The Enemy Within | Judges 8:1-28

Intro

Three conspiracy theorists walk into a bar. You can’t tell me that’s a coincidence!
In recent years, I’ve called myself an involuntary conspiracy theorist. I don’t want to be a conspiracy theorist. I don’t think it’s healthy for a person (or a nation) to live in skepticism and suspicion.

But then all these crazy conspiracy theories keep coming true. Maybe you’ve seen the meme that says, “Anyone have any new conspiracy theories? Mine have all come true.”

A pastor named Michael Foster recently posted this wise insight:

In many ways, the institutional failures and cover-ups of the last decade have broken people as much as they have woken them up.

People discovered that large-scale, unprecedented events like “the pandemic” could happen to them. They realized that individuals they once trusted—whether pastors, employers, or doctors—knowingly went along with a lie and gaslighted anyone who questioned the veracity of their claims. In retrospect, they realized they had buried their heads in the sand, but not anymore.  

Now, they know better than to trust power brokers and institutions, and they've developed an eye for patterns they once ignored. To a large extent, this is a positive development. There are wicked people with malicious intentions in high places, and they often collude and conspire with others like them. This has been true throughout history and remains true today. We need to have our eyes open and keep watch so that these sorts of people don’t succeed. 

That being said, not everything is directly connected, and we mustn’t attribute god-like sovereign power to our governments. For example, it’s quite a jump from we’ve been able to manipulate aspects of the weather to “they” are creating and aiming hurricanes at political targets. … 

We’ve allowed the propaganda machine to break us to the extent that we treat numerous outlandish claims as plausible and scoff at anyone who pushes back as a head-in-the-sand normie. 

We must take the advice found in the first line of Kipling’s poem If. He wrote, “If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you.” That’s exactly where we are right now. We need cool, calm thinkers. We need people who won’t let the false media, from wherever it comes, manipulate and distract them from the work right in front of them.

How do you keep your head when all about you are losing theirs? There’s a lot of crazy stuff going on in the world, and it’s easy to become preoccupied with external circumstances like the economy, illegal immigration, or foreign policy. It’s easy to get distracted and confused trying to untangle the latest conspiracy theory or worrying about every evil cabal: Blackrock, George Soros, or Klaus Schwab and the World Economic Forum; the deep state; the mainstream media; big pharma, big tech, and big food.

Judges 8 is a timely and sobering reminder that the sine qua non in life is keeping your own spiritual integrity. 

Judges 8:1–28

1 Then the men of Ephraim said to him, “What is this that you have done to us, not to call us when you went to fight against Midian?” And they accused him fiercely. 2 And he said to them, “What have I done now in comparison with you? Is not the gleaning of the grapes of Ephraim better than the grape harvest of Abiezer? 3 God has given into your hands the princes of Midian, Oreb and Zeeb. What have I been able to do in comparison with you?” Then their anger against him subsided when he said this. 4 And Gideon came to the Jordan and crossed over, he and the 300 men who were with him, exhausted yet pursuing. 5 So he said to the men of Succoth, “Please give loaves of bread to the people who follow me, for they are exhausted, and I am pursuing after Zebah and Zalmunna, the kings of Midian.” 6 And the officials of Succoth said, “Are the hands of Zebah and Zalmunna already in your hand, that we should give bread to your army?” 7 So Gideon said, “Well then, when the Lord has given Zebah and Zalmunna into my hand, I will flail your flesh with the thorns of the wilderness and with briers.” 8 And from there he went up to Penuel, and spoke to them in the same way, and the men of Penuel answered him as the men of Succoth had answered. 9 And he said to the men of Penuel, “When I come again in peace, I will break down this tower.” 

10 Now Zebah and Zalmunna were in Karkor with their army, about 15,000 men, all who were left of all the army of the people of the East, for there had fallen 120,000 men who drew the sword. 11 And Gideon went up by the way of the tent dwellers east of Nobah and Jogbehah and attacked the army, for the army felt secure. 12 And Zebah and Zalmunna fled, and he pursued them and captured the two kings of Midian, Zebah and Zalmunna, and he threw all the army into a panic. 

