Gideon’s Two-Part Tests As Signs of Assurance (Judg. 6.36-40) (original) (raw)
Related papers
Not applicable, 2013
This paper which was earlier submitted as a class assignment and then edited for better clarity. It is a study on Gideon's selection as a judge. It addresses Gideon's disbelief and perceived cowardice in a way that reflects on our own human reactions of fear.
The Gideon narrative as the focal point of Judges
Bibliotheca Sacra, 1992
This article introduces the rhetorical study of structure in Hebrew narrative, which may be termed "textual patterning." This is then applied to the Book of Judges and in particular to the Gideon narrative of Judges 6-8, since this unit serves as the pivot point for the book. The article also seeks to illustrate the significance of this research by suggesting how textual patterning in the Gideon narrative contributes to the theological message of the book.
Patterns in the Old Testament Metanarrative: Human Attempts at Fulfilling Divine Promises
Westminster Theological Journal 72.2, 2010
The promised relationship between God and the offspring of Abraham appears in Gen 17:7, "I will establish my covenant between me and you, and your offspring after you throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you", adding in the following verse "and I will be their God". The divine-human relationship is seen as initiated by means of covenant. Abraham himself entered into this covenant with God as described in Gen 15 (and confirmed in chapter 17). 4. The promise of kings is plainly given in Genesis 17. God tells Abraham, "Kings will come forth from you" (v. 6), which is then repeated with respect to Sarah (v. 16). Later the same promise is reiterated to Jacob, to whom God says, "Kings will come forth from your body" (35:11). Clines further relates the elements of the promises to the various portions of the Pentateuch. Genesis 12-50, the patriarchal history, focus upon the posterity-seed, Exodus and Leviticus upon the divine-human relationship, and Numbers and Deuteronomy the land. 5 Since here, unlike Clines, we are not confining our scope of study to the Pentateuch we may add the book of Joshua as also concerned primarily with the land promise. Seeing that book covers the conquest, division and inheritance of Canaan, the place of the land is undoubtedly primary. With the inclusion of the fourth element in the promises, that of kings, we extend the list of books to incorporate the subsequent books of Judges, Samuel and Kings, as being those texts in which the idea of kingship is either implicitly or explicitly uppermost. 6 It can therefore be seen that successive groupings of canonical writings deal in succession with the respective promises, a fact strongly suggestive of literary design. Moreover it is evident that the theme of the patriarchal promises and their fulfillment dominates the entire pre-exilic narrative, comprising the bulk of the Old Testament legal and historical literature. The programmatic literary treatment of the outworking of the promises also serves to highlight the chronological dimension of their fulfillment. Abraham had to wait twenty-five years until Isaac the first of his offspring 7 was born, a long time for a man past seventy-five years of age. Taking the covenant and giving of the law at Sinai as the formalization of the relationship between God and the descendants of Abraham, 8 that was an event coming several centuries after the promise. As regards the land more time still was yet to pass by before Israel was to enter and occupy it. From Abraham to the first king of Israel was an interval of almost a millennium. It is plain 5 Clines, The Theme of the Pentateuch, 29. 6 While more obvious in the books of Samuel and Kings the matter of kingship is nevertheless an important consideration in the book of Judges. Four times the author points out that "there was no king
THE INTRUSIVE PROPHET: THE NARRATIVE FUNCTION OF THE NAMELESS PROPHET IN JUDGES 6
This paper utilizes a literary theological approach to explore the role of the prophet of Judges 6 within the narrative context of the Midianite oppression, the story of Gideon and the larger narrative of the book of Judges. Although the appearance of the nameless prophet is commonly regarded as a late addition to the Gideon cycle (Judges 6-8), it is argued here that the literary dimensions of the final form of the text should be considered. It is concluded that elements of the prophet's message intersect with prominent motifs in the Gideon story and in the broader context of Judges and that the prophetic speech signals the onset of the second of three stages in the narrative structure of Judges.