The first time we see Gideon in the Book of Mormon, he’s fighting King Noah. All of the oppression, including the heavy taxes, the martyrdom of a prophet, and driving away hundreds of peaceful citizens has reached a tipping point, and Gideon is angry. He chases the king up a tower, where the king finds a way out. “Spare me,” he pleads, “for the Lamanites are upon us, and they will destroy us; yea, they will destroy my people” (Mosiah 19:7). Gideon sees the approaching army and spares the king’s life.
The last time we see him, he again has a sword in his hand. His people have escaped from captivity to the Lamanites and migrated to the land of Zarahemla. A fiery teacher named Nehor sees him on the road and begins to argue with him. Gideon withstands the verbal attack, “admonishing him with the words of God.” Nehor draws his sword, converting a verbal conflict into a physical one. Gideon tries to defend himself, but “being stricken with many years,” succumbs to the attack and is killed. For this crime, Nehor is executed (Alma 1:2-15).
Gideon died beloved by the people, with a valley and a city named after him (Alma 2:20; 6:7). Yet he didn’t serve as a political or spiritual leader. His contribution is mostly as an advisor to Noah’s son, King Limhi.
Gideon’s people were familiar with Israelite history, so it is not unlikely that he was named after another Gideon, who had lived many years earlier in a place called Ophrah. At that time, Israel was subservient to a nation called the Midianites. An angel appears to him and says, “Thou shalt save Israel from the hand of the Midianites.” Gideon replies, “My family is poor in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.” But the angel reaffirms the call: “Surely I will be with thee, and thou shalt smite the Midianites as one man” (Judges 6:14-16).
He destroys an altar to a false god belonging to his father. The men of the city are furious, but his father defends him (Judges 6:25-32). Then, he recruits an army of 22,000 men to overthrow the Midianite army, but the Lord guides him to reduce the army to only 300. “The people that are with thee are too many,” He says, “lest Israel vaunt themselves against me, saying, Mine own hand hath saved me” (Judges 7:2).
So Gideon has to be creative. In the middle of the night, he places his men in a huge circle surrounding the Midianite camp. On a signal from him, each man blows a trumpet, holds up a burning lamp, and shouts, “The sword of the Lord and of Gideon.” The spectacle gives the impression of an enormous army surrounding the camp, inducing panic. Gideon’s army hardly has to do anything. “The Lord set every man’s sword against his fellow” (Judges 7:22). The Midianites basically destroy themselves.
The other Gideon hatched a similarly creative plan. After King Limhi’s people tried and failed to free themselves from Lamanite captivity, suffering terrible losses all three times (Mosiah 21:5-13), a messengers arrived from the land of Zarahemla. The king wanted to lead his people to freedom but didn’t know how to escape their captors. Gideon proposed a plan: give the Lamanite guards strong wine as a gift. When they are drunk, in the middle of the night, the entire city can sneak past them and travel to Zarahemla (Mosiah 22:1-9). The plan worked beautifully. Gideon was able to accomplish by a clever plan what the people had failed to accomplish by brute force. When they arrived in Zarahemla, the prophet Alma “did exhort the people of Limhi and his brethren, all those that had been delivered out of bondage, that they should remember that it was the Lord that did deliver them” (Mosiah 25:16).
Before the children of Israel entered the promised land, Moses instructed them:
When thou goest out to battle against thine enemies, and seest horses, and chariots, and a people more than thou, be not afraid of them. …
Deuteronomy 20:1, 4
For the Lord your God is he that goeth with you, to fight for you against your enemies, to save you.
Both Gideons exemplify this principle. They fought with the sword, but they recognized that the battle was the Lord’s (1 Samuel 17:47). Whether they used trumpets and lamps or tributes of wine, they thought creatively about how to use limited resources and then put their trust in God. As a result, they were instruments in God’s hands to deliver His people (Alma 1:8).
Today I will trust God to help me succeed. When I face intimidating challenges, I will remember the examples of both Gideons, and I will carry forward, trusting in the sword of the Lord.
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