“Visions of Monarchy: The Israelites’ Impotence in the Stories of Gideon and Abimelech”
College essay by Brandon James, 2008 (Disclaimer)
When the Israelites break the Lord’s covenant and enter a state of apostasy, the Lord allows the nations surrounding Israel to oppress them. After being oppressed, the Israelites beg for the Lord’s forgiveness, and he always answers. In the Book of Judges, rather than God helping the Israelites directly, he employs in his service military leaders called judges to lead the Israelites back onto the right track. These judges are often of humble background and quite surprised when the Lord gives them the responsibility. It is common in call narratives for the Lord’s selected to show reluctance, fear, or doubt in both their own abilities and the abilities of the Lord to work through them. The first four judges, Othniel, Ehud, Shamgar, and Deborah, do not have call narratives. We enter their judgeships in media res, and each is successful in leading the Israelites out of apostasy and back into God’s favor. After the death of each judge, however, Israel immediately relapses by worshiping the gods of the surrounding nations. This endless cycle of apostasy and blessedness, disgrace and grace, is characteristic of the Israelites’ relationship with God. In the character of the fifth recorded judge, Gideon, we see this cycle represented literally through the narrator’s depiction of Gideon’s character, his impotency as a judge, the silences between the narrative lines, and the inauspicious foreshadowing of monarchy represented through Gideon and his murderous son Abimelech.
Chapter 2 of the Book of Judges tells us exactly the purpose of a judge and outlines precisely the cycle by which the Israelites operate. After the Israelites fall into a state of apostasy and abandon the Lord, the Lord “raised up judges, who delivered them out of the power of those who plundered them” (New Revised Standard Version, Judg. 2.16). That the Lord both gives the Israelites to their enemies during times of apostasy, and then rescues them when they withhold the covenant, proves that the Lord controls the fate of the Israelites and plays an active role in their history. This theologically-based view of history suits the purpose of the book’s authors in keeping with the dualist law laid out in Deuteronomy. The following verse predicts what will happen in the narratives of each judge: “But whenever the judge died, they would relapse and behave worse than their ancestors, following other gods, worshipping them and bowing down to them. They would not drop any of their practices or their stubborn ways” (Judg. 2.19). The story of the fifth recorded judge, Gideon, maintains this pattern. After forty years of rest under Deborah, “The Israelites did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord gave them into the hand of Midian seven years” (Judg. 6.1). This verse echoes the introductory statement to all of the previous judges except for Shamgar, in which the Israelites abandon the Lord and are consequently given into the hands of their enemies. When the Israelites here cry for the Lord, the Lord responds by commissioning Gideon to lead them back into the Lord’s favor. The character of Gideon is molded from the archetype of Israel to represent the futility of their efforts in taking advantage of, and appreciating, their status as the Lord’s chosen people.
Through Gideon, we are given a sense of Israel’s endless cycle of apostasy, supplication, salvation, peace, and relapse. The events and actions in his story are arranged so that with every positive aspect of Gideon’s character, we are also given a negative aspect. In a sense, Gideon and all of the Israelites are taking one step forward only to take another step backward. During Gideon’s call narrative, “The angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, ‘The Lord is with you, you mighty warrior’” (Judg. 6.12). Gideon responds to the angel by formulaically doubting the Lord and attempting to prove that he is not worthy of the responsibility. In response, “the Lord turned to him and said, ‘Go in this might of yours and deliver Israel from the hand of Midian; I hereby commission you’” (Judg. 6.14). Twice the Lord describes Gideon as ‘mighty,’ and at no point in the narrative does Gideon prove to be so. On several occasions, Gideon asks that the Lord provide proof of his power and commitment to the cause. He is doubtful of his abilities and of the Lord’s. When he is commissioned by the Lord to “pull down the altar of Ball that belongs to [his] father” (Judg. 6.25), Gideon shows cowardice and insecurity by taking ten servants with him and, “because he was too afraid of his family and the townspeople to do it by day, he did it by night” (Judg. 6.27). When the townspeople find out who pulled down the altar of Baal, the narrator, while not stating directly, implies that Gideon is cowering inside his father’s house while his father Joash protects him from the angry mob. Furthermore, when the Lord instructs Gideon to attack the Midianite camp, the Lord anticipates his cowardice by adding: “But if you fear to attack, go down to the camp with your servant Purah; and you shall hear what they say, and afterward your hands shall be strengthened to attack the camp” (Judg. 7.10-11). While Gideon is successful in fulfilling the commands of the Lord and in leading the Israelites out of the hands of Midian, the narrator depicts him as a neutral character, neither a great warrior nor an incapable fool. Gideon does as he’s told, but he doubts. He acts, but he hesitates. He worships the Lord, but fears his enemies despite the Lord’s support. In this way, Gideon represents the failing efforts of the Lord’s chosen people.
