There are three reasons why Gideon's remarks are foolish.
Why would Gideon say,
If the Lord is with us,
when the angel just told him that the Lord was with him? This is a blatant contradiction of the word of the Lord.Why would he say,
Why has all this happened to us?
God had just sent a prophet to tell Israel why: covenant disobedience! And if that were not enough, Gideon should have remembered that God had promised this very judgment if Israel disobeyed. Was Gideon oblivious to his nation’s evil, even as his father maintained a Baal shrine (Judges 6:25)? Gideon showsan abysmal ignorance of why Israel was suffering oppression…. Gideon appears not to have heard the prophet at all or, even if he did, it seems he did not believe him…. Instead, Gideon recounts that our fathers told us that Yahweh had brought us out of Egypt (Judges 6:13)—a note of scepticism creeping in as he recounts hearsay testimony.
1 Gideon seems to be a member of thatnext generation
from chapter 2, the generation that did not know the Lord.Why did he say that
the Lord has forsaken us
? Gideon’s assessment was that God was very arbitrary—he made a covenant with Israel and then forgot about it. Gideon should have recognized that God had not forsaken them, but gave them into Midian’s hand because they had forsaken him!2
13 Gédéon lui dit: Ah! mon seigneur, si l'Eternel est avec nous, pourquoi toutes ces choses nous sont-elles arrivées? Et où sont tous ces prodiges que nos pères nous racontent, quand ils disent: L'Eternel ne nous a-t-il pas fait monter hors d'Egypte? Maintenant l'Eternel nous abandonne, et il nous livre entre les mains de Madian!