Judges 7:14
And his fellow answered and said, This is nothing else save the sword of Gideon the son of Joash, a man of Israel: for into his hand hath God delivered Midian, and all the host. And his fellow answered and said, This is nothing else save the sword of Gideon the son of Joash, a man of Israel: for into his hand hath God delivered Midian, and all the host.
Midian lay on the eastern border and in the deserts beyond, with Amalek on the south, and remained an unrelenting enemy of Israel that had nearly been destroyed in the days of Moses but had grown numerous and powerful and thirsted for revenge, and when the protecting hand of God was withdrawn its opportunity came. The tribes east of the Jordan suffered first, but the whole land suffered as the desert dwellers came as locusts for multitude with flocks and herds, spreading like a devouring plague from the Jordan to the Philistine plain, stripping harvests and robbing the people until Israel fled to walled towns, fortresses, caves and mountains. The oppression lasted seven years, and when the people in distress heeded the Lord's reproof and confessed their sins, God raised up Gideon as a helper to break the oppressor's yoke.
Gideon trembled at the coming conflict with so vast a multitude, so the Lord sent him with Phurah down by night to the edge of the enemy camp in the valley below Israel's position on the hill to hear something for his encouragement. The verse records the fellow Midianite soldier's interpretation of the barley loaf dream overheard by Gideon, declaring that the dream is nothing else but the sword of Gideon the son of Joash, a man of Israel, because God has delivered Midian and all the host into his hand. The enemy's interpretation confirmed God's promise of victory and strengthened Gideon before the battle.
Even Gideon's enemy recognized Gideon as the man through whom God would give Israel victory over Midian and its army, and Gideon recognized the voice of God speaking to him through those Midianite strangers. The Midianite soldier recognized Gideon as the man through whom God would deliver Midian and its army into Israel's power. Even the enemy recognized that Israel's victory came from God, who had delivered Midian and its army into Gideon's hand.
Midian's defeat was God's work displaying God's wisdom and power rather than human strength, skill, or numbers. It was accomplished through simple and humble means and human effort but with success belonging to God alone. God made the victory so clearly His own that no human could claim its glory, for He is to receive the glory and not the human instrument, and He raised up a faithful deliverer to rescue Israel from its oppressors.
Strengthened by the enemy's interpretation, Gideon returned to his few men, commanded them to arise because the Lord had delivered the host of Midian into their hand, and then carried out the night attack. His army prevailed because in living faith they followed God's special directions rather than trusting in numbers, while faithlessness and narrow views and narrow plans hold back the work so that very little is accomplished.