13 Then Gideon the son of Joash returned from the battle by the ascent of Heres. 14 And he captured a young man of Succoth and questioned him. And he wrote down for him the officials and elders of Succoth, seventy-seven men. 15 And he came to the men of Succoth and said, “Behold Zebah and Zalmunna, about whom you taunted me, saying, ‘Are the hands of Zebah and Zalmunna already in your hand, that we should give bread to your men who are exhausted?’ ” 16 And he took the elders of the city, and he took thorns of the wilderness and briers and with them taught the men of Succoth a lesson. 17 And he broke down the tower of Penuel and killed the men of the city. 

18 Then he said to Zebah and Zalmunna, “Where are the men whom you killed at Tabor?” They answered, “As you are, so were they. Every one of them resembled the son of a king.” 19 And he said, “They were my brothers, the sons of my mother. As the Lord lives, if you had saved them alive, I would not kill you.” 20 So he said to Jether his firstborn, “Rise and kill them!” But the young man did not draw his sword, for he was afraid, because he was still a young man. 21 Then Zebah and Zalmunna said, “Rise yourself and fall upon us, for as the man is, so is his strength.” And Gideon arose and killed Zebah and Zalmunna, and he took the crescent ornaments that were on the necks of their camels. 

22 Then the men of Israel said to Gideon, “Rule over us, you and your son and your grandson also, for you have saved us from the hand of Midian.” 23 Gideon said to them, “I will not rule over you, and my son will not rule over you; the Lord will rule over you.” 24 And Gideon said to them, “Let me make a request of you: every one of you give me the earrings from his spoil.” (For they had golden earrings, because they were Ishmaelites.) 25 And they answered, “We will willingly give them.” And they spread a cloak, and every man threw in it the earrings of his spoil. 26 And the weight of the golden earrings that he requested was 1,700 shekels of gold, besides the crescent ornaments and the pendants and the purple garments worn by the kings of Midian, and besides the collars that were around the necks of their camels. 27 And Gideon made an ephod of it and put it in his city, in Ophrah. And all Israel whored after it there, and it became a snare to Gideon and to his family. 

28 So Midian was subdued before the people of Israel, and they raised their heads no more. And the land had rest forty years in the days of Gideon.

The end of Judges 7 would have made a great conclusion to the story of Gideon. The massive Midianite forces were routed. The two commanders of the Midianite army were captured and executed. And this is where we might expect to have heard the now familiar conclusion, “And the land had rest” (Judg 3:11, 3:30; 5:31).

Instead, the conflict continues in Judges 8 on the far side of the Jordan river. Once again, it’s not just the content of the story, but the structure that communicates. The narrator turns from internal conflict within Israel to external conflict with Midian.

• In verses 1–9, there is internal conflict between Gideon and his fellow Israelites.

• In verses 10–12, the conflict is external: Gideon attacks the fleeing Midianites.

• In verses 13–17, we return to internal conflict, as Gideon attacks the Israelite towns that failed to support him.

• In verses 18–21, the conflict is external: Gideon slaughters the Midianite kings.

• And verses 22–28 conclude with internal affairs—the attempted coronation of Gideon as king and ultimately the apostasy and idolatry of Gideon and all Israel.

What stands out in this structure is how the external threat from the Midianites is pushed to the background, while the internal condition of Israel moves to the foreground, occupying the beginning, middle, and end of the story. And as the credits roll, we’re left with a tragic irony: Midian is subdued and the reign of terror is over (8:28), but Israel is immediately ensnared in idolatry again (8:27). A very real problem is resolved, but the deeper, more fundamental problem remains.

In the prior stories, Israel returned to idolatry after the death of the judge. Now it is the very judge raised up by God who led the nation into idolatry. Oh, and verse 28 is the last time the Book of Judges will ever say that the land had rest. The Book of Judges is not deja vu; without repentance, Israel descends deeper into sin. If you think things are bad, just know that more sin will always make it worse.

