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1. Just before the occurrence of the facts narrated in this passage Gideon had received his call from God. Former judges, Othniel, Ehud, and Barak, had been moved by the Spirit of God to their work of delivering Israel from the oppressor. But to Gideon alone a theophany was vouchsafed in order to intimate that the God, who had visibly manifested Himself to the patriarchs, was the same Jehovah ready to save their descendants if only they would penitently return to the covenant.

2. God permitted His people to be brought so low in order that affliction might drive them to prayer, and that thus their extremity might become His opportunity. Such was the result in the gracious ways of His providence.

3. Next, God called Gideon by two revelations. The first, by a visible manifestation of the angel of Jehovah. Next, in a dream of the night, Jehovah commanded him to throw down his father's altar to Baal.

4. As in the first manifestation Jehovah acknowledged Gideon, so in this second one He required Gideon to acknowledge Jehovah. Gideon accordingly, with ten men of his servants, overthrew Baal's altar, and cut down the Asherah pillar by it in the night; for he durst not do it by day through fear of his father's household and the men of the city. But God does not reject the first sincere efforts of His children to do His will, though attended with timidity (John 3:2; John 19:38). Gideon did not by secrecy effect his purpose of escaping detection.

5. Then followed the gathering together of the enemy to the plain of Jezreel: And the Spirit of Jehovah clothed Gideon as with a coat of mail. At his trumpet-call his own clan, recognising the champion and deliverer of Israel in him who, as an iconoclast, braved Baal's revenge with impunity, was the first to rally around him. The neighbouring tribes, Manasseh, Zebulun, and Naphtali, next obeyed his summons by heralds. But still there were renmants of doubt and fear in Gideon, though he was very different in respect to faith from what be was when the Angel of Jehovah first appeared to him.

6. But before setting out on his perilous enterprise with the assembled army, Gideon desired a further sign from God to assure him of success. His prayer for a sign did not betoken want of faith, but weakness of faith. The flesh strove against the willing spirit, and so created misgivings and fears. The sign which Gideon asked, and which the Lord vouchsafed, was one especially significant. The dew was in the Holy Land a leading source of fertility (Genesis 27:28; Deuteronomy 33:13). Thus dew naturally became the image of spiritual influences. The type may be viewed in a threefold relation.

I. THE DEW IN RELATION TO GIDEON'S ENTERPRISE. To Gideon in his fears the filling of the fleece with dew from heaven whilst the earth around was dry, intimated that, whereas Israel was heretofore, through apostasy, as dry spiritually as the heathen around (comp. the "dry places," Matthew 12:43), Jehovah was now about to fill Gideon and His nation with His reviving grace. The reversing of the sign at Gideon's request, and the dryness of the fleece whilst the dew rested on the earth around, assured him that Jehovah could, and would, manifest His power even amidst the weakness and helplessness of His people in the face of the nations which were flourishing all around. The army was reduced to three hundred. The poor and weak one should overturn the rich and mighty.

II. THE DEW IN RELATION TO ISRAEL PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE. The type has a deeply interesting relation to Israel, the elect nation.

1. First, in the past, the fleece filled with dew whilst the ground around was utterly dry, answers to Israel filled with heavenly blessings from the Lord, whilst the Gentile world was a moral wilderness, dry and unwatered by the dews of His grace. It was not because of Israel's merits, but because of God's gratuitous choice, that the nation was singled out to be the Paradise of Jehovah cut off from the spiritual waste: just as the dew is not of man's procuring, but of God's bestowing. Had Abraham, the forefather of the nation, been left to himself he would have continued an idolater like all his neighbhours in Ur of the Chaldees, a city dedicated to moon-worship (Joshua 24:2, 3). There was much imperfection in him, and Isaac, and Jacob. Jacob's sons, excepting Joseph and perhaps Benjamin, were far worse. Yet God remembered His own covenant of grace, and preserved Israel in Egypt as a separate people unto Himself in the land of Goshen, like a fleece full of heavenly dew in the midst of a dry and parched land.

2. The dew representing the present state of Israel. The fleece remaining dry, whilst all the ground around was saturated with the refreshing dew, represents Israel in a state forming a sad contrast to the former image and what it represents. Israel has now for ages been spiritually dry, without any of the dews of heavenly blessing which descends from Jehovah, the God of the covenant. And what makes her case the sadder is, she is singular in her state. For the gospel of the grace of God in Christ Jesus is making many a spiritual desert throughout the Gentile world to become a garden of the Lord, blooming with the life-giving dews of the Spirit poured down from on high.

3. The dew representing the future of Israel. The relation of the type to the future of Israel. As the fleece was full of dew at first, and all the earth dry: and next, the fleece was dry, and all the earth wet; so the blessed time is coming when the fleece shall be again full of dew, and all the earth, through its instrumentality, shall be filled with the dew of the Lord (Micah 5:7; Jeremiah 3:17; Psalm 72:6, 8).

III. THE DEW IN RELATION TO THE CHURCH OF CHRIST AND ITS PROFESSING MEMBERS. Lastly, the type has a profitable lesson to teach us in its relation to the Christian Church and its professing members.

1. The fleece represents not only Israel, but Israel's Antitype, Jesus; and secondarily, His people who are one with Him. Originally He had from everlasting the fulness of the Godhead (Colossians 1:19). The fleece was full, but the ground around had no dew from heaven. Then at His crucifixion the Church might say, "Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost" (Ezekiel 37:11); just as the fleece was dried whilst the earth around was saturated with dew. But at His resurrection not only did He live again, but becomes the Lord of life to us. Meantime the effect of Christ's presence as a dew in the soul is "He shall grow as the lily, and cast forth His roots as Lebanon (Hosea 14:5). Prayer will fill the fleece with the heavenly dew. Moreover, there is great danger of losing the dew.

2. The dry place amidst the dew-covered ground is a symbol of the sad state of many a one who remains spiritually dead and lifeless, whilst dews of heavenly blessing are descending on every side.

(A. R. Fausset, M. A.).

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KJV: And Gideon said unto God, If thou wilt save Israel by mine hand, as thou hast said,

WEB: Gideon said to God, "If you will save Israel by my hand, as you have spoken,