Judges 8:29-35--The Death of Gideon

Judges 8:29-35
English Standard Version

The Death of Gideon
29 Jerubbaal the son of Joash went and lived in his own house. 30 Now Gideon had seventy sons, his own offspring, for he had many wives. 31 And his concubine who was in Shechem also bore him a son, and he called his name Abimelech. 32 And Gideon the son of Joash died in a good old age and was buried in the tomb of Joash his father, at Ophrah of the Abiezrites.

​33 As soon as Gideon died, the people of Israel turned again and whored after the Baals and made Baal-berith their god. 34 And the people of Israel did not remember the LORD their God, who had delivered them from the hand of all their enemies on every side, 35 and they did not show steadfast love to the family of Jerubbaal (that is, Gideon) in return for all the good that he had done to Israel.

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This is the end of the story of Gideon, the "middle" judge in the book of Judges.  He was the one that transitioned us from the "good" judges that came before him to the "bad" judges that will come after him.  He was known for being one who contended against the Baals and kept the people from worshiping these idols while he was alive (that is why he was called Jerubbaal here), however, I would not say that Gideon was an example to follow as he we see that he had 70 sons (not including daughters he may have had) by many wives and concubines.  This was never the LORD's will for marriage as it was always to be a lifetime covenant between one man and one woman that would reflect the nature of the LORD's covenant with His people (now the Church).

Gideon would have a son by one of his concubines named Abimelech (you may recognize that name for the book of Genesis as this is the name of the king of the Philistines there, but this Abimelech has no relation to the Philistines as far as the text tells us).  Abimelech is mentioned here as he is the main character in the next passage of Scripture we will study together.

So, Gideon, the son of Joash died at "a good old age," meaning that the LORD blessed him with many years of life according to the blessings of the Law for obedience (even though we see that he was not obedient in every part of the Law, the LORD still extended grace to him because he kept the LORD's people from idolatry).  He was buried in the tomb of his father in his home town of Ophrah of the Abiezrites (The descendants of Abiezer, the son of Gilead, a small clan among the tribe of Manasseh).

As we discussed last time, the people obeyed out of fear of punishment, but their hearts were not changed, so as soon as Gideon died, they went back to their idolatry (which had never stopped in their hearts, they were just afraid to build their idols and high places in front of Gideon).  They did not remember the LORD God who brought them up out of the land of Egypt and delivered them to this Promised Land, nor did they show kindness to the family of Gideon by remembering all the good he had done for Israel.  No, they instead started to immediately whore after the gods and goddesses of the Canaanites and other pagan peoples that lived among them and around them that they failed to drive out of the Land and that they had "coexisted" with so long that they had started to become just like them.  In fact we will see the treachery of the people as we look at chapter 9 next time.