Gideon Gideon Gideon () or Gedeon, also named Jerubbaal, and Jerubbesheth, was a military leader, judge and prophet whose calling and victory over the Midianites are recounted in chapters 6 to 8 of the Book of Judges in the Hebrew Bible. Gideon was the son of Joash, from the Abiezrite clan in the tribe of Manasseh and lived in Ephra (Ophrah). As a leader of the Israelites, he won a decisive victory over a Midianite army despite a vast numerical disadvantage, leading a troop of 300 'valiant' men. The nineteenth-century Strong's Concordance derives the name "Jerubbaal" from "Baal will contend", in
Book of Judges The book concludes with two appendices (), stories which do not feature a specific judge: Despite their appearance at the end of the book, certain characters (like Jonathan, the grandson of Moses) and idioms present in the epilogue show that the events therein "must have taken place ... early in the period of the judges." Judges contains a chronology of its events. It is overtly schematic and, according to biblical scholar Jeremy Hughes, shows signs of having been introduced at a later period. It is unclear if any of the people named as judges existed. The basic source for Judges