the
people demanded the death of Gideon, and you know that at this day,
though Baal is a false god, and in their hearts they confess it, they
would murder us if we said anything against him: they went therefore to
Joash and told him to bring forth his son that they might slay him.
These, my children, were not the Midianites nor the Amalekites, but our
own nation. At the very time when the heathen were upon us we turned
from the Lord to Baal, and sought to destroy the man who could have
rescued us. Thus we have ever done, and we are surely a race accursed.
But Joash secretly contemned Baal, although until now he had not
ventured to say anything against him. It made him bold to see how his
son and his servants had over-thrown the altar and burnt the idol which
lay there charred and unresisting. He stood up before the altar, and
facing the mob which howled at him; asked them why they should take
upon themselves to plead for Baal: "If he be a god, let him plead for
himself, because one hath cast down his altar." The charred logs never
stirred; there was no sound in the sky; Joash was not struck dead; Baal
was proved to be nothing. That was a sight to see that morning: the
ashes smouldering in the sunlight, the raging crowd, Gideon and his
fellows behind Joash, and Joash calling on Baal to avenge himself if he
was a god as his worshippers pretended. Ah, if that had been Jehovah's
altar! When Nadab and Abihu offered strange fire before the Lord, fire
came down from the Lord and devoured them. When Miriam spoke against
His servant she became a leper; and when Korah, Dathan, and Abiram
blasphemed, they were swallowed up in the pit. But Baal could not move
a breath of heaven on his behalf. What kind of a god is he? A god who
cannot punish those who insult him is but a word.

As for Gideon, he grew in strength. Nothing happened to him because he
had thus dared Baal. He went about his work daily; no judgment fell on
him, and nobody dared to meddle with him.

Soon afterwards the Midianites and Amalekites, who had withdrawn for a
while, overspread the land again, and pitched in the valley of Jezreel.
Gideon having suffered nothing for his insult to Baal, had become
bolder. Moreover, his tribe, the Abiezrites, had seen that he had
suffered nothing. Thus it came to pass that when the Spirit of the
Lord came upon him; and he blew a trumpet, all Abiezer followed him.
Not only so; he sent messengers through Manasseh, As