Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Judges 8:22
Then the men of Israel said unto Gideon, Rule thou over us, both thou, and thy son, and thy son’s son also: for thou hast delivered us from the hand of Midian.
22 28. Gideon refuses the kingship: he sets up an ephod: conclusion
22 . the men of Israel ] Not the 300 of Jdg 8:4-21, but the men who formed the army Jdg 7:14, Jdg 9:55, the Israelites drawn from Ephraim, Manasseh, and the neighbouring tribes Jdg 7:23. Thus Jdg 8:22-23 are probably not the sequel of Jdg 7:4-21, nor of Jdg 7:1-3, for the Ephraimites shewed anything but a disposition to make Gideon king; so these verses appear to come from a source secondary to the two main documents (see p. 69). The offer of the kingship shews that Gideon’s exploit was more than the avenging of a private wrong (Jdg 7:4-21); he had saved his countrymen; as king it would be his duty to save them still.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Jdg 8:22-35
Rule thou over us . . . for thou hast delivered us.
Gideons after-life
Many a man does well in times of difficulty and danger who fails entirely in prosperity. It remains for us to see whether Gideon yielded to this greatest of temptations. Did he now allow selfishness instead of faith and duty to become the ruling principle of his life? That question had to be practically answered at the great assembly that was held on his return. He stood there on the pinnacle of glory. He was at once the Wallace and the Bruce of his native land. And his very modesty in claiming so little for himself made his glory greater. Vanquished by his generosity as much as Penuel and Succoth had been vanquished by his arms, Ephraim probably took the lead in the offer of kingly authority that was made to him. That offer was the climax of his natural glory. His rejection of it was the climax of his moral and spiritual glory. Now, were not the proposal and the reason for it good alike? Gideon had undoubtedly displayed every kingly quality–skill in war, wisdom in council, prudent reserve, patient determination, and superiority to every petty motive and desire. There can be no doubt that had it been right for any man to become king then, he was the very man to fill the place. There can be no doubt that the proposal was in many respects prompted by right feeling, and in some respects a wise one. But the leaders of Israel did not fully understand the wants of their age. Looked at either spiritually or politically, kingly rule would then have been premature. It was needful that God should still manifest His presence at times in direct and striking ways. The nation had not learnt the truth of His continual presence. They had not learnt this truth sufficiently to warrant its being even partially obscured by the intervention of a single human ruler. Neither, considering the question in its lower, its political, aspect, was there yet enough cohesion or common feeling among the tribes to enable them to work permanently together as a united people. Now, I do not say that such reasons for rejecting the offer made to him were distinctly present to the mind of Gideon; but we can see them now, and he was guided aright by the instinctive entering into the mind of God, the instinctive comprehension of the Divine plan, which is one of the choicest gifts that God confers on those who live in close communion with Him. The very fault of Israel in not recognising the hand of God, and in offering the crown on that account to Gideon, was made the occasion of setting emphatically before them the very truth they needed–the occasion of gathering up for them the spiritual meaning of the whole of this portion of their history. Thus, by his faithfulness and self-denial, Gideon became the means of bringing spiritual benefits to his people as real and more enduring than the political and social ones that his sword had won. And so the time came at last when Gods immediate presence got to be recognised in some such real though confused, imperfect way as truths do get recognised among men. The time arrived for Jehovah retiring, so to speak, somewhat into the background when He appointed David, the man after His own heart, to take His place visibly. And this brings us to the point at which Gideon is no longer a guiding light, but a beacon to warn us of our danger. Very rightly had he read in all that had occurred the lesson that it was Jehovah, and in the meantime Jehovah only and immediately, that must govern Israel. Very nobly had he refused power in which he would have delighted, in order that he might get this lesson impressed upon his people. But at this point he grew impatient at the peoples dulness, and at the slowness of the evolution of the scheme of Providence. He had done much to make Israel feel the nearness of the God whom he trusted in and loved so fervently. Might he not now take a further and more influential step? Might not means be devised by which this wonderful deliverance could be effectually commemorated, and coming generations be made really to feel that it was Jehovah alone that had delivered or that could deliver? Thus he would help on Gods plan by his own shrewd contrivance. With this object he took advantage of the enthusiasm that prevailed–an enthusiasm of admiration for himself that was only heightened by his refusal of the crown, unwelcome though that refusal was. He asked for a certain portion of the spoil, and it was placed at once at his disposal. With this he made an ephod and placed it in his own city, Ophrah. In all this Gideon greatly erred. His natural fondness for devices and his skill in shrewd contrivance, kept in check till now, and made useful by his living faith and strict obedience, had led him at last astray. Forming plans of his own without being in direct communion with the God who had guided him till now, he failed to meet the wants of his time; nay, he pandered to its most dangerous vices. That happened here which happens so continually in the Churchs tangled story. Excessive reverence for the past was made a substitute for walking with the personal God in the living present. It is sad that one who had believed so steadfastly, one who had served so well and done so much, should thus, through impatience and self-will, have stumbled at the end. Yet even this bears its lesson with it–the lesson that even in the noblest of Gods servants we cannot find a perfect model; that in communion with the present Spirit we must learn for ourselves to judge concerning what is to be admired and what to be only shunned in the very best and greatest of mankind. One perfect example there is, but only one: He who is man, but also more than man, and who is our pattern most of all in this–that, Son of God and head of humanity as He was, He yet did in each particular, not His own will, but the will of the Father that had sent Him. (W. Miller, M. A.)
Gideon, the deliverer
I. Gideon teaches us the importance of having our faith strengthened. Any means Gideon possessed for accomplishing the work he had undertaken were, humanly speaking, altogether inadequate. He had not a chance of success, if it could be said with truth, There is no hope for him in God. Faith being then, as faith is still, the medium of connection between human weakness and Divine power, it was his mainstay. He was thrown entirely on its strength. The ship does not ride the storm otherwise than by the hold her anchor takes of the solid ground. By that, which lies in the calm depths below, as little moved by the waters that swell and roll and foam above, as by the winds that lash them into fury, she resists the gale, and rides the billows of the stormiest sea. But her safety depends on something else also. When masts are struck and sails are furled, and, anchored off reef or rocky shore, she is labouring in the wild tumult for her life, it likewise lies in the strength of her cable and of the iron arms that grasp the solid ground. By these she hangs to it; and thus not only the firm earth, but their strength also, is her security. Let the flukes of the anchor or strands of the cable snap, and her fate is sealed. Nothing can avert it. Powerless to resist, and swept forward by the sea, she drives on ruin; and hurled against an iron shore, her timbers are crushed to pieces like a shell. And what anchor and cable are to her, faith, by which man makes Gods strength his own, was to Gideon, and is still to believers in their times of trial.
II. Gideon teaches us to make thorough work of what belongs to our deliverance from sin. In closing the account of what God did for him, and through him for his people, the historian says, Thus was Midian subdued before the children of Israel, so that they lifted up their heads no more. And how was this accomplished? The remarkable victory God wrought for Gideon, without any effort on his part, may be regarded as a type of that greater, better victory which, without any effort on ours, Gods Son wrought for us when He took our nature and our sins upon Him–dying, the just for the unjust, that we might be saved. Gideon followed up this victory by calling all possible resources to his aid. He summoned the whole country to arms, as, accompanied by his famous three hundred men, he hung on the skirts of the broken host, and with sword bathed in their blood cut down the fugitives–kings, princes, captains, and common soldiers–with an eye that knew no pity and a hand that did not spare. Now, it is to work as thorough, and against enemies more formidable, that He who trod the winepress alone, redeeming us to God by His blood, calls all His followers. By resolute self-denial, by constant watchfulness, by earnest prayer, by the diligent use of every means of grace, and above all by the help of the Holy Spirit, we are to labour to cast sin out of our hearts. This is no easy work. But heaven is not to be reached by easy-going people. Like a beleaguered city, where men scale the walls and swarm in at the deadly breach, the violent take it by force. The rest it offers is for the weary. The crowns it confers are for warriors brows. (T. Guthrie, D. D.)
Gideon at his best
A man is at his best when he overcomes a great temptation, when he shows the might of a regal spirit, and conquers himself. Gideon now reaches the climax of goodness, which is true greatness.
I. Kingship offered to him. Here is–
1. An appeal to the love of power. Men love power. What disaster ambition has produced! The evils of war. The tricks of diplomatists. Prostitution of talents. Sacrifice of principle.
2. An appeal to paternal affection. Positions for some, if not all, of Gideons sons. The first of a kingly race. The founder of a royal family. An opportunity seldom presented. A rare opening.
3. An appeal to the desire of posthumous fame. To live after death a widespread and all but universal desire. One indication of our immortality. The opportunity now presented to Gideon to satisfy desire in a tangible form. His name inscribed in the roll of Israels kings. Who is the man to refuse? Gideon.
II. Kingship rejected by him.
1. Gideons self-denial.
2. Gideons patriotism. Shown as much sometimes by what a man refuses to do as by what he undertakes.
3. Gideons loyalty to conscience. The voice of the people not always the voice of God. But the voice of conscience directed by the Bible and enlightened by the Holy Spirit is the voice of God. Listen to that voice.
III. Kingship acknowledged by him.
1. Fidelity to God.
2. Reproof of the people. You have the theocratic form of government. The best form. Why seek to subvert the Divine arrangement?
3. A true regard for the peoples welfare. The people do not always know what is for the best. Here learn that a man may do his best and seemingly fail. Gideon before his age. (Wm. Burrows, B. A.)
Kingship offered and refused
The nation needed a settled government, a centre of authority which would bind the tribes together, and the Abi-ezrite chief was now clearly marked as a man fit for royalty. He was able to persuade as well as to fight; he was bold, firm, and prudent. But to the request that he should become king and found a dynasty Gideon gave an absolute refusal. We always admire a man who refuses one of the great posts of human authority or distinction. The throne of Israel was even at that time a flattering offer. But should it have been made? There are few who will pause in a moment of high personal success to think of the point of morality involved; yet we may credit Gideon with the belief that it was not for him or any man to be called king in Israel. As a judge he had partly proved himself; as a judge he had a Divine call and a marvellous indication: that name he would accept, not the other. One of the chief elements of Gideons character was a strong but not very spiritual religiousness. He attributed his success entirely to God, and God alone he desired the nation to acknowledge as its Head. He would not even in appearance stand between the people and their Divine Sovereign, nor with his will should any son of his take a place so unlawful and dangerous. Along with his devotion to God it is quite likely that the caution of Gideon had much to do with his resolve. Before Gideon could establish himself in a royal seat he would have to fight a great coalition in the centre and south and also beyond Jordan. To the pains of oppression would succeed the agony of civil war. Unwilling to kindle a fire which might burn for years and perhaps consume himself, he refused to look at the proposal, flattering and honourable as it was. But there was another reason for his decision which may have had even more weight. Like many men who have distinguished themselves in one way, his real ambition lay in a different direction. We think of him as a military genius. He for his part looked to the priestly office and the transmission of Divine oracles as his proper calling. He desired to cultivate that intercourse with Heaven which more than anything else gave him the sense of dignity and strength. From the offer of a crown he turned as if eager to don the robe of a priest and listen for the holy oracles that none beside himself seemed able to receive. (R. A. Watson, M. A.)
