Judges 6 Summary and Study Guide

Seven harvests in a row, Israel sowed its fields and watched raiders from the desert strip them bare. Farmers were living in caves and threshing grain out of sight. This Judges 6 summary and study guide covers the chapter where God answered all of that with one frightened man.

Setting the Stage

The book of Judges runs on a pattern it states about itself early on: Israel turns away from God, God hands them over to an enemy, they cry out, and God raises up a rescuer (Judges 2:11-19). The last time round, God used Deborah and Barak to break the Canaanites, and the country had forty years of peace afterwards (Judges 5:31).

Those forty years are what runs out in Judges 6:1. There is a second thread worth carrying in as well. Generations earlier, under Moses, Israel had fought Midian and devastated them (Numbers 31). The people now hiding in caves are the children of the nation that once crushed the very raiders robbing them.

Comprehensive Judges 6 Summary

Israel did evil again, so God handed them to Midian for seven years. What the chapter describes is a raid rather than an occupation. They waited until Israel had sown, then came up with the Amalekites and the eastern tribes, ate the crop, took the livestock, and went home until the next harvest. Israel made hiding places in the mountains and finally cried to God.

God answered first with a prophet. The man is never named. He reminded Israel that God had brought them out of Egypt and given them the land, then told them plainly why they were suffering: they had not obeyed God’s voice.

Then the angel of the LORD sat down under an oak at Ophrah, where a man named Gideon was beating out wheat inside a winepress so the raiders would not see it. The greeting was “The LORD is with thee, thou mighty man of valour.”

Gideon answered with a complaint about God’s absence, and God answered by sending him. Gideon objected that his clan was the weakest and he was the least in his family. God promised to go with him.

Gideon asked for proof and brought out food. Fire came up from the rock and burned it, and Gideon, expecting to die for having seen God, was told to be at peace. He built an altar and called it Jehovah-shalom.

That same night God sent him to pull down his father’s altar to Baal. He did it after dark, because he was afraid. The town worked out who was responsible and demanded his life, and his father Joash told them a real god could defend his own altar. Gideon was nicknamed Jerubbaal.

Midian gathered, crossed over, and pitched in the valley of Jezreel. God’s Spirit took hold of Gideon, four tribes answered his trumpet, and with the army standing ready he asked God for the sign of the fleece, twice.

One Word Summary

• Called: a reluctant man commissioned.
• Hiding: grain, man and obedience, all out of sight.
• Patience: three requests for proof, all granted.

In One Sentence

After seven years of Midianite raids, God sent an unnamed prophet to tell Israel why they were suffering and then called Gideon out of a winepress, gave him a sign of fire, sent him to break his father’s altar to Baal, and answered his fleece twice before the fighting ever began.

Theme of Judges 6

Judges 6 is about God rescuing people who have earned no rescue, and doing it through someone with nothing to bring but God’s own presence. Running alongside that is the order God works in. He deals with the sin before He deals with the enemy, which is why the prophet comes before the deliverer and the altar at home comes down before the army in the valley is touched. And through all of it God carries a man who is afraid at every step, which is the third thing the chapter keeps showing.

Judges 6 Outline

• Judges 6:1-6: Israel does evil, Midian strips every harvest for seven years, and Israel cries to the LORD.
• Judges 6:7-10: God sends an unnamed prophet with a reminder of the exodus and a charge of disobedience.
• Judges 6:11-13: The angel of the LORD greets Gideon in the winepress as a mighty man of valour, and Gideon answers with a complaint.
• Judges 6:14-16: God commissions Gideon and meets his objection with a promise of His presence.
• Judges 6:17-21: Gideon asks for a sign and brings out an offering, and fire rises from the rock and consumes it.
• Judges 6:22-24: Gideon expects to die for having seen the angel of the LORD, hears God speak peace, and builds an altar named Jehovah-shalom.
• Judges 6:25-27: God sends Gideon to his father’s altar of Baal, and he obeys by night with ten servants.
• Judges 6:28-32: The town demands Gideon’s death, Joash tells them to let Baal plead his own cause, and Gideon is named Jerubbaal.
• Judges 6:33-35: Midian camps in the valley of Jezreel, the Spirit of the LORD comes on Gideon, and four tribes answer his trumpet.
• Judges 6:36-40: Gideon asks for the sign of the fleece and then asks for it reversed, and God grants both.

The Unnamed Prophet’s Message

The whole sermon is four verses long, the speaker is never named, and it moves in three steps.

