The third phase of Gideon's career was marked by his making the ephod, the tragic mistake which blemished the brightness of his spectacular career.

As a successful military commander, hero of a notable victory, he was a very different man from the simple farmer pictured in Judges 6. At that time his implicit and obedient faith in God enabled him to carry out the Lord's commands to the letter and in consequence the Midianite hosts had been put to flight and the land delivered, as the Lord had promised. The fact that Gideon went beyond his instructions afterwards and allowed the remainder of Israel to help him destroy the enemy to a man may well be put down to an excess of zeal not justified by the necessity of the case, but his subsequent refusal to allow himself to be made king by his grateful countrymen and his insistence that the Lord must be their only king shows that his heart was still right. But this same zeal, even more unwisely directed, led him into serious trouble in the matter of the ephod.

It all began when Gideon rejected the plea that he become their king. Although he declined the invitation, he did ask of his countrymen one favour, that they would give him an offering of the gold rings taken from the defeated enemy and the ornaments taken from their camels. The request was received with enthusiasm and Gideon found himself possessed of a considerable amount of gold and other valuable regalia taken from the defeated kings. The upshot shows that Gideon did not want this for himself, but for the worship of God and the honour of his native village. Out of these golden rings and ornaments and luxurious clothing, we are told, he "made an ephod, and put it in his city" (village) "in Ophrah".

An ephod was a garment intricately constructed of valuable fabrics, precious stones and fine gold, worn by the High Priest of Israel as indication of his sacred office and by virtue of which he could approach to God for counsel and instruction. In later times possession of the ephod became invested with a kind of superstitious reverence and it was believed that any who could gain such possession would thereby be able to command a hearing and a response from God. There were two occasions in the life of David when he took it upon himself to summon the High Priest to his side so that with the aid of the ephod the Lord could be asked to give instructions as to forthcoming operations. But Gideon had been in close touch with God throughout this whole series of happenings and would hardly be likely to think the possession of an ephod necessary for any further instruction at this juncture. It becomes a valid question therefore: what was his purpose in doing this?

The Tabernacle, which was the centre of Israel's worship and the responsibility of the Aaronic High Priest, at this time stood at Shiloh, having been finally erected there following a few years at Gilgal during the conquest of the Land. This was where the tribes came on the occasions of the great feasts and here the High Priest conducted the annual Day of Atonement ceremonies. But Shiloh was in the territory of the tribe of Ephraim, and there was no love lost between Ephraim and Manasseh, which was Gideon's own tribe.

Jealousy had existed between them from earliest times, when Manasseh the eldest son of Joseph had been passed over by the patriarch and the birthright conferred on Ephraim. Something of that jealousy emerges in this very story when the Ephraimites chided Gideon for not calling them to the battle before he had started the rout; his tactful reply in ch. 8. 1-3 avoided a serious clash but the animosity was there. Chapter 12 of Judges tells of another occasion when Ephraim was involved in fratricidal strife with men of Manasseh. It might well be, therefore, that Gideon had formed the idea that the institution of some kind of a centre for approaching God in the territory of Manasseh might well advance the status of his own tribe relative to the brother tribe and be welcomed by the northern tribes, Ashur, Zebulon and Naphtali, who had assisted him in the campaign. Already, a century or more in the past, a rival priesthood with images and ephod, in honour of Jehovah the God of Israel, had been set up in the extreme north by the tribe of Dan (the story is told in Judges chapter 18, but chronologically it was long before Gideon's day).

That centre of worship had degenerated into flagrant idolatry and the official priesthood at Shiloh had been able to do nothing about it. Perhaps Gideon, in his zeal for the Lord, thought that he could succeed where Shiloh had failed and at least establish a centre of worship more acceptable to the northern tribes than the one in the territory of the universally disliked tribe of Ephraim. If that was in fact his idea, he was grievously in error in supposing that any deviation from the Divine arrangement, no matter how sincerely undertaken, could be productive of anything but ill. Thus it was in this case; Gideon had in effect set up a rival sanctuary to the legal one in Shiloh and the consequence was that "all Israel went thither a-whoring after it; which thing became a snare to Gideon, and to his house".

That expression means that unlawful worship and ceremonial was carried on in Abiezer of Manasseh and the fact that the Deity worshipped was the Ever-Living and not Baal did nothing to mitigate that fact. It is probable that Gideon established some kind of priesthood, and attempted to emulate in some degree the ceremonies which could rightfully only be observed at Shiloh. Thus there were now three places in Israel claiming to represent God before the people, Shiloh in Ephraim, Dan in the far north where a renegade Levitical priesthood functioned, and this at Abiezer. The sad refrain of the Book of Judges comes to the mind "In those days there was no king in Israel; every man did that which was right in his own eyes".

