The wild men of the desert spread their black tents over the land, and for multitude they could only be compared to the sands of the sea-shore, or uncountable myriads of locusts.
All the Israelites together would but be as a handful, compared with the wild Arabs; and how could they hope ever to drive them out?
"O Israel, trust thou in the Lord: He is their help and their shield!" When the human arm fails, there is help in the Lord Jehovah; and He can drive out the most dreaded foe.
A solitary man, who was of the tribe of Manasseh, and who had got his name of Gideon, or the hewer, from his stature and his great strength, was threshing wheat by a winepress in Ophrah. His father had had a large farm, with smiling cornfields and sunny meadows; and Gideon had seen the day when he had ploughed with his yoked oxen, and when his patient animals had trodden out for him heaps of precious corn, and there was no sign of lack to any. But now, what a change had come! Instead of well-stored barns, he had only a little wheat, which he had contrived to conceal from the Arab invaders; and, instead of its being trodden out by plump oxen, he was glad to beat it with a stick, not possessing even the poor man's flail, and hiding in a winepress, where no one would expect to find him.
Striking only gentle blows lest he should be discovered, and sorrowfully contrasting the present with the past, his heart sank within him, when raising his head he was startled to find that he was no longer alone.
Close beside him, under an oak-tree, sat One who appeared to be a traveller resting, with his staff lying beside him. He was, however, no traveller, but that wondrous Being who in the Old Testament is so often called the Angel of the Lord; and He had come to the help of Israel.
"The Lord be with thee, thou mighty man of valour," he said, addressing Gideon. But Gideon's sad heart gave no responsive throb. Tall and powerful as he was, and strong as was his arm, he felt as he thought of the fierce Arab sheiks but like a puny dwarf, who must sit down helplessly and suffer.
"Thou shalt go in this thy might that I have sent thee," the heavenly visitant continued; "and thou shalt save Israel from the Midianites."
"But, my lord," remonstrated Gideon, in conscious weakness and deep humility, "how shall I ever be able to save Israel? I but belong to the tribe of Manasseh, that has never taken the lead amongst the Twelve, and even of my father's family I am not an important member."
Gideon thought that to overcome the terrible invader God must needs raise up some tall giant, big as Og, the King of Bashan. But he was soon to learn that the weak things of this world are used to confound the mighty.