Then Gideon said to him, “O my lord, if Yahweh is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all His wondrous deeds which our fathers recounted to us, saying, ‘Did not Yahweh bring us up from Egypt?’ But now Yahweh has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian.”
Judges 6:11 Then the angel of Yahweh came and sat under the oak that was in Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite as his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the wine press in order to preserve it from the Midianites.
Judges 6:12 And the angel of Yahweh appeared to him and said to him, “Yahweh is with you, O mighty man of valor.”
Judges 6:13 Then Gideon said to him, “O my lord, if Yahweh is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all His wondrous deeds which our fathers recounted to us, saying, ‘Did not Yahweh bring us up from Egypt?’ But now Yahweh has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian.”
Judges 6:14 Then Yahweh turned to him and said, “Go in this strength of yours and save Israel from the hand of Midian. Have I not sent you?”
Judges 6:15 But he said to Him, “O Lord, with what shall I save Israel? Behold, my clan is the least in Manasseh, and I am the youngest in my father’s house.”
The verse centers on "gideon", "said", "lord", "yahweh", "happened", "where", "wondrous", and "deeds". 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 12's "And the angel of Yahweh appeared to..." into verse 14's "Then Yahweh turned to him and said...", 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.