Biblical Sex Toys?!?

Dan McClellan His son Gideon was beating out wheat in the wine press, which is just what they called it.

Dan Beecher Don't mix your grains and your grapes. We don't need to do that in the same place. There's plenty of room. Why do we do that?

Dan McClellan Yeah. You're not beating out your wheat there in the wine press again, are you, Gideon? These boys been beating- No, Papa ...

Dan Beecher the wheat in my wine press.

Dan McClellan Damn it, Gideon.

Dan Beecher Been marking in my camper.

Dan McClellan Okay.

Dan Beecher We need to go on.

Dan McClellan Okay. Hey, everybody, I'm Dan McClellan.

Dan Beecher And I'm Dan Beecher.

Dan McClellan And you're listening to the Data Over Dogma podcast, where we increase public access to the academic study of the Bible and religion, and combat the spread of misinformation. About the same. How go things today, Dan?

Dan Beecher Things are good. It's a beautiful day. You went golfing.

Dan McClellan I did.

Dan Beecher I went for a lovely walk.

Dan McClellan Excellent.

Dan Beecher And now it's time to combat some misinformation.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher Actually, we're not going to do a lot of misinformation combating right- ... this week.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher We're just going to have some fun- Yeah ... with the Bible.

Dan McClellan We're going to lean into the first part of our mission statement.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan We're going to increase public access to the academic study of the Bible and religion by addressing a couple of passages from the Hebrew Bible.

Dan Beecher Yes, indeed. The first thing we're going to talk about, we're going to hit a judge, one of the judges of judges.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher And that'll be fun. We're going to talk about Gideon, and I'll tell you what, when you first type Gideon into... If you type Gideon into Google, you don't... I thought I was going to be clever and type Gideon Bible into the Google, and that is a whole other thing. The Gideon Bible is its own thing, so you have to type Gideon in the Bible, and then you get Judges 6.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher So, we'll get to that. That's our chapter and verse, and then in the latter half of the show, you're going to want to stick around for this. It's our Twisted Scripture segment, and I'll just say that we teased it a few weeks ago.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher We talked about it. We said we were going to look into it.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher It is in Ezekiel, and it's naughty.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher So, you're going to want to stay tuned for that action. But first, let's do a chapter and verse. In this chapter and verse, like I said, we're in Judges chapter 6 through 8-ish.

Dan McClellan 6 through 8.

Dan Beecher Yep.

Dan McClellan We're talking about this Gideon fellow, although he gets another name partway through, which is- Well, and this is interesting because, the narrative is like he gets another name, but a lot of scholars are like, it sounds like that was his name originally. And they just wrote a narrative to explain why he has a name that seems dedicated to a problematic deity.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan But we'll get to that.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Because it ends, I don't want to give too much away, but his name is something, something Baal.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher As in the god Baal.

Dan McClellan Baal, yes.

Dan Beecher B-A-A-L.

Dan McClellan Anyway. Get those nasty Baals out of your mouth.

Dan Beecher That's the second segment of the show, Dan. Come on. So, okay. So let's start out with who was this guy?

Dan McClellan Well, Gideon was the son of Joash, but I want to start at the beginning of chapter 6 because chapter 5 ends with, "And the land had rest 40 years."

Dan Beecher Mm-hmm.

Dan McClellan Ah. The land is able to relax and take a breath.

Dan Beecher Everybody chills.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher 40 years is about the right amount of time for everybody to just sort of forget all of the good lessons that they've learned- Yes ... and think that everything's cool forever- Yeah ... and then start doing dumb stuff.

Dan McClellan Way to edit yourself there.

Dan Beecher And nothing happened. What are you talking about?

Dan McClellan And then chapter 6 starts the way all of the new stories start in Judges. The Israelites did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. And so- Dun, dun, dun.

Dan Beecher Oh, you wacky, fickle Israelites.

Dan McClellan Yeah. And so then, God gives them into the hands of Midian for seven years, and Midian would be this territory that's kind of south, southeast of Israel, so other side of the Jordan, but further down south, kind of on the east side of the Gulf of Aqaba. So this is where Moses is supposed to have met up with Jethro, his father-in-law.

Dan Beecher Mm.

Dan McClellan Got training in priesthood, and all this kind of stuff. So the relationship of Israel to Midian is an interesting one. But, when you get to verse 7, it says, "When the Israelites cried to the Lord on account of the Midianites, the Lord sent a prophet to the Israelites." And so we've got this interim prophet who just pops up out of nowhere.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan It says, "Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, 'I led you up from Egypt and brought you out of the house of slavery, and I delivered you from the hand of the Egyptians and from the hand of all who oppressed you, and drove them out before you and gave you their land.' And I said to you, 'I am the Lord your God. You shall not pay reverence to the gods of the Amorites in whose land you live, but you have not given heed to my voice.'" And immediately after that, we get Gideon. And as I was reading that, it sounds a little different from the rest of the narrative.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan But in the SBL Study Bible, there are actually double brackets- Yeah, I'm seeing that- ...

