Throughout history, the Lord has chosen to accomplish His will in some very unorthodox ways. The occasion of Judges 7:1-8 is a prime example. As Jehovah prepared Gideon to wage war against the Midianites, He commanded a strange way of mustering his troops. Israel’s army of 32,000 was scaled to a mere 300 men. Twenty-two thousand left for fear (Judges 7:3) and the rest were removed because of how they drank. As they arrived at the water the Lord commanded, “Everyone who laps from the water with his tongue, as a dog laps, you shall set apart by himself…” (Judges 7:5). Only 300 men drank like dogs that day, and those where the men God chose to fight with Gideon.
The key to understanding this strange test is found in verse 2–“The people who are with you are too many for Me to give the Midianites into their hands, lest Israel claim glory for itself against Me, saying ‘My own hand has saved me.’” God knew Israel’s tendency toward pride, thus He removed every conventional means of victory to ensure that the only real conclusion was that God had saved them.
Israel’s ancient struggle with pride has now become ours. We have a terrible tendency to trust in our own ingenuity and glorify our own efforts. Is the church growing? Do our plans bear fruit? Are good things are happening all around? Who gets the glory for such things? We would do well to drink like the dogs so that we remember to do God’s work in God’s way that He may receive the glory.