Not only does Gideon let the Israelites’ erroneous statement stand, he counters with his own request: Let “each of you give me an earring from your share of the plunder.”107 The spontaneous response of the Israelites is weighty: about 42.5 pounds (19.38 kilograms) of gold.108 Gideon then makes this gold into an ephod, which immediately becomes a “snare” or lure (moqesh) not only to himself and his family but to “all Israel,” leading to “the establishment of an all-Israel idolatrous cult in Ophrah, the very place where Gideon began his career by tearing down the idolatrous altar of Baal”
...more