Gideons unambitious spirit
1. Gideons piety. The Israelites offered Gideon the rule over them. Few men would have refused so tempting an offer. But Gideon knew that he could not accept it without trenching upon Gods prerogative. In the spiritual application, our wisdom is to make request to the Lord Jesus, Rule Thou over us, for Thou hast delivered us. He hath saved us at the cost of His own life-blood, from our enemies, and from the hand of all that hate us.
2. Gideons modesty. What he had sought in his service against Midian was not his own aggrandisement, but Israels welfare (1Co 9:18; 1Co 9:23; 2Co 12:14-15). Ambition and self-seeking mar the service of God, and injure the ministers own soul. The service itself is its own highest honour and best reward.
3. Gideons wisdom, too, appears in his choosing to remain in the station to which the providence of God had called him. Restlessness can never bring happiness. The adage is true, He who carves for himself often cuts his fingers; he who leaves God to carve for him shall never have an empty plate. Seekest thou great things for thyself, seek them not (Jer 45:5). (A. R. Fausset, M. A.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 22. Rule thou over us, both thou, and thy son, and thy son’s son] That is, Become our king, and let the crown be hereditary in thy family. What a weak, foolish, and inconstant people were these! As yet their government was a theocracy; and now, dazzled with the success of a man who was only an instrument in the hands of God to deliver them from their enemies, they wish to throw off the Divine yoke, and shackle themselves with an unlimited hereditary monarchy! An unlimited monarchy is a curse; a limited monarchy may be a blessing: the latter may be an appointment of God; the former never can. Those who cast off their allegiance to their Maker, are guilty of folly and extravagance of every kind.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Rule thou over us; not as a judge, for that he was already made by God; but as a king; and let the kingdom be hereditary to thee and to thy family. This miraculous and glorious deliverance by thy hands deserves no less from us.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
22, 23. the men of Israel said untoGideon, Rule thou over us . . . Gideon said unto them, the Lord shallrule over youTheir unbounded admiration and gratitude promptedthem, in the enthusiasm of the moment, to raise their deliverer to athrone, and to establish a royal dynasty in his house. But Gideonknew too well, and revered too piously the principles of thetheocracy, to entertain the proposal for a moment. Personal andfamily ambition was cheerfully sacrificed to a sense of duty, andevery worldly motive was kept in check by a supreme regard to thedivine honor. He would willingly act as judge, but the Lord alone wasKing of Israel.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Then the men of Israel said unto Gideon,…. Some time after his return, the chief men of Israel having met in a body, and consulted matters among themselves, sent a deputation to Gideon with an offer of the government of them:
rule thou over us, both thou and thy son, and thy son’s son also; by which they meant, that he would take the kingly government of them, and which they proposed to settle in his posterity for ages to come; for, as a judge in Israel, he had a sort of rule and government of them under God already, but amounted not to regal power and authority; and this was what the people of Israel were fond of, that they might be like their neighbours; and this they tempted Gideon with, who had done such very wonderful and extraordinary things for them, which they allege as a reason:
for thou hast delivered us from the hand of Midian; from the bondage they were in to them, and therefore fit to be a king over them.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Gideon’s Remaining Acts, and Death. – Jdg 8:22, Jdg 8:23. As Gideon had so gloriously delivered Israel from the severe and long oppression on the part of the Midianites, the Israelites offered him an hereditary crown. “ The men of Israel ” were hardly all the twelve tribes, but probably only the northern tribes of the western part of the land already mentioned in Jdg 6:35, who had suffered the most severely from the Midianitish oppression, and had been the first to gather round Gideon to make an attack upon the foe. The temptation to accept the government of Israel was resisted by this warrior of God. “ Neither I nor my son shall rule over you; Jehovah shall rule over you, ” was his reply to this offer, containing an evident allusion to the destination and constitution of the tribes of Israel as a nation which Jehovah had chosen to be His own possession, and to which He had just made himself known in so conspicuous a manner as their omnipotent Ruler and King. This refusal of the regal dignity on the part of Gideon is not at variance with the fact, that Moses had already foreseen the possibility that at some future time the desire for a king would arise in the nation, and had given them a law for the king expressly designed for such circumstances as these (Deu 17:14.). For Gideon did not decline the honour because Jehovah was King in Israel, i.e., because he regarded an earthly monarchy in Israel as irreconcilable with the heavenly monarchy of Jehovah, but simply because he thought the government of Jehovah in Israel amply sufficient, and did not consider either himself or his sons called to found an earthly monarchy.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| Gideon Declines the Proffered Crown. | B. C. 1249. |
22 Then the men of Israel said unto Gideon, Rule thou over us, both thou, and thy son, and thy son’s son also: for thou hast delivered us from the hand of Midian. 23 And Gideon said unto them, I will not rule over you, neither shall my son rule over you: the LORD shall rule over you. 24 And Gideon said unto them, I would desire a request of you, that ye would give me every man the earrings of his prey. (For they had golden earrings, because they were Ishmaelites.) 25 And they answered, We will willingly give them. And they spread a garment, and did cast therein every man the earrings of his prey. 26 And the weight of the golden earrings that he requested was a thousand and seven hundred shekels of gold; beside ornaments, and collars, and purple raiment that was on the kings of Midian, and beside the chains that were about their camels’ necks. 27 And Gideon made an ephod thereof, and put it in his city, even in Ophrah: and all Israel went thither a whoring after it: which thing became a snare unto Gideon, and to his house. 28 Thus was Midian subdued before the children of Israel, so that they lifted up their heads no more. And the country was in quietness forty years in the days of Gideon.
Here is, I. Gideon’s laudable modesty, after his great victory, in refusing the government which the people offered him. 1. It was honest in them to offer it: Rule thou over us, for thou hast delivered us, v. 22. They thought it very reasonable that he who had gone through the toils and perils of their deliverance should enjoy the honour and power of commanding them ever afterwards, 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 afterwards preside in their affairs. Let us apply it to the Lord Jesus: he hath delivered us out of the hands of our enemies, our spiritual enemies, the worst and most dangerous, and 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? We are delivered that we may serve him without fear,Luk 1:74; Luk 1:75. 2. It was honourable in him to refuse it: I will not rule over you, v. 23. What he did was with a design to serve them, not to rule them–to make them safe, easy, and happy, not to make himself great or honourable. And, as he was not ambitious of grandeur himself, so he did not covet to entail it upon his family: “My son shall not rule over you, either while I live or when I am gone, but the Lord shall still rule over you, and constitute your judges by the special designation of his own Spirit, as he has done.” This intimates, (1.) His modesty, and the mean opinion he had of himself and his own merits. He thought the honour of doing good was recompence enough for all his services, which needed not to be rewarded with the honour of bearing sway. He that is greatest, let him be your minister. (2.) His piety, and the great opinion he had of God’s government. Perhaps he discerned in the people a dislike of the theocracy, or divine government, a desire of a king like the nations, and thought they availed themselves of his merits as a colourable pretence to move for this change of government. But Gideon would by no means admit it. No good man can be pleased with any honour done to himself which ought to be peculiar to God. Were you baptized in the name of Paul? 1 Cor. i. 13.
II. Gideon’s irregular zeal to perpetuate the remembrance of this victory by an ephod made of the choicest of the spoils. 1. He asked the men of Israel to give him the ear-rings of their prey; for such ornaments they stripped the slain of in abundance. These he demanded, either because they were the finest gold, and therefore fittest for a religious use, or because they had had as ear-rings some superstitious signification, which he thought too well of. Aaron called for the ear-rings to make the golden calf of, Exod. xxxii. 2. These Gideon begged v. 24. And he had reason enough to think that those who offered him a crown, when he declined it, would not deny him their ear-rings, when he begged them, nor did they, v. 25. 2. He himself added the spoil he took from the kings of Midian, which, it should seem, had fallen to his share, v. 26. The generals had that part of the prey which was most splendid, the prey of divers colours, ch. v. 30. 3. Of this he made an ephod, v. 27. It was plausible enough, and might be well intended to preserve a memorial of so divine a victory in the judge’s own city. But it was a very unadvised thing to make that memorial to be an ephod, a sacred garment. I would gladly put the best construction that can be upon the actions of good men, and such a one we are sure Gideon was. But we have reason to suspect that this ephod had, as usual, a teraphim annexed to it (Hos. iii. 4), and that, having an altar already built by divine appointment (ch. vi. 26), which he erroneously imagined he might still use for sacrifice, he intended this for an oracle, to be consulted in doubtful cases. So the learned Dr. Spencer supposes. Each tribe having now very much its government within itself, they were too apt to covet their religion among themselves. We read very little of Shiloh, and the ark there, in all the story of the Judges. Sometimes by divine dispensation, and much oftener by the transgression of men, that law which obliged them to worship only at that one altar seems not to have been so religiously observed as one would have expected, any more than afterwards, when in the reigns even of very good kings the high places were not taken away, from which we may infer that that law had a further reach as a type of Christ, by whose mediation alone all our services are accepted. Gideon therefore, through ignorance or inconsideration, sinned in making this ephod, though he had a good intention in it. Shiloh, it is true, was not far off, but it was in Ephraim, and that tribe had lately disobliged him (v. 1), which made him perhaps not care to go so often among them as his occasions would lead him to consult the oracle, and therefore he would have one nearer home. However this might be honestly intended, and at first did little hurt, yet in process of time, (1.) Israel went a whoring after it, that is, they deserted God’s altar and priesthood, being fond of change, and prone to idolatry, and having some excuse for paying respect to this ephod, because so good a man as Gideon had set it up, and by degrees their respect to it grew more and more superstitious. Note, Many are led into false ways by one false step of a good man. The beginning of sin, particularly of idolatry and will-worship, is as the letting forth of water, so it has been found in the fatal corruptions of the church of Rome; therefore leave it off before it be meddled with. (2.) It became a snare to Gideon himself, abating his zeal for the house of God in his old age, and much more to his house, who were drawn by it into sin, and it proved the ruin of the family.
III. Gideon’s happy agency for the repose of Israel, v. 28. The Midianites that had been so vexatious gave them no more disturbance. Gideon, though he would not assume the honour and power of a king, governed as a judge, and did all the good offices he could for his people; so that the country was in quietness forty years. Hitherto the times of Israel had been reckoned by forties. Othniel judged forty years, Ehud eighty–just two forties, Barak forty, and now Gideon forty, providence so ordering it to bring in mind the forty years of their wandering in the wilderness. Forty years long was I grieved with this generation. And see Ezek. iv. 6. After these, Eli ruled forty years (1 Sam. iv. 18), Samuel and Saul forty (Acts xiii. 21), David forty, and Solomon forty. Forty years is about an age.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
Gideon Honored, vs. 22-27
These verses reveal a right and a wrong in Gideon’s conduct after his great God-given victory. The utter defeat of the Midianites raised Gideon to great popularity in Israel. The men wanted to establish him as their king and a dynasty to his family to succeed him. This is the first reference in Scriptures to the stirring of kingly desires in Israel. Had Gideon been an Ephraimite rather than a Manassite he might have succumbed, but he steadfastly refused to be their king, or to have his sons become kings after him. He knew that the Lord was to be Israel’s king, and he told them so.
