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While spying out the enemy’s camp, Gideon hears something which fills him with renewed confidence.
Gideon has been chosen by God to rid Israel of the invading Midianites, and has successfully fulfilled his commission. All that remains is for his unlikely army of just three hundred hand-picked men to capture the Midianites’ top generals, but he does not get much co-operation from his fellow Israelites.
Naomi lost her husband and two sons in Moab, and returned to Bethlehem with only one comfort in her bitterness, her daughter-in-law Ruth.
In all world literature, there can be few love stories to rival the story of Ruth and Boaz, set in about 1100 BC as a very early episode in the back-story of King David. Their tale has all the best ingredients: a determined heroine, a manly yet sensitive hero, a leap of faith, disappointments, misunderstandings and sexual tensions — and of course, a happy ending.
The Israelites under Philistia’s rule might have blended with their heathen masters had not Samson kept stirring up trouble.
Samson was one of the Judges, charismatic rulers of Israel before the Kings. In his day, Israel had been worshipping the Philistines’ gods, and their punishment was to fall under Philistia’s government. To make sure that the Israelites were not absorbed by Philistine society, however, God prompted Samson to keep tensions high.
The Israelites turn to Deborah for help after twenty years under the harsh rule of King Jabin and his stern general Sisera.
Deborah was the fourth of the Judges, a series of prophets who ruled Israel when they first entered Canaan, their Promised Land. The message of their stories was that if Israel turned from God to worship the gods of the nations, then God would let the kings of the nations have their way until Israel repented.
Gideon is chosen by God to save Israel from the Midianites, but doubts his fitness for the task.
Gideon is numbered among Israel’s ‘Judges’, charismatic leaders of the ancient tribes of Israel after they escaped from slavery in Egypt and settled in the land of Canaan, sometime before the 11th century BC. Their task was to free Israel from the ever-present temptation to adopt the religions of the indigenous peoples.
Jephthah’s sentries at the crossings of Jordan devise a fool-proof way to tell friend from foe.
The Judges were rulers of Israel in the years after the twelve tribes first settled in Canaan – impossible to date securely, but the 13th century BC is conventional. They fought to hold off invasion by neighbouring kingdoms, such as Midian, Moab and Ammon, but their task was not made any easier by rivalries and suspicions within their own nation.
Gideon prepares to drive the Midianites out of Israel, but first he has to make it a fair fight.
Gideon has been visited by an angel of God, who has commissioned him to liberate Israel from seven years of cruel oppression by the Kingdom of Midian. Gideon has sparked a revolt, but with a decisive battle before him, he remains far from convinced that he is the right man for the task.