We’ve been told that Gideon liked working the night shift out of fear (Jdg 6:27). But God…
It was night when the Lord told Gideon to destroy his father’s altar (Jdg 6:25). Also at night (7:9) He told him to spy out the camp. And his big battle was at night, too. Isn’t the Lord thoughtful? “For He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust” (Ps 103:14). But imagine Gideon and his servant sitting in the dark at the edge of the Midian camp. We’re told the enemy was “as numerous as locusts” (Jdg 7:12), so what’s the chance that they happened on the one soldier telling another his dream about a huge pita bread rolling into camp and flattening a tent? I know what that means, says his friend: “This is nothing else but the sword of Gideon… Into his hand God has delivered Midian and the whole camp” (v 14). A miracle—just for encouragement! No wonder “he worshiped” (v 15). But back to reality. They better have something more potent than barley bread to knock off the enemy. Oh yes! “He put a trumpet into every man’s hand, with empty pitchers, and torches inside the pitchers” (v 16). Spread around the mountain, they advanced from three directions just after the changing of the guard. “Then the three companies blew the trumpets and broke the pitchers…and they cried, ‘The sword of the Lord and of Gideon!’” (v 20). What would the watchmen see? Not individual soldiers blowing trumpets; each would be raising the charge for a battalion. So those on each flank imagined not 100 soldiers, but 100 battalions moving toward them! With a torch in one hand and a trumpet occupying the other, Gideon’s men needed someone else to handle the swords. Who could that be? As Midian fled toward the summit, “the Lord set every man’s sword against his companion” (v 22). Amazingly, the Midianite army defeated itself!