Judges 6 · a question people ask
Gideon asked God for a sign with the fleece, twice (6:36-40). Was that right?
The chapter tells it without a verdict. Gideon says, "If you will save Israel by my hand, as you have spoken" (6:36), and names the sign: dew on the fleece only, and dry on all the ground (6:37). "It was so" (6:38). Then, "Don’t let your anger be kindled against me, and I will speak but this once. Please let me make a trial just this once with the fleece" (6:39) (tap make a trial), and "God did so that night" (6:40). The chapter doesn't say God was angry, and it doesn't praise the request. Both readings below agree on what the text says: the LORD had already sent Gideon (6:14) and promised, "Surely I will be with you" (6:16); when Gideon asked for a sign (6:17), fire went up out of the rock (6:21), and "Gideon saw that he was the LORD’s angel" (6:22); and God did what Gideon asked both times (6:38, 6:40). And Hebrews names Gideon: "the time would fail me if I told of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and the prophets" (Hebrews 11:32). Christians read the fleece in two main ways.
How Christians read it
Where Christians differ, Favor sets out the main views side by side and doesn't pick one.
Asking again for what God had said
Those who hold this view note that Gideon twice says, "as you have spoken" (6:36, 6:37): he already had the LORD's word (6:14, 6:16), the fire from the rock (6:21), and the LORD's Spirit (6:34). He asks God not to be angry (6:39). And make a trial (6:39) is, in Hebrew, the verb of "You shall not tempt the LORD your God" (Deuteronomy 6:16), the command Jesus answered the devil with: "Again, it is written, ‘You shall not test the Lord, your God.’" (Matthew 4:7). They read God's answers as patience with a faltering faith, not as approval of the way he asked.
Judges 6:14 · Judges 6:16 · Judges 6:21 · Judges 6:34 · Judges 6:36-39 · Deuteronomy 6:16 · Matthew 4:7
Asking, and answered
Those who hold this view note that Gideon asks rather than demands, asks leave before he asks again (6:39), and is answered both times without a word of rebuke (6:38, 6:40). Elsewhere the LORD invites a sign: he told Ahaz, "Ask a sign of the LORD your God" (Isaiah 7:11), and when Ahaz answered, "I won’t ask. I won’t tempt the LORD" (Isaiah 7:12), using the Hebrew verb of make a trial, the reply was, "Is it not enough for you to try the patience of men, that you will try the patience of my God also?" (Isaiah 7:13), where try the patience is another verb. And in the next chapter the LORD himself speaks to Gideon's fear: "But if you are afraid to go down, go with Purah your servant down to the camp" (7:10), "You will hear what they say; and afterward your hands will be strengthened" (7:11). They read the fleece as a weak man's honest asking, which God met.
Judges 6:38-40 · Isaiah 7:10-13 · Judges 7:10-11
The verses
“The LORD looked at him, and said, “Go in this your might, and save Israel from the hand of Midian. Haven’t I sent you?””
“The LORD said to him, “Surely I will be with you, and you shall strike the Midianites as one man.” He said to him, “If now I have found favor in your sight, then show me a sign that it is you who talk with me.”
“Then the LORD’s angel stretched out the end of the staff that was in his hand, and touched the meat and the unleavened cakes; and fire went up out of the rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened cakes. Then the LORD’s angel departed out of his sight. Gideon saw that he was the LORD’s angel; and Gideon said, “Alas, Lord GOD! Because I have seen the LORD’s angel face to face!””
“What more shall I say? For the time would fail me if I told of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and the prophets—”