| “When I blow with a trumpet … ye also shall blow the trumpets … and shall say, For Jehovah and for Gideon” (Judges 7:18 JND). |
| “And the three companies blew the trumpets … and held the lamps in their left hands, and the trumpets in their right hands … and they cried, The sword of the Lord, and of Gideon” (Judges 7:20). |
| By the time that the battle was to be fought, Gideon knew that only the Lord could give him the victory over the Midianites. Gideon had only three hundred men, while the Midianites were “like grasshoppers for multitude” (Judges 7:12). He knew very well that he could not win the battle in his own strength, and the Lord had arranged it this way so that Israel would know that only the Lord had delivered them. |
| But then Gideon gave his men further instruction. They were to hold lamps in their left hands, and trumpets in their right hands. The lamps were probably torches of fire, burning at the ends of thick sticks of wood. At first the torches were hidden inside pitchers made of clay, but when they blew the trumpets, they were to break the pitchers so that the torches could be seen. Then they were to cry, “For Jehovah and for Gideon.” The men did not use swords, for they already had their hands full. They did not have any hand with which to hold a sword, but they did not need them. |
| But when the men cried out, they did not say what Gideon told them to say. See our verse for today! Instead they said, “The sword of the Lord, and of Gideon.” Gideon had more faith than his men, but the Lord gave them the victory, for all the Midianites fought with each other. Of course the men had swords, and eventually they used them later, but the Lord won the battle without any fighting at all by Gideon and his three hundred men. |
| In our lives we too are engaged in a spiritual warfare, and we do have a sword — “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Ephesians 6:17). But sometimes we must simply let the Lord work on our behalf, and if we let our light shine, and witness for the Lord, He will win the battle for us. Then as He should He gets the praise and glory for it. |
