Horns And Torches And Jars Of Clay

Psalm 83:9-16

9Do to them as you did to the Midianites

or as you did to Sisera and Jabin at the Kishon River.

10They were destroyed at Endor,

and their decaying corpses fertilized the soil.

11Let their mighty nobles die as Oreb and Zeeb did.

Let all their princes die like Zebah and Zalmunna,

12for they said, “Let us seize for our own use

these pasturelands of God!”

13O my God, blow them away like whirling dust,

like chaff before the wind!

14As a fire roars through a forest

and as a flame sets mountains ablaze,

15chase them with your fierce storms;

terrify them with your tempests.

16Utterly disgrace them

until they submit to your name, O LORD.

It must have seemed like a crazy plan. The Midianites had amassed a huge army, far outnumbering the Israelites. So what did General Gideon do? He reduced his force of thirty thousand to ten thousand. And then he reduced it even further to three hundred!

Surely his soldiers must have been thinking, Is Gideon nuts?

The fact is that the Lord was calling the shots. He didn’t want anyone to boast of their own might, so he saved his people in his own way.

Gideon gave each man a horn and a clay jar with a torch in it. During the night the Israelite soldiers surrounded the Midianite camp and then suddenly blew their horns and broke the jars. The Midianites were terrified and began fighting each other and running away. So the warriors of this huge Midianite force were defeated (Judges 7:1-22).

The last part of Psalm 83 recalls this defeat of the Midianites. Appropriately, Gideon is not mentioned. It wasn’t his battle—it was the Lord’s.

When you feel surrounded by enemies and totally outnumbered, turn to the Lord for help. He is more than able to save you—though his ways may not make sense to you. As Paul said, “We don’t wage war with human plans and methods. We use God’s mighty weapons” (2 Corinthians 10:3-4).

Stand up, stand up for Jesus,

The trumpet call obey;

Forth to the mighty conflict,

In this His glorious day.

“Ye that are men now serve Him,”

Against unnumbered foes;

Let courage rise with danger,

And strength to strength oppose.

GEORGE DUFFIELD

A Word on Words

In verse 12 the enemy is coveting the pastureland. The word here is the same as the one used for the “green pastures” of Psalm 23.