Juízes 8

ARC · Chapter 8/21

¹Então os homens d'Ephraim lhes disseram: Que é isto que nos fizeste, que não nos chamas te, quando foste pelejar contra os midianitas? E contenderam com elle fortemente.

²Porém elle lhes disse: Que mais fiz eu agora do que vós? não são porventura os rabiscos d'Ephraim melhores do que a vindima d'Abiezer?

³Deus vos deu na vossa mão aos principes dos midianitas, Oreb e Zeeb; que mais pude eu logo fazer do que vós? então a sua ira se abrandou para com elle, quando fallou esta palavra.

⁴E, como Gideon veiu ao Jordão, passou com os trezentos homens que com elle estavam, já cançados, mas ainda perseguindo.

⁵E disse aos homens de Succoth: Dae, peço-vos, alguns pedaços de pão ao povo, que segue as minhas pisadas: porque estão cançados, e eu vou em alcance de Zebah e Salmuna, reis dos midianitas.

⁶Porém os principes de Succoth disseram: Está já a palma da mão de Zebah e Salmuna na tua mão, para que demos pão ao teu exercito?

⁷Então disse Gideon: Pois quando o Senhor dér na minha mão a Zebah e a Salmuna, trilharei a vossa carne com os espinhos do deserto, e com os abrolhos.

⁸E d'ali subiu a Penuel, e fallou-lhes da mesma maneira: e os homens de Penuel lhe responderam como os homens de Succoth lhe haviam respondido.

⁹Pelo que tambem fallou aos homens de Penuel, dizendo: Quando eu voltar em paz, derribarei esta torre.

¹⁰Estavam pois Zebah e Salmuna em Carcor, e os seus exercitos com elles, uns quinze mil homens, todos os que ficavam do exercito dos filhos do oriente: e os que cairam foram cento e vinte mil homens, que arrancavam a espada.

¹¹E subiu Gideon pelo caminho dos que habitavam em tendas, para o oriente de Nobah e Jogbehah: e feriu aquelle exercito, porquanto o exercito estava descuidado.

¹²E fugiram Zebah e Salmuna; porém elle os perseguiu, e tomou presos a ambos os reis dos midianitas a Zebah e a Salmuna, e afugentou a todo o exercito.

¹³Voltando pois Gideon, filho de Joás, da peleja, antes do nascer do sol,

¹⁴Tomou preso a um moço dos homens de Succoth, e lhe fez perguntas: o qual descreveu os principes de Succoth, e os seus anciãos, setenta e sete homens.

¹⁵Então veiu aos homens de Succoth, e disse: Vedes aqui a Zebah e a Salmuna, dos quaes desprezivelmente me deitastes em rosto, dizendo: Está já a palma da mão de Zebah e Salmuna na tua mão, para que dêmos pão aos teus homens, já cançados?

¹⁶E tomou os anciãos d'aquella cidade, e os espinhos do deserto, e os abrolhos: e com elles ensinou aos homens de Succoth.

¹⁷E derribou a torre de Penuel, e matou os homens da cidade.

¹⁸Depois disse a Zebah e a Salmuna: Que homens eram os que matastes em Tabor? E disseram: Qual tu, taes eram elles; cada um ao parecer, como filhos d'um rei.

¹⁹Então disse elle: Meus irmãos eram, filhos de minha mãe: vive o Senhor, que, se os tivesseis deixado em vida, eu não vos mataria a vós

²⁰E disse a Jether, seu primogenito: Levanta-te, mata-os. Porém o mancebo não arrancou da sua espada, porque temia; porquanto ainda era mancebo.

²¹Então disseram Zebah e Salmuna: Levanta-te tu, e accommette-nos; porque, qual o homem, tal a sua valentia. Levantou-se pois Gideon, e matou a Zebah e a Salmuna, e tomou as lunetas, que estavam aos pescoços dos seus camelos.

²²Então os homens de Israel disseram a Gideon: Domina sobre nós, tanto tu, como teu filho e o filho de teu filho: porquanto nos livraste da mão dos midianitas.

²³Porém Gideon lhes disse: Sobre vós eu não dominarei, nem tão pouco meu filho sobre vós dominará: o Senhor sobre vós dominará.

