The Call of Gideon and His Response (Judges 6:11-32).
‘ And the Angel of Yahweh came, and stationed Himself under the oak which was in Ophrah, that pertained to Joash the Abiezrite. And his son Gideon was threshing wheat in the winepress, to hide it from the Midianites.'
Once again the Angel of Yahweh intervened on behalf of Israel (compare Judges 2:1-5). (Ophrah was probably between Shechem and Jezreel but as yet is unidentified). Later, as in earlier uses of the term ‘the Angel of Yahweh', He would become Yahweh. He was speaking, in this case, to Gideon. Gideon's father was an Abiezrite, connected with the tribe/sub-tribe of Machir (part of Manassesh) - see Num 26:30; 1 Chronicles 7:18.
“Stationed Himself under the oak.” We can compare with this how Deborah ‘stationed herself' under a palm tree (Judges 4:5). It was no doubt a local landmark and a recognised type of place from which important and authoritative people such as Joash passed on judgments.
“And his son Gideon was threshing wheat in the winepress, to hide it from the Midianites.” Things had come to such a pass that the ‘beating out' had to be done in secret, so that the Midianites would not know about it. For this reason his son Gideon did it himself by hand. He was in a panic lest the Midianites discover it. They had scanty enough food to see them through the year.
The winepress would be two rock hewn troughs, probably situated a little out of the way and presumably near the oak. Grapes would be trampled in the larger upper one, and the juice drain down into the lower one. But here it was grain that was secretly being beaten by hand out of sight. Grain would in normal times be threshed on an open, exposed, elevated, windswept floor so that the wind could separate wheat from chaff. But times had changed. To beat the grain in the open would be to court attack from the Midianites.