The conclusion of the Gideon narrative sounds a sobering alarm: The internal spiritual condition of God’s people is more important than external peace and prosperity. The enemy of sin within is a greater threat than any external enemy.

To be clear, this is not to create a false dichotomy, as some people do who imply that the external, the physical and material world doesn’t matter; only the spiritual matters. That’s not it at all!

But there is an ordered connection between the spiritual and the material. The external, physical condition of a people reflects their internal, spiritual condition. What good is it to win an election or fix illegal immigration or improve the economy if the spiritual condition of our own souls or our own homes is in shambles? What does it benefit a man if he gains the world and forfeits his soul?

Here are four lessons from Gideon’s apostasy to help you keep your head when all around you are losing theirs.

Maintain Unity

The first sign of trouble emerges in a series of conflicts between Gideon and his own people. The tribe of Ephraim was offended that they weren’t invited to the initial attack. Verse 1 says, “And they accused him fiercely.” Gideon handled that situation very diplomatically, especially compared to his interactions with the men of Succoth and Penuel.

His conflict with those cities was quite different. While Ephraim wanted to play a bigger role in the fight, the men of Succoth and Penuel wanted to stay out of it. And their hesitancy makes sense. Both cities were located east of the Jordan river, which means they were isolated from the rest of Israel and exposed to attacks from the surrounding nations. They would be the first to suffer a Midianite retaliation.

When Gideon requested food for his exhausted men, the response from these cities was drastically different from the eager response of the tribes west of the Jordan when Gideon called for their help in Judges 7:23–24. Now there is no help from these Israelites and no diplomacy from Gideon. Instead, Gideon is reactive and vindictive. He promises to return to punish his own people, which he does in vv. 14–17.

When we first met Gideon, he was threshing wheat in a winepress, hiding in fear. Now he’s threshing (v. 7) the backs of his countrymen with thorns and briers.

God’s first assignment to Gideon was to break down his father’s altar to Baal (Judg 6:28). Operating without divine direction, Gideon broke down the defensive tower of an Israelite city and slaughtered its men (8:17).

Tragically, this is the scene that is structurally at the center of this narrative—not the defeat of the Midianites, but the death of Israelites and the destruction of their cities at Gideon’s hand. And it serves as a sober warning: Disunity, lack of cooperation, and infighting between the people of God is not just distracting, it is ultimately damaging and destructive.

No matter what is going on in the world, no matter what the enemies of God are doing, stay in fellowship with God’s people. Staying in fellowship means being quick to confess your sins and quick to forgive. It means refusing to hear or speak gossip and slander. It means not being contentious and divisive. It means refusing to take it personally when other Christian hold different opinions or prefer different strategies than you do on non-moral issues.

Watch Your Motives

There is a piece of information about Gideon that the narrator has kept from us until a dramatic revelation late in chapter 8. “Then he said to Zebah and Zalmunna, ‘Where are the men whom you killed at Tabor?’ They answered, ‘As you are, so were they. Every one of them resembled the son of a king.’ And he said, ‘They were my brothers, the sons of my mother. As the LORD lives, if you had saved them alive, I would not kill you’” (Judges 8:18–19).

This is a bombshell revelation! Why did Gideon drive his weary band across the Jordan, “exhausted yet pursuing” (8:4)? Why did he react so violently to the men of Succoth and Penuel? It turns out that Gideon was driven by a personal vendetta.

We don’t know anything else about the killings at Mount Tabor, but we can deduce that the Midianites didn’t just devour the produce of the land (6:4), they murdered the people. And Gideon’s own brothers—he calls them “sons of my mother” (v. 19)—were among those murdered by Zebah and Zalmunna.

So Gideon asks, “Where are they?” The question expresses the poignant pain of loss. They’re gone forever. It also suggests the doom of Gideon’s enemies. If they could return Gideon’s brothers, they might live; but that’s impossible.

