Gideon (; ) also named Jerubbaal and Jerubbesheth, was a military leader, judge and prophet whose calling and victory over the Midianites are recounted in of the Book of Judges in the Hebrew Bible.
Gideon was the son of Joash, from the Abiezrite clan in the tribe of Manasseh and lived in Ephra (Ophrah). As a leader of the Israelites, he won a decisive victory over a Midianite army despite a vast numerical disadvantage, leading a troop of 300 "valiant" men. Archaeologists in southern Israel have found a 3,100-year-old fragment of a jug with five letters written in ink that appear to represent the name Jerubbaal, or Yeruba'al.
Names
The nineteenth-century Strong's Concordance derives the name "Jerubbaal" from "Baal will contend", in accordance with the folk etymology, given in . According to biblical scholar Lester Grabbe (2007), "[Judges] 6.32 gives a nonsensical etymology of his name; it means something like 'Let Baal be great.
Likewise, where Strong gave the meaning "hewer" to the name Gideon, Biblical scholar Simon John DeVries (1975) suggests the etymology "driver".
The "besheth" part of the name "Jerubbesheth" () means "shame". This a pious editorialization of "Baal", as is also found in the names of Saul's son Ish-bosheth and grandson Mephibosheth.
Biblical narrative
As is the pattern throughout the Book of Judges, the Israelites again turned away from Yahweh after 40 years of peace brought by Deborah's victory over Canaan; as punishment, the Midianites, Amalekites and other Bedouin peoples harried Israel for seven years.
Calling
God chose Gideon, a young man from the tribe of Manasseh, to free the people of Israel and to condemn their idolatry. The Angel of the Lord, or "the Lord’s angelic messenger" came "in the character ... of a traveller who sat down in the shade [of the terebinth tree] to enjoy a little refreshment and repose" and entered into conversation with Gideon. The narrative has echoes of the meeting between Abraham and the visitors who came to him in the terebinths of Mamre and promised Abraham and Sarah, in their old age, that they would have a son (). The angel greeted Gideon: "The Lord is with you, you mighty man of valor!"
Gideon requested proof of God's will by three miracles: firstly a sign from the angel, in which the angel appeared to Gideon and caused fire to shoot up out of a rock, and then two signs involving a fleece, performed on consecutive nights and the exact opposite of each other. First Gideon woke up to his fleece covered in dew, but the surrounding ground dry; then the next morning, his fleece was dry but the surrounding ground covered in dew.
On God's instruction, Gideon destroyed the town's altar to Baal and the symbol of the goddess Asherah beside it, receiving the byname of Jerubbaal from his father:
Gathering an army
Gideon then sent out messengers to gather men from the tribes of Asher, Zebulun, and Naphtali, as well as his own tribe of Manasseh, in order to meet an armed force of Midian and Amalek that had crossed the Jordan River. Gideon's force encamped at En Harod, while the Midianites camped near the "Hill of Moreh".
God informed Gideon that the men he had gathered were too many: with so many men, the Israelites might claim the victory as their own, rather than crediting God. God first instructed Gideon to send home those men who were afraid. Gideon invited any man who wanted to leave, to do so; 22,000 men returned home and 10,000 remained. God then told Gideon that this number was still too many, and instructed Gideon to bring the men to the water to drink. God commanded to send home those who had bowed down to drink, as well as those who drank directly from the water "like a dog". Only 300 men, who had cupped the water with their hands to drink it, were allowed to remain.
Night attack
During the night, God instructed Gideon to approach the Midianite camp. There, Gideon overheard a Midianite man tell a friend of a dream in which "a loaf of barley bread tumbled into the camp of Midian", causing their tent or camp to collapse. This was interpreted as meaning that God had given the Midianites over to Gideon. Gideon returned to the Israelite camp and gave each of his men a shofar and a clay jar with a torch hidden inside. Divided into three companies, Gideon and his 300 men marched on the enemy camp. He instructed them to blow the trumpet, give a battle cry and light torches, simulating an attack by a large force. As they did so, the Midianite army fled.