The wrong thing came about through Gideon’s possible desire to honor the Lord and commemorate the victory. He asked the men for the Midianites’ gold earrings which they had taken from the bodies of the slain. (The reference in verse 24 where the Midianites are called Ishmaelites, is parallel to Gen 37:27-28 where they are also called Ishmaelites. This was because they were caravan traders like the Ishmaelites.) The men gladly gave Gideon the gold earrings, the weight of which was seventeen hundred shekels, which today would be worth in excess of $9,350, and was a great fortune at the time of Gideon.
Gideon constructed a golden ephod, evidently patterned after that worn by the high priest in the tabernacle. It does not seem probable that Gideon intended for the thing to become an object of worship. But its fame spread and the Israelites came to Ophrah, Gideon’s town to adore it. Eventually it was enshrined as an object of worship, and it snared Gideon and his house in false worship. His good intentions were not according to the Lord’s will, and soon went awry, (1Co 8:13)
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
(22) Then the men of Israel.Here begins the third great phase of the life of Gideon. which was characterised by his noblest actthe refusal of the kingdomand his most questionable actthe setting up of a schismatic worship.
Rule thou over us.The energy and success of Gideon had shown them the advantage of united action under one great leader; but they forgot that Gideon had received a special call from God. and that, as Gideon reminded them. God was their king. Yet no doubt the memory of Gideon deepened the wish which Samuel was afterwards commanded to grant (2Sa. 8:5-7; 2Sa. 12:12; 2Sa. 12:17).
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
CONCLUSION OF GIDEON’S HISTORY, Jdg 8:22-35.
22. Rule thou over us Here we meet with the earliest indication of a general desire in Israel to have a king. The expression rule thou, not reign thou, might mean only the people’s desire to have Gideon execute the office of judge among them; but the additional words, thy son, and thy son’s son, clearly involve the idea of a hereditary monarchy. But, as Gideon rejected their proposal, there is no occasion to discuss what all the people may have meant by their request. This much is clear, that in that day of victory and deliverance Gideon’s popularity was unbounded, and the enthusiasm and gratitude of the people towards him were shown by this proposal to settle the government of the nation on him and his family.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Gideon Is Made an Hereditary Prince and Makes An Ephod ( Jdg 8:22-28 ).
Jdg 8:22
‘ Then the men of Israel said to Gideon, “You rule over us, both you and your son, and your son’s son also. For you have saved us out of the hand of Midian.” ’
As a Judge of Israel Gideon did have authority over them, but this was basically an offer of hereditary rulership, as is evidenced by the fact that his sons and grandsons were to follow him as rulers. They saw in Gideon and his family leaders who could bring them peace and security, and leaders in whom justice was tempered with mercy. They could think of no better choice. Gideon was their deliverer who had made life bearable for them again. ‘The men of Israel.’ This was unlikely to mean the whole of Israel. As regularly ‘the men of Israel’ means a representative group of them, and it refers only to those in his area. Certainly Judah would not have participated in the request, nor probably Ephraim and the tribes Beyond Jordan.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
The Consequences of the Campaign
v. 22. Then the men of Israel said unto Gideon, Rule thou over us, both thou and thy son, and thy son’s son also, v. 23. And Gideon said unto them, I will not rule over you, neither shall my son rule over you; the Lord shall rule over you. v. 24. And Gideon said unto them, I would desire a request of you, that ye would give me every man the earrings of his prey, v. 25. And they answered, We will willingly give them, v. 26. And the weight of the golden earrings that he requested was a thousand and seven hundred shekels of gold v. 27. And Gideon made an ephod thereof, v. 28. Thus was Midian subdued before the children of Israel, so that they lifted Up their heads no more; v. 29. And Jerubbaal, the son of Joash, went and dwelt in his own house, v. 30. And Gideon had threescore and ten sons of his body begotten; for he had many wives. v. 31. And his concubine that was in Shechem, she also bare him a son, whose name he called, v. 32. And Gideon, the son of Joash, died in a good old age, v. 33. And it came to pass, as soon as Gideon was dead, that the children of Israel turned again, and went a-whoring after Baalim, v. 34. And the children of Israel remembered not the Lord, their God, who had delivered them out of the hands of all their enemies on every side;
v. 35. neither showed they kindness to the house,
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
EXPOSITION
Jdg 8:22, Jdg 8:23
Rule thou, etc. The gratitude of Israel to their great deliverer, added to a sense that it would be for their own security, and to a desire, already perhaps beginning to he felt, to be like the nations around them (1Sa 8:5), naturally led to the offer, “Rule thou over us.” But the time predicted by Moses (Deu 17:14, Deu 17:15) was not yet come. And so Gideon returned an answer replete with moderation and piety: “I will not rule over you, neither shall my son rule over you: the Lord shall rule over you” (cf. 1Sa 8:7; 1Sa 10:19; 1Sa 12:12).
Jdg 8:24
I would desire a request of you. Again human weakness breaks out in this great man, and we seem to see the effect of great prosperity in stirring up selfish desires in his heart. It was perhaps not without significance that mention was made in Jdg 8:21 of his taking the ornaments that were on the camels’ necks in connection with the slaughter of the kings. Anyhow we have now a second instance of a love of spoil. It seems to have been a national custom with the Ishmaelites, among whom the Midianites are reckoned (see Gen 37:25-28), to wear golden rings; hence when they came to strip the slain there was a vast booty of gold rings. These Gideon asked for as his share, and the people readily agreed to the request. Ear-rings. The word is singular in Hebrew, which agrees with its more proper signification of nose-ring, an ornament often worn by both men and women in the East. Gesenius mentions having seen at Leipsic some Indian dancing women with nose-rings. It is distinctly marked as a nose-ring in Gen 24:22, Gen 24:30, Gen 24:47, because in the last verse Abraham’s servant says that he “put the ring (han-nezem) upon her nose“ (face, A.V.). Again, in Eze 16:12 the Hebrew is, “I placed a ring upon thy nose“ (I put a jewel upon thy forehead, A.V.). So also Job 42:11, “one ring of gold,” implies that it was a nose-ring, and not an ear-ring. In other passages, however, as Gen 35:4; Exo 32:2, it is expressly said that these rings were worn in the ears; while in others, again, there is nothing to mark whether they were worn in the ears or in the nose, as Pro 25:12; Hos 2:13, except that in the latter passage the singular number in the Hebrew is more favourable to the nose-ring than to the ear-rings, as the A.V. translates it. It is thought by many, with some probability, that the nose-ring did not pierce the gristle of the nose, but hung down upon the nose from a fillet round the forehead. In every case they were of gold.
Jdg 8:25
A garment. Rather, the cloak. Probably Gideon’s military cloak (see Isa 9:5), which lay in his tent ready for use as a cloak by day or a coverlet by night (Deu 22:17).
Jdg 8:26
A thousand and seven hundred shekelsequal to about fifty pounds weight, and probably to above 3000 worth of our money, reckoning a shekel of gold at 1 16s. 6d. If the rings, like that given to Rebekah (Gen 24:22), weighed each half a shekel, they would be the spoil of 3400 dead bodies. If they each weighed less it would of course imply a larger number of slain. The ornaments, as in Jdg 8:21, the collars. The word so rendered seems rather to mean drops or pendants. When worn by women (Isa 3:19, chains, A.V.) they were often of single pearls. The purple raiment, the famous Tyrian purple, made from the juice of a shellfish which is found in the Mediterranean, which was the distinctive colour of royal and imperial raiment. Chains. Perhaps the ornaments mentioned in Jdg 8:21 as on the camels’ necks were suspended to these chains. In Son 4:9 the chain is mentioned as an ornament of a woman’s neck; in Pro 1:9 of a man’s neck. Many interpreters understand these last-mentioned articles as not being part of Gideon’s spoil, but being the people’s portion. But it seems much more probable that the spoil of the kings should be Gideon’s portion, as indeed Pro 1:21 implies. It is best, therefore, to take all these articles as being the property of the kings, and to understand the writer to tell us that Gideon had the rings, which were the people’s spoil, in addition to all the spoil which naturally fell to his own share.
Jdg 8:27
Gideon made an ephod thereof. There is great difference of opinion among commentators as to the significance of this statement. The ephod (Exo 28:4, Exo 28:6-30) was that part of the high priest’s dress (1Sa 14:3; 1Sa 21:9) which covered the breast in front, and the upper part of the back behind, the two parts being clasped together by two large onyx stones, one on each shoulder, and kept together by the curious girdle, just above which was fastened the breastplate of judgment. In a modified form the “linen ephod” was worn by all priests; but it was especially worn by the high priest when he inquired of God by Urim and Thummim (1Sa 23:9; 1Sa 30:7). Hence it was also connected with idolatrous worship, as we see by Jdg 17:5, and Hos 3:1-5 : 4, being probably used for purposes of divination, as we know that idolatrous kings of Israel, instead of inquiring of the Lord, inquired of the false gods (2Ki 1:2, 2Ki 1:3). What, then, was Gideon’s purpose in making this costly ephod? We may infer from his proved piety that at all events his intention was to do honour to the Lord, who had given him the victory. Then, as he was now at the head of the State, though he had declined the regal office, and as it was the special prerogative of the head of the State to “inquire of the Lord” (Num 27:21; 1Sa 22:13; 1Sa 23:2,1Sa 23:4, etc.; 1Sa 28:6, etc.), he may have thought it his right, as well as a matter of great importance to the people, that he should have the means ready at hand of inquiring of God. His relations with the great tribe of Ephraim may have made it inconvenient to go to Shiloh to consult the high priest there, and therefore he would have the ephod at his own city of Ophrah, just as Jephthah made Mizpeh his religious centre (Hos 11:11). Whether he sent for the high priest to come to Ophrah, or whether he made use of the ministry of some other priest, we have no means of deciding. The people, however, always prone to idolatry, made an idol of the ephod, and Gideon, either because it was a source of gain or of dignity to his house, or thinking it was a means of keeping the people from Baal-worship (verse 33), seems to have connived at it. This seems to be the explanation best supported by the little we know of the circumstances of the ease. A snare, i.e. as in Jdg 2:3, that which leads a person to eventual destruction. See Exo 10:7, where Pharaoh’s servants say of Moses, How long shall this man be a snare unto us? See also Exo 23:33; Exo 34:12; Deu 7:16; 1Sa 18:21, etc. Observe in this verse how the narrative runs on far beyond the present time, to return again at 1Sa 18:28 (see note to Jdg 2:1-6; Jdg 7:25; Jdg 8:4).