• What God had already done. He brought them up from Egypt, out of the house of bondage, delivered them from the Egyptians and from everyone else who had oppressed them, drove those nations out ahead of them, and gave Israel their land (Judges 6:8-9). God’s opening argument is His own record.
• What God had told them. “I am the LORD your God; fear not the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell” (Judges 6:10). One command: do not give your worship to the gods of the country you now live in.
• What Israel had done with it. “But ye have not obeyed my voice” (Judges 6:10). Israel had not listened to Him. The sermon lands there and stops.

Scripture does not tell us how the people answered him. The prophet says his piece, and the account moves straight to Ophrah.

Observations from Judges 6

God Sent His Word Before He Sent a Rescuer (Judges 6:7-10)

Israel cried out for relief and got a sermon. God had answered earlier cries by raising up Othniel, Ehud and Deborah, and this time He sends an unnamed man to tell the nation what was actually wrong with them.

Israel cried out about Midian. God’s answer named Israel. Naming the cause is itself a kindness, because a rescue that left the cause in place would likely have bought Israel nothing more than another forty years.

God Named Gideon for What He Would Be (Judges 6:11-12)

Threshing needed open ground and wind so the chaff could blow away. A winepress was a pit cut into rock, and beating the grain out by hand rather than treading it with oxen would also have kept the work silent.

Gideon was doing the work in the worst possible place because the right place would have got him robbed, and into that scene the angel of the LORD says, “The LORD is with thee, thou mighty man of valour.” God is with you, brave soldier. Nothing about the man matched the name. God gave it to him anyway, and the rest of the chapter is God beginning to make it true.

Gideon Argues About Himself and God Answers About Himself (Judges 6:13-16)

Gideon raises two objections and both are about Gideon: his clan is the weakest in Manasseh and he is the least in his own family. There may be more weight in that second line than modesty.

Two chapters later he asks the captured kings Zebah and Zalmunna about the men they had killed at Tabor and tells them, “They were my brethren, even the sons of my mother” (Judges 8:19). Those men were his brothers, his own mother’s sons, and many read that to mean Midian had already taken them by the time God found him in the winepress.

God never disputes either objection. He does not tell Gideon he has hidden potential or that he is stronger than he thinks. He says, “Surely I will be with thee.”

That is the same answer God gave Moses at the burning bush, “Certainly I will be with thee” (Exodus 3:12). God gave Moses His presence rather than an argument, and He does the same here.

God Moves This Chapter Forward at Night (Judges 6:25, 27, 38, 40)

God speaks to Gideon at night. Gideon pulls the altar down at night because he is afraid of his family and his neighbours. Both fleece signs are given overnight. God begins His work with this man in the dark, and by morning the whole town is talking about it.

The Men Who Wanted Gideon Dead Are the First to Follow Him (Judges 6:30, 34)

In the morning the men of the city stand outside Joash’s house demanding that his son be handed over and killed. Then the trumpet sounds and “Abi-ezer was gathered after him” (Judges 6:34). The clan of Abiezer rallied behind Gideon, and in between, Baal had done nothing at all about his own wrecked altar.

Beyond his own clan, Gideon called Manasseh, Asher, Zebulun and Naphtali, and Deborah’s song had already singled out Zebulun and Naphtali as the tribes that risked their lives in battle (Judges 5:18). Ephraim is missing from the list, and Judges 8:1 opens with Ephraim furious about being left out.

Difficult Verses Explained

Why Does God Call a Man Hiding in a Winepress a Mighty Man of Valour?

The name is a promise rather than a compliment. Gideon had done nothing yet to earn it, and his reply two verses later shows he saw himself as the least man in the smallest family of his tribe. God speaks over him what His presence would make of him, which is the same way He names His people elsewhere: He “calleth those things which be not as though they were” (Romans 4:17). God speaks of things that do not yet exist as though they already do.

Did God Ask Gideon for One Bullock or Two in Judges 6:25?

The Hebrew can be read either way and faithful teachers land on both sides. The King James reads it as one animal, “thy father’s young bullock, even the second bullock of seven years old,” which fits the fact that the town later accuses Gideon of the altar and the wooden idol beside it and never of stealing an animal.

Others read it as two, since a seven-year-old ox is not a young bullock, and suggest the pair were used to haul the altar down before the older one was offered. The animal is seven years old and the oppression had lasted seven years, which may be deliberate, though Judges does not say so. Either reading leaves the point of the verse untouched.

Is Joash Defending Baal in Judges 6:31?

No, he is dismantling him. “If he be a god, let him plead for himself, because one hath cast down his altar.” If Baal is really a god, let Baal take his own case, since it was his altar that was pulled down.

