Am I Not Sending You?

It’s Easter, so I though that today, we’d do a little Old School “Tactical Wisdom for the Bible” and explain how the story of Gideon helps us in preparedness. Come on, it will be fun.

Let’s set the stage. Gideon’s tale begins in Judges 6 if you want more information. Israel disregarded God’s wishes and allowed all kinds of evil and debauchery to go on (sound familiar?), so God allowed Midian to take over and rule Israel. During their seven years in power, they oppressed Israel (any oppresive government – say it isn’t so). Our first Tactical Wisdom comes right at the outset:

…because of Midian, the people of Israel made for themselves the dens that are in the mountains and the caves and the strongholds.

Judges 6:2b

In Judges 6:4-5, they point out that whenever the people planted crops for themselves, invaders from all around (Midianites, Amalekites, and the “people of the East”) would enter the land and devour the food (sounds like the dangers of illegal immigration to me, but what do I know). Because of this, the Israelites called out to God and asked for help.

At this point, Gideon was hiding wheat in a winepress to hide it from the Midianites (because taxation is theft). Apparently, the Midianites had their own version of the Defense Production Act and could just seize the food.

An angel appeared to Gideon and told him to go and save his people, calling him a “Mighty Warrior”. Just like of all us, Gideon instead chose to complain rather than act. He asked the angel why God allowed all of these bad things to happen and asked why God wasn’t doing anything to help. We see this with everyone’s snarky replies on X or Facebook, urging everyone else to “do something” or putting their hope in politicians to fix things. God gave Gideon the best reply:

“….Am I not sending you?”

Judges 6:14

God makes a great point here. Gideon has been there the whole time and has done nothing but passive stockpiling and has done nothing to better his own nation. When the people asked God to “do something”, He did, He sent Gideon to lead them to free thmeselves. If you aren’t willing to risk your own freedom or life to change things, why should anyone else do it for you?

Once Gideon realized he was really talking to an Angel of God, he decided to step out in faith and take action, but he was smart. Rather than barging into the capital building on an unannounced tour (wait….that sounds familiar) that would have ended with his arrest and execution, he let his enemy know that times were changing with a warning action.

Gideon gathered a small, tight-knit group of fighters (his tribe), and conducted a night-time raid on a soft target (a temple to Baal – we call them Drag Queen Story Hour today) to announce the presence of resistance. This piece of wisdom tell us to learn how to conduct a raid.

So Gideon took ten men of his servants and did as the Lord told him. But because he was too afraid of his family and the men of the town, he did it by night.

Judges 6:27

The next day, the men of the town realized it had to be Gideon and they came for him, surrounding the farm. Gideon’s father helped the resistance expand by refusing to let them arrest Gideon. He pointed out that if Baal was truly a god, Baal could defend himself without sending these men to do it. When faced with resistance, the local authorities backed down.

Now, word reached the Midianite governors (the “feds” of this story) and they sent out a large force to face Gideon. God’s people all came together to stand with Gideon against their oppressors. 32,000 people showed up to fight.

God told Gideon that He was giving him a pair of Angels (God’s Green Berets/MARSOC), and that Gideon needed to just pick out the best 300 men (apparently Leonidas was a descendant of Gideon – that was a joke before you all spam my replies). Gideon had everyone take a drink from a pool. People who bent down and drank directly from the water (breaking their situational awareness), Gideon sent home. The 300 whol put their cupped hands into the water and brought it up to their mouth to drink (enabling them to maintain situational awareness), he kept. The lesson here (found in Judges 7:2-7:7) is to pick people for your team who are aware and pay attention.

In Judges 7:9-14, God tells Gideon that he will win the battle, but says that if Gideon is afraid he should take someone with him and scout the camp. Gideon did, and overheard the fears of the Midianites. Tactical Lesson: Recon and intelligence gathering is important. Learn how to do both.

God gave Gideon an unlikely strategy of dividing his force into 3 smaller units and had them encircle the camp in the middle of the night (Judges 7:19 says the “middle watch”, which was about 10PM to 2 AM). The men blew trumpets, carried torches, and gave loud shouts. This deceived the enemy and confused them. Enemy forces then began attacking each other, thinking they were fighting the Israelites.

As the enemy began to flee, Gideon sent out messengers, telling local resistance groups to:

“…Capture the waters against them, as far as Beth-Barah, and also the Jordan”

Judges 7:24b

There’s a couple of lessons here. First, have a means in place to communicate with not only your own tribe, but neighboring groups. I cover this in TW-03. Taking a Brushbeater RTO class can help here. Second, capturing and securing river crossings is a solid tactic, so learning how to establish roadblocks and checkpoints is a good thing. You can learn this in my Community Security Operations course.

During the pursuit, Gideon (in Judges 8) asks two towns to help feed the forces. Both towns refused. Gideon told both towns that he would be back, but he continued his pursuit. The lesson here is don’t abandon your mission for side quests that you can do later.

After winning, he came back. Before he entered the first town, he decided to run a snatch operation to grab and interrogate a prisoner:

And he captured a young man of Succoth and questioned him. And he wrote down for him the officials and elders of Succoth, seventy seven men.

Judges 8:14

Gather intelligence. Build out your opposition’s order of battle or organizational structure. Know exactly who you are looking for. Focus on identifying leadership. Courses like Brushbeater’s SIGINT Course, Rallypoint Six’s Surveillance Aawarenss, and Combat Studies Group’s GROUNDROD Series can help you here. For that matter, during my Community Security Operations course we spend some time on Tactical Questioning and Intelligence Analysis.

Ultimately though, at the end of Chapter 8, we see that Gideon sets himself up as a Warlord and ends up violating God’s law and falls into evil. The lesson here is to guard our motives and do things for the right reason. In victory, don’t claim more that is needed and act for the common good, not personal enrichment.

I hope this deep dive into the story of Gideon sheds some Tactical Wisdom. Get out and get trained. I recommended a bunch of good courses by some great men in here and a couple of good ones by mdeiocre old me. All of these courses are offered all over, including here at Camp Ponderosa.

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