Judges 6:36 (DBY)

Passage

And Gideon said to God, If thou wilt save Israel by my hand, as thou hast said,

Nearby Context

Judges 6:34 And the Spirit of Jehovah came upon Gideon, and he blew the trumpet, and the Abi-ezrites were gathered after him.

Judges 6:35 And he sent messengers throughout Manasseh, and they also were gathered after him; and he sent messengers to Asher, and to Zebulun, and to Naphtali; and they came up to meet them.

Judges 6:36 And Gideon said to God, If thou wilt save Israel by my hand, as thou hast said,

Judges 6:37 behold, I put a fleece of wool on the threshing-floor; if dew shall be on the fleece only, and it be dry upon all the ground, then shall I know that thou wilt save Israel by my hand, as thou hast said.

Judges 6:38 And it was so. And when he rose up early on the morrow, he pressed the fleece together, and wrung dew out of the fleece, a bowl-full of water.

Study Lenses

The verse centers on "gideon", "said", "thou", "wilt", "save", "israel", and "hand". It is saying that the verse draws attention to "gideon" and "said", so its meaning should be read from those terms before moving to application.

The nearby context moves from verse 35's "And he sent messengers throughout Manasseh and..." into verse 37's "behold I put a fleece of wool...", so "gideon" and "said" belong inside that flow. In Judges context, the local focus is covenant, worship, and faithfulness.

A plain takeaway is to answer the verse's own emphasis on "gideon" and "said" with trust shaped by these words, not by a vague optimism outside the passage.