Zebah and Zalummna respond with a taunt. On the one hand, they flatter Gideon by suggesting he has a royal air about him. But at the same time, they rub it in: Our victims looked just like you. It’s a chilling admission of recognition.

And Gideon swears, “As the LORD lives, if you had saved them alive, I would not kill you” (v. 19). It’s a rather empty vow, a flippant use of God’s name. Since his brothers are dead and he does plan to kill these kings, what point is there in swearing an oath about what he would have done in some hypothetical reality? But Gideon invokes the name of the Lord in support of his own cause. Gideon’s first campaign against Midian was full of the activity of the LORD. The lack of reference to God in this chapter frames this as a personal crusade for revenge.

No matter what is going on in the world, keep a close watch over your heart and your motives. It is easy to engage in righteous causes while being driven by sinful motives like bitterness and resentment, or pride and selfish ambition. Zeal for the glory of God can grow cold if you don’t give daily attention to your heart. It’s also easy to confuse our own agenda for the will of God and get sidetracked from the mission of God. Keep the glory of God your greatest desire by being quick to confess and forsake sinful desires and quick to turn in faith to behold God’s glory in Christ.

Hope in God

Although this episode began with internal disunity, it appears to end with a unified nation. “Then the men of Israel said to Gideon, ‘Rule over us, you and your son and your grandson also, for you have saved us from the hand of Midian’” (Judges 8:22). The people of Israel understandably found Gideon to be a unifying figure and they were ready to make him their king. He delivered them from seven years of Midianite tyranny. He led a band of 300 men to victory against a force of 135,000.

Or did he? Remember why God reduced Gideon’s army from 22,000 men to 300?  “The LORD said to Gideon, ‘The people with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hand, lest Israel boast over me, saying, “My own hand has saved me”’” (Judges 7:2). Israel’s elation at their deliverance from Midian resulted in misplaced hope in Gideon.

As for Gideon, it looks at first like he handles the offer of kingship appropriately. “Gideon said to them, ‘I will not rule over you, and my son will not rule over you; the LORD will rule over you’” (Judges 8:23).

But his actions seem to contradict his verbal rejection of the throne. In v. 24, he asks for all the golden earrings from the spoils—a kind of royal tax. Gideon also kept for himself obvious royal symbols: “the crescent ornaments and the pendants and the purple garments worn by the kings” (v. 26). Then Gideon took it on himself to lead the nation in worship—more on that in a moment—and made his city a kind of capital city (v. 27). Later, we read that had a large harem (v. 30) and that he named one of his sons Abimelech (v. 31), which means “my father is king.”

Would it have been wrong for Gideon to become king? God had promised Abraham, “I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make you into nations, and kings shall come from you” (Genesis 17:6). And through Moses, God gave Israel instructions for appointing a king one day (Deuteronomy 17:14–20). So there is a sense of heightened anticipation in this story. Is this the moment? Is this the one?

However, a closer examination of God’s instructions in Deuteronomy 17 reveals several problems. “When you come to the land that the LORD your God is giving you, and you possess it and dwell in it and then say, ‘I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are around me,’ you may indeed set a king over you whom the LORD your God will choose” (Deuteronomy 17:14–15).  The king was to be chosen by God. In the first part of Gideon’s story, the Lord is mentioned repeatedly. It was the Lord who called, commissioned, reassured, instructed, and ultimately gave the victory. However, there is no indication that God singled out Gideon to be king. Deuteronomy 17 also says that the king “shall not acquire many wives for himself, … nor shall he acquire for himself excessive silver and gold” (Deut 17:17). Gideon did both.

God wills to work in the world through humans. And humans are tempted to place our hope for salvation and security, not in the God who works through men, but in the men through whom God works. Be careful always to set your hope in God and not man. Men will fail you; God never will.

