Judges 8 Bible Study / Podcast

Gideon’s Victory Over Midian and the Ephraimites’ Complaint

This morning we're going to be studying Judges chapter 8. So if you have a Bible on hand, go ahead and open up to Judges chapter 8. Last week we covered the story of Gideon and his valiant 300 soldiers and how they attacked the Midianite camp.

And the Lord, what did he do? He turned every man's sword against his companion. So in other words, the Midianites, in the confusion of the trumpets blowing and the men shouting, you know, the sword of the Lord and of Gideon, the Midianites just attacked each other.

They turned on each other. So Gideon and his valiant 300 men won that battle. Those who remained of the Midianites, because it said that they numbered, it was like locusts on the land, like there's so many of them.

Those who remained fled, at which point Gideon sends word to the Ephraimites to come down and join and help in the battle, which they do. The Ephraimites capture two of the Midianite princes. So now we're picking up in Judges chapter 8 and it starts out with the men of Ephraim expressing their anger towards Gideon.

They're not thankful for Gideon. They're hostile towards Gideon because the way they see it, they were an afterthought. You know, they should have been in on this from the beginning. And of course, Gideon is from the tribe of Manasseh and Ephraim and Manasseh were brothers and there seems to be a little sibling rivalry that may play into why the Ephraimites were so upset.

So Gideon expresses wisdom instead of responding in, you know, in like manner, Gideon uses the wisdom reflected in Proverbs 15 verse 1, how a soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.

So Gideon responds in wisdom and he pacifies the men of Ephraim. But after that, other groups, the tribe of Gad, they're going to give him problems. So let's just pick up. That's a little glimpse of what we're going to see here in Judges chapter 8.

So let's pick up Judges chapter 8, starting in verse 1.

Gideon’s Response to Succoth and Penuel

And Zeab, and what was I able to do in comparison with you?

Then their anger toward him subsided when he said that. When Gideon came to the Jordan, he and the 300 men who were with him crossed over, exhausted, but still in pursuit.

Then he said to the men of Succoth, please give loaves of bread to the people who follow me for they are exhausted. And I am pursuing Zeba and Zalmunna, kings of Midian.

And the leaders of Succoth said, are the hands of Zeba and Zalmunna now in your hand, that we should give bread to your army?

For this cause, when the Lord has delivered Zeba and Zalmunna into my hand, then I will tear your flesh with the thorns of the wilderness and with briars.

Then he went up from there to Pinuel and spoke to them in the same way. And the men of Pinuel answered him as the men of Succoth had answered.

So he also spoke to the men of Pinuel, when I come back in peace, I will tear down this.

Tower.

Okay, so Judges chapter 8 begins with verse 1. Now the men of Ephraim said to him, why have you done this to us by not calling us when you went to fight with the Midianites? And they reprimanded him sharply.

So why are the Ephraimites so upset? Well it's likely that they were offended because they felt that they were playing second fiddle here to the tribe of Manasseh. They might have been upset anyways, but it seems to be there is sort of a rivalry between the two tribes.

Gideon was from Manasseh, but Ephraim was seen as the elite tribe. Since going back to the book of Genesis, remember when Jacob blessed the sons of Joseph, Ephraim, and Manasseh. Manasseh was supposed to be first, but Jacob chose to bless Ephraim first, therefore setting Ephraim ahead of Manasseh.

So therefore, Manasseh is the inferior tribe. At least that's how some would have viewed it, and Gideon is from Manasseh. So I think that plays into this. Ephraim thinks they should be the ones receiving the glory, but this man from Manasseh is receiving the glory, and they're a little jealous.

They're prideful. If you read commentaries about this, they talk about the pride of Ephraim. So this is really an unreasonable response. They should have been thankful for what Gideon had done, but since Gideon is a good leader, he could find a way, or he did find a way to settle this.

