By Larry Barnes in Judges —

Judges 8

11/18/2025

Judges 8 NKJV: It is hard to read this chapter and not be saddened by the corrupt heart of man. How self centered and self serving man can be when God is not in the picture. God has done great things through Gideon in routing the armies of Midian, yet his own people are nor willing to feed his army as they pursue the last kings of Midian. In fact, Ephraim is upset because Gideon made them look bad because he didn't call on them from the beginning. Gideon had smooth talk them to quell their anger.

You're touching on one of the most poignant and tragically human moments in the book of Judges.

Judges 8 really does expose how quickly the hearts of God’s own people can turn inward, even in the middle of a divine deliverance that everyone can plainly see.

A few things that always strike me in this chapter:

  1. The tribe of Ephraim’s pride (vv. 1–3) They’re furious not because God’s glory is at stake, but because they didn’t get the spotlight in the initial victory. “Why didn’t you call us sooner?” is essentially “Why didn’t you make sure we got the credit?” Gideon’s soft answer (“What have I been able to do in comparison with you?”) is wise diplomacy, but it also reveals how fragile unity was among the tribes. One generation after Deborah and Barak (when Ephraim fought bravely), the same tribe is now jealous and divisive. Pride and envy corrode covenant community faster than any external enemy.
  2. Succoth and Penuel’s cold indifference (vv. 4–9, 14–17) Gideon and his 300 exhausted men are literally faint from hunger while chasing Zebah and Zalmunna, and their fellow Israelites in Succoth and Penuel refuse even bread. “Are they already in your hand?” they sneer—pure self-preservation. They’re willing to let the Midianite kings escape and oppress Israel for another seven years rather than risk helping Gideon if he fails. It’s breathtaking ingratitude: God just used Gideon to shatter Midian’s power in an impossible victory (chapter 7), yet these cities act as if nothing miraculous has happened. When human beings forget or ignore what God has just done, self-centeredness rushes in to fill the vacuum.
  3. Gideon himself starts sliding (vv. 22–28) Even the hero isn’t immune. When Israel says, “Rule over us… you and your son and your grandson,” Gideon gives the right theological answer—“The LORD shall rule over you”—but then immediately takes the gold and makes an ephod that becomes a snare to him and Israel. The man who began as the hesitant thresher in the winepress ends the chapter with a harem, many sons, and an idol that leads Israel astray. Victory can be as dangerous to the soul as defeat if a man starts believing his own press.

You’re absolutely right: the chapter leaves a heavy feeling. The great Midianite oppression is broken, the land has rest for forty years (8:28), and yet the seeds of the next cycle of apostasy are already being sown—by the very tribes and leader God used to bring deliverance.

It’s a sobering reminder that military or political victory doesn’t fix the human heart. Only the presence and fear of the Lord can do that, and when that begins to fade—even among the people who just saw the miracles—self-centeredness, pride, fear, and idolatry creep back in almost immediately.

That’s why the book of Judges keeps driving us forward to the cry in the very last verse: “In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” We need a better King than Gideon, a King whose heart never turns inward, whose rule is perfect righteousness and grace.

What part of the chapter weighs on you the most? The tribes’ ingratitude, Ephraim’s envy, or Gideon’s own gradual compromise?

What is an ephod?

An ephod (Hebrew:אֵפוֹד) in the Bible is a special garment worn by priests, and it appears in several contexts in the Old Testament. Here’s a clear breakdown:

1. The priestly ephod (the main one most people think of)

Described in detail in Exodus 28 and 39:

  • It was a sleeveless, linen vest or apron-like garment worn by the high priest (Aaron and his descendants).
  • Made of gold thread, blue, purple, and scarlet yarn, and finely twisted linen.
  • Two shoulder pieces held onyx stones engraved with the names of the 12 tribes of Israel.
  • The breastpiece (or breastplate) of judgment was attached to the front of the ephod with gold chains and rings. This square pouch contained the Urim and Thummim, mysterious objects used to discern God’s will.
  • A sash or band went around the waist to hold it in place.
  • It was part of the eight holy garments of the high priest and symbolized his role of representing the people before God and carrying God’s decisions.

2. Simpler ephods worn by other priests or Levites

  • Ordinary priests wore a linen ephod as part of their regular service garments (1 Sam 22:18).
  • David wore a linen ephod when he danced before the ark (2 Sam 6:14), showing it could be worn in worship by non-priests on special occasions.

3. Household or idolatrous ephods (the bad kind)

This is the category Gideon’s ephod falls into (Judges 8:27):

  • Gideon took the gold earrings from the Midianite spoils (about 1,700 shekels ≈ 43 pounds / 19 kg) and made an ephod.
  • He placed it in his hometown of Ophrah.
  • The text says explicitly: “All Israel prostituted themselves by worshiping it there, and it became a snare to Gideon and his family.”
  • Similar bad examples:
    • Micah’s private shrine had a carved image and an ephod (Judges 17–18).
    • Gideon’s son Abimelech later used money from a temple of Baal-Berith that may have been connected to this ephod.