Dan Beecher all around that ... in the NRSVUE as well.

Dan McClellan Yeah. So- So I was like, "Huh, that's usually where something has been added in." This is the long ending of Mark, the story of the woman taken in adultery. Those passages have the double brackets around it as well. And I look down at the note, and it looks like there's a Qumran manuscript. One of the Dead Sea Scrolls- Oh ... just straight up doesn't have verses 7 through 10.

Dan Beecher Oh.

Dan McClellan So, we've got a little text critical, how's your father going on there? And I haven't pulled up the manuscript to see if there's a case to make for some kind of haplography, which would be where maybe in the copying of the text, the scribe accidentally left four verses out.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan That's a lot to leave out. You usually don't see that, but maybe that's why. But I think what that indicates is that somebody actually threw this in afterwards. This is a secondary addition to this story.

Dan Beecher Yeah. It does feel very just sort of a preachy moment that doesn't advance- Yeah ... the story at all or anything like that.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher It's just sort of a reminder that you- Yeah.

Dan McClellan And it sounds kind of Deuteronomistic.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan It's using the language that Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomistic history uses. This, "I brought you up from Egypt, gall darn it." Because it uses gall darn it, and that is a distinctly Deuteronomistic- ...

Dan Beecher rural swear. What is the ancient Hebrew for gall darn it again? I'm trying to remember.

Dan McClellan Yeah. You got to be able to pronounce the- The ch ...

Dan Beecher the ch, yeah.

Dan McClellan It's just ch. Just like Gomorrah is actually "Gomorrah." It is an I and it's not a G.

Dan Beecher Oh, my goodness.

Dan McClellan But anyway, and she was also in "The Guardians of the Galaxy." Now, you get to verse 11, and you have, "The angel of the Lord came and sat under the oak at Ophrah-" Yeah ..."which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, as his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the wine press," which is just what they called it. And- Yeah.

Dan Beecher That confused me because it's like this whole threshing thing, but why are you threshing? Don't mix your grains and your grapes. We don't need to do that in the same place. There's plenty of room. Why are we doing that?

Dan McClellan Yeah. You're not beating out your wheat there in the wine press again, are you, Gideon? These boys been beating- No, Papa ...

Dan Beecher the wheat in my wine press.

Dan McClellan Damn it, Gideon.

Dan Beecher Been whacking in my camper.

Dan McClellan Okay.

Dan Beecher We need to go on.

Dan McClellan Okay. And it says, "The angel of the Lord appeared to him." Suddenly, he's just beating his wheat, and the angel pops up.

Dan Beecher And it says- Oh, that is the worst. When an angel shows up right when you're beating your wheat, you don't want that. But okay.

Dan McClellan And it says, "The Lord is with you, you mighty warrior."

Dan Beecher He's apparently impressed by what he saw.

Dan McClellan And Gideon went, "Ah!"

Dan Beecher And then- Oh, my. We are getting silly, sir.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher Sorry. We are being silly.

Dan McClellan It's been a long day.

Dan Beecher This is a very serious episode, so we need to be- Okay.

Dan McClellan Yeah ...

Dan Beecher far more serious about this.

Dan McClellan So, we get this back and forth between the angel of the Lord and Gideon, and you have some odd things, because it says, "The angel of the Lord said this. The angel of the Lord said that. Gideon said this." And then, verse 14, we're in the middle of this. Gideon's like, "Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt? But now the Lord has cast us off and given us into the hand of Midian." And then verse 14 says, "Then the Lord turned to him and said-" Mm-hmm ..."'Go in this might of yours, you wheat beater, and deliver Israel from the hand of Midian. I hereby commission you.'" And Gideon responds, "But sir, how can I deliver Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family." The Lord said to him-- So, we've transitioned from the angel of the Lord to the Lord. Gideon does not seem to have noticed any change here.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And it's just going back and forth. And then we're going to get to Gideon's sign, but there's something interesting going on here. I and other scholars have published arguments, because when you look in the Greek translation of this, the Septuagint- Mm ... the verses that have angel of the Lord versus just Lord are not identical. They switch them up a little bit.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan And this is an indication that maybe the word angel there is a later addition, an interpolation, if you will. In other words, the story is originally Adonai is the one who shows up and goes, " Zah!" And sorry, zah comes from an old "Mystery Science Theater 3000" movie, and it came out before I realized that nobody was going to get that reference except my wife, who doesn't listen to our show anyway.

