Bluedorn, Wolfgang.
Yahweh versus Baalism: A Theological Reading of the Gideon-Abimelech Narrative.
Ph.D. dissertation, University of Bristol / University of Gloucestershire, 1999.
JSOT Supp. 329. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001.
Yahweh Demonstrates his Power (Judg 7:19-22)
Gideon and his troops set out for the Midianite camp yet come to a stop already at its outskirts. Hence Gideon does not fully implement Yahweh's instructions to attack the camp (7:9); it rather seems that he is still fearful. It appears, therefore, that he lets Yahweh fight the battle, yet at the same time prepares to contribute to the victory by throwing the enemies into great fear (7:19). To achieve this, in the middle of a dark and silent night he and his troops blow their horns, smash their jars, hold their torches, and cry out their battle cry. By emphasising the number of the blown horns rather than the number of the Israelites (7:22)1 the narrator emphasises the loud sound of three hundred horns; also the repetition of both the smashing of the jars (7:19,20) and the blowing of the trumpets (7:19,20,22) in addition to the remark that the Israelites shout (root qr', 7:20) the battle cry instead of saying it (root 'mr, 7:18) as instructed--if this is not simply a stylistic variation--, add to the perception of a very loud noise. The lengthy description of the action of Gideon's troops (7:19b-21a) in combination with the final assessment that the troops stand rooted to the spot around the camp furthermore adds to the perception that the troops appear somewhat lost in their chaos of activities2 and are so preoccupied that they can not and do not fight against the Midianites.3 This impression is supported by the observation that the Israelites securely hold ({root hzq hif. + b}) the torches in their left hands and their horns in their right hands (7:20). They are thus described as having both their hands occupied, so that they are unable to pick up their swords to fight, let alone to deliver Israel through their hands (cf. 6:36,37; 7:2).4 Only Yahweh is left with empty hands; therefore, only Yahweh will be able to fight the battle and deliver Israel.5
The troops' actual battle cry (7:20) thus becomes ambiguous. By referring both to Yahweh and to Gideon, the troops follow Gideon's instruction and refer to him together with Yahweh as the commander. At the same time, they go beyond Gideon's instructions and add a reference to the sword. The sword, standing for the battle, corresponds to Gideon's intention that the battle against the Midianites rather than Yahweh's demonstration of his divine power is the focus of the narrative.6 Yet while Gideon leaves the nature of the battle open, allowing for both the interpretation that the deliverance is the main issue and the interpretation that the battle is rather a demonstration of Yahweh's power, the troops define the purpose of the battle purely in terms of the deliverance. Hence already at this point the narrator anticipates that the following narrative might record the effect of the deliverance from the Midianites rather than that of the demonstration of Yahweh's power.
However, placing the sword at Yahweh's disposal first, the Israelites invite Yahweh to fight the battle. The battle cry thus expresses Yahweh's intention according to which he and not Gideon will fight the battle; and indeed, the episode of the battle shows that Yahweh fights the battle, so that the troops' possibly unintentional variation of the battle cry becomes true. Yahweh, so to speak, figuratively wields the sword that the Israelite troops can not wield and refer to him (7:20); in this case, Yahweh's promise, according to which he will deliver Israel with Gideon as his agent, would become true with a remarkable accuracy. Yet since the narrator has the Midianites fight against each other, he implies that Yahweh does not need to intervene actively. Instead, the swords in the hands of the Midianites become Yahweh's swords, and he sets these against each Midianite (7:22). Therefore, not Gideon and his troops but rather Yahweh fights the battle, and he does so with the weapons of his own enemies.
With their swords, Yahweh throws the Midianites into a chaos and causes them to jump up in fear,7 cry, flee,8 and fight against each other (7:22). By at the same time having Gideon's troops just stand on their place and blow their horns, the narrator clarifies that Yahweh rather than Gideon and his troops fights against the Midianites, so that it is evident that Yahweh is the real victor in the battle, and Gideon's wrong quotation of the angel and the resulting accusation of Yahweh, that he is not with Israel (6:13), is proven false at this point in the narrative. Fearful Gideon, on the other hand, together with his incapable troops only scare the Midianites, but they do not achieve the victory.9 The prolonged description of the destination of the Midianites' flight (7:22b) might possibly serve to enhance the completeness of Yahweh's victory.10 The Midianites flee towards their home rather chaotically, until they reach the shore of Abel-Meholah (7:22). Since in geographical contexts the noun sapah usually refers to the shore of a river or the sea,11 it may be assumed that the Midianites flee towards the Jordan. As their threat originated only when they crossed the Jordan before (6:33), so now, fleeing towards the Jordan, they return to their home land and no longer threaten Israel. Yahweh's deliverance is thus achieved.
Given the Midianite's dream and its interpretation as the prediction of the victory (7:13-14), Gideon ought to recognise that Yahweh has indeed achieved the victory, since the destruction of the camp is clearly caused by Yahweh, even if Gideon argued that he contributed to the self-murderous chaos. With the dream predicting the implementation of Yahweh's promise, its fulfilment at the same time is the fulfilment of Yahweh's promise to deliver Israel from the hand of the Midianites; and this deliverance in turn convincingly demonstrates Yahweh's divine power.
Yet it is unclear how Gideon's troops perceive the outcome. On the one hand, by watching the panic in the Midianite camp, they serve as first-hand witnesses of Yahweh's fight and they ought to recognise that it was Yahweh who won the victory. Yet on the other hand, as they made as much noise as possible, they might get the impression that they and Gideon as their leader played a decisive role in throwing the enemies in the camp into panic, and they might accordingly attribute the victory to Gideon. Hence the attribution of the victory to Gideon following Gideon's personal victory later in the narrative (8:22) might already be foreshadowed at this point.