Judges 6:26 (LSB)

Passage

and build an altar to Yahweh your God on the top of this stronghold in an orderly manner, and take the second bull and offer a burnt offering with the wood of the Asherah which you shall cut down.”

Nearby Context

Judges 6:24 So Gideon built an altar there to Yahweh and named it Yahweh is Peace. To this day it is still in Ophrah of the Abiezrites.

Judges 6:25 Now it happened on the same night that Yahweh said to him, “Take your father’s bull and a second bull seven years old, and pull down the altar of Baal which belongs to your father, and cut down the Asherah that is beside it,

Judges 6:26 and build an altar to Yahweh your God on the top of this stronghold in an orderly manner, and take the second bull and offer a burnt offering with the wood of the Asherah which you shall cut down.”

Judges 6:27 So Gideon took ten men of his servants and did as Yahweh had spoken to him; and now it happened that because he was too afraid of his father’s household and the men of the city to do it by day, he did it by night.

Judges 6:28 Then the men of the city arose early in the morning, and behold, the altar of Baal was torn down, and the Asherah which was beside it was cut down, and the second bull was offered on the altar which had been built.

Study Lenses

The verse centers on "build", "altar", "yahweh", "stronghold", "orderly", "manner", "take", and "second". It is saying that the verse draws attention to "build" and "altar", so its meaning should be read from those terms before moving to application.

The nearby context moves from verse 25's "Now it happened on the same night..." into verse 27's "So Gideon took ten men of his...", so "build" and "altar" 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 "build" and "altar" with trust shaped by these words, not by a vague optimism outside the passage.