and leadership. It’s as if they were saying that Gideon didn’t have the character and ability to be a king. While he was clearly the leader of the people he didn’t have what it took to be a king – at best he was the son of a king. Then we discover who exactly these murdered individuals were. “And he [Gideon] said, ‘They were my brothers, the sons of my mother’” (8:19). The individuals who had been murdered by the Midianites were Gideon’s own brothers. So he continues, “As the Lord lives, if you had saved them alive, I would not kill you.” Gideon told these kings that had they spared the lives of his brothers that he would have spared their own lives. But what is implied is that because his brothers had been killed, Gideon was going to kill them. This is where we discover what this pursuit has been all about. Gideon has a personal vendetta against these kings because they have murdered his brothers and he has taken the 300 men with him in pursuit of these kings so that he can revenge what has been done to his family. Gideon was no longer acting as an agent of God to deliver the Israelites from their oppressors – Gideon was acting on his own initiatives so that he might shed the blood of those who had murdered his brothers.

After making his intentions known the reader is then astonished to discover Gideon’s plan for carrying them out. “So he [Gideon] said to Jether his firstborn, ‘Rise and kill them!’” (8:20). Gideon didn’t want to carry out the murder of these kings himself – he wanted his oldest son to do it. But the author and narrator of the book of Judges gives the reader of the text some insight into the mind of the Jether. Jether was apparently still a young man and the idea of murdering these kings was a frightful idea for him. So rather than drawing out his sword and putting them to death, Jether leaves his sword in its sheath. Still alive, the kings of Midian use this as an opportunity to ridicule Gideon. They saw Gideon’s command for his son to kill them as a sign of his own inability and weakness. So the two kings of Midian began to taunt Gideon, “Rise yourself and fall upon us, for as the man is, so is his strength” (8:21). Although Gideon and his 300 men had been able to capture these two kings there is nothing in the text that suggests that they were impressed with Gideon. Earlier they had said that he resembled the “son of a king” instead of a “king,” and here it seems that they view him as weak because he commands his son to kill them rather than taking the opportunity to kill them himself. So these kings challenge Gideon’s own strength and leadership and belittle him for the weakness that they perceive in him. Gideon responds to their taunt by doing as they suggest – he rises and strikes both of the Midianite kings dead. Then the author and narrator gives the first of several important details, “and he [Gideon] took the crescent ornaments that were on the necks of their camels” (8:21). These crescent ornaments were symbols of royalty, they were symbols of a king. And the author and narrator ends this particular section by telling us that Gideon takes these symbols into his own possession – he makes them his own.

The word ‘then’ that begins verse 22 marks a new section. Noting that the previous section has ended with Gideon stepping outside God’s call for his life to carry out his own personal vendetta and having taken for himself the crescent ornaments of royalty from the two Midianite kings, we discover the Israelite people making Gideon an offer. “Then the men of Israel said to Gideon, ‘Rule over us, you and your son and your grandson also, for you have saved us from the hand of Midian’” (8:22). Reading this verse our reaction should be, “What is going on!?!?” God had not called Gideon to be king over Israel, He had called him to be a deliverer. So why are the Israelites asking Gideon to be their king? We also see that the Israelites have somehow missed just exactly who had made this deliverance possible. The Israelites said to Gideon, “you have saved us from the hand of Midian,” but this could not be any further from the truth. God had warned that this might happen back in 7:2, “the Lord said to Gideon, ‘The people with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hand, lest Israel boast over Me, saying ‘My own hand has saved me.’’” God knew that there may be potential for Israel to try to take credit for their victory or to give the credit to Gideon. But God had also been clear about who would provide the victory. In 7:7 God said to Gideon, “With the 300 men . . . I will save you and give the Midianites into your hand.” And in 7:22 we saw that that was exactly what took place, “When they blew the 300 trumpets, the Lord set every man’s sword against his comrade and against all the army.” The deliverance that the Israelites had experienced had not come “by” Gideon, God had accomplished it “through” Gideon. So to give Gideon credit for their deliverance and ask him to rule over them as king was wrong and was a violation to the law of God. The credit was God’s and the position of ruler was God’s, unless He specifically appointed someone as king.

