I am always amazed at how recognizable the characters in
Scriptures are--people haven't changed in 4000 years. Gideon is one of the distinctly interesting
characters. When we first see him, the
political situation is ugly, but we are told that it is due to the disobedience
of the Israelites. One thing we should know by now is that living according to
the directions we have been given is more successful than not. In this case,
the nasty neighbors they faced were the Midianites--who were shirttail cousins,
descendents of Abraham by Keturah, the third woman in his life. We are told
that before he died, Abraham left the possessions to Isaac; his six later sons got no inheritance, but he "gave them gifts
and sent them away to the east country."
It doesn't say anything else about Abraham's relationship or
responsibility for the other sons. If Abraham made any effort to teach them
about God, it apparently made no impact.
The dominant one (possibly the main ones in a tribal federation) was
Midian. We see them first as traders,
associated with Ishmaelites (also cousins) whose trading included slaves,
including Joseph. We do not know if these traders knew that Joseph was Isaac's
grandson, or if they cared.
The next time we see the Midianites is when Moses is fleeing
Egypt, after his murder of an Egyptian overseer becomes known. Moses encounters a subtribe of
Midianites, near the Gulf of Aquaba,
whose leader was Jethro, also described as a priest. I've long wondered if Jethro had somehow
encountered the knowledge of Israel's God; possibly through Moses. We don't see
any disapproval of Jethro in the narratives of his relationship with Moses; we
see approval of his wisdom, and the mention of a "burnt offering to
God", and a meal with Aaron and the Israelite elders.
We see a Midianite woman with an Israelite man in the
tabernacle, who were executed with one spear thrust. Moses is told to attack the Midianites, who
had been deceptive and a bad influence on the Israelites. The pagan prophet
Balaam had advised the Midianites and other pagan tribes to use their women to
seduce the Israelites into pagan worship (which was heavy on fertility rites
and sexual behavior). The memory of this influence extended to the letter to
the church at Pergamos in Revelation 2, who is warned about the "doctrine
of Balaam , who taught Balac to cast a stumbling block before the children of
Israel ... "
The Midianites came back later, during the period of the
Judges, apparently as raiding nomads and camel herders. They were used also as punishment for the
idolatry that the Israelites were flirting with. Again, copying evil is not healthy. We see an unlikely hero in an
Israelite--Gideon. He is determined to
save his crops, to the point of threshing his grain in a winepress to keep it
away from
the raiders. God calls him, and despite his lack of confidence, gives
him a test: take down his father's idols and turn them into an altar for a
burnt offering for God. Then in turnabout, Gideon gives God a test: a fleece
that stayed wet on dry ground, and then dry on wet ground overnight. God gives
Gideon instructions on how to drive out the Midians, and the land had peace for
40 years.
Looking at the family of Abraham, there is something we
have to learn: What we do has consequences.
Abraham had one son that carried on the promise given by God. He had a
son by doing it himself (with the connivance of his wife and her maid), which
became a rival of the promised son; a rivalry which still exists today and
affects millions of people. And then there were the six sons of a third woman,
who apparently were not taught about God. These sons, as well as those of
Abraham's nephew Lot, who should also have learned from Abraham, were snares
and trouble for the Israelites for centuries.
We each have one life on this earth, but we each also have legacies, for
good or for evil. Will those who know
us, and may pass on their memory of us, be blessed or damaged by our legacies?
No comments:
Post a Comment