The Fallible · Synthetic · Study Bible
Gideon’s Ephod
Judges 8:22–27 — Gideon’s Ephod. Each verse below carries the full apparatus: the Berean Standard Bible, the vocalized original (tap any word), and a parsed breakdown of every term transcribed from the interlinear. Synthesized commentary, canonical threads, and the reading of Christ gather at the end, over the whole unit.
22Then the Israelites said to Gideon, “Rule over us—you and your son and grandson—for you have saved us from the hand of Midian.”
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
’îš- yiś·rā·’êl way·yō·mə·rū ’el- giḏ·‘ō·wn mə·šāl- bā·nū ’at·tāh gam- bin·ḵā gam gam- ben- bə·ne·ḵā kî hō·wō·ša‘·tā·nū mî·yaḏ miḏ·yān
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“And-they-said man-of-Israel unto Gideon: ‘Rule-thou in-us — also thou, also thy-son, also son-of-thy-son — for thou-hast-saved-us from-hand-of Midian.’”
Where the English smooths the original
Here begins the third great phase of the life of Gideon. which was characterised by his noblest act—the refusal of the kingdom—and his most questionable act—the setting up of a schismatic worship.
were hardly all the twelve tribes, but probably only the northern tribes of the western part of the land already mentioned in Judges 6:35 , who had suffered the most severely from the Midianitish oppression, and had been the first to gather round Gideon to make an attack upon the foe.
The offer of the kingship shews that Gideon’s exploit was more than the avenging of a private wrong ( Jdg 7:4-21 ); he had saved his countrymen; as king it would be his duty to save them still.Cambridge reads the offer as evidence that vv. 22–23 come from a source secondary to the two main documents; the literary judgment is theirs and is contested, but the exegetical observation — that kingship is being offered as ongoing salvation — stands on the text itself.
Gideon refused the government the people offered him. No good man can be pleased with any honour done to himself, which belongs only to God.
23But Gideon replied, “I will not rule over you, nor will my son. The LORD shall rule over you.”
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
giḏ·‘ō·wn way·yō·mer ’ă·lê·hem ’ă·nî lō- ’em·šōl bā·ḵem wə·lō- yim·šōl bə·nî bā·ḵem Yah·weh yim·šōl bā·ḵem
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“And-said Gideon unto-them: ‘I — I-will-not rule in-you, and-not shall-rule my-son in-you; YHWH — he-shall-rule in-you.’”
Where the English smooths the original
But Gideon knew too well, and revered too piously the principles of the theocracy, to entertain the proposal for a moment.
He rejected their offer, because he looked upon God as their king, who appointed what deputy he pleased to govern them; and because he considered this proposal as an effort, or at least as tending to alter that form of government which God had instituted and had given them no authority to change.
Gideon refused the splendid temptation of an hereditary crown, though, in strict accordance with Divine guidance, he was willing to be their judge
These words, then, either mean that Gideon seized the power, but rejected the title, of king; or they represent the view, which apparently came to the front in the closing years of the Northern Kingdom, that earthly kingship was inconsistent with the sovereignty of JehovahCambridge's second option assigns the saying to a late Northern theology rather than to Gideon; that is a critical reconstruction, not a datum of the text. We record it because its first option — power kept, title refused — is a serious moral reading of ch. 9 that the pious commentators never face.
24Then he added, “Let me make a request of you, that each of you give me an earring from his plunder.” (For the enemies had gold earrings because they were Ishmaelites.)
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
giḏ·‘ō·wn way·yō·mer ’ă·lê·hem ’eš·’ă·lāh šə·’ê·lāh mik·kem ’îš ū·ṯə·nū- lî ne·zem šə·lā·lōw kî- zā·hāḇ lā·hem niz·mê kî hêm yiš·mə·‘ê·lîm
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“And-said Gideon unto-them: ‘Let-me-ask of-you an-asking: and-give ye to-me each-man the-ring-of his-spoil’ — for gold rings [were] to-them, for Ishmaelites [were] they.”
