Judges 8

Gideon’s Ephod (8:22–27)

22–23 After the great victory over Midian, the Israelites asked Gideon to become their ruler—because, they said, he had saved Israel. Gideon rightly refused; it was the Lord who had saved Israel. “The LORD will rule over you,” Gideon told them (verse 23).

24–27 Then Gideon made an odd request. The Ishmaelites (Midianites) wore gold earrings, and many of these earrings would have been taken as plunder. Gideon asked each of the Israelites who had taken plunder to give him one earring. The weight of the gold earrings that Gideon collected came to seventeen hundred shekels (about twenty kilograms). Gideon then melted the earrings down and fashioned the gold into a replica of the high priest’s ephod⁴¹ (verse 27). Though Gideon’s original intention may have been good, the ephod he made soon came to be regarded as an idol. Far from helping Israel discern God’s will, it became a snare leading the people into idolatry.

Gideon’s Death (8:28–35)

28–32 During Gideon’s lifetime, Israel remained at peace and the Israelites did not worship the Canaanite gods (verse 33). Though Gideon refused to be Israel’s king, he certainly lived like one. He had seventy sons and many wives (verse 30); in addition, he had at least one concubine, a low-ranking wife, who appears to have kept living with her own family in Shechem (verse 31). This concubine bore Gideon a son, who is the subject of the next chapter.

33–35 As was the case with all the previous judges, things went well in Israel only as long as Gideon remained alive (Judges 2:18). After he died, however, the people again prostituted themselves to the Baals (verse 33), the gods of the Canaanites (see Judges 2:11–13,17). They forgot both the Lord who had saved them (verse 34) and the leader who had led them (verse 35). It is only because of God’s amazing grace that the history of Israel doesn’t end right here in the book of Judges!