As a judge, though ultimately successful and providing peace for Israel, Gideon is depicted as ambivalent and oftentimes impotent. After causing the Midianites to scatter, as the Lord commanded him to do, Gideon reveals a vengeful side of his character by going beyond the Lord’s command and pursuing the kings of Midian, who killed some of his brothers. In asking for food for his men, Gideon’s impotency as judge is twice revealed when he is refused by the people of Succoth (Judg. 8.5) and of Penuel (Judg. 8.8), who taunt and mock him. To Zebah and Zalmunna, Gideon says, “They were my brothers, the sons of my mother; as the Lord lives, if you had saved them alive, I would not kill you” (Judg. 8.19). He then commands his firstborn to kill the two men, “but the boy did not draw his sword, for he was afraid, because he was still a boy” (Judg. 8.20). Unable to control his own son, Gideon finds his earlier cowardice catching up with him. As he feared, doubted, and hesitated, so does his son. Though unstated, it is possible that Gideon orders his son to kill the two kings because he is unable to do it himself. When the two kinds say, “You come and kill us; for as the man is, so is his strength” (Judg. 8.21, emphasis added). His son fails to act because he is a boy, and Zebah and Zalmunna seem to taunt Gideon by bringing into question his strength as a man. Gideon is debilitated as ruler of his people, as indicated by the disrespect given him by the people of Succoth and Penuel. He is found wanting as father to his child, who shows fear, fails to act, and perhaps should not have been on the battlefield in the first place. Gideon is further depicted as impotent when the two enemy kings quietly question his manhood and spur him into action.
Gideon is depicted positively, however, when he refuses the Israelites’ invitation for him to become king over them. He says, “I will not rule over you, and my son will not rule over you; the Lord will rule over you” (Judg. 8.23). After his death, Israel immediately relapses into a state of apostasy, a transformation perhaps spurred on directly by the actions of Gideon, who built an ephod out of the spoils of the Midianite conflict onto which “all Israel prostituted themselves” (Judg. 8.27). Despite this, the land is given peace; at least until his son Abimelech assumes that the Lord’s judgeship is an inheritance, rather than a commission. Gideon’s aptitude as judge and ruler of his people is once again questioned when Abimelech attempts to establish Israel’s first monarchy, despite Gideon’s promise to the people. Abimelech’s monarchy lasts three years, until he is finally killed in the battle at Thebez by providence of the Lord. “Thus God repaid Abimelech for the crime he committed against his father in killing his seventy brothers” (Judg. 9.56). Ironically, there is a gap in judgeship between Gideon and the next official judge, Tola, as though Abimelech had been serving for the past three years as judge of the Israelites. At no point, however, is Abimelech commissioned by God to become judge over Israel. He merely assumes that, because his father was judge, he should inherit the responsibility. The conclusion to Gideon’s bloodline and the falsification of Abimelech’s judgeship suggests an ultimate corruption, starting with Gideon’s cowardice and hesitation and fulfilling itself in his ephod, the “snare to Gideon and to his family” (Judg. 8.27).
With the covenant outlined in Deuteronomy, the Israelites are promised that if they worship the Lord and follow his covenant, they will be successful. If they fail to fulfill the covenant, then they will be cursed. With the stories found in the Book of Judges, we are given a constant flux of falling into and falling out of the favor and grace of God. The Israelites, set in their stubborn ways, seem to be an impossible group of people. They are God’s chosen people, rescued by God on numerous occasions. Yet they constantly abandon him, only to come back later as a child who has learned a lesson only to forget it again. This cycle is represented in the character of Gideon, a man elected by God to rescue the people, but a man whose potency as a judge and ruler is often called into question and cast into an ambivalent light. With Gideon’s son Abimelech, we are given a taste of the coming monarchical period, a period which will prove to be as inconsistent and unsuccessful as the period of the judges.
Works Cited
The Harper Collins Study Bible. Harold W. Attridge, gen. ed. New York: Harper Collins, 2006.
is not an exit 