Dale Ralph Davis is helpful: “This shadow of inconsistency and of disappointment frequently hangs over God's servants. Gideon was hardly a rare exception. This is not to excuse the sins or errors of the leaders of God's people. But let it temper our expectations, let it cushion our despair, and let it lift our gaze to the Leader of God's elect, who does not disappoint (cf. 1 Pet. 2:6), in whom is no sin (1 John 3:5), and against whom no charges can be brought (John 8:46). We will never find perfection of office except in our Lord Jesus Christ. Realizing this can save us from cynicism that may come from disappointing servants of Christ.”

No matter what is going on in the world, set your hope in God and not in man.

Worship Rightly

After verbally turning down the kingship, Gideon led Israel into idolatry and false worship.

“And Gideon said to them, “Let me make a request of you: every one of you give me the earrings from his spoil. … And the weight of the golden earrings that he requested was 1,700 shekels of gold …. [That’s 49 pounds of gold, which would be worth over $1.5M today.] And Gideon made an ephod of it and put it in his city, in Ophrah. And all Israel whored after it there, and it became a snare to Gideon and to his family” (Judges 8:24, 26–27).

A couple of weeks ago, Pastor Matt pointed out similarities between Gideon and Moses. Here, however, Gideon sounds an awful lot like Aaron, who fashioned the golden calf out of the gold the Israelites plundered from the Egyptians.

An ephod was a special garment worn by the high priest (Ex 28; cf. Judges 17–18). It was made out of royal materials: blue, purple, and scarlet yarn, fine linen, and gold. Attached to the ephod by twisted chains of pure gold (Ex 28:22) was a breastpiece. The breastpiece had 12 different precious stones on it, each engraved with the name of one of the tribes of Israel. The breastpiece also had a pocket that contained the Urim and Thummim (Ex 28:30), which were objects used to inquire of the Lord and seek a direct decision from God (Num 27:21; 1 Sam 14:41–42, 28:6). 

Gideon’s ephod was most likely meant to be used to seek direction and revelation from God. The easiest kind of idolatry to recognize is the explicit, overt, in-your-face kind: little golden statues of foreign deities, altars and shrines, etc. The more subtle kind of idolatry sneaks in through syncretism, where the idol worship is dressed up with the language and practices and objects of “normal” worship. That’s the kind of idolatry that creeps in at the end of Gideon’s story.

Whether Gideon’s initial motives were good or bad, the text tells us the result. “And all Israel whored after it there, and it became a snare to Gideon and to his family” (Judges 8:27).

The story has come full circle. When we first met Gideon in the city of Ophrah, the Lord commanded him to tear down his father’s altar to Baal and to cut down the Asherah pole next to it (6:25). (The name Gideon means hacker or feller—one who cuts down.) But now the story ends in Ophrah, where Gideon has set up an object of idolatry.

We must always be on guard against idolatry—the obvious kind and the subtle kind. One reason we’re in such a mess as a nation is because the Christian church is so full of syncretism and idolatry. Much of what passes for “worship” is irreverent and untrue.

God has told us how to worship him in Spirit and in truth and we cannot replace God’s Word with our own preferences. God manifests his presence by His Spirit in his Church through his Word and through the Sacraments, and that is enough. No matter what is going on in the world, we must worship God in spirit and in truth.

Conclusion

Gideon leaves us with a warning: it’s possible to gain relief from your enemies and fall into idolatry.

But Gideon’s story also leaves us with hope. The story ends with this assertion: “So Midian was subdued before the people of Israel, and they raised their heads no more. And the land had rest forty years in the days of Gideon” (Judges 8:28). This is the mercy of God. Again and again God saves his sinful people in spite of their unfaithfulness. And he saves them by using sinners with glaring flaws. God is the hero of the story who saves his people for the glory of his name.

And Gideon should increase our affection for and allegiance to Jesus, our faithful King. Can you believe that you live on this side of the arrival of the True King? Like Gideon, Jesus came in weakness and was anointed with power by the Spirit. Like Gideon, he subdued God’s enemies. But unlike Gideon, he never sinned; he never failed to fully trust and obey the Father. He was and will forever be righteous and faithful.

How do you keep your head when all around you are losing theirs? By trusting and treasuring Jesus Christ alone as your Savior and King.