Obviously that's preferable. So what's their response? Let me just translate Gideon's response to the Ephraimites. They're upset, and Gideon basically compliments them how they killed Oreb and Zeb, the princes of Midian.

So what's Gideon doing? He's saying, listen, what have I done compared to you? Compared to the victory you accomplished killing these two princes, we surrounded the enemy and shouted and they attacked each other.

That's not as glorious. Your victory, Gideon is saying, is more noble than ours. Now whether or not that's actually the case is another story. But the point is Gideon was willing to be humble. The men of Ephraim seem to respond in pride, but Gideon was willing to be humble, and that's something good leaders are able to do.

So if anyone is prideful here, it's not Gideon. It's the men of Ephraim. They should have rejoiced in Gideon's victory, but they were upset that they didn't get to play a bigger role. And Gideon says, fine, you know, he's not going to argue about this.

And because he has this response of a gentle answer, the issue is resolved. So we see some wisdom here from Gideon. Him and his men are fighting the Midianites. He doesn't need to fight other Israelite tribes.

Now the next issue that arises is a different story. Gideon faces more opposition from his own countrymen. Remember, the nation of Israel was made up just like the United States is made up of, you know, the state of Massachusetts, the state of New York, the state of Pennsylvania, the state of, you know, Virginia.

Well, Israel was made up of, we don't call them states, but we call them tribes. So Ephraim, Manasseh, Gad, Asher. So not all the tribes saw eye to eye. They didn't always get along, obviously. Later in Israel's history, there is a civil war between the North and the South, between Israel, the 10 tribes, and Judah, the two tribes, Judah and Benjamin.

So Gideon is already, we're already seeing splits. I think we already covered this once. But Gideon is now facing opposition from his fellow Israelites. So think about what's happening. Gideon and his 300 men, they're still pursuing the enemy.

They have to cross over the Jordan River, which was difficult, at which point his army, they're tired and they're hungry. So when they arrive at Sukkoth, so this is the tribe of Gad, by the way, they asked them for food and instead they receive this harsh response.

Like when you actually accomplish something, then you can ask for bread. This angers Gideon, who, remember, is anointed by God and he's simply following the Lord's orders. So when his fellow Israelites treat him this way, although they might not realize it, by refusing to help the man of God, they are at least to some degree standing in opposition to God.

And while this is a clear story in scripture, Gideon, we clearly see he was a man of God. We still have to remember this today. If somebody is doing God's work and we oppose them, in a sense, you have to consider, are you actually standing in opposition to God if you're opposing the man that God is using?

This is what's happening here. Gideon is filled. The Holy Spirit has come upon him to give him power. He's already accomplished, really, a miraculous victory. And him and his army, they simply arrive in this city for help.

We're hungry. We're tired. Can you feed us? And the people from the tribe of Gad in the city of Succoth, they treat him shamefully. Just think about this. Gideon, all he's asking for is food. This was not only a reasonable request.

You could argue they had a duty to support their fellow countrymen, especially when they are in this position of being at battle with the Midianites. So I think that's how Gideon is viewing this. He's viewing this as, hey, this is your duty.

You need to help out your brethren and you're treating us this way. So Gideon handles this very different than he did with the men of Ephraim. The men of Ephraim just responded harshly and Gideon compliments them and they're like, all right, this Gideon guy, he's not so bad after all.

So that worked out, but this is at another level. The disrespect is at another level. So this time Gideon threatens the men from the tribe of Gad in the city of Succoth and he threatens them that when I come back, you know, you're going to be sorry that you treated me this way.

Look at verse seven. So Gideon said, for this cause, when the Lord has delivered Ziba and Zalmanah into my hand, these are leaders of Midian. Gideon says to his own Israelite people, he says, I will tear your flesh with the thorns of the wilderness and with briars.

And then if you skip down to verse 16, when Gideon returns from the battle victorious and God has justified him, he does exactly that. And it says he taught the people.

Yeah.