Where the English smooths the original
Not unfrequently the magnanimity which has just stood firm under a great trial succumbs to a weaker one.
In this desire for gold Gideon falls to the level of ordinary men, and we may see in it the first decline of his glory, leading to a sad tarnishing of the luster of his bright name.
but he yielded to another temptation, which this appeal on the part of the people really involved, namely, the temptation to secure to himself for the future the position to which the Lord had called and exalted him.
The request shewed Gideon’s disinterestedness and piety. As chief he would have the right to choose some gift for himself before the spoil was divided among his followersCambridge flatly contradicts Barnes and Pulpit here: what they read as avarice, Cambridge reads as a chief's customary right and even as piety. We keep both because the Hebrew does not settle it, and a reader should see that the tradition is divided.
25“We will give them gladly,” they replied. So they spread out a garment, and each man threw an earring from his plunder onto it.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
nā·ṯō·wn nit·tên way·yō·mə·rū way·yip̄·rə·śū ’eṯ- haś·śim·lāh ’îš way·yaš·lî·ḵū ne·zem šə·lā·lōw šām·māh
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“And-they-said: ‘Giving we-will-give.’ And-they-spread-out the-garment, and-they-flung there each-man the-ring-of his-spoil.”
Where the English smooths the original
We will willingly give. —Literally, giving, we will give. They spread. —Perhaps the true reading should be “ he spread,” as in the LXX.
Simlah, the upper garment, was for the most part only a large square piece of cloth.
every man one, which would amount to no more than three hundred; though perhaps those who joined in the pursuit might take many moreGill is doing arithmetic against the text: three hundred single rings cannot weigh 1,700 shekels, so he enlarges the collecting party. It is an honest attempt at a real difficulty, not a datum — the narrative never says how many men threw a ring on the cloak.
A garment . Rather, the cloak. Probably Gideon's military cloak (see Isaiah 9:5 ), which lay in his tent ready for use as a cloak by day or a coverlet by night
26The weight of the gold earrings he had requested was 1,700 shekels, in addition to the crescent ornaments, the pendants, the purple garments of the kings of Midian, and the chains from the necks of their camels.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
miš·qal haz·zā·hāḇ ’ă·šer niz·mê šā·’āl way·hî ’e·lep̄ ū·šə·ḇa‘- mê·’ō·wṯ zā·hāḇ lə·ḇaḏ min- haś·śa·hă·rō·nîm wə·han·nə·ṭi·p̄ō·wṯ hā·’ar·gā·mān ū·ḇiḡ·ḏê še·‘al mal·ḵê miḏ·yān ū·lə·ḇaḏ min- hā·‘ă·nā·qō·wṯ ’ă·šer bə·ṣaw·wə·rê ḡə·mal·lê·hem
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“And-was the-weight of-the-gold rings which he-asked: a-thousand and-seven hundred gold — apart from the-crescents and-the-pendants and-garments-of purple which [were] upon the-kings-of Midian, and-apart from the-neck-chains which [were] on the-necks-of their-camels.”
Where the English smooths the original
It is analogous to the “three bushels of knights’ rings” which Mago carried to Carthage, and emptied upon the floor of the Carthaginian Senate, after the massacre of the Romans at Cannae
The purple raiment, the famous Tyrian purple, made from the juice of a shellfish which is found in the Mediterranean, which was the distinctive colour of royal and imperial raiment.
Even at the present day the Arabs are accustomed to ornament the necks of these animals "with a band of cloth or leather, upon which small shells called cowries are strung or sewed in the form of a crescent.
The sentence interrupts the account of the ephod, and looks like a later addition.A source-critical judgment about the inventory clause, not a textual variant: no manuscript evidence is offered, and the words stand in the received Hebrew. Recorded as the opinion it is.
