40 Fun Facts About Gideon

What did Gideon leave on a threshing floor overnight, twice, to confirm that God would save Israel through him?

A fleece gave Gideon exactly the sign he asked for on the first morning and, at his request, the opposite sign on the second.

How many soldiers did Gideon keep for his attack on the Midianite camp after God twice cut down his army?

300 men were all that remained of an army that began at thirty-two thousand; everyone else was sent back to the tents before the battle.

The Gideons, a society named after the biblical hero Gideon, are best known for leaving Bibles in which places?

Hotel rooms have held Gideon Bibles since 1908, when the society placed its first copies in the Superior Hotel in Superior, Montana.

How did the few men Gideon kept for battle drink at the water, unlike the thousands he sent home?

Lapping like dogs, with water scooped to the mouth by hand, marked out the chosen few; every man who got down on his knees to drink was dismissed.

What did Gideon's soldiers hide inside clay jars until the moment they surrounded the Midianite camp after dark?

Burning torches appeared on every side at once when the jars were smashed, and the whole Midianite army ran, crying out as it fled.

Where was Gideon secretly threshing wheat, to keep it from Midianite raiders, when an angel first appeared to him?

In a winepress the grain stayed out of sight; for seven years Midianite raiders had been stripping Israel's fields whenever crops were planted.

Why did God tell Gideon that his army of thousands was too large to fight the Midianites?

Israel would boast that its own hand had won the victory, God said, so the volunteers were thinned out in two rounds before the battle.

Which book of the Old Testament tells the story of Gideon across its sixth, seventh and eighth chapters?

Judges covers the era before Israel had kings, when tribal leaders such as Gideon rose to lead in times of crisis.

Which weapon did Gideon's men name in their battle cry, even though their hands were full of other things?

A sword for the LORD and for Gideon was the shout, raised by men who simply stood in place around the camp while the enemy fled.

In the dream Gideon overheard outside the Midianite camp, what came tumbling in and flattened a tent?

A barley loaf knocked the tent flat, and the dreamer's friend said it could only mean Gideon, into whose hand God had given the whole camp.

In Gideon's first overnight test, what did he ask God to put only on the item he had laid out?

Dew lay so heavily on it that Gideon wrung out a bowlful of water, though the ground all around was dry.

Which second name did Gideon earn after he tore down his father's pagan altar under cover of darkness?

Jerubbaal was explained as 'let Baal contend with him', a dare for the god to defend his own altar against the man who wrecked it.

Which man, Gideon's own father, told an angry mob that an idol should be left to defend its own altar?

Joash owned the altar his son had wrecked, yet he warned that anyone who pleaded for the idol would be dead by morning.

To which tribe of Israel did Gideon belong, though he called his own clan its weakest?

Manasseh supplied his first recruits, starting with his own clan of Abiezer, before Asher, Zebulun and Naphtali joined.

Under what kind of tree did the angel of the LORD sit down before speaking to Gideon for the first time?

An oak, or a terebinth in some translations, stood on his family's land, and Gideon later served the visitor a meal beneath it.

What did the angel of the LORD call Gideon in greeting, while he was hiding his grain from raiders?

Mighty man of valor, or mighty warrior in newer translations, was the angel's name for a farmer who went on to ask how he could possibly save Israel.

What did Gideon name the altar he built after fearing he would die for seeing an angel?

The LORD Is Peace, or Jehovah-shalom in the King James Version, echoes what Gideon had just been told: not to be afraid, because he would not die.

What consumed the meat and bread Gideon set out as an offering when the angel touched them with his staff?

Fire from the rock swallowed the meal, the angel vanished, and only then did Gideon realise who his visitor had been.

What wooden object beside his father's altar did Gideon cut down and use as fuel for a sacrifice?

An Asherah pole, which the King James Version calls a grove, honoured a Canaanite goddess, and Gideon took ten servants to help bring it down.

Which animal did God tell Gideon to sacrifice on the new altar he built after wrecking a pagan one?

A bull seven years old was offered, an age that matched the years Midian had oppressed Israel.

