Judges 6 — 8.
1895 202 No one who saw the young man at Ophrah, at work for his father, threshing wheat behind the winepress to hide it from the marauding Midianites, would think that he was "a mighty man of valour"; and was to be a great leader of insurgents, — a revolutionist as thorough and vigorous as Judas Maccabaeus, as brave and able as Cromwell, as calm and magnanimous as Washington. He was to become an iconoclast:
"All grim, and soiled, and brown with tan,
I saw a Strong One in his wrath,
Smiting the godless shrines of man
Along his path!
* * * * *
'Spare,' Art implores, 'Yon holy pile.
That grand, old, time-worn turret spare!'
Meek Reverence, kneeling in the aisle,
Cried out, 'Forbear'!
"Grey-bearded Use, who, deaf and blind,
Groped for his old-accustomed stone,
Leaned on his staff and wept to find
His seat o'erthrown.
"Young Romance raised his dreamy eyes
O'erhung with ply locks of gold;
'Why smite,' he asked in sad surprise,
The fair — the old?'
"Yet louder rang the Strong One's stroke,
Yet nearer flashed his axe's gleam"
The popular idea of the iconoclast is often strangely incorrect, — that he is a fierce, impetuous being like Jehu, who delights in pulling down, slaying, and destroying. The greatest of them have been the very reverse of all this. Moses had to be forced into his work. Paul sought "to turn the world upside down" by the most peaceable means available. Erasmus they still accuse of timidity. That other great iconoclast of Holland, who broke the Spanish power, was worn out with checking the excesses of his own followers. Cromwell and Hampden tried to get out of England and were already embarked: so far was their idea from heading any insurrection till forced into doing so. All true reformers have a large sense of the evils which failure will bring on their already afflicted people, and that even the road to success will for a time but increase their sufferings. And this sensibility is quite unsuspected by Meek Reverence, Grey-bearded Use, Young Romance and other anti-reformers, who consider that they know Gideon through and through, and that he is nothing but a sordid agitator, having no motive but to get possession and influence for himself at the cost of the peor people whom he is leading to destruction.
Gideon had nothing of that kind of courage which Aristotle contemned, such as is based upon ignorance of the danger in front. This is not the courage of wise men who estimate the danger, but the recklessness of "fools" who "rush in where angels fear to tread." Such may do the work of iconoclasts, but not that of reformers. A quiet and modest disposition was perhaps Gideon's distinguishing feature; so that when the angel appears to him and calls him "a mighty man of valour," he replies with surprise, "I am the least in my father's house." When, after he had gained a conquest, that might have inflated a Caesar or Hannibal, the Ephraimites think themselves aggrieved, he gives an answer of grace and courtesy that turned away their wrath. "Is not the gleaning of the grapes of Ephraim [i.e., their capture of the princes Oreb and Zeeb] better than the vintage of Abiezer? What have I done now in comparison of you"? When the Israelites, with that tendency to make fools of themselves which nations that have beer brought through a great deliverance frequently display, entreat him to be their king, he declines. Even when Zebah and Zalmunna tell him that they had just killed his own brothers, and in his wrath he had told his youthful son to slay them, on their appeal that he would spare them that indignity and kill them himself, he complies with their request: rather a grim courtesy, it is true; but it must be recollected that he would have saved their lives had they not slain his brothers (whom they described as splendid and majestic-looking men like Gideon himself). The two captive kings recognise the unreasonableness of their expecting to live, and he recognises their claim to the death of brave foemen. We must allow for the times.
He is cautious to the verge of timidity until God has given him the three signs to confirm his faith; but, once assured that God is with them, he does not hesitate. "Erst wägen, dann wägen": only a comma between, to take breath. He is swift, strong and thorough in action; he breaks down the altars of Baal, defeats and scatters the countless hosts of the Midianites with great slaughter, follows them to Jordan "faint yet pursuing," and captures and slays their rulers. The army he had collected is reduced from 32,000 to 300 men. It must have been deeply discouraging to see 22,000 of them walk off in avowed hopelessness and fear; but even the bulk of the 10,000 remaining, who must have been thorough heroes to have stood their ground in such general desertion, had to be set aside by a test which disclosed from amongst them 300 men too proud and too brave to lose their habitual self-command even at a time of such excitement and danger. These men stood erect and temperately allayed their fierce thirst by lapping a little water from their hands, whilst the others threw themselves down and with excusable abandonment plunged their faces into the stream. With those 300 valiant and devoted men Gideon did a more extraordinary work even than Leonidas with his 300 at Thermopylae. But the victory itself is of course no especial credit to Gideon: it is the Lord's doing and marvellous in our eyes. The strategy, however, of the sudden crashing of the breaking pitchers, the sudden blaze of 300 lights, and the sudden blare of 300 trumpets was Gideon's devising; and very astute and well-designed it was.
With all his caution and courtesy, he could he very fierce sometimes; he slew the half-hearted temporisers of Penuel, and "taught" those of Succoth by flogging their bare backs with brambles; a system of tuition of considerable mnemonic value, at any rate. It was like that blaze of fury from the calm Washington when he flung the inkstand at the officer who told him he was afraid to cross the river, crying, "Begone, and send me a man"!
The matter concerning the earrings was, however, a mistake, and a serious one on Gideon's part. The fact is that the paradox of La Rochefoucauld is true, "Il faut de plus grandes vertus pour soutenir la bonne fortune que la mauvaise," though we all think there would be an exception in our case and we would at least like to test it by having a little more prosperity and a little less adversity to sustain. Gideon took the trinkets with no sordid or ambitious purpose, but with a kind of parochial patriotism to make an ephod for his native Ophrah: with as innocent a purpose, no doubt, as when Helena commenced collecting relics for the church, and with the same unfortunate result. But during his long rule as chief magistrate he brought no dishonour on his name that disqualified him from having a place amongst the Legion of Honour in the Epistle to the Hebrews. He proved too that he had great constructive ability. He was not merely an iconoclast:
"I looked: aside the dust-cloud rolled,
The Waster seemed the Builder too;
Up-springing from the ruined Old
I saw the New."
J. C. B.