Judges, Ruth: Revised Edition (The NIV Application Commentary)

by K. Lawson Younger

God’s command to Gideon (6:25) contains two demands—a negative one followed by a positive one. (1) He must tear down his father’s altar to Baal and cut down the Asherah pole that is beside it (note the pair of idolatrous items).37 Yahweh’s command to Gideon is a reverberation of his commands in Deuteronomy 7:5 and 12:3. In both texts, the verb “to hack, cut” (gada‘) occurs in a form that echoes Gideon’s name (tegadde‘un). When the narrator gives us this information about the Baal altar and the Asherah pole, he subtly acknowledges that while Israel was crying out and appealing to Yahweh for help, there was an altar to Baal at Ophrah. Gideon’s own family worships major Canaanite deities. An implied question follows: If there is one in Ophrah (a small rural site), were there not others throughout the land? No wonder Yahweh’s response in Judges 6:8–10 was to indict Israel through the prophet’s speech.