Mario Angel

Q6. How does Gideon influence Israel during his life? (8:28-35) What is the positive continuing effect of his leadership as judge? Even though Gideon's ephod leads people into idolatry, yet God blesses Gideon's influence in Israel as a judge. His leadership keeps Israel strong enough both spiritually and militarily that they are not troubled by invaders during his lifetime.

Q5. Why is spiritual unfaithfulness looked at as prostitution or adultery? (8:24-27) What is the concept of God's relationship to his people which underlies this analogy? What kinds of temptations to spiritual adultery do you face today. For God's people to worship another god amounts to spiritual adultery -- a concept found throughout the Old and New Testaments. Spiritual unfaithfulness is to betray the truly God by going after false gods as money, material things (car, house, clothes, jewelery). The entrapments today many not be literal idol worship. The New Testament identifies greed with idolatry (Colossians 3:5). Mammon or Money with a capital "M" can function in the same way to lure people away from pure devotion to God. I believe that the concept of God's relationship to us is that "No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money" (Matthew 6:24). Today we face a lot of temptations as TV, radio, music, media in general, movies, including their messages about riches, ***********, sex, alcohol, drugs, violence, we must confront all these temptations by studying God's word, praying and standing firm in our beliefs.

Q4. What is a snare? In what way does Gideon's ephod ensnare his family and the people of Israel? (8:24-27) How can something be a sin if we don't see it as a sin? What was the essence of the sin the Israelites committed? What is the essence of Gideon's sin? "Snare" is the Hebrew noun moqesh, "trap." The noun and verb both refer to setting a trap or noose to catch some prey, but more frequently in a metaphorical sense of entrapping people. Now Gideon and his family become caretakers of a new object of worship. We should seek for God's guidance to avoid committing sin even if we don't think that is a sin what we are doing, we always should pray and talk to God when taking decisions that can affect our life. The sin of Israel is idolatry, Israel begins to worship Gideon's ephod as an idol. Rather than serving the invisible God, they focus their attentions on caring for the golden ephod which draws many pilgrim worshippers -- with their money -- into the town. Gideon's sin was that he forgot to ask God for guidance about what to do with his reward, he contribuyed to Israel's sin by providing them with an idol, no matter that it was not his intention.

Q3 What is an ephod? (8:24-27) What might the gold ephod have looked like? Ephod" is a transliteration of the Hebrew noun 'ephod, and seems to refer to a sacred garment, though there is a lot of scholarly speculation. The ephod might have looked like some kind of clothing.

Q2. What does Gideon ask for his reward? (8:24-27) Was Gideon wrong to take a reward? Where did the sin begin? He asked for a reward as compensation for his participation in the battle, sort of salary. He was not wrong when he took the reward, the problem comes with what Gideon does with the gold. Money is like that. Money is a neutral element, but in how we hoard or spend it comes the sin. Making an ephod with the gold, was like making an idol, like the Israelites did at Mt Sinai with the golden calf, Gideon mde a mistake and the Israelites again fell after the false idols.

Q1. Why does Gideon refuse to be king over Israel? (8:22-23) In what sense would becoming king be treason? Why didn't the Israelites see bestowing kingship as treason? Because he knew that only God has the authority to be King over Israel, he knew that what he had done, he did it because God helped him, also he knew that without God he couldn't defeat the Midianites. It would be a treason, because if Gideon accepted he would be taken upon himself the position that belonged to God and only God. The Israelites wanted to be like the other countries around them, they wanted a king that would lead them into battle. They forgot the covenant that they had with God, that was received by them at Mt Sinai, where they agreed to be servants of God and to have God as their King.

Gideon slained Zebah and Zalmunna because these two king had killed some of Gideon own brothers in the past. "According to the standards of the time, Gideon has a family obligation to exact vengeance for his brothers' unjust deaths. We cannot fault him for this, though we can tremble at the anger that motivates this primitive justice." Romans 12:19 prohibit Christians from taking vengeance, because God's word says that "my is the vengeance says the Lord I will repay", I think that we should let down any thoughts about vengeance and let the Lord handle all our problems.

