The Terrible Meek Text: Judges 7:19-25
Introduction: God's Unconventional Warfare
We live in an age that prizes strength, credentials, and overwhelming force. Our military strategists talk about shock and awe. Our politicians build coalitions. Our business leaders leverage assets. The world's wisdom is to accumulate power, minimize risk, and trust in the arm of the flesh. And then we come to a passage like this one in Judges, and all our worldly wisdom is turned on its head. God's ways are not our ways, and His thoughts are not our thoughts. When God decides to win a victory, He often does it in such a way that no man can take the credit. He delights in using the weak to shame the strong, the foolish to shame the wise, and the few to rout the many.
The story of Gideon is a master class in the tactics of Heaven. God had already whittled Gideon's army down from thirty-two thousand men to a mere three hundred. He did this for a very specific reason: "lest Israel boast against Me, saying, 'My own hand has saved me.'" God is jealous for His glory. He will not share it with another. He orchestrates events so that the outcome can only be attributed to Him. This is not cosmic vanity; it is a profound mercy. The most dangerous place for a man to be is in a position where he believes his own press, where he thinks his own strength and cleverness have secured his blessings. That is the direct road to ruin.
So God sets the stage for a victory that is so bizarre, so contrary to military sense, that only a fool would attempt it without a direct command from God. And only God could make it succeed. This is not just a historical account of a strange battle. This is a paradigm for the Christian life and for the mission of the Church. We are the 300. We are called to face an overwhelming enemy, not with the world's weapons, but with the foolishness of the gospel, the light of Christ in fragile clay pots, and the trumpet blast of God's proclaimed Word. What we see here in the valley of Jezreel is a picture of the spiritual warfare we are all engaged in.
The world looks at the church and sees a small, fractured, and frankly, weird little band. They see our clay pots and hear our trumpets and they scoff. But they do not see the hand of God. They do not understand that the battle is the Lord's. The victory is not won by our might, nor by our power, but by His Spirit. This passage teaches us how to fight and win God's way.
The Text
So Gideon and the hundred men who were with him came to the outskirts of the camp at the beginning of the middle watch, when they had just set up the watch; and they blew the trumpets and smashed the pitchers that were in their hands. Then the three companies blew the trumpets and broke the pitchers, and they held the torches in their left hands and the trumpets in their right hands for blowing and called out, "A sword for Yahweh and for Gideon!" And each stood in his place around the camp. Then all of the camp ran, and they made a loud shout and fled. So they blew 300 trumpets. And Yahweh set the sword of one against another even throughout the whole camp. And the camp fled as far as Beth-shittah toward Zererah, as far as the edge of Abel-meholah, by Tabbath. And the men of Israel were summoned from Naphtali and Asher and all Manasseh, and they pursued Midian.
Now Gideon had sent messengers throughout all the hill country of Ephraim, saying, "Come down to meet Midian and capture the waters before them, as far as Beth-barah and the Jordan." So all the men of Ephraim were summoned, and they captured the waters as far as Beth-barah and the Jordan. Then they captured the two princes of Midian, Oreb and Zeeb, and they killed Oreb at the rock of Oreb, and they killed Zeeb at the wine press of Zeeb. Then they pursued Midian and brought the heads of Oreb and Zeeb to Gideon from across the Jordan.
(Judges 7:19-25 LSB)
Psychological and Spiritual Shock and Awe (vv. 19-21)
The attack begins with perfect timing and with weapons designed not for physical assault, but for shattering the enemy's morale.
"So Gideon and the hundred men who were with him came to the outskirts of the camp at the beginning of the middle watch, when they had just set up the watch; and they blew the trumpets and smashed the pitchers that were in their hands. Then the three companies blew the trumpets and broke the pitchers, and they held the torches in their left hands and the trumpets in their right hands for blowing and called out, 'A sword for Yahweh and for Gideon!' And each stood in his place around the camp. Then all of the camp ran, and they made a loud shout and fled." (Judges 7:19-21)
Notice the tactical precision. They arrive at the "beginning of the middle watch," which would be around 10 p.m. The new guards have just been posted; they are still adjusting to the darkness, and the rest of the camp is in a deep sleep. It is the moment of maximum vulnerability. God's timing is always perfect.
Then comes the assault. It is an assault on the senses. Imagine being a Midianite soldier, asleep in your tent. Suddenly, you are jolted awake by the shattering of pottery and the blast of 300 trumpets from every direction. You stumble out of your tent to see 300 blazing torches surrounding the camp, making it seem like you are encircled by a vast army. And then you hear the terrifying war cry: "A sword for Yahweh and for Gideon!"
This is God's version of shock and awe. The weapons are symbolic, and they are potent. The pitchers are clay pots, representing the weakness and fragility of Gideon's men. They are earthen vessels. But when these vessels are broken, the light within is revealed. This is a direct parallel to the Christian life. Paul says, "But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves" (2 Corinthians 4:7). For the light of Christ to shine through us, our self-reliance, our pride, our clay pots must be shattered. The Christian life is a life of brokenness, a life where our weakness becomes the showcase for God's strength.
The torches represent the light of God's presence and truth in the midst of darkness. And the trumpets, the shofars, are instruments of proclamation. In the Old Testament, trumpets were used to announce the presence of God, to call the people to worship, and to signal a declaration of war. Gideon's men were not fighting; they were announcing. They were heralding the judgment of God. Their battle cry puts it in the right order: "A sword for Yahweh and for Gideon!" God is first. Gideon is His instrument. This is not Gideon's war; he is simply a junior officer in Yahweh's army.