27From all this Gideon made an ephod, which he placed in Ophrah, his hometown. But soon all Israel prostituted themselves by worshiping it there, and it became a snare to Gideon and his household.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
ḡiḏ·‘ō·wn way·ya·‘aś ’ō·w·ṯōw lə·’ê·p̄ō·wḏ way·yaṣ·ṣêḡ ’ō·w·ṯōw bə·‘ā·p̄ə·rāh ḇə·‘î·rōw ḵāl yiś·rā·’êl way·yiz·nū ’a·ḥă·rāw šām way·hî lə·mō·w·qêš lə·ḡiḏ·‘ō·wn ū·lə·ḇê·ṯōw
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“And-made Gideon it into-an-ephod, and-set it in-his-city, in-Ophrah; and-went-whoring all-Israel after-it there; and-it-became to-Gideon and-to-his-house for-a-snare.”
Where the English smooths the original
Though Gideon was a good man, and did this with an honest mind, and a desire to set up religion in his own city and family; yet here seems to be many sins in it.
This gives us a clue to Gideon’s motive. Shiloh, the national sanctuary, was in the precincts of the fierce tribe of Ephraim, and Gideon may have been as anxious as Jeroboam afterwards was to keep some direct hold on the nation’s worship, as one of the secrets of political power.Ellicott's motive-reading — Ophrah as a rival to Shiloh for political reasons — is inference from the geography and from the Jeroboam parallel, not from anything the verse states. Barnes and Pulpit reach it independently; it remains a reconstruction.
The word ephod does not signify an image of Jehovah, or an idol, as Gesenius and others maintain, but the shoulder-dress of the high priest
In Gideon’s day there was no wide-spread objection to an image in Jehovah’s sanctuary; the prohibition in Exodus 20:4 , though it may have been laid down by Moses, was not observed by the people generally.Cambridge here assumes a developmental history of Israel's worship in which the image-prohibition was not yet operative. That assumption is disputed, and K&D, Ellicott and Poole all write on the opposite premise; the disagreement is doctrinal, not textual.
The verse-by-verse work is done. What follows gathers the whole unit. All three layers below are machine-generated (⚙). Weigh them; they have no authority.
AI synthesis — woven from the public-domain voices above and the original text; generated and fallible.
The unit is built on a single root. מָשַׁל (mâshal, H4910) sounds four times in two verses and then never again: Israel commands it (mĕšol-bānû, “rule in us”), Gideon negates it twice, and then predicates it of Yahweh. Note what the Hebrew does not say — melek, king, never appears on Israel's lips; Benson, Poole and Gill each supply “as a king” because the offer is hereditary through son and grandson, not because the noun is there. K&D narrows the offerers to the northern tribes who had suffered most, not the twelve; Cambridge narrows them again to the muster of Jdg 7:23, and adds that the offer proves Gideon's exploit was public salvation and not private vengeance. Ellicott names the irony that governs everything after: “they forgot that Gideon had received a special call from God.” Their stated ground — hôšaʻtānû, “you saved us,” Hiphil of yâshaʻ — is precisely the sentence the three hundred existed to prevent. JFB praises the refusal as revered theocratic principle; Cambridge alone presses the awkward sequel, that ch. 9 shows Gideon exercising the power and his sons expecting to inherit it, so that the words may mean he “seized the power, but rejected the title, of king.” The two readings are not reconciled in this text, and we do not reconcile them.
Gideon's next word is אֶשְׁאֲלָה שְׁאֵלָה, “let me ask an asking” — cognate accusative, cohortative, the courteous grammar of a petitioner. Ellicott's judgment is the most quoted: “Not unfrequently the magnanimity which has just stood firm under a great trial succumbs to a weaker one.” Barnes sees here “the first decline of his glory”; K&D more sympathetically sees a man trying to preserve the relation to the Lord into which he had been called. Cambridge dissents outright — the request “shewed Gideon's disinterestedness and piety,” the customary prior share of a chief (Jdg 5:30; 1 Sam 30:20). The text arbitrates none of this; it only lets the request stand three verses after the refusal. The people answer with an infinitive absolute, nāṯôn nittên — Ellicott, literally, “giving, we will give” — and unfold the cloak (the article is in the Hebrew; Pulpit: “Rather, the cloak,” K&D: a large square of cloth), into which every man flings (Hiphil of shâlak) one ring. The inventory that follows is a rare-word list: sahărônîm (3 verses in the canon), nᵉṭîphôth (2 verses), ʻănāqôth (3 verses), ʼargāmān purple which Pulpit identifies as Tyrian and the mark of royalty. The number itself carries no unit — “a thousand and seven hundred gold” — and the commentators' currency conversions (Gill, JFB, Pulpit, Cambridge) differ by a factor of four.