The wonder is that the knowledge and service of the God of Israel survived at all. Evidently it did in measurable degree, for after Gideon's victory the land had rest for the unusually long period of forty years, and this of itself denotes that there was no general apostasy. The most reasonable conclusion is that under Gideon's leadership the nation remained nominally loyal to God and the Covenant, and the shrines of Baal were destroyed, leaving a form of worship which so far as its ceremonial aspect was concerned represented no more than a pale reflection of what it could have been had the Covenant been zealously observed in all its provisions.

There is another possibility which may explain Gideon's institution of his rival sanctuary, an action so much out of character compared with his earlier scrupulous observance of Divine leading. At some time during the period of the Judges there was a violent disruption in the High Priestly family whereby the ordained succession from Aaron's son Eleazar was broken and the priestly office transferred to the descendants of Aaron's younger son Ithamar. The Scriptures are completely silent as to the details of this affair; it is not so much as mentioned anywhere. Jud. 20.28 indicates that Phinehas, son of Eleazar, was High Priest in his turn and then no more is recorded until, much later on, we find Eli, of the line of Ithamar, as High Priest in the days of Samuel. Josephus has a little more to say although the source of his information is unknown; he says that after Phinehas, his descendants Abishua, Bukki and Uni were High Priests and then the office passed to Eli who was the first High Priest of the line of Ithamar. Now the days of Eli's youth must have coincided fairly well with the time of Gideon. Eli is represented in the Scripture as an indolent and indifferent High Priest and his sons, his destined successors, irreverent and depraved. One wonders if some "power struggle" within the family of Aaron occurred at or just before the time of Gideon which resulted in the legal line of Eleazar being ousted from Shiloh and the junior line substituted by force and illegally. The reputation of Ephraim generally and the character of the inhabitants of its chief towns, Shechern, Bethel, Shiloh, and so on, was such that almost any kind of roguery could take place. Although Shiloh was the place where the Tabernacle stood for over four hundred years the Lord bitterly reproached the people there for their iniquity and predicted that his judgment would come upon it—as it did in the days of Samuel. "But go ye now to my place which was in Shiloh" He said to Jeremiah "and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people" (Jer. 7.12). It was in fact the iniquity of the people and priesthood there in Ephraim that caused the Lord to take away the birthright which in Jacob's day had been given to Joseph, and to award it to Judah, so that Judah became the royal tribe. "He forsook the tabernacle of Shiloh, the tent which he placed among men . . . he refused the tabernacle of Joseph, and rejected the tribe of Ephraim, and chose the tribe of Judah, the mount Zion which he loved. . . he chose David also his servant" (Ps. 78. 59-71). What great crime was this which took place in the very place of God's sanctuary; what depth of iniquity was there in the lives of those people and priests in Ephraim which drew forth such condemnation from the Most High? The behaviour of Eli's sons during the boyhood of Samuel (1 Sam. 2.22) of Abimelech and the men of Shechem (Jud. 9) of Micah and his graven images in the very vicinity of Shiloh (Jud. 17) are only three incidents which show just how far gone in the ways of evil were these professed men of God.

Is it then possible that Shiloh had in the days of Gideon fallen into the hands of a faction which made Eli, or perhaps his father, High Priest in defiance of the legal rights of the Eleazar line and that the true High Priest—whether Uzzi or one of his successors, Zerahiah or Meraioth, all recorded in 1 Chron. 6 as the legal line from Eleazar although not said to have been High Priests—was compelled to flee into exile? In such case he would most likely cross the border into Manasseh; the enmity between that tribe and Ephraim would assure him of a welcome and safety, and the Manassites would certainly recognise him as the legal holder of the office. Gideon had already erected an altar in his home village and named it Jehovah-shalom; "God will give peace", Did he now, in the flush of victory, add to his enthusiasm for the abolition of Baal worship a zeal for the service of God in a form which perhaps had not been known at Shiloh for many years past? Did he, in declining the offer of kingship over Israel, dream of a restored legal High Priest of the line of Eleazar, functioning not at Shiloh in Ephraim, but at Ophrah in Manasseh, and is this why he made the ephod?

We do not know. We only know that whatever the motive prompting his establishment of Divine service at the altar he had built, it was doomed to failure. It was not of Divine appointment. Despite all the shortcomings of the sanctuary at Shiloh, it was still the place where the Lord had put his Name. The Ark of the Covenant still reposed within the Most Holy and the mysterious Shekinah still illuminated that secret apartment with its supernatural light. It was for God, not Gideon, to say when the order of things was to come to an end. And when it did end, it was to Judah, not Manasseh, that the honour went: at Jerusalem, not Ophrah, where the Lord authorised a sanctuary for his name, and Solomon, not Gideon, who in due time was to restore the priestly office to the rightful line of Eleazar.

