Too Many for Me

The Story

Gideon had finally gathered an army. After years of Midianite raids, thirty-two thousand men stood ready to fight. Across the valley, the enemy camp stretched out “like grasshoppers for multitude.”

Then God said something no general wants to hear: “The people that are with thee are too many.”

Too many? God explained. If Israel won with a big army, they would boast that they had saved themselves. So Gideon told anyone who was afraid to go home. Twenty-two thousand men left.

Ten thousand remained. God said it was still too many. He told Gideon to take the men down to the water to drink. Most knelt down and drank. Only three hundred scooped the water up in their hands and lapped it. “By the three hundred men that lapped will I save you,” God said.

That night, Gideon gave each of his three hundred men a trumpet and an empty clay pitcher with a lamp hidden inside. They surrounded the enemy camp in the dark. At Gideon’s signal, they blew the trumpets, smashed the pitchers, held up the lamps, and shouted, “The sword of the LORD, and of Gideon.”

The Midianites woke up in a panic. In the confusion, they turned on each other and fled. Three hundred men with trumpets and lamps had routed an army too large to count.

Reflection