Which group did Gideon send home first, a step that cut his army by more than two-thirds?

The fearful were invited to leave, and twenty-two thousand men took the offer, leaving ten thousand in the camp.

What did each of Gideon's men blow, on his signal, as they stood around the Midianite camp?

Ram's horns, called trumpets in the King James Version, had been collected from the thousands of men sent home, so every remaining soldier held one.

What did the panicked Midianite soldiers do inside their own camp once the alarm was raised around them?

The Midianites turned on each other with their own weapons, and the survivors fled toward the Jordan with Israel in pursuit.

Which servant crept down to the edge of the Midianite camp with Gideon to listen on the eve of battle?

Purah went along because God offered Gideon a companion if he was afraid to go alone, and what the pair overheard settled his nerves.

How did Gideon respond on the spot when he heard an enemy soldier's dream explained in his favour?

He worshipped where he stood, then went straight back to rouse his men with the news that the enemy camp was already theirs.

Which two Midianite princes fleeing from Gideon were captured and killed at sites that bear their names?

Oreb and Zeeb were seized by a neighbouring tribe that Gideon had called down from the hills, and their heads were carried to him across the river.

Which tribe complained bitterly to Gideon that it had not been called to the fight against Midian sooner?

Ephraim was soothed when Gideon said its late catch of two enemy princes outshone everything his own clan had done.

Gideon calmed an angry tribe by comparing its leftover gleanings to his own clan's whole harvest of which fruit?

Grapes were the image: the scraps the complaining tribe picked up after the harvest, he said, beat the full vintage of his own clan, Abiezer.

Which town's elders did Gideon punish with desert briers for refusing bread to his exhausted men?

Succoth's leaders had sneered that Gideon had not caught the enemy kings yet; a captured youth later wrote down the names of every one of them.

What did Gideon tear down at Penuel after that town also refused to feed his troops?

Its tower was the subject of a threat he made on the way out, and on his return in triumph he carried it out and killed the men of the town.

Which animals, described as too many to count, did the Midianite raiders bring into Israel in Gideon's day?

Camels as countless as the sand on the seashore are how the Bible pictures the invaders, and Gideon later took crescent ornaments from the necks of the kings' own animals.

The Bible compares the Midianite raiders who stripped Israel's fields in Gideon's time to a swarm of which insects?

Locusts, or grasshoppers in the King James Version, suit an enemy that arrived with every crop and left Israel no sheep, ox or donkey.

What did the grateful Israelites ask Gideon to become after his victory over Midian, an offer he refused?

Their ruler, with the post passing to his son and grandson, was the offer; Gideon answered that the LORD alone would govern Israel.

Which prophetess, who led Israel alongside a general named Barak, comes just before Gideon in the Bible's account?

Deborah won Israel forty years of calm, and it was the Midianite raids at the end of that quiet spell that Gideon was called to stop.

What single item did Gideon ask each of his soldiers to hand over from their Midianite plunder?

An earring from every man added up to some 19 kilograms of gold, all of it thrown onto a garment spread out on the ground.

What sacred object did Gideon make from plundered Midianite gold, only for Israel to treat it as an idol?

An ephod made from the spoils stood in his hometown, and the Bible calls it a snare to Gideon and his whole household.

Which son of Gideon, born to a concubine, killed his brothers and was made king in his mother's town?

Abimelech lasted three years as king before the city that had crowned him rose against him.

Which two Midianite kings did Gideon chase beyond the Jordan and execute for killing his own brothers?

Zebah and Zalmunna told Gideon to strike the blow himself after his eldest son, still a boy, could not bring himself to do it.

Which firstborn son of Gideon was ordered to execute two captured kings but was too frightened to obey?

Jether was still a youth and never drew his weapon, so the prisoners challenged Gideon to do the job himself.

Which youngest son of Gideon survived the murder of his brothers by hiding, then told a fable about trees?

Jotham shouted his fable from the top of Mount Gerizim, cursed the killers, and then fled to a place called Beer.