One verse holds four verbs and destroys a household. He made it into an ephod; he set it (yâtsag, which K&D insists “is never used to denote the setting up of an image or statue”); all Israel whored after it; it became a môqêsh — Strong's “a noose (for catching animals)” — to Gideon and to his house. On the ephod itself the tradition splits along a real fault line. K&D and Ellicott hold it to be the high-priestly shoulder-dress with breastplate and Urim, and Ellicott suspects a deliberate counter-attraction to Shiloh; Barnes and Pulpit agree that a head of state wanted the means of inquiry at hand and would not go to Ephraim's sanctuary for it; JFB, citing Taylor, defends it as a civil robe that only later attracted religious ideas; Cambridge canvasses image, loin-cloth and vestment and refuses to decide; Henry guesses a teraphim was annexed to it — a guess, and we mark it as one. What none of them dispute is the outcome, and the outcome is the point: Poole enumerates five distinct sins in the act, Benson the same five, and Henry compresses the whole to a sentence — “Many are led into false ways by one false step of a good man.” The man who would not let Israel make him a king made them something to worship instead.
⚙ Our own fallible reading, offered to be tested: the sin of v. 27 is not a new appetite but the old one with its name changed. In v. 23 Gideon gives away the throne and keeps the oracle. He refuses to rule and then quietly secures the one thing a ruler actually needs — access to the will of God, in his own city, in his own keeping. That is why the narrator hangs the whole ephod on the verb שָׁאַל (shâʼal, to ask, to inquire) and uses it twice, in v. 24 and again in v. 26: “the gold of the rings which he asked.” Gideon asked Israel for what he should have asked God for, and built out of the answer a device for asking God on his own terms. The theology of v. 23 is impeccable and the practice of v. 27 hollows it out from underneath, and Scripture records both without a word of editorial comment — the only verdict is the last noun in the verse, môqêsh, the noose that closes on the trapper's own house. We hold this loosely: K&D reads the same motive as fidelity rather than self-preservation, and Cambridge reads the request as piety outright. If they are right, our reading is too hard on him. But Judges 9 is next, and Judges 9 is what a snare looks like when it shuts.
He gave away the throne and kept the oracle. (This line is our own commentary, not Scripture.)
AI-generated connections. Each carries a verification badge with a recorded basis; contested links are flagged.
The Verifier's basis is verbal: Exod 32:2 shares both נֶזֶם (nezem, H5141, a lexeme in only 16 verses) and zâhâb with Jdg 8:24–26. In Exodus, Aaron says “break off the golden rings” and what comes out is a calf; in Judges, Gideon asks for the golden rings and what comes out is an ephod. In both, the people give eagerly; in both, the object receives worship; in both, the leader who made it did not intend that. Exod 35:22 shows the same rings given rightly, for the tabernacle — so the lexeme itself is neutral, and the divergence between the two outcomes is the whole point. Ellicott independently notes the Hos 2:13 association of the nezem with “the days of Baalim.” None of the commentators in this brief draws the Exod 32 parallel at the level of the shared word; Barnes and Pulpit draw the Jeroboam parallel instead.
Exodus 32:2 · Exodus 35:22 · Genesis 35:4
basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H5141 nezem (rare — in 16 vv) and H2091 zâhâb with Exodus 32:2; a genuine rare-lexeme verbal link within a shared motif. No citation or quotation is claimed in either direction.
