Judges 7:10-20

7:10 But if you are afraid to attack, go down to the camp with Purah your servant 7:11 and listen to what they are saying. Then you will be brave ¹  and attack the camp.” So he went down with Purah his servant to where the sentries were guarding the camp. ²  7:12 Now the Midianites, Amalekites, and the people from the east covered the valley like a swarm of locusts. ³  Their camels could not be counted; they were as innumerable as the sand on the seashore. 7:13 When Gideon arrived, he heard a man telling another man about a dream he had. ⁴  The man ⁵  said, “Look! I had a dream. I saw ⁶  a stale cake of barley bread rolling into the Midianite camp. It hit a tent so hard it knocked it over and turned it upside down. The tent just collapsed.” ⁷  7:14 The other man said, ⁸  “Without a doubt this symbolizes ⁹  the sword of Gideon son of Joash, the Israelite. God is handing Midian and all the army over to him.”

Gideon Routs the Enemy

7:15 When Gideon heard the report of the dream and its interpretation, he praised God. ¹⁰  Then he went back to the Israelite camp and said, “Get up, for the Lord is handing the Midianite army over to you!” 7:16 He divided the three hundred men into three units. ¹¹  He gave them all trumpets and empty jars with torches inside them. ¹²  7:17 He said to them, “Watch me and do as I do. Watch closely! ¹³  I am going to the edge of the camp. Do as I do! 7:18 When I and all who are with me blow our trumpets, you also blow your trumpets all around the camp. Then say, ‘For the Lord and for Gideon!’”

7:19 Gideon took a hundred men to the edge of the camp ¹⁴  at the beginning of the middle watch, just after they had changed the guards. They blew their trumpets and broke the jars they were carrying. ¹⁵  7:20 All three units blew their trumpets and broke their jars. They held the torches in their left hand and the trumpets in their right. ¹⁶  Then they yelled, “A sword for the Lord and for Gideon!”

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¹ tn Heb “your hands will be strengthened.”

² tn Heb “to the edge of the ones in battle array who were in the camp.”

³ tn Heb “Midian, Amalek, and the sons of the east were falling in the valley like locusts in great number.”

⁴ tn Heb “And Gideon came, and, look, a man was relating to his friend a dream.”

⁵ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the man mentioned in the previous clause) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

⁶ tn Heb “Look!” The repetition of this interjection, while emphatic in Hebrew, would be redundant in the English translation.

⁷ tn Heb “It came to the tent and struck it and it fell. It turned it upside down and the tent fell.”

⁸ tn Heb “answered and said.”

⁹ tn Heb “This can be nothing but.”

¹⁰ tn Heb “he bowed down” or “worshiped.”

¹¹ tn Heb “heads.”

¹² tn Heb “the jars.” The noun has been replaced by the pronoun (“them”) in the translation for stylistic reasons.

sn They hid the torches inside the earthenware jars to disguise their approach and to keep the torches from being extinguished by the breeze.

¹³ tn Or “look.”

¹⁴ tn Heb “Gideon went, along with the hundred men who were with him, to the edge of the camp.”

¹⁵ tn Heb “that were in their hands.”

¹⁶ tn The Hebrew text adds, “in order to blow [them].” This has not been included in the translation for stylistic reasons.