Kindle Notes & Highlights
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May 12 - June 3, 2025
In 7:15–18 it is evident that this reported dream has its intended effect on Gideon: He worships God (v. 15). Gideon now musters his small band of men with the confidence that Yahweh will truly give them the victory. At this moment, he believes God. Dividing the three hundred into three companies, he places trumpets and empty jars in the hands of all of them with torches inside, and he instructs them to follow his lead. They are to shout “for the LORD and for Gideon” (emphasis added).71 He has just undercut all the glory going to Yahweh. After this final sign of encouragement through the dream
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Human level. On a human level, what is stressed repeatedly in this section is Gideon’s fear and sense of inadequacy for the task—his lack of willingness to trust Yahweh’s word. Consequently, he is in constant need of reassurance and moral support. Gideon is apparently a man of great potential and perhaps natural ability but lacks significantly in faith. The fleece incidents are far from being a model for the discernment of God’s will. As we have already discussed, these are expressions of doubt and lack of faith. By his own admission, Gideon already knew God’s will and promise, for this had
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Gideon tests God with signs (the fleece incidents), and God answers him to dispel his fear. Yet God quickly dissolves the assurances Gideon may have had from the fleece incidents in order to demonstrate to him his real problem and its answer. It is only with God’s own sign, with all of its complexity and irony, that Gideon finally follows the LORD. Hearing the promise directly from Yahweh was not convincing enough for Gideon, nor were Gideon’s fleece signs. But hearing it from the lips of a Midianite soldier is convincing! It is ironic that it is at this point that Gideon worships the LORD.
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At this point, the climax of the first battle is reached with the Ephraimites’ capture and execution of the pair of Midianite leaders (sarim): Oreb (“Raven”) and Zeeb (“Wolf”). The setting for the execution is interesting: Oreb on a rock, Zeeb at a winepress (7:25). Ironically, a winepress and rock in Ophrah were the setting for Gideon’s call to deliver the Israelites from the Midianites (6:11–20).
HOWEVER, QUITE UNEXPECTEDLY, the story is resumed in 8:4. If the narrative ended roughly with 8:3, Gideon would be considered one of the heroic judges of ancient Israel,80 notwithstanding his problem with fear and lack of faith. However, the narration continues, and the portrayal of Gideon becomes bleaker and bleaker. The moment that he and his men cross the Jordan, a whole new Gideon emerges. In contrast to the “first” Gideon, who was a timid “hacker” and who succeeded by the grace of God, this “second” Gideon is a forceful, resourceful, avenging “hacker,” whose very success breeds even worse
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On return from this battle, Gideon seizes a young man (or perhaps the term na‘ar should be understood as “an official”)89 and coerces him to write down the names of the seventy-seven officials (sarim) of Succoth, the elders (zeqenim) of the town. He then tortures his own countrymen—by flogging them with desert thorns and briers90—and he pulls down the tower of Penuel, killing the men of the city. Gideon is simply taking the law into his own hands as soon as events have permitted him a reasonable pretense and situation to do so. He is the first judge to turn the sword against his fellow
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As Block correctly observes: “One of the greatest obstacles to God’s work among his people and in the world is their faithlessness. Gideon is one of these faithless persons. He refuses at first to follow the call of God. Only after he has presumptuously subjected Yahweh to a series of tests and after he has witnessed Yahweh’s gracious answers”—ironically, ultimately in the mouth of a Midianite—“does he finally accept the call to deliver his people.”101
However, Gideon crosses the line when he crosses over (‘abar)102 the Jordan. If the narrative about Gideon had ended in 8:3, Gideon, despite his character flaws as exposed in 6:11–8:3, would appear as a heroic judge, on par with some of the previous major judges. But the narrative continues, and the degeneration of Gideon is documented. Motivated by revenge, Gideon’s excesses are spelled out in the extreme reprisals on his own countrymen. While the cities did not give support, the punishment is unduly severe and sets a precedence for the later excesses of Jephthah. Also, the foil of Jether
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Such ways of revenge cannot be justified any more than Gideon’s extreme measures of reprisal can be justified. God did not call Gideon to exercise revenge; he called him to deliver his people. He did do the latter, it is true, but he also did the former. Trusting God is not just trusting him for deliverance but also for dealing in a positive way with those who may have wronged us. Only when we do this will the cycle of reprisal and counterreprisal stop. Gideon’s torturous reprisals against Succoth and Penuel were an excessive response to people who doubted Gideon’s ability to achieve the
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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”
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In the ancient Near East, idols were often dressed in fine garments and jewelry.