Two of the rarest words in the canon sit in Jdg 8:26. שַׂהֲרֹן (sahărôn, H7720) appears in only three verses, נְטִיפָה (nᵉṭîphâh, H5188) in only two — and Isa 3:18–19 holds both, in the oracle where the Lord strips the finery from the daughters of Zion. The Verifier confirms the lexemes. K&D and Ellicott both reach for Isa 3:19 to explain netiphoth as ear-drops; neither presses the reversal that the shared vocabulary makes available — that the ornaments Israel here collects off a defeated enemy are the same ornaments Isaiah says the Lord will one day take off Israel.
Isaiah 3:18 · Isaiah 3:19
basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H7720 sahărôn (rare — in 3 vv, Isa 3:18) and H5188 nᵉṭîyphâh (very rare — in 2 vv, Isa 3:19). Rare-lexeme verbal link; no quotation claimed.
עֲנָק (ʻânâq, H6060) occurs in three verses only, and the Verifier ties all three: here it is neck-chains stripped off camels as war-booty; in Prov 1:9 a father's instruction is “a ʻanaq about thy neck”; in Song 4:9 one link of the beloved's necklace ravishes the heart. Cambridge makes exactly this lexical correction against the AV — “for chains render necklaces, Song of Solomon 4:9, Proverbs 1:9” — and contrasts them with the crescents of Jdg 8:21. The motif shared across the three is only the ornament itself; we claim no thematic unity beyond the word, and note that Strong's derivation “as if strangling” is an etymological suggestion, not a usage in any of the three verses.
Song of Solomon 4:9 · Proverbs 1:9 · Judges 8:21
basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexeme H6060 ʻânâq (rare — in 3 vv), plus H6677 tsavvâʼr (in 39 vv) with Song 4:9. Vocabulary link only; no shared argument or quotation.
Gideon's story begins and ends at the same place. The Verifier links Jdg 6:11, 6:24, 8:21 and 8:32 to this unit on the name Gidʻôwn (H1439) and Midyân (H4080) — a name-link, not an argument, but the internal narrative frame is real and both Benson and Poole build on it. At 6:24 Gideon builds an altar at Ophrah by God's own command; at 8:27 he places an ephod at Ophrah by no command at all. Benson: he “thought it might be continued for ordinary use.” K&D goes further and proposes that Gideon may have sacrificed at that same altar, and that the altar — not any golden image — was the sanctuary's centre. The sanctioned thing and the unsanctioned thing stand on the same ground, which is what makes the second so hard for the people to tell apart from the first.
Judges 6:24 · Judges 6:11 · Judges 8:32
basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H1439 Gidʻôwn (in 37 vv) and H4080 Midyân (in 55 vv) — common proper nouns, so the link is narrative-structural (the Ophrah frame of Gideon's career), not a verbal allusion. Deliberately not tiered verbal.
Gideon's sentence in v. 23 becomes the Lord's own complaint to Samuel: Israel asks for a king “like all the nations,” and the answer is “they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them” (1 Sam 8:7). Four commentators in this brief make the connection unprompted — Pulpit (citing 1 Sam 8:5; 10:19; 12:12), Poole (1 Sam 8:6–7), Cambridge (1 Sam 8:7; 10:19; 12:12, 17, 19), and Ellicott, who adds that “the day anticipated in Deuteronomy 17:14-20 had not yet come.” K&D is careful to insist that Gideon's refusal does not contradict the Deuteronomic king-law; he declined because he judged Yahweh's government sufficient, not because monarchy as such was unlawful. We claim no verbal link here: 1 Samuel 8:7 uses mâlak, to be king, where Judges 8:23 uses mâshal, to rule, and 1 Sam 8:7 is not among the Verifier's candidates for this unit.
1 Samuel 8:7 · Deuteronomy 17:14-20 · 1 Samuel 12:12
basis: Shared motif of Yahweh's kingship against dynastic monarchy, recorded independently by Pulpit, Poole, Cambridge, Ellicott and K&D. No Verifier-computed lexeme basis: 1 Samuel 8:7 is not in the candidate list and uses mâlak, not the mâshal (H4910) of this unit. Thematic only.