He, in other words, he taught them a lesson and he did this to the leaders of the city. And then the same thing happens to the next city, uh, Penuel. Same thing happens there. They treat him shamefully and he says, when I come back, I'm tearing down your tower.

They probably thought that, Hey, you know, we have this stronghold, we have this tower, we're strong, the Midianites, they're not a threat.

We're not worried about it.

You go handle your battle, you know, just treating him with more disrespect. Gideon says, well, okay, when I, when I show up though, when I come back, I'm tearing your.

Tower down.

And he did. So why did he respond this way? I suppose if you wanted to assume the worst, you could just view Gideon as a man who's taking vengeance. And that's not what we should do well, but consider in the law of Moses, there were guidelines in how to treat one another, you know, love your neighbor as yourself.

Some people think that Jesus coined that term. Actually, it's a quote from the book of Leviticus. This is part of God's law. And certainly you should treat your fellow brethren, the Israelites. You should help them treat them respectfully.

So the tribes of Manasseh Ephraim and Gad, they were all brethren. And yet when we see them interacting, not only are they not helping each other, there appears to be a great deal of hostility. And not only did this happen in Israel, and we're reading about it here in the book of Judges, this also can happen today in the New Testament church.

So Gideon was empowered by God, the Holy Spirit. Well, what are New Testament believers? New Testament believers are indwelt by the same Holy Spirit. And because we are all adopted into God's family, we are children of God.

Because of that, New Testament believers, we are all brethren. And yet oftentimes, when you compare one church to another to another, churches have these feuds, don't they? Churches don't help each other.

Now, we're not talking about apostate churches. We're talking about legitimate New Testament churches where we're actually brethren, not apostate bodies. But yeah, even among New Testament churches, sometimes it is like Ephraim and Manasseh.

And there's jealousy and there's feuding and we can't get along and we can't work together. One believer might think that he or she is better than someone else. That appears to be what happened with the men of Ephraim.

Gideon was inferior. He's from Manasseh. We're better than he is. New Testament churches, there's jealousy. Maybe someone is accomplishing more than you and you just treat them in a disrespectful way just because you're upset.

Churches don't want to work together because there's an old grudge. Point is, this happened back then in Israel and it still happens today, unfortunately, in the New Testament church. Ecclesiastes 1, verse 9 says, "...that which has been is what will be.

That which is done is what will be done. And there's nothing new under the sun.". So the church is prone because you still have people. People are people. You had sinners in Israel and there's still Christians tempted by the sinful flesh today.

So the church is prone to have the same problems that Israel had. But the difference is we have the indwelling Holy Spirit and we have the scriptures which the Spirit inspired. So hopefully we can read these stories and maybe hear teaching and preaching on it and we can learn from it.

We can learn what to do and what not to do. In the New Testament, what do you see? You see the apostles quoting from the Old Testament and applying those principles in the Old Testament scriptures to what they were experiencing at the moment.

So I always try to do that. Get principles from the Old Testament and apply them to the here and now. Bring the Word of God to bear. So there were problems in Israel and Gideon is experiencing this strife between the tribes.

And there are problems today. Sometimes the problems are real and you just can't ignore them and you have to try to work things out. If you can, sometimes you can't. And that's just the way it is. But we should try to learn from scripture, amen?

So Gideon, just like with the men of Ephraim, Gideon was able to work out that issue. With the Gadites, not so much. Matthew Henry writes this about Gideon's response to the men of the tribe of Gad in verses 13 -17.

The active servants of the Lord met with more dangerous opposition from false professors than from open enemies, but they must not care for the behavior of those who are Israelites in name, but Midianites in heart.

In other words, the men of Gad, while they were technically Israelites, the way they treated Gideon, they might as well have been Midianites. They were Israelites in the flesh, but they were Midianites in heart.

It's like the phrase goes, with friends like these, or with brethren like these, who needs enemies? So Matthew Henry is saying, you know, you just got to try not to let it bother you. You need to press on.