Webb concludes that “Gideon’s request for materials to make an ephod is a logical sequel to his assertion that Yahweh shall rule Israel.” Thus he argues: “If Yahweh is to rule he must be inquired of, and it is apparently with the intention of facilitating such inquiry that Gideon makes an ephod and puts it in Ophrah where Yahweh had appeared to him and an altar to Yahweh now stood.”115 In this way, the ephod became Gideon’s permanent fleece.
The unusual use of the term calls attention to it, suggesting further implications. Earlier in the narrative, Gideon was clothed with Yahweh’s Spirit; here “ephod” suggests he symbolically clothes the idol (and perhaps, by extension, himself) with another “value”: gold. Klein argues: The Yahwist value, his spirit, is not truly within Gideon and he drops the Yahwist mantle for one of gold. Furthermore, though Gideon refuses the title of leader, the object he has made from the gold is one associated with kingship. Most telling is the reference to “all Israel” playing the harlot after the ephod,
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Although the narrator does not reveal the nature of the image, some interpreters argue that it seems most likely that Gideon reconstructed the shrine to Baal that he had torn down earlier at Yahweh’s command (Judg 6:25–32).117 This does fit the response of the Israelites, who “prostitute themselves” (zanah) to it and for whom it becomes a “snare” (moqesh). However, there is no indication that either altar to Yahweh is destroyed, and it seems better to understand the ephod as a syncretism of Yahwism and idolatrous practices. Nevertheless, the irony and perversion of Gideon’s actions should not
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While the cycle seems to be ending, in reality the seeds for its continuation are sown on either side of these statements. The introduction of the ephod worship above and now the narration in an epilogue (8:29–32), which relate the birth and naming of Abimelek, set the stage for the complementary sequel that follows. Even with the death of Gideon, the story is not over. The conflict between Israel and Yahweh has not been resolved. In fact, we are basically back to where we began. In the epilogue we read that “Jerub-Baal son of Joash went back home to live” (8:29),125 which seems to imply that
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When we take credit for something that God did, we usurp God’s place and cause others to not remember the Lord, who has done good things for them. We cause others to lose their vision of God.
HYPOCRISY. We can have our theology right and yet live as hypocrites. This is not to say that it is okay to have wrong theology (that’s another problem that this text does not directly address), but our lifestyle should match our words. There is perhaps nothing that causes people to turn away from Christianity more than the hypocrisy of some of those who profess Christ. People make enough excuses not to trust in Christ without those in the church giving them ammunition!
Block states: Those who are called to leadership in the kingdom of God face a constant temptation to exchange the divine agenda for personal ambition. Ironically, the more impressive one’s achievements for God, the greater the temptation . . . Gideon began to behave as if the victory had been achieved by “the sword of Gideon” rather than by “the sword of the LORD.”133
The Abimelek account, as the sequel to Gideon and conclusion to the fourth cycle, introduces for the first time in Judges an oppressor who is internal rather than external. Thus the work of the cyclical/major judge, Gideon, is undone by the antijudge, “king” Abimelek, Gideon’s son. The theme of the account is clearly that of retribution: “God causes the evil that Abimelek and the men of Shechem did to rebound upon their own heads (9:56–57).”2 While there is a general critique of kingship, the account is obviously a rejection of Abimelek’s particular style of kingship. As Webb observes,3
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It is important to point out that this narrative, like the regular cycle narratives, describes a very local episode, giving the details in a contained geographic area; yet it attributes the story at various points to Israel, that is, the nation. Thus when the text states that Abimelek ruled over Israel three years (9:22), it is clear that his rule, according to the details of the story, is actually quite localized.9 He does not reign over all Israelite territory!10
Putting it mildly, Abimelek is not happy with his position as an outsider, and he is dominated by a ruthless craving to change his marginal existence (cf. Jephthah later [11:1–7]). He deliberately splits his next-of-kin into two irreconcilable groups: the mother’s side, whom he uses to raise him to the throne, and the father’s side, whom he, with deep hatred, murders in the most gruesome execution imaginable. The scene is inconceivable—one victim after another after another on the same single stone. Body upon body upon body dispatched with unspeakable horror. Again and again and again until