Henry states that “probably this ephod had, as usual, a teraphim annexed to it, and Gideon intended this for an oracle to be consulted.” Cambridge notes the association of ephod with terâphîm at Jdg 17:5, 18:14ff. and Hos 3:4, and Ellicott thinks it “far from improbable”; Gill floats Spencer's conjecture of little images set in it. But Judges 8:27 mentions no teraphim, no pesel and no massekah, and K&D presses precisely this silence against Bertheau's reconstruction of a golden bull at Ophrah, calling it arbitrary. The cross-reference is real as a phenomenon of later Judges; its application to Gideon's ephod is commentator inference and is flagged accordingly.
Judges 17:5 · Judges 18:14 · Hosea 3:4
basis: Contested: no shared lexeme computed by the Verifier for these refs, and the linking claim (that Gideon's ephod included teraphim) is asserted by Henry, Ellicott and Gill but denied in substance by K&D, who notes Judges 8:27 contains neither pesel nor massekah. Flagged rather than asserted.
⚙ After the loaves, “when Jesus therefore perceived that they would come and take him by force, to make him a king, he departed again into a mountain himself alone” (John 6:15). The structural parallel with Jdg 8:22–23 is close: a deliverance through bread or through rout, a crowd that infers a crown from the deliverance, and a refusal by the deliverer himself. The divergence is as instructive as the likeness. Gideon refuses the title and then takes the gold; Christ refuses the crowd's crown and goes on to receive a kingdom from the Father's hand. This link cannot be verbal: John is Greek and Judges Hebrew, so no shared Strong's number is possible, and the Verifier offers none. It is a pattern, offered as a pattern.
John 6:15 · Matthew 4:8-10
basis: Cross-Testament (Greek↔Hebrew): shared Strong's numbers are impossible by definition, so no verbal tier is available. Basis is a shared narrative pattern — deliverance, popular acclamation, refusal of offered kingship — visible in both texts independently of any citation.
AI-generated reading; weigh it against the text.
Gideon's one unassailable sentence is a negative: no man, and no man's son. The commentators are unanimous that this is theocratic principle — JFB, that “the Lord alone was King of Israel”; Benson, that God's supreme kingship “was the foundation of their whole state,” which is why Israel's judgments are called God's judgments (Deut 1:17) and Solomon is said to sit “upon the throne of the LORD” (1 Chr 29:23) and his kingdom called “the kingdom of the LORD” (2 Chr 13:8). Benson's own chain is the redemptive-historical argument: the theocracy is not abolished by monarchy but channelled through it, “derived to the house of David by a special act of God.” What Gideon could not be, and what Saul was not, and what David was only in shadow, the Gospels present as arrived — a son of David in whom the rule of Yahweh and the rule of a man are not rivals, so that Revelation can write King of kings on a man's thigh without displacing God from the throne. Gideon was right to refuse; the refusal leaves an office standing open that only one candidate can fill without blasphemy.
1 Chronicles 29:23 · 2 Chronicles 13:8 · Luke 1:32-33 · Revelation 19:16
The ephod's function is settled by all parties: it is the instrument of inquiry. Barnes — it “was necessary to be worn when he inquired of God by Urim and Thummim”; Cambridge — it “was used in consulting Jehovah to obtain an oracle”; K&D — Gideon “put on the ephod and wore it as a priest, when he wished to inquire and learn the will of the Lord.” The sin, then, is a sin about access: a private channel to the will of God, in one man's city, made of one man's asking, drawing Israel away from what Benson and Poole both call “the true ephod, instituted by God for this end, which was to be worn by the high-priest only.” Hebrews answers at exactly that point — not by improving the apparatus but by presenting a High Priest who is himself the access, in a sanctuary not made with hands, who ever lives to make intercession, so that the throne of grace can be approached boldly and no household needs a golden vestment in its own town. ⚙ The specific reading of Gideon's ephod as a counterfeit access is our framing; the high-priestly typology it leans on is the ancient and common one.