Jdg 8:28
Lifted up their heads no more. Thus showing the wisdom of Gideon’s perseverance in pushing on his victory to completeness (see Homiletics on Jdg 8:4-12). The narrative goes back to Jdg 8:26, or perhaps rather to Jdg 8:21.
Jdg 8:30-32
Gideon had threescore and ten sons, etc. This notice helps us to fill up the picture of Gideon’s state after the Midianitish victory, lie had indeed nobly refused the kingdom, as a Pericles would have refused to be tyrant of Athena But he did not return to poverty and obscurity, as L. Q. Cincinnatus, in the Roman legend, returned to his plough after his victory over the Volsciana He was judge over Israel for forty years, with a household and a harem like a great prince, living in his paternal city, with the ephod set up there, himself the centre round which the powers of Church and State gathered; directing the affairs of his country, both civil and ecclesiastical, with eminent success, so that the country was at peace for forty years
, used of the name given to a child at its birth or circumcision. The other is, he gave or set him the name, or, he gave or set his name so-and-so, and this phrase is only used of additional names, or surnames given later in life. The examples are Jdg 13:1-25 :31; 2Ki 17:34; Neh 9:7; Dan 2:7; Dan 5:12. The inference is that the name of Abimelech, which means father of a king, and was the name of the royal family of Gerar, was given to Abimelech as a significant surname, and was perhaps one of the causes which induced him to seize the kingdom. A third phrase is found in 2Ki 23:34; 2Ki 24:17; 2Ch 36:4 : he turned his name to Jehoiakim; changed his name to Zedekiah. The Hebrew is the same in all these passages.
Jdg 8:33
And it came to pass, etc. Cf. Jdg 2:11, Jdg 2:12, Jdg 2:19; Jdg 3:7; Jdg 4:1; Jdg 5:1; Jdg 10:6; Jdg 13:1. Baal-berith. See Jdg 2:13, note. He was like the of the Greeks, the god of covenants.
Jdg 8:35
Neither showed they kindness, etc. Forgetfulness of God is often the parent of ingratitude to men. The heart of stone which is not touched by the love of Christ is also insensible to the kindness of man.
HOMILETICS
Jdg 8:22-35
Prosperity.
God has two ways of trying men: one in the furnace of affliction, that the trial of their faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, may be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ; the other in the fining-pot of prosperity, and this is much the harder trial of the two. Affliction tends to humble and soften and subdue; but in prosperity, self-esteem, self-reliance, self-satisfaction, self-will, pride, and security, are prone to spring up with a rank luxuriance. Disregard for the rights and feelings of others strengthens with the inordinate estimate of the regard due to a man’s self. The Scripture lessons as to the dangers of prosperity, and the snare which the possession of unbounded power is to men in general, are very many and very striking, culminating in our Saviour’s saying, “A rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Mat 19:23). The latter part of David’s reign compared with the first part of his life, the latter part of Solomon’s contrasted with the beginning, Uzziah (2Ch 26:16), Joash king of Judah (2Ch 24:22), Amaziah after his successful campaign in Edom (2Ch 25:14-16), even good Hezekiah (2Ch 32:27-31), all teach us the danger of prosperity, and the inability of the human heart to drink a full cup of success without intoxication. If we turn to secular history it is still the same story. Men of diverse characters and temperaments have all alike deteriorated under the influence of too much success in life, and shown themselves unfit to be trusted with unlimited power. Nebuchadnezzar, Alexander the Great, Nero, Constantine, Charlemagne, Louis Quatorze, Napoleon Buonaparte, men of the most different characters, may all be cited as having shown in different ways and degrees how hard it is for man to pass through the fining-pot of prosperity without bringing to light more or less the dross of a corrupt heart. It is an interesting and instructive inquiry how far Gideon passed through this fining-pot uninjured, and with his religious character undimmed. We have already glanced (Homiletics, Jdg 8:13-21) at the brilliancy of Gideon’s success, and at the great qualities by which, under God, he obtained it. We had occasion too (Homiletics, Jdg 7:9-25) to notice the singular strength and perfectness of Gideon’s faith, and the excellent fruits which it bore in practice. The humility and simplicity of purpose displayed by him, the docility and trustful obedience, the entire surrender of himself into the hands of God, without a thought for himself or a fear of the result, which marked his course, were of the highest calibre of human excellence guided and informed by the Holy Spirit of God. It is not, as we have already seen (Homiletics, Jdg 8:13-21), till his wonderful victory was consummated by the capture of the two kings that we can see any flaw in his character at all. The fining-pot had not yet begun to do its work. But when we come to the incident of the severe punishment of the men of Succoth and Penuel, to the slaughter in cold blood of the captive kings, and the plunder of their spoils, even when we have made every allowance for the manners and opinions of the times, and given due weight to the circumstances of the case, it is impossible not to feel that certain dormant passions of pride, and resentment of injuries, and “insolent joy,” born of overmuch prosperity, had been aroused by his successes. His request for the gold rings which formed a portion of the people’s prey, and the making therewith a costly ephod, without any direction from God or knowledge that he was doing what would be acceptable to him, showed a presumption far removed from the trustful docility which had been so beautiful a feature in his previous conduct; and we see a departure from the simplicity of his early life in his many wives and concubines, and in his connivance at the irregular concourse of the Israelites to Ophrah for a semi-idolatrous worship before the ephod, which conduced to his own worldly dignity, and was perhaps a source of emolument to him. These things are undoubtedly blots in Gideon’s fame. On the other hand, his pious moderation in refusing the hereditary kingdom offered to him, the persistent “goodness which he showed to Israel” to his life’s end, as we may safely conclude from the last verse of the chapter, the good government by which he gave rest to the land for forty years, and the continued repression of Baal-worship as long as he lived, are all evidences that he maintained his integrity before God, and never forfeited his claim to be a servant of God; and it is in entire agreement with this view that we read that he “died in a good old age, and was buried in the sepulchre of Joash his father,” words by which the sacred historian evidently means to set before us the picture of one who, under God’s favour, was happy in his death, as he had been in his life. Nor can we doubt for a moment what it was which held him up in the slippery path of worldly greatness. If God left him, as he did Hezekiah, “to try him, that he might know all that was in his heart,” he did not leave or forsake him wholly. The faith in God which had carried him down to the Midianite camp, though it may have been dimmed, was never extinct. The communion with God, if less fresh and less constant, was never wholly interrupted. Ills belief that God is, and that he is a rewarder of them that seek him, once so deeply graven upon his heart and confirmed by his experience, never, we may be sure, departed from him. “Faint, yet pursuing,” may probably describe the warfare of his soul at the most unfavourable times of his life. For ourselves, let us rise from the contemplation of Gideon’s career with the firm determination to shake off those things which may be a snare to us, and not to slacken our pace in the pursuit of those things which are above. It is by constant prayer that our faith must be kept alive; it is by resolute resistance to those manifold lusts which war against the soul that our spirit must be kept free for holy obedience, and the eye of our mind kept clear to discern between the precious and the vile. We must keep a close watch against the first buds of those sinful dispositions in our hearts which are stimulated into growth by objects of carnal desire, or by wrongs or insults or taunting words, and we must nip them in the bud by crucifying the flesh with its affections and lusts. And if we find ourselves prosperous in this world, if riches increase, if friends multiply, if all goes well with us, if the world smiles upon us, if we are rising in consequence, in power, in the estimation of men, if new sources of gratification are opened to us, and life puts on its gayest, gaudiest co]ours for us, then above all it behoves us to be on our guard, and to maintain the supremacy of the love of God within us. Then let us humble ourselves before the cross of Christ; then let us bring the glories of the kingdom in full view, till the glories of earth pale before them; then let us strive more earnestly than ever to feel how immeasurably the pleasure of doing the will of God rises above the pleasure of pleasing ourselves, and how far the happiness of obedience to God’s law transcends the happiness of yielding to our own desires. Such a victory over ourselves will be far more glorious than the conquest of ten thousand Midianites, and ours will be a richer booty than the richest spoils of kings.
HOMILIES BY A.F. MUIR
Jdg 8:22-27
Noble self-abnegation.
The whole situation naturally described. In the flush of victory the impulse is to honour Gideon, and secure a permanent connection with the glory of his name by establishing a hereditary monarchy in his family. This honour he refuses. We have here
I. GENEROUS BUT MISTAKEN GRATITUDE. It was a natural impulse in the soldiers. But their mistake was twofold
(1) in exalting man instead of God, and
(2) in seeking to put an end to the theocracy.
The natural mind acts always thus, in the face of the plainest signs of Divine intervention and authority; building itself out from the Unseen by human authorities and institutions. The chain of connection with God is weakened by lengthening it. The plainest commands of God are disobeyed in mistaken self-interest. The human agent is depended upon because the perception of the Divine is weak. Exalting one of themselves was but a species of self-glorification. The motive of Gideon too is misunderstood.
II. DISINTERESTED SERVICE. The honour is refused. If prudence aided the decision, it was chiefly due to unaffected faith and reverence for Jehovah. He may have felt that his “might” and success were solely individual, and due to direct inspiration; and the incapacity and disagreements of his children may have already betrayed themselves. He thereby vindicates his own patriotism and disinterestedness. His humility and magnanimous loyalty to God as only Sovereign for Israel outshine all his exploits.
1. How hard it is for men to believe in the disinterestedness of benefactors!
2. God, who imparts might and inspiration, can also purify the heart from worldly ambitions and weaknesses.
III. DEVOUT RECOGNITION OF DIVINE AID AND AUTHORITY. The ephod is explained and described in Exo 28:1-43. It is the priestly garment, with breastplate attached to it, worn in the sanctuary. The Urim and Thummim were also used in connection with it for oracular consultation. It meant, therefore, a tabernacle and its service wherever it was placed.
1. So far as this was to the honour of God and commemoration of his mercy, it was a pious act.
2. By using the spoils of the people for its construction, a national sacrifice was effected.
3. But by placing it in Ophrah he encouraged schism, gave his own family undue importance, and tempted his countrymen to superstitious practices.M.
Jdg 8:24-27
The mistake of a good man.
I. ORIGINATING IN MOTIVES FOR THE MOST PART NOBLE AND HONOURABLE.
(1) Desirous of a national testimony to God’s gracious deliverance, and a commemoration of it to future ages, he
(2) persuades the Israelites to make a national offering, and
(3) increases the means of grace in his own district.
