Dogfaces

Judges Week!


Judges 7:1-9

Then Jerubbaal (that is, Gideon) and all the troops that were with him rose early and encamped beside the spring of Harod; and the camp of Midian was north of them, below the hill of Moreh, in the valley.

The LORD said to Gideon, “The troops with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hand. Israel would only take the credit away from me, saying, ‘My own hand has delivered me.’ Now therefore proclaim this in the hearing of the troops, ‘Whoever is fearful and trembling, let him return home.’ ” Thus Gideon sifted them out; twenty-two thousand returned, and ten thousand remained.

Then the LORD said to Gideon, “The troops are still too many; take them down to the water and I will sift them out for you there. When I say, ‘This one shall go with you,’ he shall go with you; and when I say, ‘This one shall not go with you,’ he shall not go.” So he brought the troops down to the water; and the LORD said to Gideon, “All those who lap the water with their tongues, as a dog laps, you shall put to one side; all those who kneel down to drink, putting their hands to their mouths, you shall put to the other side.” The number of those that lapped was three hundred; but all the rest of the troops knelt down to drink water. Then the LORD said to Gideon, “With the three hundred that lapped I will deliver you, and give the Midianites into your hand. Let all the others go to their homes.” So he took the jars of the troops from their hands, and their trumpets; and he sent all the rest of Israel back to their own tents, but retained the three hundred. The camp of Midian was below him in the valley.

That same night the LORD said to him, “Get up, attack the camp; for I have given it into your hand.

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Never before have I turned on you,
When you looked this good to me.

"Free for All" by Ted Nugent

What a fiasco this must have looked like. Thousands of men have come to the aid of Gideon to defeat the Midianites, but that's not what the Lord wants. If thousands of men are responsible for the victory then the victors will be full of themselves. The Lord wants to rout the Midianites using a much smaller force. Starting with 32,000 soldiers, the Lord pares the fighting force down to 300. But it's not the 300 most elite of the soldiers. This isn't Leonides and Sparta at the Battle of Thermopylae, this is Gideon and the Dogfaces.

The Lord picks the fighting force by selecting the men who drink like dogs from the river. Most people would dip a hand into the water and drink from their hand. This way a soldier can stay on his feet, alert to his surroundings. He wouldn't have to remove any of his weapons or tools. He would remain dry and be ready to fight if someone comes over the rise. This is how most people would drink from a river.

The dogfaces put their snouts in the water like a dog. They would have been on all fours. They would have been in no position to fight if something had happened. These soldiers could have been slaughtered without being able to get to their feet.

It is with these 300 men that the Lord wants Gideon to rout the Midianites. It is with these 300 men that Gideon does rout the Midianites.

These poor soldiers without enough sense to drink properly from a river are the men the Lord selects. The Lord used them for this glorious end that they would not be able to take credit for. When they got back home, the people would ask, "What do you mean they routed the Midianites? I don't know how these fools even survived!" The answer, is that it is by the Lord's hand that they triumphed. No matter how un educated in the art of war they looked to the trained eye, the Lord looked at them and said, "Never before have I turned on you when you looked this good to me."

It's not up to us, the Lord gives us talents and treasures to use for the good of God's plans. But when push comes to shove, it is the Lord who will conquer not with the best trained and equipped, but with those God ordains to succeed.