And that's what Gideon did. He pressed on. Matthew Henry continues. He says, they must pursue the enemies of their souls and of the cause of God, though they are ready to faint through inward conflicts and outward hardships.

And they shall be able, enabled to persevere. And the less men help, the more they seek to hinder. Isn't that true? That sometimes when people refuse to help, when people refuse to come to your aid, it's not like they're just remaining neutral.

They're actually hindering God's work. Gideon, he's tired, he's hungry. Now he's probably angry, frustrated, and he could get discouraged. So when Christians don't support one another and say, well, I'm just staying out of it, you're not just remaining neutral.

You have a discouraging effect. And then Matthew Henry closes that section by saying, Gideon's warning being slighted, the punishment was just. Many are taught with the briars and thorns of affliction who would not learn otherwise.

So Gideon is victorious again. He defeats the Midianites and the shameful behavior of those who refuse to support him are now what? They're immortalized in the pages of scripture for all Israel to read.

Gideon’s Judgment on the Midianite Kings

So Gideon captures these Midianite rulers and because they killed his brethren, we don't know exactly when that happened, but we learned this here that they actually killed Gideon's brothers. As he puts it, the sons of my mother.

So because the Midianites killed Gideon's brothers, these two leaders, Gideon now is going to kill them. And again, this is not out of vengeance. This was a matter of duty in Israel. You know, today in the United States, when somebody commits murder, they go get locked in the cage.

They go in the prison system and of course people are making money off the court system. People are making money off the prison system and you know, they might get let out for good behavior and time served and someone can commit first degree murder in the United States and then get out and do it again.

Well in Israel, it was a little different. So again, this is not a matter of Gideon just taking vengeance because he's angry. He's doing the right thing. These men were evil. They killed Gideon's brothers.

This is a duty and Gideon says, you did this, therefore you're going to pay. And this may offend modern sensibilities because today people can just live life. Other people handle it and they never have to see it or deal with it.

But Gideon, because he's now a judge in Israel, he wants to give this honor of killing these two Midianite princes. He wants to give this honor to his first born son. This way his son could say that, hey, I killed the enemies of the Lord.

This would also magnify the disgrace of the Midianites to have their rulers killed by a child. Of course, he's probably not a child. He's probably a teenager. But because Gideon's son is a young man, he refuses to do it.

So Gideon hands him the sword and says, okay, son, Zeba and Zelmana, kill him. And his son's like, I don't want to do this. So verse 21, then Zeba and Zelmana said to Gideon, be a man and kill us yourself.

So Gideon killed them both and took the royal ornaments from the necks of their camels. This just reminds me of King Saul. Remember when King Saul spared Agag, the king of the Amalekites? And then Samuel shows up and Saul, God told you not to spare anyone and you spared the.

King.

And what did Samuel do? Samuel was the last judge. Gideon's a judge. Samuel was the last judge. Just as Gideon killed these two Midianite princes, Samuel, what does it say? It says he took a sword and he hacked Agag to pieces.

So this is a different time. They didn't have an electric chair or a lethal injection. When someone was put to death, when there was capital punishment, it was done in a, you know, maybe you would consider it a gruesome way, but remember, these are the enemies of.

God.

Gideon is the man of God. We never want to read this stuff and think that, oh, isn't this terrible? Like, you know, Hey, we live in Massachusetts here. That's the way a lot of churches would respond. Gideon is such, oh, this is so terrible.

Well, it's the word of God. So the last thing you want to do is stand in judgment over the word of God. The Bible calls for capital punishment. Men who commit murder should lose their life. That's what the book of Genesis says.

That's what God told Moses. Those who shed man's blood by man, their blood must be shed. And that also acts as a deterrent. Now people would say the capital punishment is not a deterrent today. And that's probably true because again, people can commit first degree murder and they get.

Let out.

People can, even those who are put on death row and receive the death penalty, you know, sometimes it can take 10, 15 years to go through the process with all the appeals. And by the time someone is on death row, it can take 20 to 25 years.