The line about putting the pleader to death “whilst it is yet morning” is read two ways, either as a threat against anyone who takes up Baal’s cause or as a delay that buys the town until sunrise to see whether Baal does anything. Both readings arrive in the same place, because Baal does nothing.

Was Gideon’s Fleece an Act of Faith or of Unbelief?

Faithful teachers have long read it both ways, and Judges leaves the question open. What the chapter does show is that God had already spoken plainly, sent fire out of a rock, and put His Spirit on him before the fleece was ever laid down, and that Gideon knew he was pushing, since he opens the second request with “Let not thine anger be hot against me” (Judges 6:39).

Please do not be angry with me. Wool left out overnight can gather dew while bare ground dries, so the first sign could have had an ordinary explanation, and the second sign is the one that reversed nature. God granted them both, never rebuked him for asking, and later listed him among the faithful (Hebrews 11:32).

Common Misunderstandings

• The 300 men belong to Judges 7, not to this chapter. Judges 6 ends with a full army assembled and no battle fought, and the cutting down to 300, the water test and the night attack all come later.
• Gideon pulled down the altar before he ever laid out the fleece. The altar comes down in verses 25 to 27, and the fleece is laid out in verses 36 to 40, after the tribes had already gathered, so the order often given the other way round is backwards.
• Midian came up at harvest as they had for seven years, and the chapter never links their arrival to the broken altar. Judges 6:3 describes the yearly raid and verse 33 is that same raid arriving again.
• Judges 6 reports what Gideon did with the fleece and never prescribes it. The chapter tells nobody else to do the same, and Scripture elsewhere points the believer to trust what God has already said (Proverbs 3:5-6).

Christ Connection

The clearest connection in Judges 6 is the visitor himself. Gideon brings out a meal for a stranger, and the stranger turns it into an offering. He has it laid on a rock, touches it with the end of his staff, and fire consumes it (Judges 6:19-21). What Gideon offered as hospitality was received as a sacrifice.

Then Gideon realises who has been sitting under that oak and expects to die for it, because Scripture is plain that a man who sees God dies (Exodus 33:20). What he hears instead is “Peace be unto thee; fear not: thou shalt not die.” Peace to you, set your fear down, you will live. He builds an altar and names it after that sentence.

The same order runs through the gospel: the offering is accepted, and then the man is sent. Christ “offered one sacrifice for sins for ever” (Hebrews 10:12), and because of it Paul can write that “being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:1). Jehovah-shalom is a name Gideon gave to an altar. Isaiah names a person, the Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6), and Paul says of Christ, “he is our peace” (Ephesians 2:14).

Christians have asked for centuries who the visitor was. Judges 6 calls him the angel of the LORD in verse 11 and then simply “the LORD” in verses 14, 16 and 23, and Gideon reacts as a man who has met God rather than a messenger. Because John writes that “no man hath seen God at any time” (John 1:18), many Bible teachers across the centuries have understood appearances like this one as the Son showing Himself before He was born at Bethlehem.

That is a reading rather than something Judges states, and the chapter can be read faithfully without settling it. Gideon is named for what God would make of him, and he still needs three signs before he moves, and the book of Judges will need another rescuer after him, and another after that. The pattern only ends when a deliverer arrives who finishes what He starts (Hebrews 12:2).

When, Where, and Why

• When: During the period of the judges, between the conquest of Canaan and the rise of Israel’s kings. Judges 5:31 places it after the forty years of peace that followed Deborah and Barak. The dates for this period are debated, and are usually placed between roughly 1375 and 1050 BC.
• Where: Ophrah, a town in the territory of western Manasseh belonging to Joash of the clan of Abiezer, where Gideon was threshing and where both altars stood. Midian and its allies gathered in the valley of Jezreel, a wide fertile plain reached from the Jordan crossings, which made it the natural gathering ground for an invading force and the obvious place to strip a harvest.
• Why: The writer of Judges is building a case. Israel’s losses in this chapter are the very thing God had warned them about through Moses: “ye shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it” (Leviticus 26:16), meaning they would plant a crop and watch someone else eat it, and “the fruit of thy land, and all thy labours, shall a nation which thou knowest not eat up” (Deuteronomy 28:33), a nation they had never heard of consuming everything they worked for. Baal was widely worshipped as a god of weather and harvest, and the harvest is exactly what Israel lost. The chapter also puts the nation’s condition at its sharpest, because the town that demanded Gideon’s death for pulling down an idol was demanding the punishment God’s own law had attached to worshipping one (Deuteronomy 17:2-5). Israel had not merely drifted, and God rescued them regardless.

