Commentary - Judges 8:29-35

Bird's-eye view

The book of Judges is a book of cycles, a book of ups and downs. Unlike the linear conquest we see in Joshua, here we have a spiral, and it is a downward spiral. A deliverer is raised up, the people have rest, the deliverer dies, and the people rush headlong back into their sin, each time behaving more corruptly than their fathers had done (Judg. 2:19). This passage marks one of those crucial turning points. Gideon, the mighty man of valor, the one called Jerubbaal, "Let Baal contend," is now off the stage. And as soon as the curtain falls on his life, the people of Israel demonstrate that their hearts were never really weaned from the idols of the land. This section shows us the tragic instability of man, the consequences of compromised leadership, and the persistent, covenant-breaking whoredom of a people who forget their God. It is a grim picture, but one that ought to make us run to the true and better Judge, the Lord Jesus, who secures His people in a way no earthly deliverer ever could.

Outline

The Death and Burial of Gideon

29 Then Jerubbaal the son of Joash went and lived in his own house.

The use of the name Jerubbaal here is significant. This was the name given to him after he tore down his father's altar to Baal. It was his reformation name, a name of godly defiance. And yet, after the great victory over Midian, he retires. He goes back to his own house. On the one hand, this is what you do after a war. You go home. He had refused the crown (v. 23), declaring that Yahweh would rule over them. That was a good and pious answer. But leadership is not something you can simply walk away from. The peace he secured was real, but his disengagement from public life, coupled with the compromises we are about to see, created a vacuum. Nature abhors a vacuum, and so does politics. When godly leadership goes home and shuts the door, ungodly leadership is already looking for a way to pick the lock.

30 Now Gideon had seventy sons who were his direct descendants, for he had many wives.

Here is the first crack in the foundation. Gideon rightly says "the LORD will rule over you," but he lives like a king. In the ancient world, a large harem was a sign of royal status, power, and wealth. Think of Solomon. This was an oriental monarch's way of projecting strength and securing alliances. Deuteronomy 17 strictly warns the future kings of Israel not to "multiply wives for himself, lest his heart turn away." Gideon refused the title of king but took to himself the trappings of a king. This is a classic example of wanting to have your cake and eat it too. He wants the piety of refusing the throne, but also the prestige and pleasure of a royal household. This kind of compromise always bears fruit, and in this case, it bears seventy sons, setting the stage for a bloody succession crisis that will erupt in the next chapter.

31 And his concubine who was in Shechem also bore him a son, and he named him Abimelech.

This is not just an incidental detail; it is the seed of the next cycle of oppression. A concubine was a wife of secondary status, but a wife nonetheless. This one is in Shechem, a city with a dark, Canaanite past and a syncretistic present. And the name he gives this son is tragically ironic. Abimelech means "my father is king." The man who said, "I will not rule over you," names his son "My-Father-is-King." What are we to make of this? At best, it is a profound inconsistency. At worst, it is a quiet, simmering ambition that he piously denied in public but privately entertained in his own heart and home. This is the son who will rise up and bring havoc upon Israel. Sin, especially the sin of compromised leaders, is never merely a private affair. It plants seeds that grow into forests of public misery.

32 Then Gideon the son of Joash died at a good old age and was buried in the tomb of his father Joash, in Ophrah of the Abiezrites.

From a worldly perspective, Gideon finished well. He died old, honored, and was buried with his fathers. He had brought forty years of peace to the land. By all external measures, his was a successful life. The author of Hebrews lists him in the hall of faith (Heb. 11:32). And so he was a man of faith. But the Bible is relentlessly honest about its heroes. Gideon's faith was real, but it was flawed. His life ended in peace, but the compromises he made during that peace would ensure that the peace died with him. This is a solemn warning. It is possible to fight great battles for the Lord and win, only to sow the seeds of future apostasy through domestic unfaithfulness and personal compromise.

33 Then it happened, as soon as Gideon was dead, that the sons of Israel turned back and played the harlot with the Baals and made Baal-berith their god.

Notice the immediacy: "as soon as Gideon was dead." The restraining influence was gone, and the people did not walk, they ran, back to their idols. The language used is potent. They "played the harlot." Idolatry is not an intellectual mistake; it is spiritual adultery. It is a violation of the covenant relationship that God had established with Israel, a relationship often described in marital terms. They left their true husband, Yahweh, and went chasing after other lovers. And they don't just go back to the generic Baals; they set up a specific one, Baal-berith, which means "Lord of the Covenant." This is blasphemy of the highest order. They are taking the very concept of covenant, which was the heart of their relationship with Yahweh, and applying it to a false god. They are making a covenant with Baal. This is not just syncretism; it is a formal, public rejection of the God who saved them.

34 Thus the sons of Israel did not remember Yahweh their God, who had delivered them from the hands of all their enemies on every side;

At the root of all apostasy is forgetfulness. Not a simple mental lapse, like forgetting where you put your keys, but a willful, culpable amnesia. They did not remember. The central command of Israel's faith was to remember, remember the Exodus, remember the covenant, remember God's mighty acts. And here, they forget the most recent and dramatic deliverance. God had rescued them from the Midianites who were like locusts for multitude. He had done it with just 300 men. It was an unforgettable miracle, and yet, they managed to forget it. To forget God's deliverance is to forget God Himself. And when you forget who God is and what He has done, you will inevitably turn to other, lesser things to give you security and meaning.

35 nor did they show lovingkindness to the household of Jerubbaal (that is, Gideon) in accord with all the good that he had done to Israel.

Their vertical infidelity (forgetting God) is immediately matched by their horizontal infidelity (betraying Gideon's family). The word for "lovingkindness" here is hesed, a rich covenantal term implying loyalty, faithfulness, and steadfast love. They failed to show hesed to Gideon's house, just as they had abandoned their hesed to God. Ingratitude to man is a sure sign of ingratitude to God. They had received forty years of peace because of Gideon's leadership, and their response was to turn on his family. This sets the stage for the bloody story of Abimelech in the next chapter, where the people of Shechem will finance Abimelech's slaughter of Gideon's seventy sons. An ungrateful people is a cruel people. A people who forget God's goodness will not remember man's.

Application

This passage is a stark portrait of the human heart apart from regenerating grace. It is fickle, prone to wander, and deeply ungrateful. Gideon was a great man, a man of faith, but he was still just a man. He could deliver Israel from the Midianites, but he could not deliver Israel from themselves. No human leader can.

The peace that depends on one man's charisma or strength is a fragile peace. As soon as that man is in the grave, the apostasy begins. This is why our hope cannot be in Gideons, or Davids, or any political savior. Our hope must be in the one who does not die, the Lord Jesus Christ. His reign is not for forty years, but forever. He not only delivers us from our external enemies, but He changes our hearts from within by His Spirit, writing His law there, so that we will not forget Him.

We must also take heed of the danger of compromise. Gideon fought the public battles well but stumbled in his own household. He refused the crown but lived like a king, and named his son "My-Father-is-King." We cannot fight for reformation in the public square while tolerating idolatry and worldliness in our own homes. The seeds of public apostasy are often sown in the private compromises of God's people. Let us therefore be diligent to walk in integrity, remembering the Lord our God, who has delivered us from a far greater enemy than Midian, and let us show covenant faithfulness, hesed, to Him and to one another, for His great name's sake.