Gideon's Three Hundred

After the Midianites oppressed Israel for seven years, an angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon while he threshed wheat in a winepress. Gideon destroyed his father's altar to Baal and later gathered an army from the tribes of Manasseh, Asher, Zebulun, and Naphtali (Judges 6:35). The Lord instructed Gideon to reduce his forces, first by dismissing those who were afraid and then by selecting only the men who lapped water with their tongues like a dog. This resulted in a group of three hundred men (Judges 7:7). The Midianite and Amalekite forces were camped in the Valley of Jezreel, described as being as numerous as locusts.

Gideon and his servant Purah went down to the edge of the camp at night, where Gideon overheard a man telling a dream about a loaf of barley bread (Judges 7:13). The text does not say why the man had this specific dream. Gideon returned to his camp and divided the three hundred men into three companies, providing each man with a trumpet and an empty jar with a torch inside. Upon Gideon's signal, the men blew their trumpets and broke the jars, shouting, "A sword for the Lord and for Gideon!" (Judges 7:20). The Lord set every man's sword against his companion throughout the Midianite host, and the army fled.

Gideon then pursued the survivors across the Jordan River. He asked the men of Succoth and Penuel for bread for his exhausted troops, but they refused because Zebah and Zalmunna had not yet been captured. After capturing the two kings of Midian at Karkor, Gideon returned and punished the elders of Succoth with thorns and briars and pulled down the tower of Penuel (Judges 8:16-17). Gideon ultimately executed Zebah and Zalmunna himself after his firstborn son, Jether, refused to draw his sword. The text does not say why Jether was afraid beyond being a youth.