Key Verses

“And the LORD looked upon him, and said, Go in this thy might, and thou shalt save Israel from the hand of the Midianites: have not I sent thee?”

Judges 6:14

God turned to Gideon and told him to go with the strength he had, because God Himself was the one sending him. The commission rests on the sender, not on the man, and Gideon’s authority for the rest of the book comes from this sentence.

“And the LORD said unto him, Surely I will be with thee, and thou shalt smite the Midianites as one man.”

Judges 6:16

God promised to be with him, and told him he would strike down Midian as easily as if the whole army were a single man. This is the hinge of the chapter. Gideon’s objection was about his own smallness, and God answered it by talking about Himself.

“Then Gideon built an altar there unto the LORD, and called it Jehovah-shalom: unto this day it is yet in Ophrah of the Abi-ezrites.”

Judges 6:24

Gideon built an altar and named it The LORD Is Peace, and the writer adds that it was still standing when Judges was written. Peace with God is the first thing Gideon builds, and it comes before a single blow is struck against Midian.

“But the Spirit of the LORD came upon Gideon, and he blew a trumpet; and Abi-ezer was gathered after him.”

Judges 6:34

The Spirit of the LORD came on Gideon, he sounded the ram’s horn, and his own clan rallied to him. The Hebrew behind “came upon” carries the picture of being clothed, as though the Spirit put Gideon on, and it marks the moment the man from the winepress becomes a leader men will follow.

Key Lessons from Judges 6

• Israel blamed Midian for seven years of loss, and God’s answer named their own disobedience as the cause (Judges 6:10).
• When Gideon listed his disqualifications, God did not argue with them and promised His own presence instead (Judges 6:15-16).
• God sent Gideon against the altar in his father’s yard before He sent him against the army in the valley (Judges 6:25).
• Gideon was afraid when he obeyed, and the altar came down anyway (Judges 6:27).
• Joash answered the mob by pointing out that a god unable to defend his own altar needs nobody to die for him (Judges 6:31).
• God answered a frightened man’s request for reassurance instead of shaming him for asking (Judges 6:39-40).

To go deeper into the lessons from this chapter, read our full study: Lessons from Judges 6.

Bible Study Questions

1. Read Judges 6:1-6. What exactly did the Midianites do to Israel each year, and why did it leave the nation with nothing?
2. God answered Israel’s cry with a prophet before He answered it with a rescuer (Judges 6:7-10). What does that order tell you about what God was after?
3. Gideon says in verse 13 that the LORD has forsaken Israel. Compare his explanation with the prophet’s in verse 10. Who has forsaken whom?
4. God never disputes Gideon’s claim to be the least in his father’s house (Judges 6:15-16). What does He say instead, and why does that matter more than a compliment would have?
5. Why do you think God sent Gideon to the altar in his own father’s yard before sending him against Midian (Judges 6:25-27)?
6. Gideon obeyed at night because he was afraid (Judges 6:27). What does this chapter show about the relationship between fear and obedience?
7. Read Joash’s answer in Judges 6:31. What had the town’s own actions already admitted about Baal?
8. Judges 6 ends with an army gathered, a dry fleece, and no battle fought. What has actually been settled by the end of the chapter?

Frequently Asked Questions

Judges 6, The Full Text (KJV)

Read the full chapter below for reference.

1 And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD: and the LORD delivered them into the hand of Midian seven years.

2 And the hand of Midian prevailed against Israel: and because of the Midianites the children of Israel made them the dens which are in the mountains, and caves, and strong holds.

3 And so it was, when Israel had sown, that the Midianites came up, and the Amalekites, and the children of the east, even they came up against them;

4 And they encamped against them, and destroyed the increase of the earth, till thou come unto Gaza, and left no sustenance for Israel, neither sheep, nor ox, nor ass.

5 For they came up with their cattle and their tents, and they came as grasshoppers for multitude; for both they and their camels were without number: and they entered into the land to destroy it.

6 And Israel was greatly impoverished because of the Midianites; and the children of Israel cried unto the LORD.

7 And it came to pass, when the children of Israel cried unto the LORD because of the Midianites,

8 That the LORD sent a prophet unto the children of Israel, which said unto them, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, I brought you up from Egypt, and brought you forth out of the house of bondage;

9 And I delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians, and out of the hand of all that oppressed you, and drave them out from before you, and gave you their land;

10 And I said unto you, I am the LORD your God; fear not the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but ye have not obeyed my voice.

