URC Daily Devotion Wednesday 22 April 2026

Judges 8:22-35

Then the Israelites said to Gideon, ‘Rule over us, you and your son and your grandson also; for you have delivered us out of the hand of Midian.’  Gideon said to them, ‘I will not rule over you, and my son will not rule over you; the Lord will rule over you.’  Then Gideon said to them, ‘Let me make a request of you; each of you give me an ear-ring he has taken as booty.’ (For the enemy had golden ear-rings, because they were Ishmaelites.)  ‘We will willingly give them,’ they answered. So they spread a garment, and each threw into it an ear-ring he had taken as booty.  The weight of the golden ear-rings that he requested was one thousand seven hundred shekels of gold (apart from the crescents and the pendants and the purple garments worn by the kings of Midian, and the collars that were on the necks of their camels). Gideon made an ephod of it and put it in his town, in Ophrah; and all Israel prostituted themselves to it there, and it became a snare to Gideon and to his family.  So Midian was subdued before the Israelites, and they lifted up their heads no more. So the land had rest for forty years in the days of Gideon. Jerubbaal son of Joash went to live in his own house.  Now Gideon had seventy sons, his own offspring, for he had many wives.  His concubine who was in Shechem also bore him a son, and he named him Abimelech.  Then Gideon son of Joash died at a good old age, and was buried in the tomb of his father Joash at Ophrah of the Abiezrites. As soon as Gideon died, the Israelites relapsed and prostituted themselves with the Baals, making Baal-berith their god.  The Israelites did not remember the Lord their God, who had rescued them from the hand of all their enemies on every side; and they did not exhibit loyalty to the house of Jerubbaal (that is, Gideon) in return for all the good that he had done to Israel.

Reflection

Verse 28 concludes the deliverer story that began in 6:1 and the passage has a double ending referring initially to Jerubbaal (vv.29, 35), then the family of Gideon and his death (vv 30-31).  Abimelech (meaning ‘my father is king’) is introduced and he features in chapter 9, as the downward spiral of doing evil and forgetting God begins again.

But verses 22-27 tell a distinctive story.  Following Gideon’s victory over the Midianites, God’s people suggest that he rule over them, becoming their first dynastic king.  Gideon piously declines saying that God is King over Israel; monarchy is not God’s will for them.  (The stories of Saul and David in 1 & 2 Samuel relate the origins of Israel’s monarchy.)

Gideon then asks everyone to give him some of the booty they’d seized from the enemy; and an amazing collection of gold and precious items is amassed.  Gideon uses it to create an ephod, which originally was a highly decorated priestly vestment (Exodus 28) worn by Aaron to symbolize holiness.  However here it is evident that it’s set up in Gideon’s home town as some kind of idol and the people begin worshipping it (representing wealth, power, status?) instead of focusing on God.

We are back where this story started with a people totally muddled about who is God; about how God calls us to live and to worship in a faithful covenant relationship; and with Gideon unable to exercise godly leadership in his community.  He too has been snared by success into believing that everything revolves around him and material gains.

It’s tempting, as Christians, to dismiss stories like this because Jesus has come and made all things new.  They still speak to us, however, as cautionary tales about how we organise ourselves as God’s people, identify our leaders and express our expectations of them; showing how easy it is to lose focus on God when in the midst of difficulties and competing ideologies all around.

Prayer

Holy God, 
forgive me when I say the right words and mean the right things;
but then fail to follow through with the right behaviour.  

Forgive me when the adulation of others 
leads me to forget that victory is never mine, 
because success and glory belong only to you.

Sustain me by your Spirit 
that I may fulfil my role within the body of Christ faithfully, 
today and every day.  Amen.