6:36–40 Was Gideon Right to Test
God?
Was Gideon wrong in asking God
for reassurance by means of a wet or dry fleece? Had not God made his will
clear to Gideon already at the time of his call (Judg 6:14–16)? While it is
understandable that Gideon was apprehensive over his impending conflict with
Midian, given the disparity in the number of weapons and men and the morale of
the soldiers, he was still wrong in doubting God. Or, at least, that is what
some contend.
Did Gideon use a proper type of
test? Supposing a test is permissible, isn’t it wrong to ask God to accommodate
our weakness, to assure us through physical signs or miracles of a word he has
already spoken?
One further objection focuses on
the fact that Gideon did not keep his word. Gideon promised that he would know
God was going to use him to deliver Israel if God made the fleece wet and left
the ground dry. Though God complied, Gideon insisted on running the same
experiment in reverse fashion before he would believe. So what can we say, not
only for Gideon but also for modern believers who wish to use similar tactics
in order to validate the will of the Lord for them?
Some who object to Gideon’s
method for discerning God’s will feel that he was not really desiring to know
the will of God. Instead, they say, Gideon was angling to have that will changed!
This does not appear to be the
case, based on what we are told in the text itself. Such an assertion tends to
psychologize Gideon. How can we penetrate into his heart and mind and say what
it was that Gideon was feeling or hoping?
Clearly, Gideon struggled. But he
wanted God to provide his overwhelmed mind with more evidence for the words “as
[God had] said” (Judg 6:37). He was
responding to God’s call (Judg 6:14–16). Thus he was hesitant, but not
unbelieving.
What about the matter of asking
for signs? When we do so, are we acting like the scribes and Pharisees of
Jesus’ day, who always wanted a sign? And how specific is the will of God in
our ordinary life? Granted, in revelation God often gave specific, detailed
instructions for particular actions. But is Judges 6 an invitation for all
believers to demand similar specificity? Must the will of God be a dot with a
fixed point and nothing else?
Gideon’s boldness can be seen
both in his asking for a sign and in his specifying what that sign should be.
The sign, though simple, involved a miracle. He would place the fleece on the
leveled ground where the people threshed their grain (probably in the entrance
to the city gate). If the dew was on the fleece alone while all the ground was
dry, then he would know that God really would use him to deliver Israel from
the hand of the Midianites.
The next night, using rather
deferential language, he asked that the sign be reversed, with the fleece being
dry and the ground soaked with the dew of the night. In both instances Gideon’s
request was granted, confirming what God had promised—that his strength comes
to peak performance and full throttle in our weakness (2 Cor 12:9).
Thus Gideon’s faith was
supported. The phantom fears that had haunted his countrymen about the
Midianites no longer afflicted him. Before setting out to overthrow the
Midianites, he had approached God in prayer, and there he had found his courage
renewed and fortified. His importunity was not wrong. And actually he
provides a model for us: when we are beset by internal struggles and when
challenges seem too great for us to handle, we must go to God in prayer.
Nevertheless, this passage does
not give encouragement to those who assume they can expect God to attend each
of his instructions with whatever signs we may request! God could just as well
have refused Gideon’s request. The fact that he didn’t does not set a precedent
to which any and all believers may appeal in their moment of distress. God may
be pleased to repeat such an act of mercy, but he is not bound to satisfy our
desire for visual, physical miracles to confirm his will. Whether he does so
rests in his hand alone. (Walter C. Kaiser Jr., Peter H. Davids, F.
F. Bruce, and Manfred T. Brauch, Hard
Sayings of the Bible [Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1996], 192-93)
