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Jdg_8:22-32.
[2 Jdg_8:25.— çַùִּׂîְìַä : Dr. Cassel, ein Gewand, “a garment.” The definite article simply indicates the garment used on the occasion. The term ùִׂîְìָä , though also used in the general sense of garment and raiment, is specially applied to the outer garment, the mantle or cloak, cf. Bib. Dict., s. v. “Dress.” Being a four-cornered piece of cloth, it was quite suitable for the present purpose.—Tr.]
[3 Jdg_8:28.— åַúִּùְׁ÷ֹè äָàָøֶõ , “and the land rested.” The E. V. departs here from its own previous renderings, see Jdg_3:11; Jdg_3:30; Jdg_5:31, where the Hebrew has the same words.—Tr.]
[4 Jdg_8:31.— åַéָּùֶׂí àֶúÎùְׁîåֹ Dr. Cassel: man nannte seinen Namen. Bertheau also takes åéָּùֶׂí as the indeterminate 3d pers. (see ties. Or. 137, 3), and says: “the name sounds like a nickname, given him because his lordship was of such brief duration, and he so very far from being Father of a King.” The difficulty is that the text gives no hint of a change of subject. But cf. the commentary below, and Keil’s view in note on p. 140.—Tr.]
Jdg_8:22. Rule over us, thou, thy son, and thy son’s son. This is the language of gratitude and admiration. Excited, and, like all multitudes, easily carried away by momentary impulses of joy and approval, they offer him the supreme authority, and even propose to make it hereditary. It is only done, however, in a storm of excitement. Nor do they propose that he shall be their îֶìֶêְ , but their îùֵׁì —not their King, but their Imperator. What they desire is to be not only for his honor, but also for their welfare. His family is to continue forever the champion of Israel. But in this vehement urgency of the moment, the people show how little they comprehend, notwithstanding this and many other great events of their history, to whom they are really indebted for victory. They show that they regard the strength by which Gideon has conquered to be physical, rather than moral. Thou shalt rule, for thou hast delivered us from Midian. They fail to perceive the contradiction to which they give utterance when they talk of an hereditary “Judge,” or as they word it, “ruler.” It belongs to the essence of a Judge, that he be raised up by the Spirit, and filled with the strength of God. He is God’s military ambassador to a people that has no king. Not the people, but God, had made Gideon what he was—their military leader and commander. His children will not be able to lead the nation, unless they also are called by God. The kingship is hereditary, because it rests on the broad basis of established order, and not merely on the endowments of extraordinary persons. The divinely inspired imperator can at most transmit only his treasures. It was not without a purpose that the narrative told of the timid boy, Jether, Gideon’s first-born. Will he—if God do not call him—be able to smite the Midianites? and if he be not able, will the men of Israel obey him? None the less great, however, was the temptation for Gideon. He on whom but recently Ephraim looked superciliously down, has now the offer of dominion over Israel laid at his feet. It requires more strength to resist the allurements of proffered power, than to defeat an enemy. But Gideon is a great man, greater than Washington, to whom absolute dominion was not offered, and who accepted the Presidency because he would obey “the voice of the people,” saying as he did so, that “no people could be more bound to acknowledge and adore the invisible hand which conducts the affairs of men, than the people of the United States” (cf. Marshall’s Life of Washington, ii. 146).
Jdg_8:23. And Gideon said unto them, I will not rule over you, neither shall my son rule over you: Jehovah shall rule over you. God—not “Elohim,” but “Jehovah,” the God of Israel—is your only Imperator. With this he repels the idea that he was the sole and real conqueror, as also the supposition that any others than those whom God calls can be of service. He declares, moreover, that God must be obeyed, because He is the Ruler; and that as in this war against Midian victory was gained only because his (Gideon’s) orders were followed, so victory will always be contingent on obedience to God.
With these words Gideon worthily crowns his heroic deeds; and there he should have stopped. But the moment that he connects the cause of God with a measure of his own, albeit with the best intentions, he falls into error, and without designing it leads the people astray.