It is probable that Gideon's fault was over-enthusiasm for God and failure to realise that enthusiasm itself can be a snare if it is not controlled by a scrupulous adherence to the Divine leading. It is not said of him in the case of the ephod, as it was in the case of the expedition, that he sought signs from God that he was doing the right thing. It might well have been that his righteous indignation at the godlessness of Shiloh convinced him that as virtual ruler of the nation he must strike another blow for God, not against external enemies this time but against internal enemies. He under-estimated the extent of irreligion which still existed in Israel. In destroying the altar of Baal at Ophrah and setting up in its place an altar to Jehovah; in doing away with the asherah and substituting an ephod, he had merely changed the name of the god and left the basic principle untouched. And so idolatry was not completely eliminated in Israel; it was merely driven underground to bide its time for its re-emergence. It was going to require the work of Samuel a century or two later to replace the corrupt and godless priesthood at Shiloh by a new and vigorous administration which would bring all Israel back to a real and living faith.

Nevertheless Gideon did much to arrest Israel's decline into apostasy. He lived forty years after his great victory and during all that forty years, under his administration, the land had rest from enemies, sure sign that in the main God was honoured and the Covenant observed. But it was largely a personal loyalty; "as soon as Gideon was dead, the children of Israel turned again . . and made Baal berith their god, and remembered not the Lord who had delivered them out of the hands of all their enemies on every side". (ch. 8. 33-39). A new generation arose that knew nothing of the famous deliverance except by the stories told by their grandfathers, and the whole sad experience had to be endured again.

So it has been throughout history; no generation seems able to learn from the mistakes of its predecessors; each must learn by actual experience. In their arrogance and self-will, pride in their own abilities and achievements, men will not brook being told what is for their good. They cannot endure the thought that they owe existence and life to a Higher Power and are as yet immature babes, unable to fashion their own lives and steer their own course aright without acceptance of guidance and instruction from on high.

The thirtieth chapter of Isaiah presents an eloquent lament on this sad propensity in the hearts of men and its inevitable consequences. The people refuse the word of the Lord and reject his prophets; the Lord intervenes to tell them that in quietness and confidence in him lies their real strength but they will not have him. No" say they "for we will flee upon horses" to which the Most High sadly responds "therefore ye shall indeed flee". "We will ride upon the swift" they claim exultantly, and again, more sadly still, the response "therefore they that pursue you shall be swift". There can be no escape from the consequences of their own folly and short sightedness. At the end of it all there is only utter ruin.

But not for ever. Just because man is an immature babe, and is so to the end of this present earthly life, God will not cast him off for ever. The lessons will be learned, and eventually in a further stage of development men will emerge chastened but better for the experience. So says Isaiah as he continues his strain "therefore will the Lord wait, that he may be gracious unto you for the Lord is a God of judgement; blessed are all they that wait for him . . he will be very gracious unto thee at the voice of thy cry; when he shall hear it he shall answer thee. And though the Lord give you the bread of affliction and the water of affliction, yet . . . thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it".

Just as the Lord delivered Israel in the days of Gideon when they repented and cried unto him, so all who turn from their own ways to seek him in sincerity and submission, whether in this life or the next, whether before death or after resurrection, will experience the truth of that saying "he will be very gracious unto thee at the voice of thy cry." There will be, there must be, an end to the day of grace and the opportunity of salvation, a time when those who resolutely and in the face of full knowledge choose Baal instead of the Everliving, choose death which is all that Baal can give instead of life which comes only from the Everliving: but that moment does not come until the immature babe has been brought to the full stature of a man fully cognisant of the issues between life and death, between good and evil, between righteousness and unrighteousness, and with clear understanding of the principles involved and the effects of his decision makes his choice. Israel in the time of the Judges alternated between the true and the false, between life and death, many times, and Gideon was only one of the many Judges who rose up to deliver and bring them back to the right path. They always slipped back again. The coming Age in which the living and the dead will stand before a Divine Deliverer greater by far than Gideon will face a final crisis greater by far than that incursion of Midianites in that far-off day, for Christ is set to destroy all evil, not for a limited time as then when other nations eventually ravaged the land of Israel again, but for all time. And with the end of evil will come the end of evil-doers; at the end of the Messianic Age it is going to be gloriously true that "in the name of Jesus every knee shall bow and every tongue confess, that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."

The End.

AOH