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The contrast between Abimelek’s and Jotham’s thinking is heightened by the fable and its curse. In Abimelek’s encouragement to the citizens/lords of Shechem to make him king, he appeals to human logic: (1) By contrasting the seventy to the one, he infers that monarchy (lit., “one man”) is better (tob) than oligarchy (highly debatable in light of the results in his case!); (2) he argues that the factor of kinship is a good principle to act on politically (“remember, I am your flesh and blood,” 9:2). In light of other passages, especially a number of passages in 2 Samuel, this is also a highly
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The citizens/lords of Shechem trust the conspirator and give him seventy shekels of silver (about 1.75 pounds or .798 kilograms) to hire reckless scoundrels (lit., “men empty and audaciously reckless,” cf. 11:3). With their aid, Abimelek murders his (paternal) brothers, the seventy sons of Jerub-Baal, on a single stone (ironically a single stone will kill Abimelek, v. 53). But one of these sons, Jotham (the youngest son), escapes by hiding. With seemingly all opposition removed, Abimelek is made king (melek) by the citizens/lords of Shechem and Beth Millo16 by the great tree and pillar17 in
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The fable itself (9:7–15) is relatively straightforward. The setting is related in 9:7, in which Jotham takes his place on the top of Mount Gerizim22 and shouts down to the Shechemites. In the fable, the trees go out to anoint a king over them. They approach four different plants23 (the first three of which have significant value in the Palestinian agricultural context, producing valuable products for human beings).24 Each is offered the kingship, but the first three have a declining response: the olive tree (vv. 8–9), the fig tree (vv. 10–11), and the vine (vv. 12–13).25 Finally, the trees
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The climax of the Abimelek account is clearly found in 9:53. This verse is the point of convergence for several phrases. Abimelek argued, “Which is better for you: to have all seventy of Jerub-Baal’s sons rule over you, or just one man (’ish ’ehad)?” Ironically, it is now stated in 9:53 that “a woman” (lit., “one woman,” that is “a certain woman” [’ishshah’ahat]) drops (or perhaps better “heaves,” since lit. in Heb., “throws”) an upper millstone on him. Abimelek had slaughtered the sons of Gideon on a single stone (’eben ’ehat, 9:5, 18), and his skull is crushed by this single “upper
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Abimelek’s preoccupation with his image is played out in his death. Fearing that a stigma will be attached to him, he commands his armor-bearer to stab him “so that they can’t say, ‘A woman killed him’ ” (v. 54). Ironically, this did not happen, for even in another biblical passage, his death is credited to the “certain woman” (see discussion above and 2 Sam 11:21). Not all that many years later, the first king of Israel, Saul, will make a similar request to his armor-bearer on Mount Gilboa, not many miles from Thebez, to spare him the disgrace of being captured alive by the Philistines,
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THE NOTICE ABOUT TOLA IMMEDIATELY RAISES A QUESTION: From whom did Tola save (yasha‘) Israel? Some scholars argue that Tola saved Israel from Abimelek’s rule. Thus Webb states: Such details as are given of Tola’s activity, together with the explicit reference to Abimelek’s career which had immediately preceded, strongly suggest that it was the disastrous effects of Abimelek’s rule that Israel needed saving from, and that Tola did this by providing a period of stable administration. Tola saved Israel from disintegration.
WHAT DOES THIS EPISODE TELL US ABOUT GOD’S people? What does it tell us about God himself and how he deals with people? The description of the apostasy is the most detailed yet in the book. Seven foreign deities or sets of deities are detailed to emphasize how completely the Israelites have departed from Yahweh. This time God himself (not a prophet) confronts the Israelites. This also witnesses to the severity of their apostasy.
OFTEN AS CHRISTIANS WE WANT GOD TO PERFORM when we want him to. We want him when we need him. Otherwise, we don’t want to be bothered by him. We want a god who will perform according to our criteria, according to our timing and agenda. Even when we are the ones who have acted unfaithfully and are reaping the consequences of those actions, this is the kind of god we want. Yet we are the ones who have turned away from the Lord God to the materialistic gods. We are the ones who have disobeyed his word in seeking the gratifications of the flesh. Yet when the consequences of worshiping these other
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The ill-considered oath of these leaders of Gilead that the one who initiates the attack against the Ammonites will be the head (ro’sh) of everyone living in Gilead shows that only under extreme duress is Jephthah appointed as the leader of the Israelites. Presumably this is why it is not said of Jephthah that Yahweh raises him up to deliver Israel. The absence of such a statement only reinforces how ill-advised the elders’ oath is to choose “whoever” (v. 18) to be head of their clan. With an ironic twist, the elders’ ill-considered oath is anticipatory of Jephthah’s later ill-considered oath.
