Commentary - Judges 6:7-10

Bird's-eye view

In this brief but potent passage, we find Israel in the familiar trough of their own making. Having once again done evil in the sight of the Lord, they are suffering under the heavy hand of the Midianites. Their cry to Yahweh is not necessarily a mark of deep, godly repentance, but rather a cry of pain from the consequences of their sin. God, in His mercy, does not immediately send the deliverer they want, but first sends the prophet they need. This is a crucial step in the Deuteronomic cycle that defines the book of Judges. Before God delivers His people from their external enemies, He first confronts them about their internal sin. The unnamed prophet comes as a prosecuting attorney, delivering a formal covenant lawsuit from God. He rehearses God's foundational acts of grace in the Exodus, reminding them of who God is and what He has done. He then lays the charge: despite God's clear command and gracious provision, they have disobeyed. This passage serves as a divine diagnosis before the divine cure, reminding us that true deliverance is never just a change in circumstances, but a restoration of covenant faithfulness.

The core of the message is a pointed reminder of their identity and obligations. They were a delivered people, rescued from slavery and given a land, all by the mighty hand of God. Their one central obligation was to fear Yahweh alone, rejecting the impotent gods of the Amorites. Their failure was not merely tactical; it was theological. They had forgotten their God and His voice. This prophetic word sets the stage for the appearance of Gideon, ensuring that when the deliverance comes, Israel cannot misunderstand it as their own doing or as a result of their own cleverness. It is God's grace from start to finish, a grace that wounds with the truth before it heals with salvation.

Outline

Context In Judges

This passage is a textbook example of the cycle that characterizes the book of Judges: sin, oppression, crying out, and deliverance. Israel has done evil, specifically by worshipping Baal (Judges 6:1), and God has handed them over to the Midianites for seven years (Judges 6:1). The oppression is severe, driving the Israelites into hiding in mountains and caves (Judges 6:2) and devastating their economy (Judges 6:3-6). The people are brought "very low" (Judges 6:6). It is at this point that they cry out to Yahweh. The sending of the prophet in our text is God's first response. It precedes the call of Gideon, which begins in the very next verse (Judges 6:11). This placement is theologically significant. It demonstrates that God is more concerned with His people's hearts than with their comfort. Before He sends a warrior to fight the Midianites, He sends a messenger to confront the idolatry that brought the Midianites in the first place. The prophet's speech serves as the theological foundation for the entire Gideon narrative, framing the upcoming deliverance not as a military victory but as a divine act of covenant renewal.

Key Issues

The Word Before the Sword

It is a fixed principle in God's dealings with His people that the Word comes before the sword. This is true whether we are talking about the sword of judgment or the sword of deliverance. Before God acts, He speaks. He explains what He is doing and why He is doing it, so that His actions might be rightly understood. Here, Israel is in misery, and they want a deliverer. They want a man with a sword to drive out the Midianites. But God knows that their problem is not fundamentally a Midianite problem; it is a Yahweh problem. They have forgotten Him.

So, before Gideon is even introduced, God sends this unnamed prophet. The prophet's job is not to fight, but to talk. His task is to re-establish the covenantal context. He is to remind Israel of the story they are a part of. This is what we call "forth-telling," which is the primary work of a prophet. It's not just about predicting the future; it's about explaining the present in light of God's revealed will. The prophet essentially says, "You want to know why you are hiding in caves? You want to know why the Midianites are eating your lunch? Let me tell you. It is because you have broken the covenant. You have failed to listen to the voice of the one who saved you." This word of rebuke is actually an act of grace. It is the necessary surgery before the healing can begin. God is re-calibrating their understanding so that when Gideon does arrive, they will see him not as a political hero, but as an instrument of the God they had forgotten.

Verse by Verse Commentary

7 Now it happened when the sons of Israel cried out to Yahweh on account of Midian,

The cycle continues. After seven years of being plundered and impoverished, the pain becomes unbearable, and so they cry out. We should not necessarily read this as a full-throated, heartfelt, national repentance. Often in Judges, this "crying out" is more of a shriek of pain than a prayer of contrition. They are crying out "on account of Midian." Their problem is the consequence of their sin, not yet the sin itself. But God, in His profound mercy, hears even this kind of cry. He is a Father who hears the cry of His child, even if the child is only crying because he got the spanking he deserved. This cry, however imperfect, is the occasion God uses to turn back to them in grace.