Dan Beecher Rude. She's rude.

Dan McClellan Yeah. "The Hand of Satan," by the way, is the particular episode.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan And so an editor has probably come in here and written in malak, angel, in order to muddy the waters a bit regarding who it is that's talking to Gideon.

Dan Beecher Because it's theologically problematic that- Yes ... the Lord would appear to him.

Dan McClellan Yeah. And because Gideon wants to give the Lord a gift, a present. He goes into his house. He's like, "Wait right here," and runs into his house, comes back, prepared a kid- ... which would be an animal.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan "And unleavened cakes from an ephah of flour. The meat he put in a basket and the broth he put in a pot, and brought them to him under the oak and presented them." And the angel tells him, "Put them on this rock, pour out the broth." Then the angel of the Lord reached out the tip of the staff that was in his hand and touched the meat and the unleavened cakes, and fire sprang up from the rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened cakes, and the angel of the Lord vanished from his sight. So, God has a staff in their hand, and God is like, "Boop," and consumes everything- Right.

Dan Beecher Flames ...

Dan McClellan in a pillar of fire. And so, it's a little problematic to have God showing up with his staff, going, "Hey, what's up? I was just under the shade of that tree. I heard you beating your wheat in here, and came to say you've got quite the arm there." I mean- "I think we could use you."

Dan Beecher It makes sense to me because immediately after what you just said, in verse 22, it says, "Then Gideon perceived that it was the angel of the Lord, and Gideon said, 'Help me, Lord God, for I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face.'" And that struck me as weird because they see angels all the time and nobody's worried about it, but they're terrified of seeing the Lord.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher So yeah, it makes total sense to me. This whole chapter makes way more sense if we take- If it's God ... away the word angel.

Dan McClellan Yeah, and it's just God who shows up.

Dan Beecher It's just God.

Dan McClellan Because it kind of defeats the point. You're not supposed to be able to see God's face and live, according to Exodus 33:20. That's what- Right ... God tells Moses. God's like, "I'm going to cover your face when you walk by, and I'll take my hand away and you'll see my back- Right ... but you're not going to see my face." And so you have all these instances where somebody's like, "Ah, we've seen God.

Dan Beecher Ah."

Dan McClellan And they're terrified, but they don't die.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And it kind of defeats the point of using a messenger as an intermediary. "I don't want to kill him, so I'm going to send a messenger."

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And then they look at the messenger and die, and like, "Crap, we didn't think this through."

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan There's no reason that seeing an angel would threaten your life. But then God's like, "No, don't worry about it.

Dan Beecher Don't worry. We'll make- You're good ...

Dan McClellan an exception for you."

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And so these stories, we've got Hagar, we've got Moses, we've got Gideon. In Judges 13, we're going to have Manoah and his wife, who are the parents of Samson. Same exact thing, "Angel of the Lord." And then they go, "Ah, we have seen God and we're going to die," but they don't die. And this place, to this day-- And this is some of the language of the Deuteronomistic literature and other literature that gives away that these stories were not written when they happened.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Because it says, "Then Gideon built an altar there to the Lord and called it, 'The Lord is peace.' To this day it still stands- Uh-huh ... at Ophrah, which belongs to the Abiezrites." So, this is something from hoary antiquity and- Right ... "You can still go see it true down to this day."

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan So, this is something that they're writing about much later. But God has called Gideon to deliver the Israelites from the hand of Midian, that God also called them to be delivered into.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan So- Yeah ...

Dan Beecher there's a- Even though Gideon is the lowest on the totem pole at his house- Yeah ... and his house is not a big deal, and he's just like, "What the heck?

Dan McClellan Okay- Yeah ...

Dan Beecher I'll go do it."

Dan McClellan So- Sounds kind of like David. Like, "I'm the youngest."

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Right.

Dan Beecher Yeah. Everybody loves an underdog story.

Dan McClellan Yes. And then the first thing, though, that Gideon has got to do, "That night the Lord said to him, 'Take your father's bull, the second bull, seven years old.'"

Dan Beecher Don't take the first bull.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher That's-- Go steal your dad's car, but take the bad one- The second one.

Dan McClellan Yeah ...

Dan Beecher not the good one.

Dan McClellan Leave the gun. "And pull down the altar of Baal that belongs to your father and cut down the sacred pole," and that is the Asherah- Right ... "that is beside it, and build an altar to the Lord your God on the top of the stronghold there in proper order. Then take the second bull, offer it as a burnt offering." And he does it at night, just so he doesn't catch the attention and- Right ...