So yeah, in that case, it's not much of a deterrent because it probably is never going.

To happen.

But if it was carried out swiftly, like you see here in scripture, like God actually calls for, then it would act as a deterrent. Keeping evil people alive and letting evil people walk the streets. You're not doing anyone any favor.

So Gideon does God's work here and he defeats the Midianites. And then after he kills their princes, he takes their royal ornaments. This is often translated crescent ornaments. The crescent moon was a symbol worn by pagan Kings.

It was also used in idolatrous worship and eventually became one of the primary symbols later on in history. The crescent moon became one of the primary symbols of Islam. So Gideon has achieved peace in Israel.

Gideon has achieved in Israel what few others have been able to do. He has established himself number one as the clear leader of the people. He had this come from behind victory like no one has ever seen before.

And now the people want to honor him by making him the king. Of course, Gideon refuses that. So look at verse 22. Now Gideon, there's some debate here whether or not Gideon's heart is in the right place or if he's, you know, he means well.

But this is the account starting in verse 22 where Gideon made an ephod. Okay, so it says that the men of Israel said to Gideon, rule over us both you and your son and your grandson also for you have delivered us from the hand of Midian.

But Gideon said to them, I will not rule over you, nor shall my son rule over you. The Lord shall rule over you. Then Gideon said to them, I would like to make a request of you. Okay, you want to make me king.

I don't want to be your king. That's not right. But I do have one request that you would give me the earrings from the plunder for they had golden earrings because they were Ishmaelites. So this would be the Ishmaelites and the Midianites, same thing.

So they answered, verse 25, we will gladly give them and they spread out a garment and each man threw into it the earrings from his plunder. Now the weight of the gold earrings that he requested was 1700 shekels of gold besides the crescent ornaments, pendants and purple robes, which were on the kings of Midian and besides the chains that were around their camel's necks.

Then Gideon made it into an ephod. So he takes this gold and he melts it down and he creates this, this like breastplate. It couldn't have been solid gold that would have been too heavy. But Gideon makes this ephod and it says he set it up in his city, Aphra.

And all Israel, scripture says, played the harlot with it there. And it became a snare to Gideon and to his house. So when it says they played the harlot, it means they started to worship it. It became like an idol.

They started to worship. It led their heart away from God and they started to worship foreign gods. So it became a snare to Gideon. He wanted to do this, but obviously didn't work out very well, became a snare to Gideon and to his house.

Then verse 28, then thus Midian was subdued before the children of Israel so that they lifted their heads no more. And the country was quiet for 40 years in the days of Gideon. Then verse 29, it goes on to record Gideon's death, which we'll cover in a moment.

But we see here some, you know, this, we're reaching the end of the story of Gideon. We're seeing some positive statements about his ministry. And then we see something quite negative. The things that reflect well upon Gideon is first of all, he refuses to be Israel's king.

God is your king, he said. And remember later in Israel's history, when they asked for a king, do you remember what the Lord told Samuel? Samuel, it was because they didn't want the Lord ruling over them.

God was supposed to be their king. So that's an honorable thing Gideon did.

Number one.

Number two, the second thing in verse 28, because of Gideon's victory, we see that he achieved peace in Israel for 40 years. And then of course, there's his great underdog victory with his valiant 300 men in the last chapter.

So it's because of these things that Gideon is not just one of the great judges. He is probably considered the greatest man in the book of Judges. There are a lot of good things to say about Gideon, obviously, but there's really only this one negative thing, and that's the golden ephod that he makes.

So again, what is an ephod? It's basically a breastplate similar to the one the high priest would wear. Some commentators view this as Gideon, because he had questionable relationships with a questionable relationship with the Ephraimites and because the tabernacle dwelt in Shiloh in Ephraim.

Some commentators believe that Gideon is setting up his own priesthood and he intended that this ephod would act in a similar manner, that he's setting up his own high priest that he can go in and inquire of the Lord.