²⁴E disse-lhes mais Gideon: Uma petição vos farei: dae-me cada um de vós os pendentes do seu despojo (porque tinham pendentes de oiro, porquanto eram ishmaelitas).

²⁵E disseram elles: De boamente os daremos. E estenderam uma capa, e cada um d'elles deitou ali um pendente do seu despojo.

²⁶E foi o pezo dos pendentes d'oiro, que pediu, mil e setecentos siclos d'oiro, afóra as lunetas, e as cadeias, e os vestidos de purpura, que traziam os reis dos midianitas, e afóra as colleiras que os camelos traziam ao pescoço.

²⁷E fez Gideon d'elle um ephod, e pôl-o na sua cidade, em Ophra; e todo o Israel fornicou ali após d'elle: e foi por tropeço a Gideon e á sua casa.

²⁸Assim foram abatidos os midianitas diante dos filhos d'Israel, e nunca mais levantaram a sua cabeça: e socegou a terra quarenta annos nos dias de Gideon.

²⁹E foi-se Jerubbaal, filho de Joás, e habitou em sua casa.

³⁰E teve Gideon setenta filhos, que procederam da sua côxa: porque tinha muitas mulheres.

³¹E sua concubina, que estava em Sichem, lhe pariu tambem um filho: e poz-lhe por nome Abimelech.

³²E falleceu Gideon, filho de Joás, n'uma boa velhice: e foi sepultado no sepulchro de seu pae Joás, em Ophra dos abi-ezritas.

³³E succedeu que, como Gideon falleceu, os filhos d'Israel se tornaram, e fornicaram após dos baalins: e pozeram a Baal-berith por deus.

³⁴E os filhos d'Israel se não lembraram do Senhor seu Deus, que os livrara da mão de todos os seus inimigos em redor.

³⁵Nem usaram de beneficencia com a casa de Jerubbaal, a saber, de Gideon, conforme a todo o bem que elle usara com Israel.

📖 Chapter study

Summary

Gideon pursues and captures the Midianite kings Zebah and Zalmunna, punishes the towns that refused to help him, and refuses to become king, but later makes an ephod that becomes an object of idolatry.

Explanation

Gideon handles, with skillful diplomacy, the tribe of Ephraim's complaint about not having been called to battle, avoiding an unnecessary internal conflict right after the great victory. His refusal to become a hereditary king ('the Lord will rule over you,' v.23) reflects the theocratic ideal of Israel at this period, in which only God was to be recognized as supreme king. Yet the end of the chapter reveals a troubling contradiction: the same Gideon who refused the throne made an ephod (a priestly garment) from the gold of the plunder, which 'all Israel prostituted themselves by worshiping' — showing how even well-intentioned leaders can plant the seeds of idolatry without realizing the lasting impact of their actions.

Fun facts

The 'ephod' Gideon made was not necessarily a simple priestly garment, but possibly a cult object used for oracular consultation, which explains why it became a center of idolatry.
Gideon had seventy sons by several wives, a number that would ironically repeat itself tragically in the following chapter when nearly all of them are murdered by his half-brother Abimelech.

