Judges 6:13 (DRB)

Passage

And Gedeon said to him: I beseech thee, my lord, if the Lord be with us, why have these evils fallen upon us? Where are his miracles, which our fathers have told us of, saying: The Lord brought us out of Egypt but now the Lord hath forsaken us, and delivered us into the hand of Madian.

Nearby Context

Judges 6:11 And an angel of the Lord came, and sat under an oak that was in Ephra, and belonged to Joas, the father of the family of Ezri. And when Gedeon, his son, was threshing and cleansing wheat by the winepress, to flee from Madian,

Judges 6:12 The angel of the Lord appeared to him, and said: The Lord is with thee, O most valiant of men.

Judges 6:13 And Gedeon said to him: I beseech thee, my lord, if the Lord be with us, why have these evils fallen upon us? Where are his miracles, which our fathers have told us of, saying: The Lord brought us out of Egypt but now the Lord hath forsaken us, and delivered us into the hand of Madian.

Judges 6:14 And the Lord looked upon him, and said: Go, in this thy strength, and thou shalt deliver Israel out of the hand of Madian: know that I have sent thee.

Judges 6:15 He answered, and said: I beseech thee, my lord wherewith shall I deliver Israel? Behold, my family is the meanest in Manasses, and I am the least in my father's house.

Study Lenses

The verse centers on "gedeon", "said", "beseech", "thee", "lord", "evils", and "fallen". It is saying that the verse draws attention to "gedeon" and "said", so its meaning should be read from those terms before moving to application.

The nearby context moves from verse 12's "The angel of the Lord appeared to..." into verse 14's "And the Lord looked upon him and...", so "gedeon" 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 "gedeon" and "said" with trust shaped by these words, not by a vague optimism outside the passage.