For a brief moment we have hope that perhaps Gideon still had some sense of his position as a servant of God when he responds to the Israelites’ request in verse 23. “Gideon said to them, ‘I will not rule over you, and my son will not rule over you; the Lord will rule over you.’” But we’re quickly reminded of the truth that “actions speak louder than words.” Immediately following Gideon’s verbal response in verse 23 we find Gideon engaging in acts that are typically reserved for kings. In verse 24 Gideon asks the Israelites to give him a portion of their spoils from their victory. In making this request Gideon assumed a position of authority or royalty, and in consenting to his request (8:25) the Israelites are affirming that they view Gideon as one who has a position of royal authority. The affirmation that both the Israelites and Gideon viewed him in this light is confirmed even more when we look at the amount of the spoil and what was given to Gideon, “And the weight of the golden earrings that he requested was 1,700 shekels of gold [43 pounds], besides the crescent ornaments and the pendants and the purple garments worn by the kings of Midian.” Seventeen hundred shekels of gold was an enormous amount of gold to be given to an individual – it was an amount that clearly resembled a royal gift. The crescent ornaments, pendants, and purple garments were also all objects that were reserved for royalty. In receiving these gifts and taking them as his own possessions Gideon was assuming the position of a king. Additionally, Gideon assumed a king’s position when he creates an object of worship and puts it on display for all the nation of Israel to chase after (8:27). Note that in verse 27 Gideon did more than place a false god or object of worship in his own home for he and his family to worship, he put it on display in the city of Ophrah (where earlier he had torn down both an altar to Baal and an Asherah pole) so that “all Israel whored after it.” Verses 29-30 continue with more evidence that Gideon, though verbally denouncing the position of king, had in fact assumed that position. Verse 29 declares that Gideon was departing from his father’s house to establish and own house. Then verse 30 gives even more insight which adds to the significance of verse 29. Verse 30 tells us that having established his own house Gideon took for himself many wives which bore him 70 sons. Families of this size were not common among regular citizens, but were far more common of kings. It was kings who would take for themselves numerous wives and who would produce so many children. Lastly, verse 31 tells us that Gideon took for himself a concubine from Shechem (i.e. a Canaanite woman) who bore him a son, whom he named ‘Abimelech’ – which means “the king [Gideon] is my father.”

Gideon’s words in 8:23 sound as if he understood that God alone was to reign as King over Israel, but Gideon’s many actions which followed declared something entirely different. Gideon’s actions declared that he saw himself as more than the God-appointed deliverer to rescue Israel from the Midianite and Amalekite oppression – Gideon saw himself as Israel’s king. What resulted was Gideon going beyond God’s plan for him to rescue Israel from the Midianites to carry out his own personal vendetta against the Midianite kings. He also went beyond God’s appointed position of deliverer and assumed for himself the position of king. The last part of Gideon’s life was an epic fail – but even Gideon’s failures were surpassed by the failures of the Israelites after Gideon’s death. “As soon as Gideon died, the people of Israel turned again and whored after the Baals and made Baal-berith their god. And the people of Israel did not remember the Lord their God, who had delivered them from the hand of all their enemies on every side, and they did not show steadfast love to the family of Jerubbaal (that is, Gideon) in return for all the good that he dad done to Israel” (8:33-35). After Gideon died the Israelites did more than forget their God and the work He had done to rescue and deliver them from their physical enemies, the author and narrator of the book of Judges tells us that the Israelites replaced God, by making Baal-berith their god.

Now let me try to make some points of application. It’s easy for many of us who are believers in Christ to look down upon Gideon and his failures. Along with his victories, his short-comings and failures have been recorded in God’s words for all of us to see. It’s easy for us to look back upon his life and shake our head in utter disappointment because his failures were so great. But the Gideon narrative that we have been examining for three weeks now doesn’t end on Gideon’s failures – it ends on the even greater failure of the Israelites who had replaced the one, true God with a false god, making him the object of their worship. So believer in Christ the question for us is, “How many of us have done this same thing?” Now don’t be quick to fire back, “Not me!” without first doing some self-examination. I would suggest that we can look all across the landscape of our communities, our state, and our country and find individuals who have done just as these Israelites had. All around us (in fact probably many of us) are individuals who have professed faith in Jesus as the One who saved them from their sin, but who have since replaced Him with another little ‘g’ god. If we would take an honest look at our lives many of us would find that we are guilty of replacing God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit as the only One worthy of our worship. We have taken Jesus off the throne of our lives and we have put something else in His place. I know many of you are probably still not convinced – so let me give you a few examples. Many of us have taken Jesus off the throne and replaced him with ‘legalism.’ There was a time when we trusted in Jesus’ death and resurrection as the only means for our forgiveness and reconciliation, but since that time something has changed. We believe that at one time we were saved by Jesus, but now be are trusting in the works that we do to keep us in right standing. We believe that if God is going to be pleased with us we have to prove it through our good works. So we read our Bible daily, not to draw close to God or to know Him more, but just so we can check it off of our “good things to do that will make God happy" list. We go to church on Sunday mornings, not because we want to worship, but so when God looks at the “church attendance” column on the “good things to do that will make God happy" list He will see more ‘presents’ than ‘absents.’ We take pride in our charitable acts, in the things that we ‘suffer’ for Jesus’ name, and in our obedience to the commands of God, because we believe that Jesus may have first saved us, but now it is our good works that keep us in right standing. This isn’t the good news of the gospel though! The gospel isn’t ‘Jesus’ plus ‘works.’ The good news of the gospel is that Jesus, and Jesus alone, is sufficient to save us from our sin, to reconcile us to God, and to justify and make us more like Him. But how many of us have turned from faith alone in Christ to faith in Jesus plus our good works?