Jdg_8:24-26. Give me, every man, the ring of his booty. Since the rings were taken from men, they must be understood to be ear-rings, the use of which, especially among the ancients, was to a great extent common to both men and women. In Ceylon and among the Burmese, the perforation of the ears is to this day, for both sexes, a religious ceremony; just as the habit of wearing rings! did not have its origin solely in desire for finery. The observations of modern travellers among the Arabs, are confined to female ornaments, but “sons” also wore such rings as are here mentioned, even among the Israelites (Exo_32:2). Plautus (Pœnulus, v. 2, 32) says jeeringly of the Carthaginians: “Digitos in manibus non habent, quia incedunt cum annulatis auribus” (cf. Serarius). The explanation, “they had golden rings, for they were Ishmaelites,” is to be referred, not to the rings, but to the material of which they were made. It calls attention to the love of finery and splendor which then as now characterized the Arab tribes, and at the same time accounts for the wealth of gold implied in the possession of so many rings of that metal by the Midianitish army. Gold is still extensively used by the Arabs for the same purposes (cf. Ritter, xiv. 415, etc.; xv. 828, etc.).
The army must have been pervaded by thorough, even though temporary, enthusiasm for their heroic leader, since they willingly gave up the most valuable part of the booty, without knowing but that he wanted it for personal use. Accordingly, an abundance of gold rings were brought together. Now, for the first time, was Israel astounded at the magnitude of the spoil; now was it seen that the man who formerly ranked his harvest second to the gleaning of Ephraim, had obtained glory and wealth beyond comparison. For not only were 1,700 shekels of gold handed over to him at this time, but to him also belonged (for Jdg_8:26 speaks only of his possessions) the moons (Jdg_8:21), the ðְèִéôåֹú , and the purple garments of the kings, and the decorations of their camels. The ðְèִéôåֹú are ear-pendants, made of pearls and precious stones, peculiar to their kings, in distinction from the simple rings worn by all other Midianites. The name signifies a “drop,” which the pearl resembled. The Greek óôáëÜãìéïí , with which Gesenius compares it, I have met with only in Plautus (Menechmei, iii. 3) as stalagmia. The monument of Cyrus was adorned with ear-pendants of precious stones (Arrian, vi. 29). Procopius represents the Persian king Pherozes with a costly pearl hanging from his right ear (Brisson, De Regno Pers., p. 83). Among the Indians, persons of distinction wore precious stones in their ears (Curtius, viii. 9, 21). In the Ramayana it is stated, that in Ayodhya no one was without ear-pendants (akundali) and other ornaments (Bohlen, Altes Indien, ii. 170).—Great wealth stood now at Gideon’s command; but he had no thought of appropriating the gifts of the men of Israel to himself. All that he retained was the booty which had fallen to him from the Midianitish kings. Hannibal also, caused the rings of the Roman knights who fell at Cannæ to be collected by the peck (Liv. xxiii. 12),—but Gideon has no Punic ends in view.
Jdg_8:27-28. And Gideon made an ephod thereof. The high-priestly significance of the ephod is clearly explained in Exodus 28. It is the special sacred garment, by which Aaron and his sons are distinguished as priests. With the ephod, the breastplate is connected, fastened to it by strings, and not to be displaced (Exo_28:28). This garment, with the breastplate, the high priest wears in the sanctuary. With it therefore are connected the Urim and Thummim, through which divine instructions are imparted, and to which, after the death of Moses and Joshua, Israel applies for directions. It is this high-priestly character of the ephod, and the gift of prophetic communication through the Urim and Thummim of its breastplate (cf. 1Sa_30:7), that explains the consecration of such a garment by Gideon. Its procurement is closely connected with the words: “Jehovah shall rule over you.” The people has been saved by God’s revelation of Himself to Gideon. To his service, therefore, the choicest of the spoil must be devoted. Not on man, but on Him, is hope to be built. He will say what the people are to do. Through the priestly ephod, the heavenly King will speak, and rule his obedient people. The consecration of the ephod, therefore, as that with which the Urim and Thummim are connected, expresses the truth that God governs; and is Gideon’s declaration that He, and not any human Imperator, is to be honored.