8a that Yahweh sent a prophet to the sons of Israel,

Notice God's first move. He does not send an army. He does not send a charismatic general. He sends a man with a message. He sends a prophet. The fact that the prophet is unnamed is significant. He is not the point; his message is. He is simply a voice, a conduit for the word of Yahweh. This is how God always works. "Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God" (Rom. 10:17). Before God saves them from Midian, He must first save them from their own foolishness and forgetfulness. He must re-establish the truth. The solution to their political and economic crisis is, first and foremost, theological.

8b-9 and he said to them, “Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, ‘It was I who brought you up from Egypt and brought you out from the house of slavery. I delivered you from the hands of the Egyptians and from the hands of all your oppressors and drove them out before you and gave you their land,

The prophet opens his case with the standard formula: "Thus says Yahweh." This is not his opinion; this is a divine oracle. And what is the first thing God wants them to remember? The Exodus. This is the bedrock of Israel's identity. He reminds them of who He is by reminding them of what He has done. He is the God who acts in history on their behalf. Notice the repetition of "I." "I brought you up... I brought you out... I delivered you... I... gave you their land." Their entire existence as a free people in a promised land was a gift of God's grace. He rescued them from slavery, He delivered them from their powerful oppressors, and He dispossessed the inhabitants of Canaan before them. This is the foundation of the covenant relationship. God acted first in grace, and all His commands flow from that initial act of salvation.

10a and I said to you, “I am Yahweh your God; you shall not fear the gods of the Amorites in whose land you live.

Having established the basis of His relationship with them, His saving acts, God now states His central demand. This is the great stipulation of the covenant. "I am Yahweh your God." This is a statement of exclusive relationship. Because He is their God, the one who saved them, they are to have no other gods. Specifically, they are not to "fear" the gods of the Amorites. Fear here means more than just being scared; it means to revere, to worship, to serve. The choice was simple: fear the God who delivered you from Egypt, or fear the impotent idols of the people God drove out before you. It was a choice between the proven Redeemer and the proven losers. The command was not burdensome; it was a call to live in the reality of what God had already done for them.

10b But you have not listened to My voice.” ’ ”

Here is the charge, the verdict of the covenant lawsuit. It is simple, direct, and devastating. "But you have not listened to My voice." All of God's mighty acts, all of His gracious provision, all of His clear commands were met with covenantal deafness. Their sin was not, at its root, a failure to perform certain rituals. It was a failure to listen to the voice of their God. They had exchanged the voice of the living God for the mute idols of the Amorites. And the result of this disobedience was their current oppression under Midian. The prophet has laid the case bare. Their suffering is not an accident. It is the direct consequence of their covenant infidelity. The diagnosis is complete. Now, and only now, is the stage set for the cure.

Application

This passage is a bucket of cold water in the face for every Christian and every church that finds itself in a state of spiritual decline or under external pressure. When we are in trouble, our first instinct is to look for a practical, political, or strategic solution. We want a Gideon to show up and fix our problems. We want a change in our circumstances. But God's first word to us is often the word of this unnamed prophet. He points us back to first principles.

Before we can be delivered from the Midianites in our lives, whatever they may be, we must first be confronted with our own covenant unfaithfulness. The prophet's message forces us to ask the hard questions. Have we forgotten the great deliverance God has accomplished for us in Jesus Christ? Do we live our lives in light of the fact that He brought us out of the house of slavery to sin and death? Or have we started to fear the gods of the Amorites in whose land we live, the gods of security, comfort, acceptance, and power? The central sin is always a failure to listen to His voice, a failure to live by His Word.

The application, then, is to welcome the prophetic word of rebuke. When Scripture convicts us, we must not resent it. It is the necessary prelude to grace. True deliverance begins when we stop blaming our circumstances (the Midianites) and start confessing our sin (our idolatry). We must allow God's Word to remind us of who He is, what He has done for us in the gospel, and what He requires of us in response. Only then, when we are rightly oriented to Him, are we ready for the Gideon He wants to send. God's pattern remains the same: first the Word, then the deliverance.