II. REFLECTING THE DEFECTS OF HIS CHARACTER AND BETRAYING ITS LATENT VICE. In his zeal for the religious reformation of Israel he did not sufficiently consider the bearings of the step he had taken. It was a hasty and crude expedient, from which greater experience or sage advice, or, above all, God’s Spirit, would have saved him. And therein lay the root of the mischief. He relied on his own wisdom, and forgot to ask God’s guidance. In getting to look upon himself as in a special sense the re-introducer of the Jehovah-worship, and the exponent of the mind of Jehovah, he forgot that it was only as he was taught of God that he could be preserved from error. Of all inventions, religious ones are to be most carefully scrutinised. And in the background of this assumption there lay a secret tendency to self-esteem because of his spiritual endowments and character, and the great achievements of the past. Pride because of his own humilityis it not a failing that many have shared? By this mistake he sowed the seeds of grave evils: schism, superstition, hero-worship. But
III. THE SUBSTANTIAL GOOD DONE WAS NOT WHOLLY DESTROYED, Whilst he liveda quiet, steadfast, righteous lifethe people observed the true worship of Jehovah. His own example was a guide and a deterrent. And when at his death superstition ran riot, and the old licentious idolatry flowed back in an obliterating wave over the land and the institutions of Jehovah’s worship, there were some things that could not be destroyed, remaining as germ ideas in the spiritual consciousness of Israelthe immediate obligation of the moral law upon every one, the direct responsibility of every one to God, and faith in the personal help of Jehovah.
(1) God superintends the development of his truth, and
(2) restrains the evil that mingles with the good in men’s works.M.
Jdg 8:29-32
The after life.
It is interesting to watch the after life of great men. In some it is a continual progress, in others a growing weakness of character and faculty. Gideon’s was
I. A REWARD AND CONSEQUENCE OF FAITHFUL SERVICE TO JEHOVAH. Long life, quietness, prosperity, honour.
II. KEPT ON THE WHOLE RIGHT, AND MADE A BLESSING BY THE GRACE OF GOD. He had begun well. His youth was a consecrated one; his old age was its true outcome. And yet not by natural virtue, but by the blessing of God.
III. CONTAINING THE GERMS OF NATIONAL EVILS. He was not ever on the heights of spiritual excitement. Perhaps his was a nature that required great difficulties to be surmounted in order to keep it right. At any rate he fails to rise above the laxities of his age, and he enters into connection with the Canaanites. How much too of his after-life could be explained as a living on the memory of a glorious past, and a growing estimation of the part he himself had played. The ephod, the natural son by the Canaanitish woman, the conflicting interests of the many heirs to his influence and renownthese were the occasions of untold evil.M.
Jdg 8:33-35
The consequence of the imperfect recognition of Jehovah.
I. AN IMPURE, DEFECTIVE WORSHIP OF THE TRUE GOD PREPARED FOR THE WORSHIP OF FALSE GODS. “False worships make way for false deities.”
II. UNDUE MAGNIFYING OF HUMAN IMPORTANCE AT THE EXPENSE OF THE HONOUR DUE TO GOD ALONE, DIVERTED FROM THE WORSHIP OF JEHOVAH, AND SO CUT THE ROOTS OF THE PERSONAL RESPECT IN WHICH HIS SERVANT WAS HELD. True religion is the foundation and safeguard of all the esteem and respect due from one to another. The heavenly Father is the key-stone of the whole house of life.M.
HOMILIES BY W.F. ADENEY
Jdg 8:22, Jdg 8:23
Gideon and the theocracy.
This incident may be regarded in relation to the conduct of the men of Israel, to that of Gideon, and to the historical fact of the theocracy.
I. THE INCIDENT REGARDED IN RELATION TO THE CONDUCT OF THE MEN OF ISRAEL.
1. These men assumed a power which they did not rightfully possess. They had no authority to revise the constitution, no right to elect a king. The election of Gideon was an act of rebellion against “the Eternal.”
2. These men were so dazzled by the splendour of human achievements that they ignored the Divine influence which was the source of them. Gideon’s campaign was especially designed to avoid the danger of the people attributing to men what was really the work of God (Jdg 7:4). Yet they regarded Gideon as the sole hero, and forgot to glorify God. We are all too ready to recognise the human instrument only, and ignore the Divine power which is the source of all that is good and great. The very richness with which God has endowed a man of genius may tempt us to make this mistake. Yet the more gifted a man is, the more reason have we to attribute his greatness to the Giver of every good and perfect gift.
3. These men were drawn aside from trust in the Unseen to a desire for earthly greatness. The glory of Israel was its government by the unseen King. This implied faith. But the temptation often was to lose this faith and the holy life and simple state it required, and desire a human kingship and the pomp of an earthly court, such as that of the heathen nations. There is always great difficulty in living in the power of the spiritual. Tangible force and visible display tend to allure us from the serene spirituality of life in the unseen.
II. THE INCIDENT REGARDED IN RELATION TO THE CONDUCT OF GIDEON.
1. Gideon proved himself to be an unselfish patriot. True patriotism is incompatible with personal ambition. A nation has no greater enemies than its ambitious men of genius. The worthy statesman is he who aims at his country’s good to the neglect of his own aggrandisement.
2. Gideon showed himself strong in resisting the popular wish when he knew this was unwise. We must not mould our character simply in obedience to the dictates of public opinion. The wish of the people is no excuse for doing wrong. There is no more difficult feat than to resist successfully the tHis-taken kindness of those who are seeking to promote a man’s own honour and greatness, though in a way which he believes to be wrong.
3. Gideon proved himself firm in fidelity to God. Here lay the secret of his resistance. He had been called from the threshing-floor by God. He held himself throughout to be the servant of God. It is better to be a servant and faithful to God than a king and in rebellion against him.
4. Gideon showed his discernment at once
(1) of the existence and power of the theocracy which his contemporaries appear to have ignored, and
(2) of its suitability for the happy government of his nation.
III. THE INCIDENT REGARDED IN RELATION TO THE THEOCRACY.
1. It is not wise to propose a revolution of government except for great and necessary ends. It is easy to overthrow the present order; it is not so easy to be sure that what we substitute will be better. We cannot calculate on the possible uses to which the new power we create may be appropriated.
2. The best method of government is that which is best suited to the condition of a nation. There Came a time when a human kingship was necessary for Israel. The attempt to force this on before the country was ripe for it only ended in disaster (Jdg 9:5).
3. No government can be better than a true theocracy. This must be distinguished from the rule of priests and prophets which is sometimes falsely named a theocracy, although it is as much a human government as the rule of kings and soldiers. Nothing can be better that for a people to be guided by the thought of God to do the will of God. The government of the Church is a theocracy. The Papal assumption is therefore treason to Christ. “One is our Master” (Mat 23:8). To substitute any human authority for the direct guidance of Christ is to fall back to a lower state, like the conduct of Israel when the people were willing to abandon their Divine King for a human monarch.A.
Jdg 8:34, Jdg 8:35
Forgetfulness and ingratitude.
As we pass through the historical records of the Bible we must often be struck with the stern faithfulness with which Jewish chroniclers describe the wicked and shameful deeds of their own nation. This fact is not only valuable as a proof of the unvarnished truthfulness of the narratives; it gives to the history of the Bible a universal character by making it a mirror of human nature. Thus the forgetfulness and ingratitude here recorded are unhappily typical of the too common conduct of mankind generally.
I. THE PREVALENCE OF THIS CONDUCT. Unnatural and monstrous as it appears in the narrative, it is so common in experience as to be scarcely noticed. It was constantly repeated in the history of Israel (Psa 78:11, Psa 78:42). It is prevalent in Christian communities.
1. It is not limited to atheism. The atheist denies the existence of God. The godless man believes that God exists, yet ignores his existence. The atheist is rare. But is there not something pharisaical and hypocritical in the horror with which he is regarded, as though the great multitude of men were far better than he, though so many of them forget the God of whose existence they are champions, and never render him worship or obedience.
2. It is not limited to open irreligion. We must not suppose that all people who do not go to church are utterly godless; but neither can we believe that all who do engage in public acts of worship really acknowledge God in their hearts. It is possible to forget God in the house of God, and to be guilty of base ingratitude while singing his praises.
3. It is not limited to total godlessness. There are those who, like the Jews, have known God, but have since forgotten and neglected him, and those who live nearer to him for a season, but are tempted at times to forsake him.
II. THE CAUSES OF THIS CONDUCT.
1. Sin. The people of Israel went after Baalim, and the result was that they forgat the Lord. We cannot have two supreme gods. Immorality is fatal to religion.
2. Worldly distraction. When no special fall into great sin has been experienced the mind may be drawn aside from Divine things, and so engrossed in business, politics, or the cares and pleasures of life, that no time or energy is left for spiritual thoughts (Mat 13:22).
3. Unspirituality. Even when there is no great worldly distraction we may sink into a low, unspiritual habit of life, in which the thought of God becomes faint and feeble. It does require some spiritual effort to preserve the memory of God fresh and bright, because
(1) he is invisible, and can only be apprehended in the inner life, and
(2) his action is gentle, and does not rouse our attention by sensational methods (Hab 3:4).
4. Loss of love to God. We remember what we love. Indifference of heart creates negligence of thought.
5. Selfishness. Israel remembered God in the time of need and forgot him in the season of prosperity. Selfishness inclines us to remember God only when we want his aid.
III. THE GUILT OF THIS CONDUCT.
1. It implies disloyalty to the rightful authority of God. If we forget God we forget his will and neglect his service. We are not free to do this, for we are naturally subjects of his supreme sovereignty.
2. It implies indifference to his Fatherly nature. He is our Father, and we are bound to him by ties of nature (Deu 32:18).
3. It implies an unworthy return for his goodness. Thankfulness is closely associated with thoughtfulness. The unthankful forget; those who do not take the trouble to think fall into gross ingratitude. Ingratitude to God is joined to ingratitude to his servants. The same spirit is seen in both sins. We are not likely to be true to man until we are first true to God.A.
Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary
Jdg 8:22. Rule thou over us The Israelites, forgetful of the peculiar government under which they were, wished to be ruled, like their neighbour-nations, by a king, and therefore entreat Gideon to assume the sceptre; but he, more wise than they, absolutely refuses them; and at the same time, in the most noble manner, reminds them that God was their king: The Lord will rule over you.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Gideon refuses to be king. Prepares an ephod, which is followed by evil consequences. Gideons death and burial
Jdg 8:22-32.
22Then [And] the men of Israel said unto Gideon, Rule thou over us, both thou, and thy son, and thy sons son also: for thou hast delivered us from the hand of Midian. 23And Gideon said unto them, I will not rule over you, neither shall my son rule over you: the Lord [Jehovah] shall rule over you. 24And Gideon said unto them, I would desire a request of you, that you would give me every man the ear-rings [the ring]15 of his prey. (For they had golden ear-rings [rings], because 25[for] they were Ishmaelites.) And they answered, We will willingly give them. And they spread a garment,16 and did cast therein every man the ear-rings [ring] of his prey. 26And the weight of the golden ear-rings [rings] that he requested, was a thousand and seven hundred shekels of gold; beside [apart from the] ornaments [moons], and [the] collars [ear-drops], and [the] purple raiment [garments] that was [were] on the kings of Midian, and beside [apart from] the chains [collars] that were about their camels necks. 27And Gideon made an ephod thereof, and put it in his city, even in Ophrah: and all Israel went thither [omit: thither] a whoring after it [there]: which thing, [and it i. e. the ephod] became a snare unto Gideon, and to his house. 28Thus was Midian subdued [But Midian was humbled] before the children [sons] of Israel, so that they lifted up their heads no more. 29And the country was in quietness17 forty years in the days of Gideon. And Jerubbaal the son of Joash went and dwelt in his own house. 30And Gideon had three score and ten sons of his body begotten: for he had many wives. 31And his concubine that was in Shechem, she also bare him a son, whose name he [they]18 called Abimelech. 32And Gideon the son of Joash died in a good old age, and was buried in the sepulchre of Joash his father, in Ophrah of the Abi-ezrites.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
[1 Jdg 8:24., 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.]