Thus far, Gideon’s action was blameless, and worthy of his faith. But he “deposited the ephod in his city, in Ophrah.” Now, Ophrah was not the seat of the common sanctuary, the tabernacle, nor of the national priesthood. And though the priestly family of that day may have been in a decline, though the tribe of Ephraim, among whom it had at that time its principal seat, gave unequivocal evidence of unbelieving pride, on which account alone Gideon might hesitate to commit the oracle to their keeping; yet, all these reasons, however indicative of spiritual wisdom, were not sufficient to authorize the consecration of an ephod, and the establishment of a priesthood, in Ophrah. It was the inauguration of a separate sanctuary, the establishment, so to speak, of an opposition ephod, under the controlling influence of Gideon. The ecclesiastical centre of Israel was thus severed from the tabernacle. The hero, notwithstanding his personal fidelity to God, evinces herein conceptions of Israel’s calling too subjective to be secure against disastrous error. The result soon makes this apparent.
And all Israel went a whoring after it. The expositions of recent interpreters, who ascribe to Gideon the erection of a golden calf, are founded in utter misapprehension. The use of rings by Aaron in casting his idol, was simply the result of his having no other gold, and has surely no tendency to establish a necessary connection between the collection of rings and the casting of golden calves. The establishment by the recreant Micah, in the closing part of our Book, of “an ephod and a graven image,” is itself evidence that he who only consecrated an ephod, did not erect an image. Gideon, with the words “Jehovah shall rule!” on his lips, cannot intend to give up that for which he has risked his life—fidelity towards the God who will have no graven images. The erection of an idol image is the worst of sins. It was from that very sin that Gideon had delivered his people; he was the Contender against Baal, the destroyer of idol altars,—the man who would not even suffer himself to be made Imperator, an idol of the people. Gideon continues faithful to the moment of his death, which he reaches in a good old age. If, nevertheless, Israel goes a whoring after the ephod, this was no part of Gideon’s wish; still, the snare was of his laying, because he placed the ephod “in his own house.” He thought that by that means the people would better remember from what distress they had been delivered; but it is the nature of the multitude to pervert even faith into superstition. They come to Ophrah with worship and prayer for direction, because this particular ephod is there—not because they seek to honor God, but because this is Gideon’s ephod. They regard not the word which issues from the breastplate to him who believes in God, but only the fact that the ephod. is made of the spoils of Midian. Thus they turn Gideon’s faith into superstition; and Israel’s moral strength, instead of being increased, is weakened. The unwholesome desire has been excited to present worship, not in the customary place, but wherever the subjective sense of novelty allures the worshipper. If Gideon had not consecrated the ephod in his house, it had not become a snare for Israel. It helped him indeed to retain the leadership of Israel, under the supremacy of Jehovah; but by it, discarding as it did the lawful priesthood, he led the people astray into an historical subjectivism instead of establishing them in their objective faith, and thus prepared the way for apostasy. For what but apostasy could follow at his death, when the popular faith became thus connected with his person, his government, and the ephod in his house? The hero erred, when he also made himself a priest. His house fell, because he undertook to make it a temple for the people. The ephod with the breastplate became a snare, because the God of Israel is not to be led by Gideon, but Gideon by Him—even though there be no ephod in his house.
The renewed apostasy, however, for which the way was thus prepared, manifested itself only in the sequel. As long as Gideon lived, his powerful Spirit kept the enemy in fear, and the people at rest. The effects of his achievement lasted forty years, although the hero, refusing dominion, had retired as a private person to his house and stayed there,—unlike Washington, who, though at the end of the war he returned with “inexpressible delight” to his country-seat at Mount Vernon on the Potomac, yet soon left it again, to become President of the new republic.
