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
Tribe of Benjamin Judges. In the period of the judges, they feature in an episode in which a civil war results in their near-extinction as a tribe. After the brief period of the united kingdom of Israel, Benjamin became part of the southern kingdom following the split into two kingdoms. After the destruction of the northern kingdom, Benjamin was absorbed into the southern kingdom. When the southern kingdom was destroyed in the early sixth century BCE, Benjamin as an organized tribe faded from history. An account in Genesis explains the name of Benjamin as a result of the birth of the tribe's founder,