Others of us have swung to the other side of the continuum. We haven’t replaced Jesus with works, we have replaced Him with ourselves. This is the devastating view of God’s grace as ‘cheap grace.’ We professed faith in Jesus at one time as Savior of our sin, and understood that we are covered by His grace. But many of us have taken the grace that was extended to us as a license to sin and to pursue whatever feels good and right to us. When we put ourselves on the throne, God’s word is no longer authoritative to help us know Him and relate rightly to Him – we get to decide those things. We determine what we think God’s character is like. We determine what behaviors are okay and which ones aren’t. We believe that the gospel is all about us! Jesus loves me! Jesus died for me! Jesus covered me with grace! So Jesus and God must want me to be happy! And ultimately we take God and we take Jesus and we turn them into resources and tools to help us achieve whatever it is we want. It’s hard to believe that this is what we do. Finite, created beings, who have no glory or majesty of our own, who have nothing that deserves worship or praise, turn towards the only One who is and demand that He make much of us. We sit with open Bibles and look critically upon Gideon for his short-comings and failures and all the while we are guilty of a far greater sin – we have replaced the worship of God and Jesus with the worship of ourselves. This behavior and belief demands that we repent, and plead with God to help us surrender our lives once again to Him.

Allow me to also speak quickly to the skeptic, doubter, and seeker. The entire Bible is telling us an amazing story about God and His extraordinary work of rescue and deliverance. The beginning of the Bible tells us that God created everything there is and that when He created it it was perfect – without any fault or blemish. The first individuals God created were the crowning jewel of this creation and God gave to them authority over all creation, but along with that He gave them a free will to make their own choices. The free will He gave to them had everything to do with their worship of Him. God did not want them to worship Him because He demanded it or because it was a requirement. God wanted them to see that His goodness, His love, His kindness, His righteousness, and His holiness exceeded all other things and God wanted His creation to worship and exalt Him as they recognized that there was nothing that compared to Him. But these first individuals, Adam and Eve, bought into a lie from Satan – that even though they were created beings they could be like God. And so in one defining moment Adam and Eve chose to disobey God’s command and sin entered the world messing up everything. As a result of that one sin mankind was no longer righteous and our consequence was separation from God, both now and forever. There was nothing that Adam and Eve (nor any of us) could do to earn back their righteousness or to re-establish a connection with God. Adam and Eve and all of us became hopeless and dead in our sin and trespasses. But God made an amazing promise to Adam and Eve as He was pronouncing the consequences for their sin – God promised to do what they could not do for themselves. He promised to send a Deliverer to rescue them. And throughout the portion of the Bible that we call the OT God was giving us glimpses of who this Deliverer would be. Even throughout the book of Judges we have been seeing these glimpses. We see in the lives of men who God raised up clues as to what the promised Deliverer would look like. In Gideon’s life we saw a man who was a God-appointed deliverer for the people of Israel, who did more than simply deliver God’s people from their physical enemies – in one scene he also destroyed the false gods who the Israelites had turned to. So God reveals to us that the coming Deliverer will be One who rescues us from more than our physical enemies, He will be one who defeats and destroys every idol and false god that humanity has turned to in worship. Gideon was only a glimpse of the coming Deliverer though, because while he was a God-appointed deliverer, he was not a God-appointed king. The narrative of Gideon helps us as a reader to understand that the One whom God promised to deliverer us from sin and Satan will be more than the God-appointed Deliverer, He will also be the God-appointed King! And the good news of the NT is that God sent His one and only Son, Jesus, as the promised and Rescuer. When we could not get back to God, God wrapped His Son in flesh and sent Him to us. Jesus’ ministry ultimately led Him to the cross where Scripture tells us He became our substitute. The wrath of God and the death that each of us deserved for our sin He took upon Himself. He died in our place and then three days later rose again in new life. And now Jesus has returned to the throne of heaven where He is ruling and reigning as the God-appointed King over all things. Additionally, the new life that He has, He offers to us! No longer do we have to remain dead in our trespasses and sins, we can have new life in Christ. It’s not something that we earn! It’s a free gift! And it isn’t lacking in sufficiency to save! Our salvation isn’t ‘Jesus’ plus ‘something else.’ Salvation is available by the grace of God alone, through faith in Jesus alone. God longs to restore every part of creation that our sin has marred. That is what salvation is all about – God restoring all things so that once again He will be recognized as the most glorious, majestic, and praise-worthy One in all of creation. And He invites you and me to experience that restoration by placing our faith in Jesus as Savior and Lord. But understand this – it is an offer that demands a response. You can believe that Jesus is the Son of God who came to rescue us from sin and its consequences and to reconcile us to God, or you can reject that truth. But there is no such thing as a non-response. Anything less than belief in Jesus as God’s Son and Savior is a rejection of Him and His sovereign rule and authority. And when we choose to reject Christ we have no hope of salvation and reconciliation. So what will your choice be?