The book of Judges is one of those books that might be easy to lump in with those other books of the the OT that seem to give boring history about who married who and who beget so and so and while we know that the whole word of God is useful, we tend to skip over those sections of the Bible that maybe would be a little boring. These books tend to include a lot of names that are hard to pronounce(likeHarosheth-hagoyim) and include a lot of “senseless violence” that our filtered minds can’t handle as we flip the channel to watch Ultimate Fighter. The book of Judges is quickly becoming one of my favorite books in the Bible because of its relentless potrayal of how God uses the seemingly weak and the useless to accomplish what he wants. The story of Gideon defeating the army of Midian is one of these stories.
The people with Gideon are camped out near the army of Midian at some point after the famous fleece story in which Gideon receives multiple signs from God insisting that Gideon will help save Israel. God comes to Gideon and tells him that there are too many people in his army right now for God to be able to give the Midians into his hand. Now I have never been in an army or a war but I have played a lot of Risk and I know that the more armies I have in Brazil, the less likely my brother will attack me from North Africa. But God is doing something in Gideon and in the people of Israel. He tells Gideon to get rid of some of the people by telling them to go home if they are afraid. Two-thirds of the people leave and so now out of 32,000 people, 10,000 remain. “This is not good but it’s not the worst thing”, was what Gideon was probably thinking. God goes ahead and makes it “the worst thing” and tells Gideon that there is still too many people for God to be able to do something. As much as we can’t understand it or hate to admit it, God is all about God when it comes to his glory. He will not share his glory with another and he certainly won’t allow our human truimphs to outdo what he does every day for all time. The creator of world seems to be doing some really detailed incisions on Gideon’s heart to take away pride and fear and prove once again that everything that Gideon has and has done is because of God, so he tells Gideon to have the men go and take a drink of water by this stream or lake. He tells Gideon to look at how they are drinking, and to put aside the people who are kneeling and the people who are lapping like a dog. God instructs Gideon to send the kneelers home and the lappers are going to be used by God to defeat the Midians.
Two things from this passage have jumped out at me. One is the question of why did God choose the lappers instead of the kneelers? It could have been because they were the minority and he was looking for the minority. I wonder if it had to do with the posture of the person doing the drinking. I am not sure what the reason was for why God chose the lappers but it did get me to thinking about it. Someone who is lapping up water from beside a stream or lake is going to be face down and will probably have to take off some swords or bows in order to get down that low. The act of lapping like a dog would put their face parallel to the ground and their hands probably out to the sides of their bodies with their weapons on the ground and their face in the water. They would be very vulnerable to people around them and wouldn’t be able to watch much of what was going on around them. Someone who is kneeling next to the water and scooping it up to their face would still be a little alert and would probably have their sword still fastened to their side and maybe a shield or other weapon in the free hand. They would be able to get their feet much quicker and present a fight if they needed to. I wonder if God chose the lappers because like so many other times in life, he is choosing the things that are vulnerable, weak, and not glamorous to accomplish what he wants. The second thing that I was thinking about from this passage was how often in my life I am a kneeler. Showing the vestements of religion and living a “christian” life but really I am guarding something. Not wanting someone to see the ugliness in my heart and always wanting to be on my guard in case someone actually notices that maybe Micah is not really the person that he tries to portray. God chose the lappers for a reason and I am not sure what it was, but what I do know is that God is in the business of laying waste to our self-righteousness and pride and making all things work together for our good and his glory. The end of the story is that Gideon and his 300 men routed the Midians by blowing trumpets, smashing jars, and yelling, “For the Lord and for Gideon!”. The Midians started to kill one another in the confusion and took off running only to be hunted down by everyone in Israel. God used 300 men against an army to show that He is in control of the destinies of men and to prove his power and wisdom.
