It is difficult, at this distance of time, to know exactly the motive of Gideon in making the ephod, or in what way it became a cause of sin. It has been suggested that it was a symbol of Levitical worship set up by Gideon at Ophrah, which drew away the people from Shiloh, the appointed holy place, where the high priest abode in charge of the ark of God. Whether it were this irregularity, or whether a race prone to idolatry actually worshipped the ephod, has not been clearly made known. We are simply told that the ephod was "a snare." The hundreds of shekels of gold, the purple raiment and jewels, were no real blessing to Gideon; he was less safe when he had become the idol of a nation, than when employed in threshing corn beside the wine-press to hide it from Midianite oppressors.
Popularity, however honourably won, is too apt to become, to fallen man, like the ephod of Gideon; the garment of glory is often "a snare." If it led astray a man of character so pious, so noble, so disinterested as Gideon, how much need have all God's servants, when placed in a position of distinction, to take to themselves the warning, "Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall."
Those who have earned for themselves an honoured name in what is called "the religious world," are in a situation of peculiar danger. The popular preacher, the eloquent author, the active philanthropist, may, like Gideon, find a snare even in their nobly won honours. Howard shrank from the idea of a statue being raised to him; he was not a man to form jewels into an ephod, he would pour them all into the treasury of the Lord; but in most cases celebrity and distinction are very intoxicating to human nature, even when that nature has been renewed by grace. To be listened to as an oracle, and appealed to as a judge; to be welcomed in high circles, flattered by the gifted and followed by the good, is fraught with peril; all the more real because it is not of a nature to startle conscience, but rather to soothe it to sleep. Those of whom all pious men think well, are naturally tempted also to think well of themselves. It is desirable for such to keep before their eyes the golden ephod; "which thing became a snare unto Gideon."
Even in the comparatively narrow sphere of home there is some danger to him who is the idol of the family, the pope in the dwelling, to him whose will is law to those who love him, and in whose conduct partial eyes can see nothing that is wrong. Love has its own sweet flattery, and he who is constantly exposed to its influence, without the wholesome antidote of the contradiction and opposition to be met with in the world, may seriously suffer from its effects. In the peaceful seclusion of private life, in a pious home from which temptation might appear to be almost shut out, there may be need to remember the golden ephod; "which thing became a snare unto Gideon."
And in the inmost recesses of the heart lurks peril. When a Christian has long maintained, through God's grace, a successful struggle against the world, the flesh, and the devil; when the spiritual hero has resisted outward temptations and overcome inward corruptions, and is conscious that, like Gideon, he has triumphed nobly through faith,—then let him stand on his guard. How strong must be the temptation to form the ephod out of spiritual trophies, when even St. Paul needed a thorn in the flesh to preserve him from being exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations vouchsafed him! Christian, in Bunyan's allegory, fought bravely in the valley, but slept in the arbour on the hill. Gideon gloriously triumphed in time of war, but in time of peace made the ephod, which became unto him a snare.
The Christian's motto, in the days of spiritual prosperity as well as the dark days of trouble, should be: "God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ."
[XVI.]
The Jawbone of an Ass.