13“Please, my Lord,” Gideon replied, “if the LORD is with us, why has all this happened to us? And where are all His wonders of which our fathers told us, saying, ‘Has not the LORD brought us up out of Egypt?’ But now the LORD has forsaken us and delivered us into the hand of Midian.”
Why has all this happened to us?
“When the Angel of the LORD appeared to Gideon, we recognize this is as a theophany - an Old Testament appearance of Jesus Christ, in human, bodily form, but before His incarnation in Bethlehem.” (Guzik)
“Since no man has seen God the Father at any time (John 1:18, John 5:27) and by nature the Holy Spirit is a spirit without bodily form, it is reasonable to see this as an appearance of the Second Person of the Trinity, as an appearance of God the Son. However, this is not the incarnation in the same sense that Jesus was as a baby in Bethlehem. At Bethlehem Jesus was truly and fully human (while also being truly and fully God). Here, it is more likely that Jesus took the mere appearance of humanity, doing so for a specific purpose.” (Guzik)
“This was a place of privacy; he could not make a threshing-floor in open day as the custom was, and bring either the wheel over the grain, or tread it out with the feet of the oxen, for fear of the Midianites, who were accustomed to come and take it away as soon as threshed.” (Clarke)
“So God called Moses and David from following the ewes, Elisha from the plough-tail, the apostles from fishing, washing, and mending their nets. He usually appeared to the busy in visions, like as Satan doth to the idle in manifold temptations.” (Trapp)
“This was a strange greeting to Gideon. It didn’t seem like the LORD was with him and it didn’t seem that he was a mighty man of valor. Gideon might have turned to see if there was another person to whom the angel spoke.” (Guzik)
“Wherein did that valor consist? Apparently, he was a simple man living a very ordinary life. The Angel found him about his daily duty.” (Morgan)
Yet to his credit, it bothered Gideon that Israel was in this condition. He was far from apathetic or fatalistic. (Guzik)
“He is revealed as a man continuing his work with the bitterness of the whole situation burning like a fire in his bones.” (Morgan)
There are those that falsely preach that with Jesus your life will be rosy, no trials and no tribulations. Actually the exact opposite it true because:
John 15:18 If the world hates you, understand that it hated Me first.
You become a target of the devil and an adversary to man.
Next time you ask yourself: Why has all this happened to us?
Remember what happened to Him that bore your sins on His shoulders.
Matthew 10:28 Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Instead, fear the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.
What are you afraid of?
Blessings
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