The Midianites loved to cross the Jordan during harvest time to raid their Israelite neighbors like a swarm of locusts. On the other hand, to the discredit of the Israelites many of them had set up altars to Baal forgetting the Lord in proud times of prosperity while expecting the Lord not to forget them when trouble came.
With the Midianites camped nearby preparing to raid, Gideon threshed wheat by his winepress trying to harvest something discretely before they trod across the land demanding all. That’s when the angel of the Lord appeared to him to tell him that he was sent to save his people and the Lord would be with him.
Gideon reminded the angel that he was a nobody, a nothing, and that his subsistence farm, thanks to those Midianites whom the Lord has done nothing about, was well below subsistence levels. The angel of the Lord knew all of that, but, considering the lesson that needed to be learnt, the weakness of Gideon’s position was one of the main reasons why he was chosen.
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Denise offers the prompt word “farm” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories. To read what really happened to Gideon (Jerubbaal) and his family especially his sons, Abimelech and Jotham, see Judges 6-9.
I am grateful to Michael Wilson who pointed out the interaction between the Lord and Gideon. Below is a map from the Bible Mapper site showing Gideon’s adventures against the Midianites.
While writing this I was also thinking of Mary (tqhousecat)’s essay Sometimes a Little is Enough.
Poetry, Short Prose and Walking 