The Israelites wanted to make Gideon their ruler after he killed the two kings of Midian (incidentally Moses father-in-law was a priest of Midian). Gideon tells them that he will not be their ruler, that the Lord will rule over them. Yet Gideon makes a golden ephod from the plunder that had been taken from the Midianites. This ephod is usually something worn by the priest. Another definition of the word ephod is image. This ephod or image was placed in Gideon's town and all Israel worshiped the golden ephod. Now this sounds as if Gideon wanted a lasting monument to himself, and not something to honor God.

It gets a little confusing with the two different names, Gideon and Jerub-Baal. Can you believe he had seventy sons??? And even more astounding that one of those sons, the son of a concubine, would kill all seventy of them, save for Jotham. Was Jotham another son of the concubine? Seems like the math doesn't work here with the seventy.

Lots of lessons to be learned from Gideon. As we are faithful to God, He will give us more responsibility. God expands and uses the abilities He has already built into us. God uses us in spite of our limitations and failures. We can easily fall into sin if we are not consistently following God.

Great lessons for us today, wouldn't you say???