GIDEON revenged himself on Succoth and Penuel for trying to play both sides. The elders of Succoth had to endure a public flogging, but those of Penuel were slain. He also slew the captive Midianite kings Zebah and Zalmunna; and after heaping all their golden ornaments and jewellery into a pile, melted it down to make a figurine,* a trophy of victory for his hometown Ophrah of the Abi-ezrites, near Shechem, where it became something of a tourist attraction.
The tribes of Israel begged Gideon to become their king, but he refused. He settled down in Ophrah, enjoying forty years of peace with seventy children by many wives. But that golden figurine was an error of judgment: for the Israelites began to worship it, and soon after Gideon died they were making idols of strange gods once again. His children, too, began to vie bitterly for rule over Israel, and not long afterwards Israel was overrun by Philistia.
The Hebrew word here is ‘ephod’. It is used for one of the vestments worn by the High Priest of the Temple in Jerusalem, but it is also used (and sometimes so translated in the Authorised Version) to mean ‘image’, especially a portable one. See the entry at the Jewish Encyclopaedia (1906). Gideon’s ephod weighed 1,700 shekels or about 53lb.