Verse 3 explains how Jephthah became known as a “mighty warrior” (gibbor hayil). He had fled from his brothers, settled in the land of Tob,24 and became the leader of “a gang of scoundrels.” The 1984 NIV’s translation “a group of adventurers” (’anashim reqim, lit., “empty men”) completely missed the mark. Jephthah is not a Walt Disney Robin Hood-type character. He is the leader of a group of vagrants, morally empty men, and is thus pictured in the same terms as Abimelek (cf. the use of ’anashim reqim [lit., empty men] in 9:4 to describe Abimelek’s cutthroat hirelings). Thus the 2011 NIV
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The elders’ initial offer of 10:18 was that “whoever” saved them would become the “head” (ro’sh) of all those living in Gilead, that is, their tribal chief. But in their first approach to Jephthah (11:4–5), they make the lesser offer of qatsin (commander, 11:6). It may be that the elders first offer Jephthah the title qatsin instead of the title ro’sh (head) because he had been disinherited. It may be that being disinherited somehow disqualified him from being ro’sh over Gilead.27 The essence of Jephthah’s response in 11:7 is a rejection of their offer: “Didn’t you hate me and drive me from my
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THE ELDERS OF GILEAD ARE IRRELIGIOUS OPPORTUNISTS. They do not care about true worship of the Lord, for they willingly usurp Yahweh’s role in raising up a deliverer. There is no prayer to God from these men, no seeking his will, no trust in him to guide. They can do it themselves because in so doing they can guarantee their positions of authority (or at least they think they can). They seek to take advantage of Jephthah. These are the kind of leaders who would gladly abuse whomever they can to maintain or gain more power. There is nothing that they wouldn’t do to anyone to this end. How ironic
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Jephthah is negotiating with Yahweh as he had with the Gileadite leaders and with the king of Ammon, seeking to acquire concessions and favors from him as he had from others in the past.57 But his success in negotiating steadily declines. “With the Gileadites he achieved all he wanted (11:4–11); with the Ammonites he received a verbal if negative response (11:12–28); with Yahweh there is only silence,”58 indicating that God disregards Jephthah’s vow. While some scholars have interpreted Jephthah’s vow as rash and hastily worded,59 others have seen it as manipulative.60 In fact, Jephthah’s vow
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Jephthah, we know, is good at opening his mouth (how ironical that his name should be yiptaḥ “he opens”). What has precipitated the crisis with his daughter is that he has opened his mouth to Yahweh, that is, he has tried to conduct his relationship with God in the same way that he has conducted his relationships with men. He has debased religion (a vow, an offering) into politics. It is the sequence of dialogues in episodes 2–4 which gives the point its dramatic force. The same point is made by the “parallel” dialogues of episodes 1 and 2: Israel has debased repentance into negotiation.72
Ironically, Jephthah “transposes the values of Yahweh with those of other gods, gods for whom a vow must be kept even if it involves human sacrifice. In so doing, he implicitly acknowledges polytheism.”77 In fact, Jephthah’s action is directly condemned in Deuteronomy 12:31 (again underscoring his ignorance): “You must not worship the LORD your God in their way, because in worshiping their gods, they do all kinds of detestable things the LORD hates. They even burn their sons and daughters in the fire as sacrifices to their gods.”78
The vow turns Jephthah from deliverer into another oppressor. Joined to the slaughter of the Ephraimites in 12:1–6, Jephthah functions as the catalyst for Israel’s destabilization on two fronts: religious and political (the same two fronts that were the problems at the beginning of the cycle).
Violence is often the way in which a spiritually flawed character compensates for his or her sense of inferiority. In this case, Jephthah’s sense of inferiority derives from his having been victimized by past rejection. The irony is that what Jephthah perpetrates on his daughter is more violent than the victimization he himself suffered at the hands of his half-brothers!80
God will never be manipulated by any human being for one simple reason: If that ever happens, just once, he is no longer God.
