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Judges 6:24 (NLT)
And Gideon built an altar to the Lord there and named it Yahweh-Shalom (which means “the Lord is peace”). The altar remains in Ophrah in the land of the clan of Abiezer to this day.

DRAWING NOTES:

TIME OF DAY:
Unspecified in Bible narrative, I have set this scene in the late morning.

LIGHTING NOTES:
The sun (high up behind the viewer in the East) illuminates this scene, casting shadows below the figures and objects.

CHARACTERS PRESENT:
Gideon is the figure in green on the right hand side of the picture, arranging stones on the altar.
Various servants are carrying stones to Gideon.
In the background are towns people going about their daily lives in the town of Ophrah.

RESEARCH/ADDITIONAL NOTES:
This scene’s viewpoint is from the flat roof of the building near the great tree of Ophrah, which can be seen from above on the right. Gideon is supervising his servants who are fetching stones for him to build his first altar to the Lord. I thought it would be likely that Gideon would choose to build the alter over the large stone on which he placed his food offering, and from which fire came out and consumed it (see verses 20-21 in previous picture).

From the vantage point about the ground we can see the circular stone winepress Gideon was in when he encountered the Angel of the Lord. Notice that to the left is a shallower, stone-lined pit. This is where the grapes would normally be tipped, and in which bare-footed people would tread out the grapes. The grape juice would then run through a pipe and into waiting containers in the deeper, circular pit.

Here’s the scene without the figure of Gideon, the animals or offering & fire. Notice that the viewer is standing on the far side of the tree (compared to Scene 04a – Angel of the Lord), looking towards the buildings and wine press.

Background of Judges 06 – Gideon – Scene 07 – Gideonbuilds an altar

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Background of Judges 06 – Gideon – Scene 07 – Gideon builds an altar

The poppy plant in the left foreground, which is growing on the top of the flat roof of the building is called Glaucium grandiflorum, the great-flowered horned poppy.

Glaucium grandiflorum
Glaucium grandiflorum, the great-flowered horned poppy, is a species of flowering plant in the horned poppy genus which is native to the Middle East.

Glaucium grandiflorum is a perennial flowering plant which has scalloped, blue-gray leaves, flowering in the summer and autumn. Its flowers range from orange to deep red which are typically 1.6 inches (4 centimetres) in diameter. Each petal is 0.39–1.77 inches (1–4.5 centimetres) long. The flowers form at the top of long stems some 2.4–15.7 inches (6–40 centimetres) in height, which therefore extend above the plant’s foliage. There can be more than one main stem per plant. The stems are branched, and are covered with rather dense hairs. The seed pods ripen in late summer.
[Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glaucium_grandiflorum]

“The horned and the true poppy are very similar in both the colour and the shape of their corolla. They are easily distinguished, however, by their fruit — in the horned poppy the fruit is a long pod which dehisces along two valves while in the true poppy it is a capsule with numerous terminal pores.
The poppy family is close to the mustard family (Cruciferae) in which the flower organs are characteristically a multiple of four and the fruit a pod with two valves and a suture between them. The horned poppy is, however, classified with the poppy family (Papaveraceae) because of the large number of stamens and paired sepals which are characteristic for this family.
The horned poppy is a perennial with a thick root in which nutrients are stored and because of which it remains viable throughout the summer. This bright red poppy grows east of Jerusalem on pale soils and in cultivated fields, and so in spring is particularly striking against the pale background.”
[Source: Flowers of Jerusalem, Author: Dr. Avinoam Danin]