Gideon - Part 10

Gideon's ephod

Judges 8v22-27

11^th September 2015

We've seen how Gideon was once a humble and rather fearful man, how he was called by God to lead an Israelite army to victory against the Midianite invaders, and how he became proud after God's victory. He and his brothers behaved like princes, and Gideon exacted vengeance on anybody who didn't do what he said. Gideon, like you and me, was a mixture of good and bad, of pure and impure motives, of truth and fiction.

The people of Israel came to him with a proposal:

Judges 8v22-23
The Israelites said to Gideon, "Rule over us - you, your son and your grandson - because you have saved us from the hand of Midian."
But Gideon told them, "I will not rule over you, nor will my son rule over you. The Lord will rule over you."

Gideon's countrymen wanted to make him king, but he refused. God was their king. It wasn't until the time of Samuel that the Israelites made the huge mistake of insisting on a human king. Gideon was proud, but at least he recognised the authority of God.

Who is the leader of your church? Who is the leader of your denomination (if you have one)? God is! Who builds your church? Why are you seeing growth and blessing? In Matthew 16v18, Jesus says "I will build my church" and 1 Corinthians 3v7 says "neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow". Leaders make a real difference - for good and for evil - but the power for change rests in God alone, and an effective leader is only effective because God makes him so.

Judges 8v24-26
And he said, "I do have one request, that each of you give me an earring from your share of the plunder." (It was the custom of the Ishmaelites to wear gold earrings.)
They answered, "We'll be glad to give them." So they spread out a garment, and each of them threw a ring from his plunder onto it. The weight of the gold rings he asked for came to seventeen hundred shekels, not counting the ornaments, the pendants and the purple garments worn by the kings of Midian or the chains that were on their camels' necks.

Although he refused the throne of Israel, Gideon requested a gift from the people. And that's fair enough. He was God's instrument in their freedom. He had born the responsibility of leadership, and it was right to find a generous way to thank him. As Jesus told us in Matthew 10:10, "a worker is worth his keep". Leaders should be rewarded for their service. They gave him about 43 pounds (or 19.5 kilograms) of gold, plus "ornaments... pendants and... purple garments". I just looked up the price of gold and it's $36 per gram. So Gideon's gift would be worth more than $700,000, or about half a million pounds, today. And the people were "glad to give".

Judges 8v27a
Gideon made the gold into an ephod, which he placed in Ophrah, his town.

We're not quite sure what this passage means by an "ephod". The online Jewish Encyclopaedia, for example, says "In the Old Testament this word has two meanings; in one group of passages it signifies a garment; in another, very probably an image." Note the words "very probably".

Gideon's ephod can't really have been a garment, so it must have been some sort of idol. Like many today, Gideon appears to have mixed his faith in the living God with a desire for non-biblical religious experiences.

The Urim and Thummim (a means of discerning the will of God) were kept in the breastplate connected to the linen ephod worn by the Israelite high priest. So I'm speculating that Gideon's ephod/idol was believed to be an oracle - a means of hearing God (or other spiritual entities). Again like many today, Gideon appears to have wanted both to listen to God and to listen to other sources of "wisdom".

Incidentally, I recently found a quote from John Piper which said, "If you want to hear God, read your Bible out loud".

When we begin to mix our faith in God, and our obedience to His written word, spiritual disaster will inevitably follow, unless we repent:

Judges 8v27b
All Israel prostituted themselves by worshipping it [the ephod] there, and it became a snare to Gideon and his family.

The Bible is so honest! It shows us as we truly are. Gideon, like us all, was a mixture of the wise and the foolish, the godly and the ungodly, the trusting and the doubting, the humble and the proud. He wanted God to rule, but he felt the need for other experiences, which God had forbidden, and he seemed to not even notice the contradiction.

But God used him anyway.