Judges 8

Judges 8:26

Augustine of Hippo: He often wonders what the efud or efod was. If it was a priestly garment, as many say, or rather a kind of shelter, which in Greek is called epénduma or epomís, and that in Latin is usually translated by superhumeral (superhumerale) and then the question arises spontaneously why Gideon did with such amount of gold. The text reads as follows: The weight of the gold earrings that she had ordered was one thousand seven hundred shekels of gold, not counting the bracelets, the necklaces, and the purple dresses worn by the kings of Midian; not counting the necklaces that had their camels around their necks. And Gideon made him an efud and raised him up in his city, in Ofra. And all Israel fornicated there after him and became a scandal for Gideon and his house. How could you make a dress with so much gold? Samuel’s mother also made for her son, as we know, an ephod bar, which some have translated as “a linen ephod,” when he consecrated his son to the Lord to be raised in the temple (Cf 1R 2,18). In this case it appears more clearly that it was a kind of dress. Or does it say: He raised him in his city, so that we can get the conclusion that it was made of gold? Because the text does not say: “He put it on”, but he did raise it, because it was so solid and so strong that it could be lifted, that is, standing up. When Gideon did this forbidden thing, all Israel fornicated after him, following him against the law of God. When we get here we can rightly ask why the Scripture calls fornication to what the people did, following and venerating this object, since it was not an idol, that is, the image of a false and foreign god, but an ephod, it is say, one of the sacred things of the tabernacle related to the priestly dress. And the answer is that precisely because it was outside the tabernacle, where these things that God had commanded were made there, it was not lawful for anything like that to be done out there. That is why the Scripture continues saying: And it became a scandal for Gideon and his house. That is, to turn away from God, who was offended, because that too was in some way a kind of idol, since it would be venerated as a god outside the tabernacle of God, any object made by hand, when those same things that they were ordered to do in the tabernacle should refer rather to the worship of God than to consider those objects as god or that it was considered that they had to be worshiped as the image of God. For the rest, if we take the rhetorical phrase by which the whole is affirmed by the part, by efud or efod all the things that Gideon did in his city similar to the tabernacle of God to worship God could be understood. And precisely because the ephod is a hallmark of priestly dignity, often reminiscent of Scripture (Cf Exodus 28,2), it follows that Gideon’s sin consisted of something similar to God’s worship being done outside the tabernacle of God. Not because Gideon had made an ephod of pure gold with the intention of being worshiped, but because of the gold from the booty he made things that belonged to the ornaments or instruments of the sanctuary, all things signified by the ephod, by dignity, as I said , of the priestly dress. For the ephod itself was not commanded to be made of pure gold, if the ephod is the superhumeral of the priestly dress, though it bears also some gold. God commanded him to make gold, and hyacinth, and purple, and scarlet, and fine linen. But the Seventy put all this so that, remembering all the things that Gideon had received from the spoils, they would conclude: And Gideon made him an ephod. And so, it seems as if they wanted to say that the ephod was made with everything that alluded to before, when it could also be interpreted that there is given the rhetorical figure of taking the part for the whole. And then, the phrase: He made it an ephod, he would say: “he made an ephod with it” or “he made it an ephod”, not using all that material in the ephod, but using only what he needed. The translation done on the Hebrew says thus: And Gideon made an ephod with it. The word used by the Seventy is “efud.” The Hebrew text calls it “ephod.” But not all the priests used a superhumeral of this kind, made of gold and of hyacinth and purple and scarlet and fine linen, but only the high priest. Therefore, that dress that he made to Samuel his mother, as we said before, was not like this, because, obviously, Samuel was not a high priest when his mother gave him up to be raised as a child. That is why it was called efud bar, as we said, or better, efud bat, as those who know Hebrew say, and which is translated by efud of linen. I believe that Gideon did what was the garment and principal ornament of the high priest by means of which the other works of the sanctuary, which Gideon had done in his city outside the tabernacle of God, were also signified. For this sin, that ephod became for him and his house a reason for scandal, so that they died-as the Scripture says-as many children as he had. — QUESTIONS ON JUDGES, Q. 41 (tr. J. Litteral, draft)

Judges 8:27

Augustine of Hippo: We can not ignore the question of how the territory was peaceful for forty years in Gideon’s time, when after the victory with which he freed the Hebrews, he made the gold of the booty the abomination and all Israel prostituted himself after it and It was a scandal for him and his house. We want to know, therefore, how after a great sin, committed by Gideon and the people, he enjoyed the territory of forty years of peace, when Scripture usually shows that if the people prostitute themselves away from the Lord God, then the People tend to lose peace, not get it, and it is usually defeated by enemies, not protected from attack. The answer is that Scripture, as it usually does, says by prolepsis, that is, in advance, that Gideon made the ephod against the law of God with the gold he had snatched from enemies defeated and humiliated, because the Scripture prefers to say a single place where the gold came from and what was done with it. But this sin happened later, at the end of the days of Gideon, when they also followed the evils that later discover the Scripture, after remembering the years of peace that the territory had enjoyed in the time of Gideon, and those years he mentions them by recapitulation that is, going back to the order that he had abandoned earlier when he spoke about the scandal that had taken place at the last moment. — QUESTIONS ON JUDGES, Q. 42 (tr. J. Litteral, draft)

Judges 8:33

Augustine of Hippo: And it came to pass that, after the death of Gideon, the children of Israel separated themselves and played the harlot after the Baals, and established Baalberith for themselves as an alliance for him to be their god. It must be assumed that both the Baals and Baalberit were idols. After the death of Gideon, the people committed a transgression and a fornication greater than he had committed when he lived for the ephod, because although the ephod had been made unlawfully, however it was something pertaining to the sacred things of the tabernacle. On the other hand, this fornication after idols does not even have the false defense of the father’s religion. Therefore, even if that ephod was not made until the end of Gideon’s time, but had been done before, God endured it with such patience that He allowed there to be peace in the territory. For though they had done what he had forbidden, yet the people to whom he had commanded that such a thing be done in his tabernacle and for his honor had not been far from him. Now, however, God did not want to leave without punishment more serious sins and a very clear fornication of the people after the idols. — QUESTIONS ON JUDGES, Q. 43 (tr. J. Litteral, draft)