Judges 6:24

24 So Gideon built an altar to honor the LORD there. He called it The LORD Is Peace. It still stands in Ophrah to this very day. Ophrah is in the territory that belongs to the family line of Abiezer.

Judges 6:24 Meaning and Commentary

Judges 6:24

Then Gideon built an altar there unto the Lord
On the top of the rock where he had laid his provisions, and which had been consumed by fire issuing out of it, as a token of divine acceptance, and as an assurance of his destroying the Midianites as easily and quickly as the fire had consumed them, and therefore had great encouragement to erect an altar here for God:

and called it Jehovahshalom;
the Lord is peace, the author and giver of peace, temporal, spiritual, and eternal; so Jarchi,

``the Lord is our peace,''

a fit name for the angel that appeared to him, who was no other than the man of peace; who is our peace, the author of peace between God and man. This name he gave the altar, with respect to the words of comfort said to him in his fright,

peace be to thee;
and by way of prophecy, that peace would be wrought for Israel by the Lord, and prosperity given them; or by way of prayer, the Lord grant or send peace:

unto this day it is yet in Ophrah of the Abiezrites;
that is, the altar Gideon built remained to the times of Samuel, the writer of this book, and was then to be seen in the city of Ophrah, which belonged to the family of the Abiezrites, who were of the tribe of Manasseh.

Judges 6:24 In-Context

22 Gideon realized it was the angel of the Lord. He cried out, "LORD and King, I have seen the angel of the LORD face to face!"
23 But the LORD said to him, "May peace be with you! Do not be afraid. You are not going to die."
24 So Gideon built an altar to honor the LORD there. He called it The LORD Is Peace. It still stands in Ophrah to this very day. Ophrah is in the territory that belongs to the family line of Abiezer.
25 That same night the LORD spoke to Gideon. He said, "Get the second bull from your father's herd. Get the one that is seven years old. Tear down the altar your father built in honor of Baal. Cut down the pole that is beside it. The pole is used to worship the goddess Asherah.
26 "Then build the right kind of altar. Build it in honor of the LORD your God. Build it on top of this hill. Then use the wood from the Asherah pole you cut down. Sacrifice the second bull as a burnt offering."
Holy Bible, New International Reader's Version® Copyright © 1995, 1996, 1998 by Biblica.   All rights reserved worldwide.