Judges 6:19-29

19 So Gideon went in and prepared a young goat, and unleavened bread from an ephah of flour. The meat he put in a basket, and he put the broth in a pot; and he brought them out to Him under the terebinth tree and presented them.
20 The Angel of God said to him, "Take the meat and the unleavened bread and lay them on this rock, and pour out the broth." And he did so.
21 Then the Angel of the Lord put out the end of the staff that was in His hand, and touched the meat and the unleavened bread; and fire rose out of the rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened bread. And the Angel of the Lord departed out of his sight.
22 Now Gideon perceived that He was the Angel of the Lord. So Gideon said, "Alas, O Lord God! For I have seen the Angel of the Lord face to face."
23 Then the Lord said to him, "Peace be with you; do not fear, you shall not die."
24 So Gideon built an altar there to the Lord, and called it The-Lord-Is-Peace. To this day it is still in Ophrah of the Abiezrites.
25 Now it came to pass the same night that the Lord said to him, "Take your father's young bull, the second bull of seven years old, and tear down the altar of Baal that your father has, and cut down the wooden image that is beside it;
26 and build an altar to the Lord your God on top of this rock in the proper arrangement, and take the second bull and offer a burnt sacrifice with the wood of the image which you shall cut down."
27 So Gideon took ten men from among his servants and did as the Lord had said to him. But because he feared his father's household and the men of the city too much to do it by day, he did it by night.
28 And when the men of the city arose early in the morning, there was the altar of Baal, torn down; and the wooden image that was beside it was cut down, and the second bull was being offered on the altar which had been built.
29 So they said to one another, "Who has done this thing?" And when they had inquired and asked, they said, "Gideon the son of Joash has done this thing."

Judges 6:19-29 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO JUDGES 6

In this chapter we have an account of the distressed condition Israel was in through the Midianites, Jud 6:1-6, of a prophet being sent unto them to reprieve them for their sins, Jud 6:7-10 of an angel appearing to Gideon, with an order to him to go and save Israel out of the hands of the Midianites, Jud 6:11-16 and of a sign given him by the angel, whereby he knew this order was of God, Jud 6:17-24, and of the reformation from idolatry in his father's family he made upon this, throwing down the altar of Baal, and building one for the Lord, Jud 6:25-32, and of the preparation he made to fight the Midianites and others, Jud 6:33-35, but first desired a sign of the Lord, that Israel would be saved by his hand, which was granted and repeated, Jud 6:36-40.

Footnotes 2

  • [a]. Hebrew YHWH Shalom
  • [b]. Hebrew Asherah, a Canaanite goddess
Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.