Jdg_8:29-32. And Jerubbaal, the son of Joash, went and dwelt in his own house The surname Jerubbaal has not again called for attention, since the events which gave rise to it. But now, that Gideon’s work is finished, the narrative, with a subtilty of thought that is surprising, speaks of him under this name. It was given him because he had overthrown the altar of Baal, for which the superstitious populace expected to see the vengeance of Baal overtake him (Jdg_6:32). The result shows that Baal is nothing. Gideon has smitten him and his servants, and is covered with success and glory. “There goes”—so speak the people among themselves—“Jerubbaal into his house; the greatest man in Israel, because he smote Baal.” Baal is impotent against the faithful and valiant. Victory constantly attends his enemies, for God is with them. May this truth never be forgotten by our own people and princes! As long as he continued to live, Gideon had every thing that ministered to fame and happiness m Israel—many sons, peace; riches, and a “good old age.” The last expression is used of no one else but Abraham (Gen_25:8); for of David it is employed not by the Book of Kings, but only by the late Chronicles (1Ch_29:28). The “goodness” of his old age consisted in his seeing the blessed results of his great deed of faith, continuing unbroken and unchanged as long as he lived. Nevertheless, the narrative already. hints at the shadow which after his death darkened his house. In Shechem, a concubine bore him a son, whom they called Abimelech. åַéָּùֶׂí , I think, refers not to Gideon, but indefinitely to those about the concubine; for it was in Shechem that the name originated. Gideon, who would not “rule,” much less be king, would not have named his son, “My Father is King.” On the other hand, it was but natural that the vanity of the concubine, when she bore a son to the great Gideon, the man of royal reputation and distinction, would gladly consent to have him named Abimelech. This vanity of Shechem is the foundation of the coming tragedy.
Of no previous hero has the account been so extended. It is even mentioned that he was buried in his father’s sepulchre, in the family vault. That also is a sign of his happy and peaceful end. Here also, as always at the close, the name of the hero’s father is associated with his own, as a tribute of honor for the support he once afforded his son (Jdg_6:31); beyond this, however, nothing is recorded of him. Gideon, as conqueror, dwelt no longer in his father’s house, but in his own (Jdg_8:29); but at death he is buried in his father’s tomb. In that tomb, the glory of Manasseh sleeps; he in whom, tradition declares, the blessing of Jacob on this grandson was fulfilled, and of whom the Midrash says, that what Moses was at an earlier time, that Gideon was in his.
Lisco: Gideon refuses to accede to the proposal of the people, because he is conscious that everything is to be ascribed only to the Lord, and that it would be nothing else than arbitrariness and self-seeking to accept the royal dignity without special direction from above.—Gerlach: He rejects the offered crown from genuine fidelity to the Lord whom alone he serves; but another temptation he fails to withstand.
[Henry: They honestly thought it very reasonable, that he who had gone through the toils and perils of their deliverance, should enjoy the honor and power of commanding them ever after; and very desirable, that he who in this great and critical juncture had had such manifest tokens of God’s presence with him, should ever after preside in their affairs. Let us apply it to the Lord Jesus; He hath delivered us out of the hand of our enemies, our spiritual enemies, the worst and most dangerous, therefore it is fit He should rule over us; for how can we be better ruled, than by One that appears to have so great an interest in heaven, and so great a kindness for this earth?—Bp. Hall: That which others plot and sue, and swear and bribe for (dignity and superiority), he seriously rejects, whether it were for that he knew God had not yet called them to a monarchy, or rather for that he saw the crown among thorns. Why do we ambitiously affect the command of these mole-hills of earth, when wise men have refused the proffers of kingdoms? Why do we not rather labor for that kingdom which is free from all cares, from all uncertainty?
Wordsworth: Gideon’s history is a warning that it requires more than a good intention to make a good act; and that the examples of the best of men are not a safe guide of conduct; and the better the man is, the more will be the consequences of bad acts done by him. The only right rule of life is the Law of God.—The same: Gideon is numbered among the saints of God in the epistle to the Hebrews (Jdg_11:32); but the saints of God were men, and no man is free from some blemish of human infirmity.—Tr.]
