XIX THE BATTLE OF THE LAMPS AND PITCHERS

NE day the word was brought to Gideon that the Midianites were coming. King Zebah and King Zalmunna, and Oreb the Raven and Zeeb the Wolf, with thousands of fierce men on camels, were on the march. On they came across the Jordan, and like locusts they began to spread over the Great Plain.

And Gideon said to himself, “Did I dream about the angel, or was it true? Did he sit beneath the oak, and tell me that God wished me to fight the Midianites? did he strike fire out of the rock and go up in the smoke?” And Gideon said, “I will make sure. To-night I will spread out a fleece of wool and ask God for a sign. If in the morning the fleece is wet with dew while the earth around it is dry, then I will know that the Lord has sent me.” So he spread the fleece upon the ground, and when he rose up early the next morning, the ground was dry and the fleece was so wet that he wrung the dew out of the fleece, a bowlful of water.

But still he was not satisfied. “Perhaps,” he said, “it only happened so.” And he asked for another sign. “To-night let the fleece be dry and all the ground be wet.” And in the morning so it was. The ground was wet with dew, but not a drop had fallen on the fleece.

Then Gideon blew a trumpet and called the people together, and sent messengers all about the country to call the fighting men, and there was a great army. But when Gideon came to see the army he did not like the soldiers’ looks: it seemed to him that they were frightened. He was afraid that when they saw the Midianites they would run away. And he made a speech. “To-morrow,” he said, “there will be a hard battle. The Midianites are many in number and very fierce. Perhaps you would like to go home. If you are afraid, if your knees are trembling, that is the best thing to do. Go straight home to-day.” And twenty-two thousand men, with trembling knees and pale faces, drew a long breath of relief and went home as fast as their legs could carry them. And there were left ten thousand.

But Gideon did not like the looks of the ten thousand. Now there was a spring in that place. The water came clear and cold out of Mount Gilboa and became a river. And across the river were the Midianites in their tents as far as the eye could see. And very early in the morning Gideon brought the ten thousand to the river and the spring and bade them drink; and as they drank he watched them. Most of them threw themselves upon the ground beside the water and put their lips to the stream and drank; and if there had been any Midianites hidden in the bushes they could have shot the drinkers with arrows, for they were off their guard. But three hundred took up water in their hands and drank, with their other hands holding their weapons and their eyes wide open. These three hundred Gideon chose, and sent the others home.

So the three hundred waited with Gideon for the going down of the sun. And when it was dark, and the lights were out in the camp of the Midianites, Gideon took his armor-bearer, and they two went alone, very softly, and crept about among the tents of Midian. The Midianites lay in the valley like grasshoppers for multitude, and their camels were without number, like the sand by the seaside. And as Gideon and his armor-bearer passed a tent, they heard men talking.

One man said, “I dreamed a dream, and, lo, a cake of barley bread tumbled into the army of Midian, and came into a tent and struck it so that it fell and was overturned and lay upon the ground.”

GIDEON HEARS THE TELLING OF A DREAM

And the other man said, “That means the sword of Gideon, for into his hands has God delivered all of us this night.”

Then Gideon knew that the soldiers were afraid, and he went back to his own camp and called his three hundred men together.

And Gideon divided the three hundred into three companies, a hundred in each company; and to every man he gave a trumpet and an empty pitcher and a lamp; but the lamp was what we call a torch, a burning stick. And Gideon said, “Watch me, and do as you see me do. When I blow my trumpet, you all blow yours, and shout with all your might, ‘The sword of the Lord and of Gideon! The sword of the Lord and of Gideon!’ ”

So they all crept softly toward the enemy, every man with his lamp and pitcher in his left hand and his trumpet in his right. And the Midianites were fast asleep, for it was almost midnight. And suddenly Gideon gave the signal; he blew a great blast upon his trumpet, then with the trumpet he broke the pitcher, and the torch he waved about his head, shouting, “The sword of the Lord and of Gideon!” And all the others did the same, and there was a great blowing of trumpets and a great crashing of pitchers and a great shining of flaring torches, and a great sound of shouting. And the Midianites waked up in terrible alarm, and nobody knew what was the matter; and they looked this way and that, and in every direction there were shouting men and flames of fire. And they ran like frightened sheep, some on foot and some on camels, down the valley and over the Jordan, and out of the country; and they never came back again.

That was the end of Zebah and Zalmunna, and of Oreb the Raven and Zeeb the Wolf, and their fierce soldiers with them.