So Gideon’s ephod was almost certainly not a simple linen garment—it was an elaborate, gold-covered object (probably with idolatrous imagery or treated as a cult object) meant perhaps to be an oracle or a symbol of Yahweh’s presence, but without God’s command. Instead of centralizing worship in Shiloh as God intended, Gideon set up a rival religious center, and it quickly led Israel back into idolatry.

Summary

  • Good ephod = God-ordained priestly garment for mediating between God and His people.
  • Bad ephod (like Gideon’s) = Unauthorized, extravagant religious object that became an idol and a “snare.”

That’s why Judges 8 is so tragic: the man God used so mightily ends up making the very kind of thing that will pull Israel away from the Lord almost immediately after the victory.

This makes me think of the bronze serpent on a stick that God had Moses make. Didn’t it have to be destroyed because the people started worshiping it? I wonder if Gideon's started out as well intentioned monument that started being worshiped afterward. Seems like man will worship anything to avoid worshiping God.

Yes, you’re exactly right on both counts — and you’ve zeroed in on one of the most ironic and heartbreaking patterns in the Old Testament.

1. The bronze serpent (Nehushtan)

  • God commanded Moses to make it (Numbers 21:8–9): “Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.”
  • It was a God-ordained object of faith: look to the serpent in obedience and be healed from the deadly snake bites (a beautiful type/picture of Christ being “lifted up” in John 3:14–15).
  • Centuries later, by the time of King Hezekiah (roughly 700 BC), the Israelites had kept it, named it “Nehushtan” (a derogatory play on words: “just a piece of bronze/neḥash”), and were burning incense to it as an idol.
  • Hezekiah, in his great reformation, “broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the people of Israel had made offerings to it” (2 Kings 18:4).

So yes — a direct, divinely commanded object that started as an instrument of salvation became an object of worship, and had to be smashed for the very same reason Gideon’s ephod had to go: the human heart is bent toward turning even the holiest things into replacements for God Himself.

2. Gideon’s ephod — almost certainly well-intentioned at first

Most scholars and commentators believe Gideon’s motives were originally (or at least partly) good:

  • He may have wanted a memorial of the great victory.
  • He may have wanted a way for the northern tribes to inquire of the Lord without always traveling to Shiloh (where the real ark and high priest were).
  • He may have intended it as a priestly garment or an oracle-object like the high priest’s ephod with Urim and Thummim.

But the problem was:

  • God never told him to do it.
  • He set it up in his own city (Ophrah) instead of the God-appointed worship center.
  • He used an enormous amount of gold from idolatrous earrings taken from Midianites/ Ishmaelites — spoils that should have been devoted to the Lord or destroyed.

So even if Gideon’s heart was “Look what God has done! Let’s remember and seek Him,” the moment you create an unauthorized visible focus for faith, the sinful human nature quickly turns “Look what God has done” into “Look at this thing.”

The tragic pattern you named

You said it perfectly: “Man will worship anything to avoid worshiping God.”
We see it over and over:

  • The bronze serpent → idol
  • Gideon’s ephod → idol
  • Micah’s household shrine and ephod (Judg 17–18) → idol
  • Jeroboam’s golden calves (“Here are your gods who brought you up out of Egypt”) → idol
  • Even the ark itself gets treated superstitiously in 1 Samuel 4.

Anything — even the best, most miraculous, God-given things — can become a snare the moment we start trusting in, focusing on, or revering the object instead of the living God who stands behind it.

That’s why the Second Commandment isn’t just “no idols”; it’s “you shall not make for yourself a carved image… you shall not bow down to them.” The prohibition includes taking good things God has made or commanded and turning them into objects of worship.

Thank you for that connection — the bronze serpent and Gideon’s ephod are textbook examples of the same deadly spiritual principle. Even miracles and memorials have to be destroyed if they start competing with the Maker Himself.

It really does drive home how desperately we need new hearts — and ultimately the One who was lifted up on a pole for us, whom we can never turn into an idol because He is alive forevermore.

Lesson: Guard you heart and don't forget God!

Exactly. That’s the one-sentence sermon Judges 8 (and the whole book, really) preaches louder than anything else.

  • Gideon started out hiding in a winepress, terrified, and only acted because the Angel of the Lord sat under the terebinth tree and called him “mighty man of valor.”
  • Every step of the way he asked for signs because he didn’t trust his own heart (or God’s promise).
  • The moment the pressure was off and the victory was won… he stopped guarding that same heart.
  • He refused the crown with his lips but took the gold with his hands.
  • “Don’t forget God” turned into “Look what God (and I) did” → “Look at this beautiful thing we have now.”

And Israel followed him right off the cliff.

Scripture keeps hammering this home:

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?” (Jer 17:9)
“Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life.” (Prov 4:23)
“Remember the LORD your God… lest when you have eaten and are full… your heart becomes proud and you forget the LORD your God.” (Deut 8:11–14)

Gideon’s story is exhibit A of what happens when we let down our guard even for a moment after the battle is over. The enemy we just defeated on the battlefield can sneak back in through pride, comfort, or a “harmless” religious souvenir.

So yes—guard your heart.
Remember whose victory it really was.
And never, ever stop fearing the Lord more than you fear the Midianites… or success.

Thanks for walking through Judges 8 with me. It’s painful, but it’s medicine for our own hearts. 🙏