Footnotes:
[Jdg_8:24.— ðֶæֶí , ring; whether ear-ring or nose-ring, the word itself does not declare. Cassel and De Wette both render it by the singular (De Wette, Ohrring). It is used as a collective, and simply indicates the class of ornaments desired, without any reference to the number which each man was supposed to have, or was expected to give. This indefinite singular is best rendered in English by the plural, as in E. V.—Tr.]
[Jdg_8:25.— çַùִּׂîְìַä : Dr. Cassel, ein Gewand, “a garment.” The definite article simply indicates the garment used on the occasion. The term ùִׂîְìָä , though also used in the general sense of garment and raiment, is specially applied to the outer garment, the mantle or cloak, cf. Bib. Dict., s. v. “Dress.” Being a four-cornered piece of cloth, it was quite suitable for the present purpose.—Tr.]
[Jdg_8:28.— åַúִּùְׁ÷ֹè äָàָøֶõ , “and the land rested.” The E. V. departs here from its own previous renderings, see Jdg_3:11; Jdg_3:30; Jdg_5:31, where the Hebrew has the same words.—Tr.]
[Jdg_8:31.— åַéָּùֶׂí àֶúÎùְׁîåֹ Dr. Cassel: man nannte seinen Namen. Bertheau also takes åéָּùֶׂí as the indeterminate 3d pers. (see ties. Or. 137, 3), and says: “the name sounds like a nickname, given him because his lordship was of such brief duration, and he so very far from being Father of a King.” The difficulty is that the text gives no hint of a change of subject. But cf. the commentary below, and Keil’s view in note on p. 140.—Tr.]
[Bertheau: “Ishmaelites is the general name of a number of tribes, among whom the Midianites, though according to Gen_25:2, not descended from Ishmael, but from Keturah, were also reckoned, cf. Gen_37:25; Gen_37:28; Gen_39:1.”—See also above, on Jdg_6:1.—Tr.]
[Wellsted (“Reisen in Arabien,” i. 224, quoted by Keil):—“The women in Omân squander considerable sums in the purchase of silver ornaments, and their children are literally laden with them. I have sometimes counted fifteen earrings on each side, and head, breast, arms, and ankles, were adorned with equal profusion.”—Tr.]
In Silius Italicus also (Punica, xii. 231), we find, “In zure lapis, rubris advectus ab oris.”
[Keil: “It is not necessary so to understand this, as if the 1,700 shekels (fifty lbs.) of gold were worked up into the ephod, but only that the expense of making it was defrayed with this money.”—Wordsworth: “The immense quantity of gold was probably bestowed not only on the robe itself, but on the chains and ouches, and settings of the stones on the shoulders, and on the breastplate, and on the setting of the stones therein; and perhaps also in the purchase of the precious stones for the shoulders, and for the workmanship of the whole.”—Tr.]
åַéַּöֵּâ . On this word compare Keil on this passage. [Keil remarks: “ åַéַּöֵּâ àֹøåֹ does not say, he set it up; but may as well mean, he preserved it, in his city Ophrah, äִòִּéâ is nowhere used of the erection of an image ox statue; and signifies, not only to place, but also to lay down (e. g. Jdg_6:37), and to let stand, leave behind, Gen_33:15.”—Tr.]
With this explanation of the ephod and its consequences, the old Jewish expositors agree. The Midrash (Jalkut, ii. n. 64) gives a profound hint, when it opposes the tribe-feeling of Gideon, as a member of Manasseh, to that of Ephraim. However, even that was already regarded as a species of “unclean service.”
[Keil interprets the name as meaning “Father of a King” (Königsvater), and says: “ åַéָּùֶׂí àֶúÎùִׁîåֹ is not the same as ÷ָøָà àֶúÎùְׁîåֹ , to give one a name, to name him, but signifies to give one a by-name, to surname him, cf. Neh_9:7; Dan_5:12 (Chald.). It follows from this, that Gideon gave Abimelech this name as a surname suitable to his character; consequently, not at his birth, but afterwards, as he grew up and developed characteristics which suggested it.”—Tr.]