[2 Jdg 8:25.: Dr. Cassel, ein Gewand, a garment. The definite article simply indicates the garment used on the occasion. The term , 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. , 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. Dr. Cassel: man nannte seinen Namen. Bertheau also takes 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 Keils view in note on p. 140.Tr.]
EXEGETICAL AND DOCTRINAL
An extraordinary victory had been gaineda triumph without a parallel. A glory surrounds Gideon in the eyes of Israel, such as had distinguished no one else within the memory of men. Who can stand beside him? How has the arrogance and vain-glory of Ephraim been put to shame! Having caught a couple of princes, already fleeing for their lives, they ceased from the conflict, though still far from finished. Gideon, whose courage began, and whose untiring energy prosecuted the war, has also finished it. He has captured and destroyed, not princes () merely, butas the narrative emphatically intimatesthe kings () themselves. And what kings! The chiefs of all Midian. Kings, therefore, whose defeat and capture was of the greatest consequence, as the narrative sufficiently indicates by the constant repetition of their names. Their names, also, like those of the princes, are peculiar; those were borrowed from animals, these from sacrifice and carved work. The latter therefore indicate perhaps the conjunction of priestly with royal authority. Nor did Gideon smite the hostile armies in his own country merely, but he ventured far into a strange land. To pursue a great army into the rock desert, and as it were drag the enemy out of his hiding-place, was an exploit of the most astounding character. Who but Gideon would have dared to enter the terrible Harra, there to seize his royal prey? Apart from this, how imposing his assurance, his wisdom, his moderation and strength! If men admired the discreetness of his answer to Ephraim, they were startled by the punishment of Succoth and Penuel, and the terrible recompense meted out to the rings. Success carries the day with the people: now surprising, grand, and dazzling was its form on this occasion! The people feel that now they have a man among them, who towers, not physically, but in soul and spirit, far above them all. No wonder that Israel, gathered from all quarters to see the hero and his captures, urgently presses him, and says:
Jdg 8:22. Rule over us, thou, thy son, and thy sons 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 , but their 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 Gods military ambassador to a people that has no king. Not the people, but God, had made Gideon what he wastheir 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, Gideons first-born. Will heif God do not call himbe 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. Marshalls 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. Godnot Elohim, but Jehovah, the God of Israelis 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 (Gideons) 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 (Pnulus, 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,19 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,20 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 , and the purple garments of the kings, and the decorations of their camels. The are ear-pendants, made of pearls and precious stones,21 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 , 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 Gideons 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 Cann 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.22 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 Gods 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 Gideons declaration that He, and not any human Imperator, is to be honored.
Thus far, Gideons action was blameless, and worthy of his faith. But he deposited23 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 Israels 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 lifefidelity 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 Gideons 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 therenot because they seek to honor God, but because this is Gideons 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 Gideons faith into superstition; and Israels 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 Himeven though there be no ephod in his house.24
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 Gideons 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 goesso speak the people among themselvesJerubbaal 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 Israelmany 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. , 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.25 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 fathers 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 heros 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 fathers house, but in his own (Jdg 8:29); but at death he is buried in his fathers 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.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Gideon puts kings to flight, pursues them like wild beasts to their dens, slays them with his own handan honor not allowed to Barak,but himself will be no king. Dominion belongs to God, he says; for the victory was of God. It is not majorities that make a king in Israel, but the call of God by the mouth of his prophets. What Gideon had won, was not his. How should he take Gods title, to whom everything in Israel belongs? So long as we render God what belongs to Him, we shall also have what properly falls to us. When Gideon inaugurated his ephod, he desired an honor for his house; and this only honor which he sought for himself, beyond that which he already had, proved the downfall of his house after him. Let us therefore seek first the kingdom of God: all other things will come of themselves. So soon as we seek to honor and immortalize ourselves beside God, our labor proves vain, and our glory falls into the dust.
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 Gods 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: Gideons 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:
[15][Jdg 8:24., 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.]
[16][Jdg 8:25.: Dr. Cassel, ein Gewand, a garment. The definite article simply indicates the garment used on the occasion. The term , 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.]
[17][Jdg 8:28. , 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.]
[18][Jdg 8:31. Dr. Cassel: man nannte seinen Namen. Bertheau also takes 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 Keils view in note on p. 140.Tr.]
[19][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.]
[20][Wellsted (Reisen in Arabien, i. 224, quoted by Keil):The women in Omn 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.]
[21]In Silius Italicus also (Punica, xii. 231), we find, In zure lapis, rubris advectus ab oris.
[22][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.]
[23] . On this word compare Keil on this passage. [Keil remarks: does not say, he set it up; but may as well mean, he preserved it, in his city Ophrah, 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.]
[24]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.
[25][Keil interprets the name as meaning Father of a King (Knigsvater), and says: is not the same as , 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.]
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
This request was apparently very proper, for who so suited to govern as one whom the Lord had honored. Reader! If you and I spiritualize this passage, and make application to the Lord Jesus, of the request made to Gideon and from the same cause, would it not be exceedingly pro per? For hath not Jesus delivered us out of the hand of our enemies? And is it not highly suitable and becoming, that he should be our King, who is, and was, the Prophet, and Priest, and Redeemer of his people? That is a sweet scripture to this propose, Isa 33:22 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Jdg 8:22 Then the men of Israel said unto Gideon, Rule thou over us, both thou, and thy son, and thy son’s son also: for thou hast delivered us from the hand of Midian.
Ver. 22. Rule thou over us, ] viz, As king of the land. A fair offer, and such as few men would have refused. But he knew that to accept of it, were to trench upon God’s prerogative royal, who had used all means to have the glory of this victory ascribed to himself only. See Isa 42:8 .
For thou hast delivered us.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Rule thou: Jdg 9:8-15, 1Sa 8:5, 1Sa 12:12, Joh 6:15
Reciprocal: Deu 33:5 – king 1Sa 8:1 – made his
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Fuente: Gary Hampton Commentary on Selected Books
Jdg 8:22. Rule thou over us Not as a judge, for as such he already ruled over them, but as a king; both thou and thy son, &c. Let the kingdom be hereditary to thee and to thy family. For thou hast delivered us This miraculous and extraordinary deliverance by thy hands deserves no less from us.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Jdg 8:22-27. Gideon Refuses a Kingdom, and Erects an Ephod.Long before the Israelites had any human kings. Yahweh was regarded as their Divine King, and Gideon, like Samuel (1Sa 8:7; 1Sa 10:19; 1Sa 12:12; 1Sa 12:17; 1Sa 12:19), expresses the view that the Divine kingship leaves no room for a human sovereignty. This view became prevalent in the eighth century B.C., when a succession of wicked kings was ruining the northern kingdom (Hos 8:4; Hos 13:11).
Jdg 8:24-27. In gratitude to Yahweh, who had stood by him and given him victory, Gideon uses the spoils of war to make a golden ephod, which he sets up to Yahwehs glory at Ophrah. This act is spoken of without disapproval, except in Jdg 8:27 b, which many scholars regard as an editorial addition. A later age, trained in more spiritual conceptions, took offence at Gideons action, and saw in it the cause of the disaster which befell his house (G. A. Cooke). The nature and purpose of an ephod in the time of the Judges are not explicitly stated. It certainly was not a sacred vest, such as was worn by the High Priest in the second Temple. It was clearly an image of some kind, and it was used in the service of Yahweh (p. 100).
Jdg 8:33-35 contains the familiar phrases of D, who is grieved at Israels ingratitude, first to Yahweh their deliverer, and then to Gideon their earthly benefactor. [Observe also the characteristic generalisation of the purely local and Canaanite cult of Baal-berith (Jdg 9:4; Jdg 9:46) into a cult adopted by Israel as a whole.A. S. P.]
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
8:22 Then the men of Israel said unto Gideon, Rule thou over us, both thou, and thy son, and thy {m} son’s son also: for thou hast delivered us from the hand of Midian.
(m) That is, thy posterity.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Later events in Gideon’s life 8:22-32
Even though the next events recorded (Jdg 8:22-28) followed immediately the ones just reported (Jdg 8:18-21), they had greater significance in later years than at that moment in history.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
Gideon’s compromise 8:22-28
The supernatural victory God had given His people elevated Gideon into national recognition. Some of the men of Israel invited Gideon to be their king and to begin a dynasty of rulers (Jdg 8:22). Perhaps they were from the northern and western tribes, had participated in the battle, and were present at the execution of Zebah and Zalmunna.
Gideon wisely refused their flattering offer, but he failed to give credit to Yahweh for the victory (cf. ch. 5). God had made provision for an Israelite king in the Mosaic Law (Deu 17:14-20). Evidently Gideon believed Israel was better off under the current arrangement of judgeships whereby Yahweh, Israel’s true king, would raise up deliverers like himself when He saw fit (Jdg 8:23). This was a wise decision, and it was in harmony with God’s will. Yet Gideon’s subsequent decision (Jdg 8:24-27) belied his words: he led Israel back into idolatry, out of which he had just led them. Rather than following Moses as his role model, who though hesitant at first had proved faithful, Gideon followed the example of Aaron, who requested the people’s jewelry to make an idol (Exo 32:1-6).
Gideon perceived in his popular appreciation by the Israelites an opportunity to do something that he may have believed would be a help to his people. Unfortunately it became a spiritual snare to them (cf. Jdg 2:3). He decided to make an ephod (cf. Jdg 17:5; Jdg 18:14-20; Exo 28:6-35).
". . . there are three possible alternatives [concerning what this ephod was]: that it was a garment after the pattern of the high-priestly ephod but with an unusual degree of gold ornamentation; that it was a replica of the high-priestly garment made of pure gold; or that it was a free-standing image [cf. 1Sa 2:28; 1Sa 14:3]." [Note: Ibid., p. 123.]
"The narrator does not reveal the nature of the image, but it seems most likely that he [Gideon] has reconstructed the shrine to Baal he earlier had torn down at Yahweh’s command (Jdg 6:25-32). . . . Instead of himself, an image of God, clothed with the Spirit of Yahweh (Jdg 6:34), Gideon created his own image and clothed it with pagan materials." [Note: Block, Judges . . ., p. 300.]