And the result is panic. "All of the camp ran." God used light and sound to throw a massive army into utter confusion. They did not even have to fight. They just had to show up, break their pots, blow their horns, and stand their ground. "Each stood in his place around the camp." This is a crucial detail. Their job was to hold their position and let God do the fighting. So often, our task is simply to stand firm in the truth, to hold our position, and watch the salvation of the Lord.
The Lord's Battle (vv. 22-23)
The narrative makes it explicitly clear who is responsible for the victory.
"So they blew 300 trumpets. And Yahweh set the sword of one against another even throughout the whole camp. And the camp fled... And the men of Israel were summoned from Naphtali and Asher and all Manasseh, and they pursued Midian." (Judges 7:22-23 LSB)
The 300 blew their trumpets, and Yahweh went to work. The text says it plainly: "Yahweh set the sword of one against another." In the darkness and confusion, the Midianites and their allies began slaughtering each other. God turned their own strength against them. This is a repeated pattern in Scripture. God often defeats His enemies by turning their own counsels and their own weapons back on themselves. Haman builds a gallows for Mordecai and ends up swinging on it himself. The enemies of Daniel have him thrown into the lions' den, and they and their families end up as lion food. God is the master of this kind of ironic justice.
This is a profound comfort for the church. We face enemies who seem to have all the power, all the influence, all the weapons. But God can take the incoherent rage of the wicked and make them devour one another. When a culture abandons God's law, it does not become free; it becomes self-destructive. The ideologies of our day are shot through with contradictions that must eventually turn on themselves. Our job is not to despair, but to blow the trumpet of the gospel and watch as God causes the kingdoms of this world to collapse under the weight of their own rebellion.
Only after the route is complete are the other men of Israel, the ones who were sent home earlier, summoned to pursue the fleeing enemy. The 300 were used for the decisive blow, the miracle. The larger army is used for the mopping-up operation. God uses different people for different tasks, but the glory for the victory belongs to Him alone.
Cutting Off the Head (vv. 24-25)
The final section of this chapter details the capture and execution of the Midianite leadership.
"Now Gideon had sent messengers throughout all the hill country of Ephraim, saying, 'Come down to meet Midian and capture the waters before them...' Then they captured the two princes of Midian, Oreb and Zeeb, and they killed Oreb at the rock of Oreb, and they killed Zeeb at the wine press of Zeeb. Then they pursued Midian and brought the heads of Oreb and Zeeb to Gideon from across the Jordan." (Judges 7:24-25 LSB)
Gideon shows his tactical wisdom here. He sends messengers to the men of Ephraim to cut off the escape route at the fords of the Jordan River. This is a classic military maneuver. The Ephraimites succeed, and they capture two of the Midianite princes, Oreb and Zeeb. Their names are significant. Oreb means "raven," and Zeeb means "wolf." These are predators, and they are brought to justice.
They are executed, and the places of their execution are named after them: the rock of Oreb and the wine press of Zeeb. This serves as a permanent memorial of God's judgment. This is not a pretty, sanitized story for a felt-board Sunday School class. This is holy war. God is a God of justice, and justice requires the punishment of evil. Our modern, sentimental age recoils at this. We want a God who is a celestial guidance counselor, not a divine warrior. But the God of the Bible is both a Savior and a Judge. He is gentle as a lamb and fierce as a lion. To remove the theme of righteous judgment from the Scriptures is to gut them of their moral seriousness.
The heads of the princes are then brought to Gideon. This was a common practice in the ancient world, a tangible proof of victory. But it is more than that. It is a picture of the final victory of Christ. The seed of the woman was promised to crush the head of the serpent (Genesis 3:15). In this story, the heads of the raven and the wolf, these symbols of predatory evil, are brought in defeat to God's chosen leader. It is a foretaste of that final day when every enemy, including the last enemy, death, will be put under the feet of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Conclusion: The Sword of the Lord Today
So what does this mean for us? We are not called to take up literal swords and kill the enemies of God. The battle has shifted from the physical to the spiritual. As Paul says, "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places" (Ephesians 6:12).
But the principles of Gideon's warfare are timeless. Our victory is not dependent on our numbers or our strength. It is entirely dependent on the power of God. Our weapons are not carnal. We do not fight with political coercion or worldly manipulation. We fight with the trumpet of the gospel, proclaiming the lordship of Jesus Christ. We fight with the light of the truth, shining out from our broken, fragile lives. We are the clay pots.
And our central message is a war cry: "A sword for Yahweh and for Christ!" The sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, is our offensive weapon. When we proclaim God's Word, God Himself sets the sword of confusion into the enemy's camp. Their arguments collapse. Their ideologies turn on themselves. Their rebellion eats its own young.
We must learn to stand in our place. We must be faithful where God has put us, holding our ground, shining our light, and sounding our trumpet. And we must not be surprised when God brings the heads of our spiritual enemies to us in defeat. The raven of despair and the wolf of temptation will be defeated. The battle belongs to the Lord. He has already won the decisive victory at the cross and the empty tomb. Our job now is the mopping-up operation, pursuing the routed enemy until the day our great Gideon returns, and every foe is vanquished forever.