Judges 8 Study Notes

8:1-3 With liberation achieved, the cycle normally concludes with a summary statement of peace and harmony during the judge’s lifetime, a summary that is delayed until v. 28. The first complication was a complaint by the Ephraimites that Gideon did not call them out to battle against the Midianites. This is surprising because elsewhere the problem was persuading the tribes to become involved in conflict, not dissuading them. And since Gideon’s task once he assembled his army was to reduce them in size, it is difficult to see how the Ephraimites could have played a useful part in the battle. Their complaint shows the weak and fractured nature of the Israelite tribal alliance at this period. Gideon’s response was a masterpiece of diplomacy. He downplayed his own standing and role in the victory by saying, Is not the gleaning (the grapes left behind after the initial harvesting) of Ephraim better than the grape harvest of Abiezer? Gideon belonged to the clan of Abiezer. Moreover, the Ephraimites achieved the crowning moment of the victory when God handed over to them Oreb and Zeeb, the two princes of Midian. This reply defused the Ephraimites’ anger.

8:4-9 It is worth noting that the Lord is no longer mentioned as an active party in what follows. The Midianite kings, Zebah and Zalmunna, escaped across the Jordan River. In view of this pursuit, it appears that Gideon was not merely being diplomatic when he compared himself deprecatingly with the Ephraimites. He was angry that God had given Oreb and Zeeb into the hands of the Ephraimites, while he himself had no comparable triumph to show for his efforts. His damaged ego was the driving force behind the fanatical pursuit of the escaped kings. Succoth and Penuel were towns in Transjordan under Israelite control. The men of these cities might have been expected to give Gideon aid on his quest, but they refused his appeal for food because they were skeptical of Gideon’s ability to thoroughly defeat the Midianites. Gideon took their refusal personally. In contrast to his diplomacy with the Ephraimites, Gideon threatened revenge on those who failed to assist him.

8:10-12 Gideon finally caught up with Zebah and Zalmunna at Karkor, about a hundred miles east of the Dead Sea. A sizeable remnant of their original army of one hundred thirty-five thousand was with them, numbering around fifteen thousand men. Gideon and his force of three hundred caught them by surprise, routed them, and captured Zebah and Zalmunna, the two kings of Midian. There is no mention of the Lord’s involvement in this battle.

8:13-17 On his return to Succoth and Penuel, Gideon wasted no time in carrying out his earlier threats. He captured a youth from Succoth, just as he had earlier captured the Midianite kings, and forced him to write down the names of the elders of Succoth, whom Gideon then rounded up and thrashed with a switch. Israelites who failed to do Gideon’s will were treated as enemies of the state.

8:18-21 Gideon then accused the two Midianite kings, Zebah and Zalmunna, of atrocities at Mount Tabor, not far from his home in the Jezreel Valley. Their response drew a comparison between Gideon and royalty—probably a desperate attempt at flattery. Gideon replied that the men whom the kings slaughtered were his own close relatives, revealing that the motivation for his pursuit of the Midianites was personal vengeance, not obedience to the Lord’s call. Gideon instructed his son Jether to kill the Midianite kings, but Jether did not do so because he was afraid. Gideon’s son resembled Gideon himself. Gideon was no longer afraid. He killed Zebah and Zalmunna and took for himself their crescent symbols of royalty.

8:22-27 The Israelites recognized the significance of Gideon’s behavior. They asked him to rule over them as the founder of a dynastic line. Though they carefully avoided the word king, it is clear that they were offering Gideon that office. The rationale that the people gave is telling: For you delivered us from the power of Midian. The Lord’s work in raising Gideon as deliverer had become obscured. Gideon’s response was orthodox. He replied that neither he nor his sons would rule over them; the Lord would rule over them. Even as he formally refused the status of king, however, he failed to contradict their assertion that it was he who had saved them from the Midianites. He also proceeded to act precisely as a king would. He asked for a royal share of the plunder, gold earrings from every man, representing a symbolic token of submission to him. As in Ex 32, where earrings were used in the making of the golden calf, so Gideon used these earrings to manufacture an idol in the form of an ephod, a garment worn by the priests and used as a means of determining God’s will. The amount of gold suggests that the garment included an idolatrous image. Gideon’s intent was to glorify himself, founding his own cult like the Canaanite kings. The result was spiritually disastrous, ensnaring all Israel in prostituting themselves.

8:28-32 The narrative ends where it started—at Ophrah—suggesting that nothing had changed. Baal had changed his shape, but the idolatry continued. The oppressive Midianite kings had been replaced by Gideon, who was acting like the worst kind of king. Along with supporting idolatry, Gideon married many wives and had seventy sons, a family structure forbidden to kings in Dt 17:17. He also intermarried with the local population, taking a concubine from Canaanite Shechem, with whom he had a son named Abimelech, which literally means “my father is king.” Positively, the land had peace for forty years during Gideon’s lifetime, but from this point on in the Judges narrative, Israel never again attained rest. This negative portrayal of kingship suggests that the phrase “In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did whatever seemed right to him” (17:6) did not portray an earthly monarchy as the solution to Israel’s problems.

8:33-35 After Gideon’s death, Israel went from bad to worse and prostituted themselves in the worship of the Baals. Baal was worshiped in many local manifestations, including Baal-berith (“Baal of the Covenant”), who was the patron deity of Shechem. It is ironic that in worshiping a god whose name includes the word for “covenant,” Israel forgot the covenant faithfulness of their own God, Yahweh, who had delivered them from the power of their enemies. The place where this Baal was worshiped, Shechem, was where the people had renewed their covenant with the Lord at the end of the book of Joshua when the people swore never to worship the gods of the land (Jos 24). Nor did they show kindness to the house of Gideon after his death. The word for “kindness” (Hb chesed) is often used in covenantal contexts, and it suggests that Israel forgot Gideon’s acts of deliverance as swiftly as they forgot the Lord’s. The irony of Israel’s return to Baal worship is heightened by the use of Gideon’s other name, Jerubbaal, “Let Baal Contend.”