Hebrew Word Study – Set – Yashem – Yod Shin Mem

Judges 7:14: “And his fellow answered and said: This is nothing else save the sword of Gideon, the son of Joash a man of Israel for into his hand has God delivered Midian and all the host.” 

During the American Civil War the Union General George McClellan refused to take the Army of the Potomac, as ordered by President Lincoln, and attack General Lee’s forces. General McClellan disobeyed Lincoln’s order based upon Pinkerton’s intelligence report that the South had amassed an army in far superior numbers than that of the Army of the Potomac and until Lincoln gave him reinforcements, he would not move. For some reason, not recorded in history, Lincoln refused to believe the Confederate army was as large and as powerful as General McClellan and the world’s best intelligence force at that time, The Pinkertons, believed. By the time McClellan did move his army, it was too late. General Lee’s army had moved to a more strategic location.

Had McClellan attacked when Lincoln commanded he would have easily defeated General Lee and brought the war to a swift conclusion, for Lee’s army was not nearly as large as McClellan believed it to be. Lee had created the illusion of a larger army that proved convincing to McClellan and The Pinkertons. In one case when the Union army came into a fortress abandoned by Lee’s army, they found not cannons, but logs painted to look like cannons. They were called “Quaker Cannons.” The war continued for more than two years.

In reading of the lives of Abraham Lincoln, McClellan, and Robert Lee, I found that  General Lee and Abraham Lincoln were students of the Bible, but McClellan was not. General Lee and Lincoln knew the story of Gideon, but McClellan did not. General Lee used the story of Gideon to create the deception of a larger army and for Lincoln to suspect such a deception but McClellan not familiar with the story was oblivious to any deception.

Which by the way, wasn’t God’s battle plan for Gideon built upon a lie? Maybe McClellan did respect General Lee’s faith and figured General Lee would never stoop to such deception. General Lee was, after all, an honest man. General Lee was one of the few in the history of West Point to pass through four years without one demerit. Yet, this honest gentleman resorts to lies and deceit in times of battle. For shame!

Did God create a deception on the Midianites?  Let’s check this story of Gideon out. The Midianites’ dream told of a barley cake rolling into a Midianite tent.  The barley cake was food fit only for animals. It was usually cooked over excrement and was the food eaten by the poorest of the poor.  It was probably a common expression for the Midianites to compare Gideon to a barley cake.  The Midianites, as with many Arabic tribes today, were very superstitious. They had their stories, they knew the stories of the Hebrews. They had to have known that their numbers were far superior to that of the Israelites.  The Midianites were more of a mind of Lincoln than McClellan, They knew the Hebrew God was up to something.  The tent mate of the dreamer probably added the fact that Gideon was an ish yisraeali or man of Israel for a good reason. He uses the word ish rather than adam for man which is telling. Ish could represent both a physical and spiritual man. The Midianites knew the God of Israel just might pull some rabbit out of the hat and they were scared. So scared that they would believe this barley cake called Gideon would destroy them. On such a quiet night these superstitious soldiers were really spooked out reflecting, probably with God’s help, on the history of this Hebrew God. Their superstitious minds probably conjured up all sorts of spiritual phenomena that were ready to do them in.

True when the pots were broken, the trumpets sounded the Midianites probably thought: “Oh, Man look at that, that crazy Gideon must have gotten word to the Hittites, the
Amorites, the Parasites, and here we are, let’s go get out of here, every man for himself.”   The Bible says in verse 22: “The Lord set every man’s sword against his fellow.”  It is interesting that the word set (yashem) and sword (charav) both come from Semitic roots which mean the same thing, desolation and lay to waste. The word for set which is what God did in the camp is yashem which is spelled Yod, Shin, and Mem. This has the idea of God taking their unfounded fears (Yod) and allowing them to be filled or consumed (Shin) by these fears as a result of the revealed revelation (Mem). The result will be desolation.  You see, God did not deceive the Midianites, he only let them be consumed by their own fears and when they saw the Gideon’s army light up, they reached their own conclusions and built their own deceptions. The Midianites believed that nighttime was when all the evil spirits roamed the land and they would not fight at night. Even today in Arabic nations there is a fear of fighting a war at night. God simply played on this fear.

History does not record General Lee doing too much to create the illusion of a larger army.  History does record that most of the deception originated in General McClellan‘s mind based on his political ambitions.  Most historians say that McClellan was overly cautious, too concerned for his men, and other politically correct ways of saying that he let his fear of failure and bad press ruin his political ambitions and cause him to be deceived.

As I view this story of Gideon, I begin to realize that the enemy is using the same tactic against me and against you that God used against the Midianites.  He will let us stew in our fears, worries, and cares to the point that all he needs to do is send up a flare, someone will say or do something and we begin to imagine the worst or he will show us a harmless Quaker cannon and let our imaginations convince us that that log is going to blow us apart. These unfounded fears will result in our defeat.  It is time that we walk out of the Midianite camp of fear and superstition and join the camp of the “Sword of the Lord and Gideon.”

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