Dan Beecher catch any hands. He sneaks it.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher He's a sneak.

Dan McClellan Yeah. But this is interesting because we're getting altars to Adonai all over the place. This is prior to the-- Well, this is after Deuteronomy, ostensibly. If you're following the canon, this is supposed to be after God is like, "Don't build anything anywhere except for the place that I will choose," hint, hint- Right ...

Dan Beecher Jerusalem.

Dan McClellan But the Lord appears to Gideon, and Gideon's like, "Altar." And then the Lord's like, "Go build an altar."

Dan Beecher "Altar."

Dan McClellan And so we've got altars popping up all over the place to worship Adonai.

Dan Beecher So Gideon- But first we've got to take down Baal- Yeah ...

Dan McClellan and Asherah's- Right ...

Dan Beecher thing.

Dan McClellan So, we take them down. The next day, everybody wakes up and they're like, "Huh?

Dan Beecher Pourquoi?"

Dan McClellan "And who hath done this?" And after searching and inquiring, they were told Gideon, son of Joash, did it. So, they go to Joash and they say, "Bring out your son so that he may die, for he has pulled down the altar of Baal and cut down the sacred pole beside it." And Joash, according to the text, it's Joash's stuff, and yeah, "Pull down the altar of Baal that belongs to your father."

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan So, it's Joash's stuff, but Joash is just kind of like, "Well, you got to do what you got to do," and just lets it go. Joash said, "Will you contend for Baal?" "Or will you defend his cause? Whoever contends for him shall be put to death by morning. If he is a god, let him contend for himself because his altar has been pulled down." And this is the story, because the name Jerubbaal means Baal contends.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And this seems to probably have been Gideon's original name.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan But why is the hero of the story named after Baal?

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Well, let's tell a story that changes the significance of the name.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And so now, the name kind of becomes let Baal contend.

Dan Beecher Oh, right. Or contend against Baal or something like that.

Dan McClellan Yeah, or something like that.

Dan Beecher Yeah. Because we've heard names that mean X god contends before.

Dan McClellan Well, that's what Israel probably means.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Exactly.

Dan Beecher Is El contends.

Dan McClellan So- Yeah ...

Dan Beecher so it's interesting to hear it in this context now, but with a different god as the- Yeah ... sort of the subject.

Dan McClellan And so verse 32 says, "Therefore, on that day, Gideon was called Jerubbaal." That is to say, let Baal contend against him because he pulled down his altar.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan So, that's what you do when somebody destroys an altar to a deity, you name them after that deity.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan But in a way that sticks it to the deity. So the theory- That makes tons of sense.

Dan Beecher Yeah. So the more likely theory that you're espousing is that his name was Jerubbaal because he probably worshiped Baal and- Well, yeah ... and so he had a name, or he was part of a group that worshiped Baal, so it made sense to give him a theophoric, is that right?

Dan McClellan That's right.

Dan Beecher Name.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher It works. See, I learn some things. But it makes sense to give him a theophoric name with Baal in the name, because that would've just been natural.

Dan McClellan Yeah. And Baal just means lord or master.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Or husband.

Dan Beecher Uh-huh.

Dan McClellan We're going to just slide right on by that. And when we get to Hosea, we can talk more about that. So it could be a title for Adonai.

Dan Beecher Okay, right.

Dan McClellan For all we know, he was given this name and named after Adonai. And here's what I think gives away the store. In chapter 7 it says, "Then Jerubbaal," parenthetically, that is Gideon. So the narrator is kind of like, "Now remember this is the other guy" When he's telling this story that is talking about Jerubbaal. And so what I think happened is the editors have this story about Jerubbaal, and they're like, "Well, we got this Gideon guy. Let's fold him in."

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan You just fold him in, and then every time it calls him Jerubbaal, you just say, "That's a reference to Gideon."

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And then we'll tell a story about why Gideon had this secondary name added to him, which happens to everybody. Every time somebody does something cool, they then give you that other name that occasionally is the only name they know for you. So I think that's probably part of the editorial layering going on here. And so now we have Gideon, who's been commissioned by God. You'll recall he did the z-z-z fingers.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And he's got to go against the Midianites. And we've got a couple of ways that Gideon is going to figure out how to do this. First, Gideon is like, "I need some signs, man."

Dan Beecher Yeah, this was a little baffling to me because he says to God, he met the guy. He saw the magic rock flames trick.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher But he still says to God, "Hey, if I'm going to do this, you're going to have to give me some signs proving that you're you and blah, blah, blah."

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher And he does this whole thing with the fleece. But before we get to the fleece, aren't there places in the Bible that specifically say don't ask for signs?