11 And there came an angel of the LORD, and sat under an oak which was in Ophrah, that pertained unto Joash the Abi-ezrite: and his son Gideon threshed wheat by the winepress, to hide it from the Midianites.

12 And the angel of the LORD appeared unto him, and said unto him, The LORD is with thee, thou mighty man of valour.

13 And Gideon said unto him, Oh my Lord, if the LORD be with us, why then is all this befallen us? and where be all his miracles which our fathers told us of, saying, Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt? but now the LORD hath forsaken us, and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites.

14 And the LORD looked upon him, and said, Go in this thy might, and thou shalt save Israel from the hand of the Midianites: have not I sent thee?

15 And he said unto him, Oh my Lord, wherewith shall I save Israel? behold, my family is poor in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.

16 And the LORD said unto him, Surely I will be with thee, and thou shalt smite the Midianites as one man.

17 And he said unto him, If now I have found grace in thy sight, then shew me a sign that thou talkest with me.

18 Depart not hence, I pray thee, until I come unto thee, and bring forth my present, and set it before thee. And he said, I will tarry until thou come again.

19 And Gideon went in, and made ready a kid, and unleavened cakes of an ephah of flour: the flesh he put in a basket, and he put the broth in a pot, and brought it out unto him under the oak, and presented it.

20 And the angel of God said unto him, Take the flesh and the unleavened cakes, and lay them upon this rock, and pour out the broth. And he did so.

21 Then the angel of the LORD put forth the end of the staff that was in his hand, and touched the flesh and the unleavened cakes; and there rose up fire out of the rock, and consumed the flesh and the unleavened cakes. Then the angel of the LORD departed out of his sight.

22 And when Gideon perceived that he was an angel of the LORD, Gideon said, Alas, O Lord GOD! for because I have seen an angel of the LORD face to face.

23 And the LORD said unto him, Peace be unto thee; fear not: thou shalt not die.

24 Then Gideon built an altar there unto the LORD, and called it Jehovah-shalom: unto this day it is yet in Ophrah of the Abi-ezrites.

25 And it came to pass the same night, that the LORD said unto him, Take thy father’s young bullock, even the second bullock of seven years old, and throw down the altar of Baal that thy father hath, and cut down the grove that is by it:

26 And build an altar unto the LORD thy God upon the top of this rock, in the ordered place, and take the second bullock, and offer a burnt sacrifice with the wood of the grove which thou shalt cut down.

27 Then Gideon took ten men of his servants, and did as the LORD had said unto him: and so it was, because he feared his father’s household, and the men of the city, that he could not do it by day, that he did it by night.

28 And when the men of the city arose early in the morning, behold, the altar of Baal was cast down, and the grove was cut down that was by it, and the second bullock was offered upon the altar that was built.

29 And they said one to another, Who hath done this thing? And when they enquired and asked, they said, Gideon the son of Joash hath done this thing.

30 Then the men of the city said unto Joash, Bring out thy son, that he may die: because he hath cast down the altar of Baal, and because he hath cut down the grove that was by it.

31 And Joash said unto all that stood against him, Will ye plead for Baal? will ye save him? he that will plead for him, let him be put to death whilst it is yet morning: if he be a god, let him plead for himself, because one hath cast down his altar.

32 Therefore on that day he called him Jerubbaal, saying, Let Baal plead against him, because he hath thrown down his altar.

33 Then all the Midianites and the Amalekites and the children of the east were gathered together, and went over, and pitched in the valley of Jezreel.

34 But the Spirit of the LORD came upon Gideon, and he blew a trumpet; and Abi-ezer was gathered after him.

35 And he sent messengers throughout all Manasseh; who also was gathered after him: and he sent messengers unto Asher, and unto Zebulun, and unto Naphtali; and they came up to meet them.

36 And Gideon said unto God, If thou wilt save Israel by mine hand, as thou hast said,

37 Behold, I will put a fleece of wool in the floor; and if the dew be on the fleece only, and it be dry upon all the earth beside, then shall I know that thou wilt save Israel by mine hand, as thou hast said.

38 And it was so: for he rose up early on the morrow, and thrust the fleece together, and wringed the dew out of the fleece, a bowl full of water.

39 And Gideon said unto God, Let not thine anger be hot against me, and I will speak but this once: let me prove, I pray thee, but this once with the fleece; let it now be dry only upon the fleece, and upon all the ground let there be dew.

40 And God did so that night: for it was dry upon the fleece only, and there was dew on all the ground.