And it was so, when Gideon heard the telling of the dream, and the interpretation thereof, that he worshiped, and returned into the host of Israel, and said, Arise; for the LORD has delivered into your hand the host of Midian.
All Commentaries on Judges 7:15 Go To Judges 7
Gregory The Dialogist
AD 604
I think it will not be amiss if we consider at greater length this war of the Midianites, which was intentionally introduced by the prophet in comparison with the coming of the Lord. For in the book of Judges Gideon is described as having fought against the Midianites.… Why then is it that such a battle is brought forward by the prophet, and why is victory in that battle compared with the coming of our Redeemer? Did the prophet intend to point out to us that that victorious battle under the command of Gideon was a type of the coming of our Redeemer? Such deeds were doubtless there wrought, which, the more they exceed the usual mode of fighting, are the less removed from the mystery of prophecy. For whoever went forth to battle with pitchers and lamps? Who, when going against arms, ever abandoned his arms? These things would have been truly absurd to us, had they not been terrible to the enemies. But we have learned by the evidence of the victory itself not to regard these things which were done as of little account. Gideon, therefore, coming to battle, signifies to us the coming of our Redeemer, of whom it is written: “Lift up, O princes, your gates, and be lifted up you everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty. The Lord mighty in battle.” He prophesied of our Redeemer not only by his doings but also by his name. For Gideon is interpreted “going about in the womb.” For our Lord embraces all things by the power of his majesty, and yet he came through the grace of the dispensation assuming the nature of a human being in the womb of the Virgin. Who then is he who goes about in the womb except almighty God, redeeming us by his own dispensation, embracing all things by his divinity and taking a human’s nature in the womb? In the womb he was both incarnate and not confined because he was both within the womb by the substance of his infirmity and beyond the world by the power of his majesty.