Dan McClellan Yes. And this is probably because the notion developed that you should have enough faith to not ask God to prove it to you.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan But then we've got a bunch of places where God is like, "You want a sign? I'll give you a sign." Where people are like, "No, no, no," and God's like, "You're getting a sign." And here we have- There's no, "No, no, no, no," here.

Dan Beecher No. This is just a, "Here, I'm going to tell you exactly what I want you to do."

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher "And if you do it, then maybe I'll believe, or maybe I'll make you do the opposite of it, and then I'll believe."

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher And so what he does, just quickly, is that he lays a fleece of wool on the threshing floor.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher Because I guess the wine press was not available at the time. And he said, "If there's dew on the fleece alone and not on the ground, then I know that it's you, that you're going to deliver Israel as you have said," blah, blah, blah.

Dan McClellan And that happens.

Dan Beecher There's no dew on the ground. He squeezes a full bowl of water out of the fleece.

Dan McClellan Yep.

Dan Beecher And then he's like, "Okay, but let's do it again, only reverse it. And this time no dew in the fleece and dew all over the ground. And then I'll definitely believe you." So calling for two signs, that just seems like it's pure balls at this point. That just seems like it's- Yeah.

Dan McClellan And he's being humble about it. He's like, "Please don't be mad at me." "Your humble and obedient servant would like you to do another sign."

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And then they're- We have 30,000, I think, troops that they marshal, which is obviously not how many people they had available to them back then.

Dan Beecher But God is like- Look, it's not obvious to me because I've always been confused about the numbers of people. I always imagine that these are smallish villages and whatever.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher But then you see numbers like 30,000 troops, and you're like, "Oh, that's way bigger than I thought it was."

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher But that's probably not right then, is what you're saying?

Dan McClellan Correct.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan Yeah. It's going to be a lot smaller than that. These are little villages- Yeah ... for the most part.

Dan Beecher I've always been so confused about that. You get these huge numbers, and it just sounds so wrong.

Dan McClellan Yeah. And so, the Lord says to Gideon, "The troops with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into your hand. Israel would only take the credit away from me, saying, 'My own hand has delivered me.'" So the idea here is, you're going to rout them just by pure numbers alone, and then they're not going to attribute the victory to me. They're going to say, "Yeah, we just had the numbers."

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And so God's like, "Send some of them home." And so Gideon is like, "If you're afraid, you can go home."

Dan Beecher Uh-huh.

Dan McClellan And 20,000 men are like, "Thanks."

Dan Beecher "Great.

Dan McClellan Thanks.

Dan Beecher All right. I'm out of here."

Dan McClellan Woo. And so there are 10,000 left, and God is like, "Still too many."

Dan Beecher And so here- Which is crazy. But yes, okay.

Dan McClellan Yeah. God really wants to pare this down.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And so here we have this weird thing, and we're still not sure exactly what's going on here, but God is like, "Hey, take them down to the water. I want to show you something."

Dan Beecher And- Tell everybody to go get a drink.

Dan McClellan Yeah, get a drink, and if they just slurp the water straight out of the lake- The river ... the whatever, the river, put them in one side.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan If they use their hand to cup water and slurp from their hand, they're on the other side, and then you're going to send all the hand slurpers home, so that it's just the people who bent down and knelt down to drink- I think you got it backwards.

Dan Beecher What? I think the hand people are the ones who stay. With the- All those who lapped- No.

Dan McClellan All those who lapped the water with their tongues as a dog laps, you will put to one side. All those who kneel down to drink, putting their hands to their mouths- Oh ... you shall put to the other side. And then the Lord said to Gideon, "With the 300 who lapped, I will deliver you and give the Midianites into your hand."

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Okay.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher I got confused. It's a very confusing test.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher I don't...

Dan McClellan And we're not sure exactly what it's supposed to indicate.

Dan Beecher Yeah. Apparently, lapping water like a dog is a good sign for a soldier.

Dan McClellan Yeah. So there are 300 who lapped.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And so we've whittled it down from 30,000 to 300. So we've got 10%. Or excuse me, a lot less than that.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan I don't know where my math went. Don't worry about it.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan And we're going to play a trick on the Midianites.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan But first, Gideon's got to sneak down to the camp. The Midianites and the Amalekites, they were thick as locusts, and their camels were without number, countless as the sand on the seashore. And so he sneaks down, and he hears a man telling a dream to his comrade. He said, "Comrade, I had a dream, and in it, a cake of barley bread tumbled into the camp of Midian and came to the tent and struck it so that it fell. It turned upside down, and the tent collapsed." And his comrade answered, "This is no other than the sword of Gideon, son of Joash, a man of Israel. Into his hand, God has given Midian and all the army." So Gideon's like, "Yes." And- Yeah.