Hebrews 4:14-16 · Hebrews 7:25 · Hebrews 9:11-12 · Exodus 28:6-30
Israel's ground for the crown is הוֹשַׁעְתָּנוּ (hôšaʻtānû, Hiphil of yâshaʻ, H3467): “thou hast saved us.” The root is the one from which the name Joshua and its later contraction Yeshuaʻ are formed, and Matthew fastens the naming of Christ to exactly this meaning: “thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins.” Judges is a book of men into whom this verb is repeatedly poured and who repeatedly crack — Cambridge puts it plainly: “he had saved his countrymen; as king it would be his duty to save them still,” and the chapter proceeds to show what happens when a saviour is asked to keep saving. ⚙ Our reading: the sentence Israel spoke to Gideon is true of no man, which is why the man it was spoken to came apart under it; it becomes sayable only of one to whom yâshaʻ belongs as a name rather than as a compliment. No verbal link is claimed — Matthew 1:21 is Greek, and no shared Strong's number between the Testaments exists; the connection is the etymology of the name and the shared soteriological motif.
Matthew 1:21 · Acts 4:12 · Judges 2:16-19
The biblical text is the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain (CC0). Hebrew/Greek text, transliteration, morphology and Strong’s are transcribed from the Berean interlinear (CC0) + Strong’s lexicons (PD); the literal renderings, divergence notes, word notes and all synthesis are this tool’s own work (⚙) — fallible; verify them.
Named voices, quoted verbatim from public-domain works:
⚙ Honesty notes for this unit. Text. Judges 8:22–27 is transmitted without major variant in the Masoretic tradition, but two readings are worth flagging: at v. 25 the LXX has the singular “he spread” for the Masoretic plural wayyip̄rəśû (noted by both Ellicott and Barnes), which would make the cloak Gideon's own; and at v. 26 the Hebrew supplies no unit of measure — “a thousand and seven hundred gold” — so that “shekels” is an editorial supplement in every English Bible, and the modern-currency figures given by Gill (about £2,380), Pulpit (above £3,000), JFB (£3,113) and Cambridge (£3,485 heavy standard, £742 10s. light) are estimates built on that supplement plus a chosen weight standard. They should not be quoted as the text's own figure.
What is genuinely uncertain. (1) The referent of ephod: K&D and Ellicott insist on the high-priestly shoulder-vestment and expressly reject Gesenius' and Ewald's “idol”; Cambridge leaves image, embroidered loin-cloth and vestment all open. We have not resolved this and have not let our commentary depend on a resolution. (2) The meaning of nezem: Barnes and Pulpit argue “nose-ring” from Gen 24:47 and Ezek 16:12; Cambridge argues that when worn by men it is an ear-ring. Both are in the brief; the BSB prints only one. (3) Gideon's motive in v. 24: Ellicott, Barnes and Pulpit read avarice or decline; Cambridge reads a chief's lawful share and calls it piety; K&D reads an attempt to preserve a divine calling. The text states a request and no motive. (4) Gill's reckoning that three hundred single rings could not weigh 1,700 shekels is arithmetic pressed against the narrative, and his solution (a larger collecting party) is conjecture.
Sources. Cambridge's source-critical judgments — that vv. 22–23 come from a secondary source, that the inventory clause of v. 26b “looks like a later addition,” and that the image-prohibition of Exod 20:4 “was not observed by the people generally” — are the framework of a particular nineteenth-century critical school, and every other commentator here writes on contrary premises. We have quoted Cambridge because its philological work is the sharpest in the brief, and have marked the framework as framework wherever it appears. Henry's teraphim and Gill's citation of Spencer's images-in-the-ephod are conjectures, flagged as such in the threads. K&D's ethnographic parallels are from Wellsted's Reise (1838) and describe nineteenth-century Arab practice, not Midianite practice; they illustrate plausibility only. All cross-references marked “Verifier” carry a computed shared-lexeme basis; the 1 Samuel 8:7, John 6:15 and Matthew 1:21 threads carry none and are tiered structural or thematic for that reason.
✦ = human, public-domain source, quoted and named. ⚙ = machine synthesis, to be verified. Flagged cross-references are left visible on purpose — the verifier working in the open. “Search the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” (Acts 17:11)