I do not believe that is the case. Other commentators see it this way, that this ephod is not for religious use as a rival priesthood. Rather, it is for civil use only, just as David had made an ephod.

So Gideon, as the civil ruler of the nation, he creates this item similar to the high priest, but it's not meant to be in competition. So I would hold to that view. But the scripture does say that the ephod became a snare to Gideon and to his house.

So the question really is, was Gideon involved in this idolatry or did the idolatry come later? Verse 33, I think, gives us that answer. The idolatry came after Gideon's death. Because remember, yeah, he makes this ephod and it turned out to be a negative thing, but Gideon does not want to elevate himself.

He's already rejected this idea that, you know, I'm going to be a king. So in the end, and I do believe he meant well, but we have to admit in the end, making this ephod was obviously a mistake and time would prove that.

Gideon also made another mistake and the fruit of this would come after he was gone. But Gideon, like, you know, remember he's not a king, but he's, he's in a position similar to that as a leader of the nation, Gideon, unfortunately practiced polygamy.

And on top of that, his many wives, he had a concubine. And while the Lord in the old Testament, in a sense, overlooked some of these things, anytime someone commits polygamy in the Bible, some people respond, well, you know, God allowed polygamy or God was okay with it in the old Testament.

And of course that led to Mormons practicing it, you know, when they came along. But if you look at it in the scripture, anytime a man practiced polygamy, it always ended up to be a complete disaster because that was not what God intended.

Jesus tells us this in Matthew chapter 19, that marriage is between one man and one woman. So we read in verse 29, then Jeroboam, the son of Joash, went and dwelt in his own house. And Gideon had 70 sons who were his own offspring, for he had many wives.

And his concubine who is in Shechem also bore him a son whose name he called Abimelech. And this is setting up for the problems that we're going to read about in the next chapter. But just remember this passage, and much of the old Testament is descriptive, not prescriptive.

So if you see a man of God who the Bible generally paints in a positive light, like with Gideon, just because it says that Gideon did something, it doesn't mean that God approved of it, right? It's descriptive.

It's just telling you what he did. It's not prescriptive. It's not saying that you should do this. There's really no commentary whether this was right or wrong, but we do see the results. And just to let you know, in the next chapter, next Wednesday, Lord willing, we'll cover Judges chapter 9.

It's a complete mess. Verse 32, Now Gideon the son of Joash died at a good old age and was buried in the tomb of Joash his father in Aphra of the Abba Ezrites. So it was as soon as Gideon was dead that the children of Israel again played the harlot with the bales and made Baal Bereth their God.

Thus the children of Israel did not remember the Lord their God who had delivered them from the hands of all their enemies on every side, nor did they show kindness to the house of Jerob Baal Gideon in accordance with the good that he had done for Israel.

And that really is a sad ending. This man who was used so mightily by God, as soon as he died, with the vacuum of godly leadership, the nation just slid back into their old ways. And then the cycle repeats itself until the next judge is raised up.

The Need for Godly Leadership and Faithful Perseverance

So based on all of this, what is the lesson from the story of Gideon? Gideon was a strong leader, no question about it, who didn't let opposition to the Lord's mission get to him. But considering how quickly things went bad after his death, it just proves how important it is to have a strong and godly leader.

Because the people usually, and I think it's true then and it's true now, usually people will get the leader that they deserve. So as soon as Gideon is gone, as soon as there is no godly leadership in Israel, they go right back to their old ways.

Proverbs 29 verse 2 says, when the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice. But when a wicked man rules, the people groan. So let us not be like the children of Israel and forget the Lord our God.

And may we pray in repentance and faith that the Lord would give to us leaders after God's own heart. Leaders like Jeroboam Gideon. So just as he fought battles against the Midianites, the sword of the Lord and of Gideon, may we fight the good fight of faith, wielding the sword of the Spirit, which is.

The Word of God.