Dan Beecher That is a very weird thing for the Midianites to say. Yeah, because it's- Like, how do they know that Gideon is the one that's going to be coming against them? This seems like it's a new thing, but I guess word has gotten back about the lapping soldiers or whatever, the famous lapping soldiers of Gideon. It all seems very weird, but okay.

Dan McClellan Sure.

Dan Beecher Apparently, Gideon has some tough bread that knocks tents down.

Dan McClellan And- Well, yeah. I think the idea is that the barley bread is supposed to represent Israel because they were- Right ... big on barley or something.

Dan Beecher They were big barley dudes.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher They loved them some barley.

Dan McClellan Yeah. And so, what Gideon's idea is, "Okay, everybody get a trumpet and a jar."

Dan Beecher Mm-hmm.

Dan McClellan "Here's your trumpet, and here's your jar."

Dan Beecher And everybody. So- Yes ... all 300 of the guys, nobody grab a sword. Everybody just grab a trumpet and a jar and then a lantern.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Or something.

Dan McClellan And he splits them into three companies of 100 each, and they basically are scattered around the Midianite camp. And at Gideon's signal, he's going to blow the trumpet.

Dan Beecher This is at night, by the way. This is at night. So presumably, everybody's asleep, and they just sneak in and infiltrate the camp.

Dan McClellan Yeah. And so, when Gideon blows his trumpet, they're all going to blow their trumpets, and then they're all going to smash the empty jars that they have. And I think the idea here is probably to give the Midianites the perception of significantly inflated numbers.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan The idea being, you only have one trumpeter per 10, 50, 100 soldiers or whatever. And so if you suddenly hear 300 trumpets- Right ... that's a buttload of soldiers.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And then the smashing of the jar, I guess, is supposed to make a really creepy sound that is supposed to freak them out.

Dan Beecher Well, the sense that I got, because it says there's torches inside the jars, so the sense that I got was that like- They had the jars over the torches to keep it dark while they came in.

Dan McClellan Oh, yeah. "Broke the jars, holding in their left hands the torches, and in their right hands the trumpets to blow."

Dan Beecher So that suddenly it's bright in the camp or something?

Dan McClellan Well, if that's what's going on, they would see all of the lights.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And that would give them the impression of they're surrounded by thousands and thousands of men.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan In other words, that they had the numbers they originally had.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan That's the impression that they want to give the Midianites.

Dan Beecher Although what's great is that instead of having actually those numbers with swords, they have 300 guys with no swords- Yeah ... blowing trumpets. It's an interesting plan that the Lord has come up with- Yeah ... for Gideon and his 300.

Dan McClellan And then he cries out, "A sword for the Lord and for Gideon." And everybody cries out, and the Midianites run away.

Dan Beecher And they cry out, "God for Harry and St. George," or something. So yeah, they basically just startle them- Yeah ... into losing the battle.

Dan McClellan Yeah. And the text, I don't think it says that God gave Gideon the idea. Gideon hears the telling of the dream and its interpretation. He returned to the camp of Israel and said, "Get up, for the Lord has given the army of Midian into your hand." And then he divides the company and does all this.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan So it's not clear from the text that God was like, "Okay, Gideon, get this. We're going to freak them out." It sounds like it was just Gideon's idea.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Which makes me wonder, if God was so upset about the soldiers not giving the credit to God because of their numbers, it sounds like Gideon could boast that it was really his idea all along.

Dan Beecher Well, yeah.

Dan McClellan Although in- Except for the dream Right ... the dream that was given to the Midianite morons.

Dan Beecher In verse 22, it does say that the Midianites-- Is it the Midianites? Is that who we're talking about?

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher I got confused there for a second.

Dan McClellan Oh, yeah. The Lord said, "Every man's sword against his fellow and against all the army."

Dan Beecher Right. So they all just started fighting each other instead of fighting Gideon's troops, which I think is pretty funny.

Dan McClellan So he is playing a role.

Dan Beecher Gideon basically just said, "You guys go in there, scream a bunch, play your trumpets, and then stand there like torchbearers."

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher "And they'll all just kill each other." "And you just be like, 'I'm just the guy with the torch. Don't kill me.'"

Dan McClellan So anyway- And then we have Gideon and the 300. They're pursuing them. They came to the Jordan. They cross over the Jordan, and then they're looking for some help. They ask the people of Succoth, "Give us some loaves of bread."

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan They're exhausted. "I'm pursuing the kings of Midian, Zebah and Zalmunna." And the people in Succoth were like, "You don't look that hungry."

