Gideon said to him, “Oh, my lord, if Yahweh is with us, why then has all this happened to us? Where are all his wondrous works which our fathers told us of, saying, ‘Didn’t Yahweh bring us up from Egypt?’ But now Yahweh has cast us off, and delivered us into the hand of Midian.”
Judges 6:11 Yahweh’s angel came, and sat under the oak which was in Ophrah, that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite. His son Gideon was beating out wheat in the wine press, to hide it from the Midianites.
Judges 6:12 Yahweh’s angel appeared to him, and said to him, “Yahweh is with you, you mighty man of valor!”
Judges 6:13 Gideon said to him, “Oh, my lord, if Yahweh is with us, why then has all this happened to us? Where are all his wondrous works which our fathers told us of, saying, ‘Didn’t Yahweh bring us up from Egypt?’ But now Yahweh has cast us off, and delivered us into the hand of Midian.”
Judges 6:14 Yahweh looked at him, and said, “Go in this your might, and save Israel from the hand of Midian. Haven’t I sent you?”
Judges 6:15 He said to him, “O Lord, how shall I save Israel? Behold, my family is the poorest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.”
The verse centers on "gideon", "said", "lord", "yahweh", "happened", "where", "wondrous", and "works". 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 "Yahweh s angel appeared to him and..." into verse 14's "Yahweh looked at him and said Go...", 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.