1300's B.C.:  Gideon's 300, Do They Prefigure Christianity? 

  See image below.

  Sometimes when I think of the soldiers Gideon led actually drinking the water that determined if they faced the enemy or not, I can't help but see the Christian style of praying in the ones that knelt and brought the water to their mouth to lap it from their hands, vice those who put their mouth down to the water to drink.  When they are later associated with vessels of clay broken to reveal the torches inside, when there is the blowing of trumpets, it seems even more likely that it may pre-figure some Christian event. 

  And a barley loaf smashing the tents of the enemy (Midian) in a certain Midianite's nightmare??  Isn't a loaf of bread almost always associated with Jesus?  A barley loaf in particular is mentioned.  The Barley harvest in Israel is often around April I have read.  And the Wheat harvest, which produces the better bread, is about 7 weeks later.  Perhaps this relates to the 'rapture' of the largely gentile Christians leading to the mass conversion of the Jews.  Jews are the 'chosen' people of God', and that is just how that is.  God determined it long ago.  So, to have a harvest of Barley (a satisfactory and nutritious grain) precede the harvest of wheat (a slightly preferred grain) could possibly relate to the harvest of the Jews following the harvest of gentiles.  So, for the Barley loaf to roll into the camp of Midian in the Midianite's dream.... that could be telling us that this possible pre-figured event is likely to happen after the Barley harvest but before the Wheat harvest.  i.e.: after the gentile rapture, but before the great conversion of the Jews reaches its zenith.    

  Having this great enemy army be housed in tents is especially interesting.  Especially since the 'coming world leader', the great 'King of the North' spoken of in Daniel Chapter 11, and his army will be in their tents when Jesus comes to fight them, and this coming world leader will be killed by the brightness of Jesus's arrival. 

  In Daniel 11:45 it says:  "He shall pitch the tents of his royal pavilion between the sea and the glorious holy mountain, but he shall come to his end with none to help him."

  And also, from 2 Thessalonians 2: 8-12 :

  "And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and render powerless by the manifestation of his coming, the one who's coming springs from the power of Satan in every mighty deed and in signs and wonders that lie, and in every wicked deceit for those who are perishing because they have not accepted the love of truth so that they may be saved.  Therefore, God is sending them a deceiving power so that they may believe the lie, that all who have not believed the truth but have approved wrongdoing may be condemned."   

  Again, maybe there is some correlation in these images from Gideon and Abraham's time to a past or yet future event involving Christians, or Jesus. 

  The Greek Battle of Thermopylae has caused the number 300 to be associated with 'the few who sacrifice themselves to save the many', hasn't it?  That happened many hundreds of years after Gideon's time, of course.  But the concept has been recently refreshened in our minds by the movie '300' I would say. 

  Again, that concept of 300 sacrificing themselves for their people seems to relate in a way to the broken vessels with the torches inside, in the account of Gideon. Like people (vessels of clay) with torches inside them (holy spirit) being broken (killed) at the time that trumpets are heard sounding.  The last trump?  The trump we will hear as Jesus returns as the triumphant king to gather his people out of harm's way prior to the worst of the great conflict?  Martyrs?  Feast of trumpets?  We'll see if any of that plays out.  We can really only speculate unless God tells us, and He has not told me.

  Gideon divided his 300 soldiers into 3 groups.  I'm not sure what the 'three' might symbolize, aside from the fact that in the real nighttime battle dividing the soldiers into three groups would help make them appear to be many soldiers, when actually they were few.

  But as to its symbolism, it might signify that the Christians would be from all three great branches of the human family (Shem, Japhet, and Ham.)  Or it might be signifying the three great weapons of the faith:  The Word, the Testimony, and the Righteous Acts of the Saints.   Or, as always, it might have some deeper meaning that I'm not grasping.  Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?

  This event has a slight similarity to Abraham's rescue of his nephew Lot, which is described Genesis chap 14.  Lot and family had been taken by a coalition of warring kings that had come to make war against the kings in Lot's area of residence, which was Sodom and Gomorrah near the Dead Sea.  Abraham gathered 318 others (his retainers, born in his house) to help him try to rescue Lot and all of Lot's household, as well as their stolen possessions.  They succeeded at this, with God's help! 

 That number, 318, is significant for 3 reasons that I have heard of or thought of:  Language experts say that 318 is the Hebrew numeric value (Gematria) of the name of one of Abraham's chief servants, Eliezer, in ancient Hebrew. That servant's found in the next chapter of Genesis, 15:2.  There, Abraham remarks to God at one point that the heir of his household is Eliezer, his servant, because he has no son yet.  The name Eliezer is associated with 318 because the Hebrew letters of his name (Hebrew letters also serve as numbers) Alef, Lamed, Yod, Ayin, Zayin, and Resh add up to that.  They are the letters used in Eliezer's Hebrew name, as spelled in ancient times.  That's probably significant.  His name means My God Helped, or My God is a Help.  The Church is Jesus's servant.  Jesus saves souls using the Church as one of his tools, like Abraham used his '318' (servants) to save Lot.

  Secondly, the difference between Gideon's 300 and Abraham's 318 is 18.  18= 6+6+6 but, it is also the first two letters in Jesus's name in the Greek.  So, among other possible correlations, the number 18 can be associated with both Jesus and the anti-Christ.  This may hint that, aside from being a real battle from the time of Abraham, there may also be allusions in this account to a great battle between the Christians of the far distant future (the 300 from Gideon's story?), and the forces of the anti-Christ.  I think there are clues that the anti-Christ may be from the tribe of Dan, and these 318 troops of Abraham's happened to have stalked the bad guys who kidnapped Lot and his family all the way to 'Dan'. (Genesis 14:14)  The place called Dan. 

  Thirdly, in the Greek, Jesus's name is spelled IHSOUS.  So, the first two letters in Jesus's name, were IH.  Numerically, those add up to the number 18 in the Greek, because one letter stands in for the number 10 in Greek, and the other they used for the number 8.  Three hundred was represented by their letter which looks like our letter 't'.  So, 318 would have equated to 'I' and 'H', which were the first two letters in Jesus's name, coupled with the letter in the Greek alphabet which looked like a 'cross' (t). 

  The 318 servants of Abraham saved the kidnapped Lot and his family, with all of their possessions intact.  Most of us know that 'drawing lots' was an anciently approved way of choosing things.  So the word Lot is associated with the concept of choosing or being 'chosen'.  So, metaphorically, Abraham and his 318 saved the 'chosen'.  The 318 can stand for Jesus and for the Cross.  So, just like the signs along the roads have always said, Jesus Saves!!

Or, as always, it could be something else, or even nothing at all.  But with God, there is very little that means nothing at all, I suspect.