The snare of success. Gideon made [all the golden earrings into] an ephod [a sacred, high priest’s garment], and put it in his city of Ophrah, and all Israel worshiped it as an idol there, and it became a trap for Gideon and his household. Jdg 8:27
INTRODUCTION
This is a history of the chosen people during the 400 or 450 years which intervened between the death of Joshua and the time of Eli, Act_13:20. It is not a connected history, but a collection of outstanding incidents, which determined the fortunes of the chosen people, and gave special illustrations of the power of faith in God. The chief lesson of the book is the intimate connection between loyalty or disloyalty to God and the corresponding results in well-being or misery. This is distinctly stated in Jdg_2:11-23.
The judges were extraordinary agents of the divine pity and helpfulness, raised up as the urgency of the people’s need demanded, to deliver Israel from their oppressors, to reform religion, and to administer justice. Their administration was generally local, as Barak among the northern tribes, Samson in the extreme south, and Jephthah across the Jordan in Gilead.
It must not be supposed that Israel perpetrated an unbroken series of apostasies. Though these and their special deliverances occupy the major part of the book, there were evidently long interspaces of fidelity and prosperity. And in the darkest hours, there were probably large numbers who, amid the abominations, sighed and cried for a better day.
There are two appendices, relating events which took place not long after Joshua’s death, and therefore preceding the greater part of the history. We may almost consider the book of Ruth as the third. The touches of human characteristics are very vivid and instinctive, and the book deserves much more attention than it receives from the ordinary reader.
Israel’s Apostasies and Deliverances
INTRODUCTION, Jdg_1:1-36; Jdg_2:1-23; Jdg_3:1-432.
RULE OF THE JUDGES, Judges 3:5-16:31
Following repeated apostasy and oppression, the Israelites were successively delivered:
4. From the Kings of Midian by Gideon, Jdg_6:1-40; Jdg_7:1-25; Jdg_8:1-35
18. What act of Gideon tended to lead the people astray?
THE LORD RAISES UP JUDGES
GIDEON DEFEATS ZEBAH AND ZALMUNNA
Then Gideon the son of Joash returned from the battle by the ascent of Heres.
He captured a young man of Succoth and questioned him. And the youth wrote down for him [the names of] the leaders of Succoth and its elders, seventy-seven men.
He came to the men of Succoth and said, “Look here, Zebah and Zalmunna, about whom you taunted me, saying, ‘Are Zebah and Zalmunna now in your hand, that we should give bread to your men who are exhausted?'”
He took the elders of the city, and thorns of the wilderness and briars, and with them he punished the men of Succoth.
He tore down the tower of Penuel and killed the men of the city.
Then Gideon said to Zebah and Zalmunna, “What kind of men were they whom you killed at Tabor?” And they replied, “They were like you, each one of them resembled the son of a king.”
He said, “They were my brothers, the sons of my mother. As the LORD lives, if only you had let them live, I would not kill you.”
So [to humiliate them] Gideon said to Jether his firstborn, “Stand up, and kill them!” But the youth did not draw his sword, because he was afraid, for he was still [just] a boy.
Then Zebah and Zalmunna said, “Rise up yourself and strike us; for as the man is, so is his strength.” So Gideon arose and killed Zebah and Zalmunna, and took the crescent amulets that were on their camels’ necks.
GIDEON’S EPHOD
Then the men of Israel said to Gideon, “Rule [as king] over us, both you and your son, also your son’s son, for you have rescued us from the hand of Midian.”
But Gideon said to them, “I will not rule over you, and my son will not rule over you; the LORD shall rule over you.”
And Gideon said to them, “I would make a request of you, that each one of you give me an earring from his spoil.” For the Midianites had gold earrings, because they were Ishmaelites [who customarily wore them].
They answered, “We will certainly give them to you.” And they spread out a garment, and every one of them threw an earring there from his spoil.
And the weight of the golden earrings that he requested was seventeen hundred shekels of gold, apart from the crescent amulets and pendants and the purple garments which were worn by the kings of Midian, and apart from the chains that were on their camels’ necks.
Gideon made [all the golden earrings into] an ephod [a sacred, high priest’s garment], and put it in his city of Ophrah, and all Israel worshiped it as an idol there, and it became a trap for Gideon and his household.
So Midian was subdued and humbled before the sons of Israel, and they no longer lifted up their heads [in pride]. And the land was at rest for forty years in the days of Gideon.
THE DEATH OF GIDEON
Jerubbaal (Gideon) the son of Joash went and lived in his own house.
Now Gideon had seventy sons born to him, because he had many wives.
And his concubine who was in Shechem also bore him a son, whom he named Abimelech.
Gideon the son of Joash died at a good advanced age and was buried in the tomb of Joash his father in Ophrah of the Abiezrites.
Then it came about, as soon as Gideon was dead, that the Israelites again played the prostitute with the Baals, and made Baal-berith their god.
And the Israelites did not remember the LORD their God, who had rescued them from the hand of all their enemies on every side;
nor did they show kindness to the family of Jerubbaal (that is, Gideon) in return for all the good that he had done for Israel.
Comments by
F.B.Meyer
OnJudges 8:13-35
THE SNARE OF SUCCESS
Clearly Gideon’s family had passed through some terrible tragedy previous to this war of emancipation. He had not learned our Lord’s teaching of forgiveness and acted on the usual maxims of his age. Possibly, also, he felt that he was the executioner of God’s vengeance upon these chiefs, whose names, “Immolation” and “Trouble,” were derived from their desperate deeds. As they stood anticipating death, they uttered a memorable sentence, “As the man is, so is his strength.” The usefulness of our lives is not to be gauged by what we say or have or think, but by what we are. It is not gift but grace that leaves the deepest dint upon other lives. If you want to be strong in the arm, you must be pure and true at heart.
The gold and purple of the spoil enabled Gideon to make an ephod, presumably on the pattern of that described in Exo_28:1-43. It was not exactly an idol but a kind of fetish, and it diverted the thoughts of the people from Shiloh and the spiritual worship of the unseen and eternal God. So apt is the human heart to cling to some outward emblem-it may be a crucifix, a wafer, or a church-and miss that worship in spirit and in truth for which the Father seeks.
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