Verse-by-verse explanation

Juízes 8:1The men of Ephraim complain to Gideon for not being called from the start of the war against the Midianites, and they argue sharply with him.
Juízes 8:2Gideon calms them with diplomacy, saying that Ephraim’s part, capturing and killing the Midianite princes at the end, was worth more than his own entire campaign from the start.
Juízes 8:3Gideon reminds them that it was God who delivered the princes Oreb and Zeeb into Ephraim’s hand, and this gentle answer calms the Ephraimites’ anger.
Juízes 8:4Gideon comes to the Jordan and crosses over with the three hundred men, all of them worn out from the chase but still pressing on after the enemy.
Juízes 8:5Gideon asks the men of Succoth for bread to feed his exhausted army, explaining that he is still pursuing the Midianite kings Zebah and Zalmunna.
Juízes 8:6The leaders of Succoth refuse to help, saying with contempt that Gideon has not even captured the two kings yet, so they will not give bread to his army.
Juízes 8:7Gideon vows to come back and tear the flesh of the men of Succoth with the thorns and briers of the wilderness, once he has captured the two Midianite kings.
Juízes 8:8Gideon goes up to Penuel and makes the same request, receiving the same refusal from the men there.
Juízes 8:9To Penuel, Gideon promises that he will tear down the city’s tower when he returns victorious, a threat similar to the one he made at Succoth.
Juízes 8:10The Midianite kings Zebah and Zalmunna are at Karkor with what is left of their army, about fifteen thousand men, since a hundred and twenty thousand had already fallen in the earlier battle.
Juízes 8:11Gideon attacks by the route of those who dwell in tents, east of Nobah and Jogbehah, catching the enemy army off guard, since it no longer expected another attack.
Juízes 8:12Zebah and Zalmunna flee, but Gideon pursues them, captures the two Midianite kings, and scatters what remains of their entire army.
Juízes 8:13Gideon returns from battle before sunrise, the mission of pursuit already accomplished.
Juízes 8:14Along the way he catches a young man of Succoth and forces him to write down the names of the city’s seventy-seven leaders and elders.
Juízes 8:15Gideon confronts the men of Succoth, showing them the captured kings, throwing back at them the very taunt they had used before refusing him bread.
Juízes 8:16Gideon takes the elders of the city and tears their flesh with the thorns and briers of the wilderness, carrying out the threat he had made earlier.
Juízes 8:17He also tears down the tower of Penuel and kills the men of the city, carrying out the second threat made during the pursuit.
Juízes 8:18Gideon asks Zebah and Zalmunna about some men they had killed at mount Tabor, and the kings answer that they looked like the sons of a king, so noble was their bearing.
Juízes 8:19Gideon reveals that the men killed at Tabor were his own brothers, sons of his mother, and says that if they had spared his brothers’ lives, he would spare theirs now.
Juízes 8:20Gideon orders his eldest son, Jether, to kill the two kings, but the boy hesitates and does not draw his sword, still too young for the act.
Juízes 8:21The Midianite kings themselves ask Gideon to kill them, since they would rather die by a grown man’s hand; Gideon kills them and takes the crescent ornaments that were on the necks of their camels.
Juízes 8:22After the victory, the men of Israel ask Gideon to rule over them, along with his son and his grandson, as a reward for delivering them from the Midianites.
Juízes 8:23Gideon refuses to become a hereditary king, saying that only the Lord should rule over Israel, a stance that contrasts sharply with what his son Abimelech will later try to seize by force.
Juízes 8:24Gideon then makes a different request: that each man give him the gold earrings taken as spoil from the Midianites, since that people, being Ishmaelites, wore ornaments of gold.
Juízes 8:25The people gladly agree, spread a garment on the ground, and each man throws in it the gold earring he had taken in the war.
Juízes 8:26The gold collected weighs seventeen hundred shekels, not counting the crescent ornaments, pendants, purple garments worn by the Midianite kings, and the chains around the camels’ necks.
Juízes 8:27The golden ephod that Gideon has made from the spoils of war becomes, without the text ever explaining exactly how, an object of worship that leads the people astray, including Gideon’s own family, away from the path he had helped open.
Juízes 8:28With this defeat, the Midianites are humbled before Israel and never recover; the land has rest for forty years during Gideon’s lifetime.
Juízes 8:29After all this, Gideon (here called Jerubbaal) goes back to live in his own house, taking on no title of king.
Juízes 8:30Gideon has seventy sons, because he had many wives, a detail that already sets up the violent struggle for power in the next chapter.
Juízes 8:31Gideon’s concubine in Shechem gives birth to Abimelech, whose name suggests ambition to reign. It is a sign, even at birth, of what will drive him to kill his own half-brothers in the next chapter.
Juízes 8:32Gideon dies in a good old age and is buried in the tomb of his father Joash, in Ophrah.
Juízes 8:33As soon as Gideon dies, Israel again turns corrupt after the Baalim, now specifically adopting Baal-berith as their god.
Juízes 8:34The people forget the Lord, who had delivered them from all their enemies on every side, repeating the same old pattern of ingratitude.
Juízes 8:35Israel also fails to show kindness to the family of Jerubbaal, that is, of Gideon, despite all the good he had done for the people. This ingratitude explains much of the violence Abimelech will commit in the very next chapter.