Gideon made this ephod from some of the jewelry the Israelites had taken from the Midianites. The writer called them "Ishmaelites" (Jdg 8:24), a term that described loosely any trading nomadic group (cf. Gen 37:25; Gen 37:27-28; Gen 39:1). [Note: See Kitchen, p. 119.]
The grateful Israelites willingly donated a large quantity of gold jewelry, ". . . between 40 and 75 pounds’ weight, depending on whether the light or heavy shekel was employed." [Note: Cundall and Morris, p. 122.] Gideon took this gold and had it fashioned into an ephod, which he displayed publicly in his hometown of Ophrah. Even though Gideon had professed to reject kingship, he was behaving more and more like a king (cf. Deu 17:17).
Whatever this ephod was, it became an object of worship and a spiritual stumbling block to the Israelites (Jdg 8:27). Thus Gideon became the second official sponsor of idolatry in Israel, as far as we know, Aaron being the first. He was doing what was right in his own eyes (cf. Jdg 17:6; Jdg 21:25).
". . . the expression and all Israel played the harlot after it there (RSV) suggests that the form of worship inspired by his ephod was Canaanite in origin." [Note: Ibid., p. 123.]
"It is . . . probable that Gideon put on the ephod and wore it as a priest, when he wished to inquire and learn the will of the Lord. . . . The germs of Gideon’s error, which became a snare to him and to his house, lie unquestionably . . . in the fact that the high-priesthood had probably lost its worth in the eyes of the people on account of the worthlessness of its representatives [cf. 1Sa 1:3; 1Sa 2:22], so that they no longer regarded the high priest as the sole or principal medium of divine revelation; and therefore Gideon, to whom the Lord had manifested himself directly, as He had not to any judge or leader of the people since the time of Joshua, might suppose that he was not acting in violation of the law, when he had an ephod made, and thus provided himself with a substratum or vehicle for inquiring the will of the Lord. His sin therefore consisted chiefly in his invading the prerogative of the Aaronic priesthood, drawing away the people from the one legitimate sanctuary, and thereby not only undermining the theocratic unity of Israel, but also giving an impetus to the relapse of the nation into the worship of Baal after his death. This sin became a snare to him and to his house." [Note: Keil and Delitzsch, pp. 358-59. See also Baruch Halpern, "The Rise of Abimelek Ben-Jerubbaal," Hebrew Annual Review 2 (1978):84-88.]
"Perhaps it is easier to honour God in some courageous action in the limelight of a time of national emergency than it is to honour Him consistently in the ordinary, everyday life, which requires a different kind of courage. Gideon, who came through the test of adversity with flying colours, was not the first nor the last to be less successful in the test of prosperity." [Note: Cundall and Morris, p. 122.]
"I would even suggest we go ephod-making in the way we ignore God’s provision of the Lord’s covenant meal as the means of Christian renewal. We plan, organize, and concoct ’revivals,’ seminars, retreats, or encounters, or we pressure congregations to come forward and rededicate their lives to Christ. All the while we neglect what God has provided: the Lord’s Supper." [Note: Davis, p. 115.]
The final verse in this pericope (Jdg 8:28) draws the account of Gideon’s defeat of the Midianites to a close. The land rested from oppression and war 40 years following his victory (ca. 1180-1140 B.C.). This is the last period of peace that the writer of Judges mentioned.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
GIDEON THE ECCLESIASTIC
Jdg 8:22-28
THE great victory of Gideon had this special significance, that it ended the incursions of the wandering races of the desert. Canaan offered a continual lure to the nomads of the Arabian wilderness, as indeed the eastern and southern parts of Syria do at the present time. The hazard was that wave after wave of Midianites and Bedawin sweeping over the land should destroy agriculture and make settled national life and civilisation impossible. And when Gideon undertook his work the risk of this was acute. But the defeat inflicted on the wild tribes proved decisive. “Midian was subdued before the children of Israel, and they lifted up their heads no more.” The slaughter that accompanied the overthrow of Zebah and Zalmunna, Oreb and Zeeb became in the literature of Israel a symbol of the destruction which must overtake the foes of God. “Do thou to thine enemies as unto Midian”-so runs the cry of a psalm-“Make their nobles like Oreb and Zeeb: yea, all their princes like Zebah and Zalmunna, who said, Let us take to ourselves in possession the habitations of God.” In Isaiah the remembrance gives a touch of vivid colour to the oracle of the coming Wonderful, Prince of Peace. “The yoke of his burden and the staff of his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor shall be broken as in the day of Midian.” Regarding the Assyrian also the same prophet testifies, “The Lord of Hosts shall stir up against him a scourge as in the slaughter of Midian at the rock of Oreb.” We have no song like that of Deborah celebrating the victory, but a sense of its immense importance held the mind of the people, and by reason of it Gideon found a place among the heroes of faith. Doubtless he had, to begin with, a special reason for taking up arms against the Midianitish chiefs that they had slain his two brothels: the duty of an avenger of blood fell to him. But this private vengeance merged in the desire to give his people freedom, religious as well as political, and it was Jehovahs victory that he won, as he himself gladly acknowledged. We may see, therefore, in the whole enterprise, a distinct step of religious development. Once again the name of the Most High was exalted; once again the folly of idol worship was contrasted with the wisdom of serving the God of Abraham and Moses. The tribes moved in the direction of national unity and also of common devotion to their unseen King. If Gideon had been a man of larger intellect and knowledge he might have led Israel far on the way towards fitness for the mission it had never yet endeavoured to fulfil. But his powers and inspiration were limited.
On his return from the campaign the wish of the people was expressed to Gideon that he should assume the title of king. The nation needed a settled government, a centre of authority which would bind the tribes together, and the Abiezrite chief was now clearly marked as a man fit for royalty. He was able to persuade as well as to fight; he was bold, firm, and prudent. But to the request that he should become king and found a dynasty Gideon gave an absolute refusal: “I will not rule over you, neither shall my son rule over you; Jehovah shall rule over you.” We always admire a man who refuses one of the great posts of human authority or distinction. The throne of Israel was even at that time a flattering offer. But should it have been made? There are few who will pause in a moment of high personal success to think of the point of morality involved; yet we may credit Gideon with the belief that it was not for him or any man to be called king in Israel. As a judge he had partly proved himself, as a judge he had a Divine call and a marvellous vindication: that name he would accept, not the other.
One of the chief elements of Gideons character was a strong but not very spiritual religiousness. He attributed his success entirely to God, and God alone he desired the nation to acknowledge as its Head. He would not even in appearance stand between the people and their Divine Sovereign, nor with his will should any son of his take a place so unlawful and dangerous.
Along with his devotion to God it is quite likely that the caution of Gideon had much to do with his resolve. He had already found some difficulty in dealing with the Ephraimites, and he could easily foresee that if he became king the pride of that large clan would rise strongly against him. If the gleaning of the grapes of Ephraim was better than the whole vintage of Abiezer, as Gideon had declared, did it not follow that any elder of the great central tribe would better deserve the position of king than the youngest son of Joash of Abiezer? The men of Succoth and Penuel too had to be reckoned with before Gideon could establish himself in a royal seat he would have to fight a great coalition in the centre and south and also beyond Jordan. To the pains of oppression would succeed the agony of civil war. Unwilling to kindle a fire which might burn for years and perhaps consume himself, he refused to look at the proposal, flattering and honourable as it was.
But there was another reason for his decision which may have had even more weight. Like many men who have distinguished themselves in one way, his real ambition lay in a different direction. We think of him as a military genius. He for his part looked to the priestly office and the transmission of Divine oracles as his proper calling. The enthusiasm with which he overthrew the altar of Baal, built the new altar of Jehovah and offered his first sacrifice upon it, survived when the wild delights of victory had passed away. The thrill of awe and the strange excitement he had felt when Divine messages came to him and signs were given in. answer to his prayer affected him far more deeply and permanently than the sight of a flying enemy and the pride of knowing himself victor in a great campaign. Neither did kingship appear much in comparison with access to God, converse with Him, and declaration of His will to men. Gideon appears already tired of war, with no appetite certainly for more, however successful, and impatient to return to the mysterious rites and sacred privileges of the altar. He had good reason to acknowledge the power over Israels destiny of the Great Being Whose spirit had come upon him, Whose promises had been fulfilled. He desired to cultivate that intercourse with Heaven which more than anything else gave him the sense of dignity and strength. From the offer of a crown he turned as if eager to don the robe of a priest and listen for the holy oracles that none beside himself seemed able to receive.
It is notable that in the history of the Jewish kings the tendency shown by Gideon frequently reappeared. According to the law of later times the kingly duties should have been entirely separated from those of the priesthood. It came to be a dangerous and sacrilegious thing for the chief magistrate of the tribes, their leader in war, to touch the sacred implements or offer a sacrifice. But just because the ideas of sacrifice and priestly service were so fully in the Jewish mind the kings, either when especially pious or especially strong, felt it hard to refrain from the forbidden privilege. On the eve of a great battle with the Philistines Saul, expecting Samuel to offer the preparatory sacrifice and inquire of Jehovah, waited seven days and then, impatient of delay, undertook the priestly part and offered a burnt sacrifice. His act was, properly speaking, a confession of the sovereignty of God; but when Samuel came he expressed great indignation against the king, denounced his interference with sacred things, and in effect removed him then and there from the kingdom. David for his part appears to have been scrupulous in employing the priests for every religious function; but at the bringing up of the ark from the house of Obed-Edom he is reported to have led a sacred dance before the Lord and to have worn a linen ephod, that is, a garment specially reserved for the priests. He also took to himself the privilege of blessing the people in the name of the Lord. On the division of the kingdom Jeroboam promptly assumed the ordering of religion, set up shrines and appointed priests to minister at them; and in one scene we find him standing by an altar to offer incense. The great sin of Uzziah, on account of which he had to go forth from the temple a hopeless leper, is stated in the second book of Chronicles to have been an attempt to burn incense on the altar. These are cases in point; but the most remarkable is that of Solomon. To be king, to build and equip the temple and set in operation the whole ritual of the house of God, did not content that magnificent prince. His ambition led him to assume a part far loftier and more impressive than fell to the chief priest himself. It was Solomon who offered the prayer when the temple was consecrated, who pronounced the blessing of God on the worshipping multitude; and at his invocation it was that “fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices.” This crowning act of his life in which the great monarch rose to the very highest pitch of his ambition, actually claiming and taking precedence over all the house of Aaron, will serve to explain the strange turn of the Abiezrites history at which we have now arrived.
“He made an ephod and put it in his city, even in Ophrah.” A strong but not spiritual religiousness, we have said, is the chief note of Gideons character. It may be objected that such a one, if he seeks ecclesiastical office, does so unworthily; but to say so is an uncharitable error. It is not the devout temper alone that finds attraction in the ministry of sacred things; nor should a love of place and power be named as the only other leading motive. One who is not devout may in all sincerity covet the honour of standing for God before the congregation, leading the people in worship, and interpreting the sacred oracles. A vulgar explanation of human desire is often a false one; it is so here. The ecclesiastic may show few tokens of the spiritual temper, the other worldliness, the glowing and simple truth we rightly account to be the proper marks of a Christian ministry; yet he may by his own reckoning have obeyed a clear call. His function in this case is to maintain order and administer outward rites with dignity and care-a limited range of duty indeed, but not without utility, especially when there are inferior and less conscientious men in office not far away. He does not advance faith, but according to his power he maintains it.