They refused to help Gideon because they were afraid of the Midianites, they refused to help Gideon "but in doing so they are committing a terrible breach of hospitality to their own kinsmen and a grave sin against the God of the Covenant." Gideon punished these cities because they refused to help him by providing food and nurishment to his men when he was pursuing the Midianites. I think that he was just in desiring punishment for the evil that was done against him and his troops, but paying eye by eye and evil with evil is not the answer. I think that when we as Christians refuse to help others, when we refuse to offer hospitality to those in need, we are doing the same thing that those mentioned cities did.

If he didn't vanquish them, they would come back in the future as a thorn in his side to attack again the Israelites. We always must finish the tasks that God has asked to do, failure of doing that will bring chaos and toils in our journey.

Gideon asks the Ephraimites to help him in the capture and destruction of the remain of the Midianites' troops. The Ephraimites were angry with Gideon because he didn't call them before to join him against the Midianites. When we learn to humble ourselves and to give the glory to God we will be able to show to others that our merits belong to the Lord, by humbling himself in front of the Ephraimites Gideon was able to calm them and to convince them in helping him in the pursuit of the Midianites.

Gideon strategy was to create confusion in the Midianite's camp, dividing the troops into three companies gave the appearance that they were more than they really were, also attacking at night allowed them to surprise their enemies. As a result of this strategy the Midianites were confussed by the suddenly attack and they started in the middle of the night to attack each other. His strategy works, because he trusted in God to lead him into battle also he acted as a leader asking his followers to do as he was doing.

Like the commentary says in the Exposition: "People of that day didn't bake bread in loaf pans, but as round lumps of dough that might bake into perfect wheels. The Midianite guard has seen just one of these loaves in his dream, careening down hill into the camp. In his dream, the small loaf strikes and collapses a tent many times its size." I think that the rolling barley loaf was a picture of what was about to happen to the Midianites, that they would be defeated by the Israelites, they were about to be run over by the army of Gideon. I think that God choosed to show this dream to Gideon to strength Gideon's faith and trust in the Lord and also to prove Gideon that if he trusted the Lord he could do anything that God would require from him.

Before I answer this question I checked some of the comments of different authors, like these ones: David Guzik Study Guide Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset and David Brown Commentary Matthew Henry Commentary Now it is hard to distinguis which was the real reason that God used to choose the 300 men, but seems like the ability of those who were choosed to stand quicker and be ready faster to attack the enemy, was the major reason for been choosed by God.

I think that we demand that God's directions make sense to us before we'll follow them, due to our narrow view of the big picture, we are beings who cannot see beyond our own scope, we many times want to trust our own instincts without seeing the bic picture, in our conditions many times we can only see a small fragment of the whole scenarium. The spiritual danger here is that we may disobey God by refusing to follow His commands when we can't confirm or see beyond our limited area of view. I don't think that we should be afraid of being -- or being perceived as -- religious kooks, because we all know that the world has rejected our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and any thing that comes from God. I think that we can balance blind obedience with getting confirmation through spiritual people whose discernment we trust by always checking our bibles and asking for guidance through prayer and fasting. The Bible teaches that we should confirm everything with the word of God.

I think that if God had allowed Gideon to attack the Midianites with such a big army (22,000 men), the people of Israel would believe that they defeated the Midianites by their own strength and not by God's help. Shrinking the army's size to a tiny band was essential in restoring Israel's faith and allegiance, because will show them that God could defeat any army in the world, no mattere how big this army could be, God wanted for the people of Israell to trust, obey and have faith in Him. God had delivered Israel in the past and He was about to prove them that He could deliver them again. By human standars what Gideon was doing in shrinking his army, wasa mistake a tactical error, but those who thought that way didn't take in consideration that God already told Gideon that the Midianites were on his hands, and also that Gideon was choosed by God to deliver Israel from the Midianites. God showed Gideon once again that he would be able to defeat the Midianites, God ordered Gideon to sneak into the Midianites' camp and listen with his own ears what was about to happen to the Midianites. I believe that Gideon learned to have faith in the Lord without any doubts.