Judges 8:24-27 And Gideon said to them, I would desire a request of you, that you would give me every man the earrings of his prey… I. ORIGINATING IN MOTIVES FOR THE MOST PART NOBLE AND HONOURABLE. (1) Desirous of a national testimony to God's gracious deliverance, and a commemoration of it to future ages, he (2) persuades the Israelites to make a national offering, and (3) increases the means of grace in his own district. II. REFLECTING THE DEFECTS OF HIS CHARACTER AND BETRAYING ITS LATENT VICE. In his zeal for the religious reformation of Israel he did not sufficiently consider the bearings of the step he had taken. It was a hasty and crude expedient, from which greater experience or sage advice, or, above all, God's Spirit, would have saved him. And therein lay the root of the mischief. He relied on his own wisdom, and forgot to ask God's guidance. In getting to look upon himself as in a special sense the re-introducer of the Jehovah-worship, and the exponent of the mind of Jehovah, he forgot that it was only as he was taught of God that he could be preserved from error. Of all inventions, religious ones are to be most carefully scrutinised. And in the background of this assumption there lay a secret tendency to self-esteem because of his spiritual endowments and character, and the great achievements of the past. Pride because of his own humility - is it not a failing that many have shared? By this mistake he sowed the seeds of grave evils: schism, superstition, hero-worship. But - III. THE SUBSTANTIAL GOOD DONE WAS NOT WHOLLY DESTROYED, Whilst he lived - a quiet, steadfast, righteous life - the people observed the true worship of Jehovah. His own example was a guide and a deterrent. And when at his death superstition ran riot, and the old licentious idolatry flowed back in an obliterating wave over the land and the institutions of Jehovah's worship, there were some things that could not be destroyed, remaining as germ ideas in the spiritual consciousness of Israel - the immediate obligation of the moral law upon every one, the direct responsibility of every one to God, and faith in the personal help of Jehovah. (1) God superintends the development of his truth, and (2) restrains the evil that mingles with the good in men's works. - M. Parallel Verses KJV: And Gideon said unto them, I would desire a request of you, that ye would give me every man the earrings of his prey. (For they had golden earrings, because they were Ishmaelites.) |
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