Judges 6:37

Judges

GIDEON’S FLEECE

Jdg 6:37.

The decisive moment had come when Gideon, with his hastily gathered raw levies, was about to plunge down to the plain to face immensely superior forces trained to warfare. No wonder that the equally untrained leader’s heart heat faster. Many a soldier, who will be steadfastly brave in the actual shock of battle, has tremors and throbbings on its eve. Gideon’s hand shook a little as he drew his sword.

I. Gideon’s request.

His petition for a sign was not the voice of unbelief or of doubt or of presumption, but in it spoke real, though struggling faith, seeking to be confirmed. Therefore it was not regarded by God as a sin. When a ‘wicked and adulterous generation asked for a sign,’ no sign was given it, but when faith asks for one to help it to grasp God’s hand, and to go on His warfare in His strength and as His instrument, it does not ask in vain.

Gideon’s prayer was wrapped, as it were, in an enfolding promise, for it is preceded and followed by the quotation of words of the Angel of the Lord who had ‘looked on him,’ and said, ‘Go in this thy might and save Israel from the hand of Midian: have not I sent thee?’ Prayers that begin and end with ‘as Thou hast spoken’ are not likely to be repulsed.

II. God’s answer.

God wonderfully allows Gideon to dictate the nature of the sign. He stoops to work it both ways, backwards and forwards, as it were. First the fleece is to be wet and the ground to be dry, then the fleece is to be dry and the ground wet. Miracle was a necessary accompaniment of revelation in those early days, as picture-books are of childhood. But, though we are far enough from being ‘men’ in Christ, yet we have not the same need for ‘childish things’ as Gideon and his contemporaries had. We have Christ and the Spirit, and so have a ‘word made more sure’ than to require signs. But still it is true that the same gracious willingness to help a tremulous faith, which carries its tremulousness to God in prayer, moves the Father’s heart to-day, and that to such petitions the answer is given even before they are offered: ‘Ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.’ No sign that eyes can see is given, but inward whispers speak assurance and communicate the assurance which they speak.

III. The meaning of the sign.

Many explanations have been offered. The main point is that the fleece is to be made different from the soil around it. It is to be a proof of God’s power to endow with characteristics not derived from, and resulting in qualities unlike, the surroundings.

Gideon had no thought of any significance beyond that. But we may allowably let the Scripture usage of the symbol of dew influence our reading into the symbol a deeper meaning than it bore to him.

God makes the fleece wet with dew, while all the threshing-floor is dry. Dew is the symbol of divine grace, of the silently formed moisture which, coming from no apparent source, freshens by night the wilted plants, and hangs in myriad drops, that twinkle into green and gold as the early sunshine strikes them, on the humblest twig. That grace is plainly not a natural product nor to be accounted for by environment. The dew of the Spirit, which God and God only, can give, can freshen our worn and drooping souls, can give joy in sorrow, can keep us from being touched by surrounding evils, and from being parched by surrounding drought, can silently ‘distil’ its supplies of strength according to our need into our else dry hearts.

The wet fleece on the dry ground was not only a revelation of God’s power, but may be taken as a pattern of what God’s soldiers must ever be. A prophet long after Gideon said: ‘The remnant of Jacob shall be in the midst of many peoples as dew from the Lord,’ bringing to others the grace which they have received that they may diffuse it, and turning the dry and thirsty land where no water is into fertility, and the ‘parched ground’ into a ‘pool.’

We have said that the main point of Gideon’s petition was that the fleece should be made unlike the threshing-floor, and that that unlikeness, which could obviously not be naturally brought about, was to be to him the sure token that God was at work to produce it. The strongest demonstration that the Church can give the world of its really being God’s Church is its unlikeness to the world. If it is wet with divine dew when all the threshing-floor is dry, and if, when all the floor is drenched with poisonous miasma, it is dry from the diffused and clinging malaria, the world will take knowledge of it, and some souls be set to ask how this unlikeness comes. When Haman has to say: ‘There is a certain people scattered abroad and dispersed among the peoples . . . and their laws are diverse from those of every people,’ he may meditate murder, but ‘many from among the people of the land’ will join their ranks. Gideon may or may not have thought of the fleece as a symbol of his little host, but we may learn from it the old lesson, ‘Be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your minds.’

Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

(37) A fleece of wool.—In works of art this is sometimes represented as an entire sheepskin, probably from an erroneous explanation of the Vulgate, Vellus lanae, and from Luther’s rendering, ein Fell mit der Wolle. But the English version is correct.

In the floor.—i.e., on the open threshing-floor. (See Note on Jdg_6:11, and comp. Psa_1:4; Hos_13:3.)

If the dew be on the fleece only.—The very fact that this circumstance might be a purely natural result only shows the simple truthfulness of the narrative. Gideon would hardly have asked for this sign if he had been aware that, taken alone, it would be no sign of supernatural guidance. Bishop Hervey quotes Lord Bacon, who says (Nat Hist.) that “Sailors have used every night to hang fleeces of wool on the sides of their ships towards the water, and they have crushed fresh water out of them in the morning.” Every one must have noticed flocks of wool on the hedges, sparkling with dewdrops long after the dew on the leaves around them has evaporated. In Psa_72:6 (Prayer Book), “He shall come down like the rain into a fleece of wool,” the Hebrew word is the same as here, and the ancient version takes it in the same sense (LXX., epi plokon; Vulg., in vellus); but perhaps the true sense is there “mown grass,” as in Amo_7:1 (mowings).

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

37. a fleece of wool on the threshing-floor] We may think of Gideon sleeping out of doors on the airy threshing-floor near his home; it is a hot night in July, when the dews are heavy in Palestine; at any rate it is the harvest season, for the Midianites are in the land. Gideon has with him a fleece, perhaps his sheepskin cloak with the wool on it; he resolves to use it for the purposes of a ‘sign.’ No doubt he speaks with God in a dream.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And it was so,.... The Lord condescended to work this miracle for the confirmation of his faith, and for the encouragement of those that were with him; the fleece was wet with the dew of heaven, and all the ground about it dry:

for he rose up early in the morning; being eagerly desirous of knowing whether his request would be granted, and how it would be with the fleece:

and thrust the fleece together; to satisfy himself whether the dew had fallen on it, and there was any moisture in it, which by being squeezed together he would more easily perceive:

and wringed the dew out of the fleece, a bowl full of water; so that it appeared it had not only fallen on it, but it had taken in a large quantity of it; the word here used is the same as in Jdg 5:25; see Gill on Jdg 5:25; the Targum calls it a flagon.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

The threshing floors were and still are under the open air, and usually circular. The second sign Jdg 6:40, would be more convincing than the former, because it is the nature of fleeces to attract and retain moisture.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Upon all the earth beside, i.e. upon all that spot of ground which adjoineth to and encompasseth the fleece.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

37. A fleece of wool — A homely sign, indeed, but none the less natural and appropriate among a simple, nomadic people. Jehovah’s condescension in using a sign so simple, and yielding to this seemingly presumptuous request of Gideon, affords two lessons: 1. That he makes the weak things of the world confound the mighty, (1Co_1:27;) 2. That he never ignores the prayer of the humble.

The floor — The threshing floor, a small plot of ground in the open air, smoothed down and beaten hard. See on Rth_3:2.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Vers. 37-40. It is difficult to guess what led to this somewhat quaint sign which Gideon asked. Possibly the dews were usually heavy upon the hill of Gilead (Jud_1:7:3, note) where Gideon was encamped, as they seem to have been on Mount Gilboa (2Sa_1:21) and on Hermon, (Psa_133:3) and sheep-skins may have been a common protection against the cold nights, as in Afghanistan; and he may have noticed how often in the morning both the skin that covered him, and the ground around, was wet with the heavy dew. And this may have suggested the double test, by which his faith was, through God"s condescending mercy, confirmed and established.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

On all the earth - That is, upon all that spot of ground which encompasses the fleece.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.