Jephthah has just incinerated his only daughter, the first thing out of his house to meet him. Now the Ephraimites threaten to incinerate Jephthah’s house with him in it!
Gilead’s slaughter of its tribal brother Ephraim (12:1–6) parallels Jephthah’s slaughter of his daughter (11:39–40). Just as Jephthah through his word (11:30–31) murders a daughter within his tribe—in fact, within his own family—so Gilead through a word (shibbolet/sibbolet) murders a confederated tribe. One can see vividly the further escalated parallel between the effects of a misspoken word on Jephthah’s daughter and the Ephraimites. It is, therefore, “no surprise that the ‘justice’ wrought on Ephraim by Gilead is as violent as that which Jephthah, their new ruler, has wrought on his own
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“VIOLENCE” IS OFTEN THE WAY THAT “A SPIRITUALLY flawed character compensates for his or her sense of inferiority.”106
Contentious people produce contention. The Ephraimites are contentious, but so is Jephthah. The Ephraimites ought to be happy that their sons did not have to fight and die in this war against the Ammonites. They should thank God for their deliverance from the oppression. Note that Jephthah is far more contentious with the Ephraimites, his own people, than with the Ammonite king. He is diplomatic with the Ammonites and yet astonishingly impatient with his own countrymen. This is an unnecessary war. But jealousy, envy, and every sort of evil (Jas 3:14–18) can consume God’s people. So it is with
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After the Gideon account and its complementary sequel about Abimelek, the references to the number of sons of the judges seems to indicate that, from Gideon on, judgeship is always on the verge of turning into kingship, with sons succeeding fathers to office.3 Again, in order to have thirty sons and thirty daughters (sixty children!),4 one must have a substantial harem (between thirteen and twenty-four wives) and the resources to support such a harem (i.e., monarchic-type resources). The marriages mentioned here are not just a trivial note. Ibzan deliberately arranges for marriages of all his
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As in the notice about Jair in 10:4, the statement that they “rode on seventy donkeys” (12:14) may seem humorous to Westerners, but in its ancient Near Eastern context, monarchs in the Levant often rode on donkeys (see comments on 10:4 above, p. 303). Thus, like Jair’s sons, Abdon’s sons riding on donkeys is evidence of their royal-type power over their region. But, unlike Jair, Abdon has extended the control to another generation. Nevertheless, they are no more than royal wannabes—parodies of kingship.
Despite the brevity of the vignette, Shamgar is the most successful of the noncyclical/minor judges in fulfilling the role of judge. Like Othniel (the first cyclical/major judge), while the account is limited, what is recorded argues for his ideal position among the minor judges.
The entire Samson account is framed by two paradoxes: “birth from a barren wife” (13:1–25) and “death from a disabled warrior” (16:23–31).2 Furthermore, it is marked by Samson’s relationships with four women: mother (Manoah’s wife), wife (the Timnite), prostitute (the Gazite), and antagonist (Delilah). Ironically, only the last of these—the treacherous, destructive woman who brings about his downfall, the one he “loves”—is named.
THE WELL-FAMILIAR OPENING NARRATIVE FRAME components begin the narration of the cycle. “Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD, so the LORD delivered them into the hands of the Philistines for forty years” (v. 1). Yahweh’s utilization of the Philistines10 has already been anticipated in the introduction to the Jephthah story (10:7): Yahweh “sold (makar) them into the hands of the Philistines and the Ammonites.” This may imply that the Ammonite and Philistine oppressions were simultaneous. The length of the oppression is forty years, double the next longest oppression
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Samson’s father is Manoah, a name meaning “resting (place)”14; his wife (who remains nameless) is barren and has no children. The double mention of her situation (13:2–3) is intentional and emphatic.15
IN THE FIRST THEOPHANY TO MANOAH’S WIFE, the angel of Yahweh makes an unsolicited appearance to offer two predictions: (1) Manoah’s barren wife will bear a son who will be a Nazirite from conception (13:3b–5a); and (2) “He will take the lead in delivering Israel from the hands of the Philistines,” which is better translated: “He will begin to deliver Israel from the hand of the Philistines” (13:5b).17 The first prediction is fulfilled in 13:24, when “the woman gave birth to a boy and named him Samson.” The second prediction is fulfilled progressively over chapters 14–16: Samson only begins the
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