שופטים, פרק ח׳, פסוק ב׳

Facing the anger of the men of Ephraim, who were upset about not being summoned at the start of the war, Gideon chooses a path of diplomacy and appeasement. He uses deep humility, flattery, and a clever agricultural metaphor to calm their tempers, deliberately minimizing his own part in the victory while elevating their contribution.

He approaches them with a rhetorical question, asking how his deeds could possibly measure up to theirs. The primary approach among commentators is that Gideon wants to hand them the full glory of the final victory. He emphasizes that everything he accomplished at the beginning of the campaign is insignificant compared to what they achieved at its close. By focusing on the present moment, he hints that at this final stage of the war, his actions are completely overshadowed by their success [מלבי״ם].

To illustrate this, Gideon draws a comparison between the main grape harvest of his own family, Abiezer, and the leftover gleanings of Ephraim. In this imagery, the harvest represents the start of the main picking season [מצודת ציון], while the gleanings refer to the inferior, small, or late-blooming grapes gathered at the very end [מצודת ציון, שטיינזלץ].

Interpreters identify two complementary ways to understand this metaphor. The first focuses on the timeline of the battle. Gideon and his family initiated the war and defeated the large enemy camp, an act compared to the main harvest. The men of Ephraim only joined at the end, which is likened to gathering the late gleanings. Gideon flatters them by insisting that their late contribution—capturing the enemy princes at the close of the battle—is a far greater achievement than his entire opening campaign [רש״י, רד״ק, מלבי״ם, מצודת דוד].

Alternatively, the metaphor can be seen as a direct comparison of the people themselves. In this light, the imperfect gleanings represent simple or weak individuals, while the main harvest represents mighty warriors. To completely soothe their pride, Gideon declares that even the weakest and most ordinary members of the tribe of Ephraim are greater and more significant than the most celebrated heroes of his own family [רלב״ג, רד״ק].