Dan Beecher "I don't know about this."

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher "They'll get mad if you guys lose. They're going to get mad at us if we give you bread."

Dan McClellan Yeah, and Gideon is like, "Ooh, you're going to get it when we get back."

Dan Beecher And then they- "I'm going to mess you up."

Dan McClellan Yep. "Once we get some bread in us, man, it's over. We just need some carbs." So they continue along these routes, and they catch up with Zebah and Zalmunna, and they give them what for. And then they come back and obviously kill all the people who were not nice to them.

Dan Beecher Who didn't give them bread.

Dan McClellan Yeah, didn't help them out. Didn't do them a solid.

Dan Beecher It's fascinating because now we're in chapter seven now, and in verse 10- We're in chapter eight now. Oh, chapter eight.

Dan McClellan That's right.

Dan Beecher Yeah. And in verse 10, they catch up with Zebah and Zalmunna and their army, about 15,000 men.

Dan McClellan Hmm. And here, there's no real telling of how- The element of surprise has vaporized ...

Dan Beecher of how the 300 dudes managed-- The first trick worked pretty good, but there's no knowledge of how the 300 guys then handled the remaining, even though it's a smaller number than it was before. 15,000 is still a lot of dudes.

Dan McClellan Yeah. And it says 120,000 men bearing arms had fallen.

Dan Beecher So 120,000. 120,000.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher These guys were worse swordsmen than stormtroopers are shots.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Significantly inflated.

Dan Beecher Yeah. These guys are forever killing each other and themselves rather than- Yeah.

Dan McClellan And so Succoth and then Penuel or Peniel, they both say, "No, we're not going to help you." And Gideon says to both of them, "Ooh, if I had a sword, I'm going to get you so bad." And so they go, and they successfully defeat everybody and come back and then obviously destroy the people of Succoth and Penuel.

Dan Beecher Obviously.

Dan McClellan Obviously.

Dan Beecher Because what else would you do?

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Show mercy to them?

Dan McClellan And then the Israelites said to Gideon, "Rule over us, you and your son and your grandson also, for you have delivered us out of the hand of Midian." And Gideon, as humble as he is, says, "I will not rule over you, and my son will not rule over you. The Lord will rule over you." But he doesn't- And we will just be the representation. We will just be- Right.

Dan Beecher Yeah. That's a cute little turn of phrase, but- Yeah.

Dan McClellan But also- I don't own all of these houses. God owns the houses.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan I'm just the steward. Little Dave Ramsey throwback.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Good. Okay, so then- But Gideon's not done.

Dan Beecher Gideon's not done. His little bout of humility does not last long- Yes ... because the very next thing he does is like, "But by the way, give me all the gold."

Dan McClellan Yeah. "Let me make a request of you. Each of you give me an earring he has taken as spoil." Which is not asking a ton. They're plundering everybody that they're defeating, and he's like, "Just an earring. Doesn't even have to be- Yeah.

Dan Beecher Presumably, these are the earrings of the warriors that they just defeated.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher And that means that there were hundreds of thousands of them.

Dan McClellan So, yeah.

Dan Beecher Yeah. So- If every man just gives one earring, it's not going to be that big of a deal.

Dan McClellan Yeah. They've got quite a lot of booty.

Dan Beecher Mm-hmm.

Dan McClellan And so it adds up to 1,700 shekels of gold, and then there's a little parenthetical remark at the end of verse 26, "Apart from the crescents and the pendants and the purple garments worn by the kings of Midian, and the collars that were on the necks of their camels." So yeah, they picked them clean.

Dan Beecher They got some good booty there.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher They got some stuff.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Those camel collars alone are worth a fortune.

Dan McClellan And then Gideon takes that and makes an ephod out of it and put it in his town, in Ophrah. So an ephod, in Exodus, the ephod is like a priestly vestment.

Dan Beecher Mm.

Dan McClellan Like a vest, the thing that goes over the tunic that is supposed to carry the precious stones and things like this. But it also seems to be used to refer to some kind of divine image- Mm ... some kind of tool of divination.

Dan Beecher So- Okay ...

Dan McClellan it's a way to inquire of God. But it's functioning like a divine image, and it's kind of like that in Exodus because it seems like there's a pouch, and the Urim and Thummim go into the pouch, and according to ancient Jewish tradition, that was how the priests divined God's will- Right ... was they used these seer stones, for lack of a better word, to somehow divine God's will. So the priestly ephod is functioning like a tool of divination as well.

Dan Beecher But this can't be that. You can't have 1,700 shekels worth of gold in an ephod and wear that.

