Gideon Finished as Weak as He Started Unfortunately
[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.
Well, I did the math on those gold earrings.
18,700 kilos of gold at
$47,960 per kilo (at yesterday’s rate) equals
$896,852,000 at today’s exchange.
I know that gold was worth different amounts back then blah blah blah, but that was A TON OF GOLD!
Did Gideon fall into idolatry because he got so rich, or did he become so rich because he fell into idolatry? Who knows?
It was a bummer that the “Mighty Warrior” ended his service to the Lord like that.
This is where we leave the book of Judges. Let it be a cautionary tale to us for mixing in and compromising our worldview and our faith.
Over the next 7 weeks, we are going to focus on making Jesus the center of our worldview. He will (if He isn’t already) the focal point of what we believe about life’s most important questions.
Share the email signup with a friend, share the posts on Facebook. We can build ourselves golden ephods or we can build the kingdom of God. God’s cheering us on for His kingdom.
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