But the ecclesiastic must have the ephod. The man who feels the dignity of religion more than its humane simplicity, realising it as a great movement of absorbing interest, will naturally have regard to the means of increasing dignity and making the movement impressive. Gideon calls upon the people for the golden spoils taken from the Midianites, nose rings, earrings and the like, and they willingly respond. It is easy to obtain gifts for the outward glory of religion, and a golden image is soon to be seen within a house of Jehovah on the hill at Ophrah. Whatever form it had, this figure was to Gideon no idol, but a symbol or sign of Jehovahs presence among the people, and by means of it, in one or other of the ways used at the time, as for example by casting lots from within it, appeal was made to God with the utmost respect and confidence. When it is supposed that Gideon fell away from his first faith in making this image, the error lies in overestimating his spirituality at the earlier stage. We must not think that at any time the use of a symbolic image would have seemed wrong to him. It was not against images, but against worship of false and impure gods, that his zeal was at first directed. The sacred pole was an object of detestation because it was a symbol of Astarte.
In some way we cannot explain the whole life of Gideon appears as quite separate from the religious ordinances maintained before the ark, and at the same time quite apart from that Divine rule which forbade the making and worship of graven images. Either he did not know the second commandment, or he understood it only as forbidding the use of an image of any creature and the worship of a creature by means of an image. We know that the cherubim in the Holy of Holies were symbolic of the perfections of creation, and through them the greatness of the Unseen God was realised. So it was with Gideons ephod or image, which was however used in seeking oracles. He acted at Ophrah as priest of the true God. The sacrifices he offered were to Jehovah. People came from all the northern tribes to bow at his altar and receive divine intimations through him. The southern tribes had Gilgal and Shiloh. Here at Ophrah was a service of the God of Israel, not perhaps intended to compete with the other shrines, yet virtually depriving them of their fame. For the expression is used that all Israel went a whoring after the ephod.
But while we try to understand we are not to miss the warning which comes home to us through this chapter of religious history. Pure and, for the time, even elevated in the motive, Gideons attempt at priestcraft led to his fall. For a while we see the hero acting as judge at Ophrah and presiding with dignity at the altar. His best wisdom is at the service of the people, and he is ready to offer for them at new moon or harvest the animals they desire to consecrate and consume in the sacred feast. In a spirit of real faith and no doubt with much sagacity he submits their inquiries to the test of the ephod. But “the thing became a snare to Gideon and his house,” perhaps in the way of bringing in riches and creating the desire for more. Those who applied to him as a revealer brought gifts with them. Gradually as wealth increased among the people the value of the donations would increase, and he who began as a disinterested patriot may have degenerated into a somewhat avaricious man who made a trade of religion. On this point we have, however, no information. It is mere surmise, depending upon observation of the way things are apt to go amongst ourselves.
Reviewing the story of Gideons life we find this clear lesson, that within certain limits he who trusts and obeys God has a quite irresistable efficiency. This man had, as we have seen, his limitations, very considerable. As a religious leader, prophet or priest, he was far from competent; there is no indication that he was able to teach Israel a single Divine doctrine, and as to the purity and mercy, the righteousness and love of God, his knowledge was rudimentary. In the remote villages of the Abiezrites the tradition of Jehovahs name and power remained, but in the confusion of the times there was no education of children in the will of God: the Law was practically unknown. From Shechem where Baal-Berith was worshipped the influence of a degrading idolatry had spread, obliterating every religious idea except the barest elements of the old faith. Doing his very best to understand God, Gideon never saw what religion in our sense means. His sacrifices were appeals to a Power dimly felt through nature and in the greater epochs of the national history, chastising now, and now friendly and beneficent.
Yet, seriously limited as he was, Gideon, when he had once laid hold of the fact that he was called by the unseen God to deliver Israel, went on step by step to the great victory which made the tribes free. His responsibility to his fellow Israelites became clear along with his sense of the demand made upon him by God. He felt himself like the wind, like the lightning, like the dew, an agent or instrument of the Most High, bound to do His part in the course of things. His will was enlisted in the Divine purpose. This work, this deliverance of Israel, was to be effected by him and no other. He had the elemental powers with him, in him. The immense armies of Midian could not stand in his way. He was, as it were, a storm that must hurl them back into the wilderness defeated and broken.
Now this is the very conception of life which we in our far wider knowledge are apt to miss, which nevertheless it is our chief business to grasp and carry into practice. You stand there, a man instructed in a thousand things of which Gideon was ignorant, instructed especially in the nature and will of God Whom Christ has revealed. It is your privilege to take a broad survey of human life, of duty, to look beyond the present to the eternal future with its infinite possibilities of gain and loss. But the danger is that year after year all thought and effort shall be on your own account, that with each changing wind of circumstance you change your purpose, that you never understand Gods demand nor find the true use of knowledge, will, and life in fulfilling that. Have you a divine task to effect? You doubt it. Where is anything that can be called a commission of God? You look this way and that for a little, then give up the quest. This year finds you without enthusiasm, without devotion even as you have been in other years. So life ebbs away and is lost in the wide flat sands of the secular and trivial, and the soul never becomes part of the strong ocean current of Divine purpose. We pity or deride some who, with little knowledge and in many errors alike of heart and head, were yet men as many of us may not claim to be, alive to the fact of God and their own share in Him. But they were so limited, those Hebrews, you say, a mere horde of shepherds and husbandmen; their story is too poor, too chaotic to have any lesson for us. And in sheer incapacity to read the meaning of the tale you turn from this Book of Judges, as from a barbarian myth, less interesting than Homer, of no more application to yourself than the legends of the Round Table. Yet, all the while, the one supreme lesson for a man to read and take home to himself is written throughout the book in bold and living characters-that only when life is realised as a vocation is it worth living. God may be faintly known, His will but rudely interpreted; yet the mere understanding that He gives life and rewards effort is an inspiration. And when His life-giving call ceases to stir and guide there can be for the man, the nation, only irresolution and weakness.
A century ago Englishmen were as little devout as they are today; they were even less spiritual, less moved to fine issues. They had their scepticisms too, their rough ignorant prejudices, their giant errors and perversities. “We have gained vastly,” as Professor Seeley says, “in breadth of view, intelligence, and refinement. Probably what we threw aside could not be retained; what we adopted was forced upon us by the age. Nevertheless, we had formerly what I may call a national discipline, which formed a firm, strongly-marked national character. We have now only materials, which may be of the first quality, but have not been worked up. We have everything except decided views and steadfast purpose-everything in short except character.” Yes: the sense of the nations calling has decayed, and with it the nations strength. In leaders and followers alike purpose fades as faith evaporates, and we are faithless because we attempt nothing noble under the eye and sceptre of the King.
You live, let us say, among those who doubt God, doubt whether there is any redemption, whether the whole Christian gospel and hope are not in the air, dreams, possibilities, rather than facts of the Eternal Will. The storm wind blows and you hear its roaring: that is palpable fact, divine or cosmic. Its errand will be accomplished. Great rivers flow, great currents sweep through the ocean. Their mighty urgency who can doubt? But the spiritual who can believe? You do not feel in the sphere of the moral, of the spiritual the wind that makes no sound, the current that rolls silently charged with sublime energies, effecting a vast and wonderful purpose. Yet here are the great facts; and we must find our part in that spiritual urgency, do our duty there, or lose all. We must launch out on the mighty stream of redemption or never reach eternal light, for all else moves down to death. Christ Himself is to be victorious in us. The glory of our life is that we can be irresistible in the region of our duty, irresistible in conflict with the evil, the selfishness, the falsehood given us to overthrow. To realise that is to live. The rest is all mere experiment, getting ready for the task of existence, making armour, preparing food, otherwise, at the worst, a winters morning before inglorious death.
One other thing observe, that underlying Gideons desire to fill the office of priest there was a dull perception of the highest function of one man in relation to others. It appears to the common mind a great thing to rule, to direct secular affairs, to have the command of armies and the power of filling offices and conferring dignities; and no doubt to one who desires to serve his generation well, royalty, political power, even municipal office offer many excellent opportunities. But set kingship on this side, kingship concerned with the temporal and earthly, or at best humane aspects of life, and on the other side priesthood of the true kind which has to do with the spiritual, by which God is revealed to man and the holy ardour and divine aspirations of the human will are sustained-and there can be no question which is the more important. A clever strong man may be a ruler. It needs a good man, a pious man, a man of heavenly power and insight to be in any right sense a priest. I speak not of the kind of priest Gideon turned out, nor of a Jewish priest, nor of any who in modern times professes to be in that succession, but of one who really stands between God and men, bearing the sorrows of his kind, their trials, doubts, cries, and prayers on his heart and presenting them to God, interpreting to the weary and sad and troubled the messages of heaven. In this sense Christ is the one True Priest, the eternal and only sufficient High Priest. And in this sense it is possible for every Christian to hold towards those less enlightened and less decided in their faith the priestly part.
Now in a dim way the priestly function presented itself to Gideon and allured him. Sufficient for it he was not, and his ephod became a snare. Neither could he grasp the wisdom of heaven nor understand the needs of men. In his hands the sacred art did not prosper, he became content with the appearance and the gain. It is so with many who take the name of priests. In truth, on one side the term and all it stands for must be confessed full of danger to him set apart and those who separate him. Here as pointedly as anywhere must it be affirmed, “Whatsoever is not of faith is sin.” There must be a mastering sense of Gods calling on the side of him who ministers, and on the side of the people recognition of a message, an example coming to them through this brother of theirs who speaks what he has received of the Holy Spirit, who offers a personal living word, a personal testimony. Here, be it called what it may, is priesthood after the pattern of Christs, true and beneficent; and apart from this priesthood may too easily become, as many have affirmed, a horrible imposture and baleful lie. Christianity brings the whole to a point in every life. Gods calling, spiritual, complete, comes to each soul in its place, and the holy oil is for every head. The father, mother, the employer and the workman, the surgeon, writer, lawyer-everywhere and in all posts, just as men and women are living out Gods demand upon them-these are His priests, ministrants of the hearth and the shop, the factory and the office, by the cradle and the sick bed, wherever the multitudinous epic of life goes forward. Here is the common and withal the holiest calling and office. That one dwelling with God in righteousness and love introduce others into the sanctuary, declare as a thing he knows the will of the Eternal, uplift the feebleness of faith and revive the heart of love-this is the highest task on earth, the grandest of heaven.
Of such it may be said, “Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people that ye should show forth the praises of Him Who hath called you out of darkness into His marvellous light.”