Gideon’s Two-Part Tests As Signs of Assurance (Judg. 6.36-40) (original) (raw)

This paper challenges the prevailing point of view among modern commentators about Gideon’s famous requests in Judges 6 for signs of assurance from God that he was to be the promised savior of the Israelites. Gideon asked for dew on the fleece and dryness on the surrounding land, and then for the reverse, dryness on the fleece and wetness on the surrounding land. Contrary to the prevailing opinion, it will be argued that everything that Gideon requested proved to be significant in order to provide him with signs of assurance. Gideon’s requests belong to a mantic type of revelation found elsewhere in the Bible and the Ancient Near East called reversible signs. Gideon’s signs also closely parallel the story of Abraham’s servant on his mission of finding a wife for Isaac. Both of these stories have a number of structural and linguistic correspondences with each other and fit a pattern for a certain type of test of assurance. In this pattern an individual calls on God for a sign which will take the form of a two-part test. It is necessary for both parts of the test to come to fruition to reassure the petitioner.