Dan McClellan Yeah. And so there are scholars who think this is some kind of cult object that is not necessarily a vestment.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Whether it's a standing stone or some kind of anthropomorphic statuary or whatever it might be. This has been put up in Ophrah, and all Israel prostituted themselves to it there. I'm going to look up what the word translated prostituted there is.

Dan Beecher Yeah, because I saw that and was like, "I don't know what we're talking about now." Because it does seem like to this point, Gideon hasn't really done anything bad. He's been great.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher And now suddenly, they're using what seems to be a very negative word for what- Yeah ... Israel is doing with this ephod.

Dan McClellan It seems like the season finale of a TV show where the hero in the very last scene, you're going into his private time, and then out of the shadows comes some kind of evil that is- Yeah ... associated with your hero. So the verb is zannah, which just means to be a sex worker, to engage in sex work.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan To ply your sexy wares.

Dan Beecher Sure.

Dan McClellan The King James version has, "All Israel went thither a whoring after it."

Dan Beecher I love the KJV so much.

Dan McClellan We're going to go a-whoring thither and yon.

Dan Beecher Yeah. Hey, let's go thither and a-whore.

Dan McClellan All right. So- Oh, have you been beating your wheat? No, I swear, I've been a-whoring. I've been a-whoring by the ephod.

Dan Beecher Yeah. Okay, so Israel prostituted themselves to the ephod.

Dan McClellan Yeah. And- And it became a snare ...

Dan Beecher yeah, to Gideon and to his family.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher So Midian was subdued before the Israelites, and they lifted... So it doesn't say much after that.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher He doesn't seem to be condemned for it. It's just noting, by the way, he made this thing, and everybody was kind of a whore about it, and the end.

Dan McClellan Yeah. What have we got? And then we get the very next story. So the land had rest 40 years in the days of Gideon, and then we get the death of Gideon.

Dan Beecher Yeah. So- So God doesn't punish anybody for this prostituting before the ephod. He's going to let them have it. They had a hard time with this battle, so might as well just let them have- Yeah ...

Dan McClellan the little bit of- And we get in verse 29, it goes back to calling him Jerubbaal.

Dan Beecher Mm.

Dan McClellan "So Jerubbaal, son of Joash, went to live in his own house. Now Gideon had 70 sons, his own offspring, for he had many wives."

Dan Beecher Oh.

Dan McClellan "His concubine, who was in Shechem, also bore him a son, and he named him Abimelech. And he died at a good old age and was buried in the tomb of his father Joash at Ophrah. And as soon as Gideon died, the Israelites relapsed." That's a great rendering there, NRSVUE. I wonder what relapsed is. That's got to be shuv. It's just got to be returned.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Yep, shuv. They returned, "And prostituted themselves with the Baals-" Making Baal-berith their god, or Baal of the Covenant, Lord of the Covenant.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan "The Israelites did not remember the Lord their God, who had rescued them from the hand of all their enemies on every side, and they did not exhibit loyalty to the house of Jerub-Baal" by the way, that's Gideon- Yeah ... "in return for all the good that he had done to Israel."

Dan Beecher So- Oh, man.

Dan McClellan You- You ungrateful punks Yeah Get off my lawn.

Dan Beecher Yeah. There's a line in a poem that I love by e.e.

Dan McClellan cummings called- Is that something about, "Here I sit all broken-hearted?"

Dan Beecher No.

Dan McClellan Or, nope, a different one?

Dan Beecher That's a... I believe that one's Robert Frost. But Cummings wrote something. The poem's "humanity I love you," and the very last stanza says something, this is a paraphrase, but it's something along the lines of, "Humanity, I love you because you are continually finding the secret of life, putting it in your back pocket, and sitting down on it."

Dan McClellan Which is kind of- And I bet he didn't capitalize any of the letters in that poem.

Dan Beecher That's right.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher It does feel a little like the Israelites are continually figuring out the secret of life- Yeah ... and then just 40 years later, they put it in their back pocket and they sit down on it.

Dan McClellan Yeah, "We're going to nail it into a crate, and we're going to stuff it into a big warehouse and forget about it."

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan All right. So, and thus endeth the story of- Here endeth the lesson ...

Dan Beecher Gideon.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan All right.

Dan Beecher Well, I don't know that we learned anything useful except there was a guy named either Gideon or not who did some stuff. All right, let's move on to Twisted Scripture. Ooh, and there are a few of our listeners who have been waiting for this one since we teased it a few weeks ago. But- "Ba dow chicka bow wow" ... we are getting to it. So, we are in Ezekiel 16- Mm. Which you have mentioned a few times on our show because sort of towards the bottom of it is where we learn that Sodom and Gomorrah were not destroyed. Sodom and, sorry, and how is it pronounced?