Inadvertent Snare

It says in Judges 8:27 – "Then Gideon made it into an ephod and set it up in his city, Ophrah. And all Israel played the harlot with it there. It became a snare to Gideon and to his house" God had given an extraordinary and absolutely unexpected victory to the Israelites over their oppressors through Gideon. As a memorial of his gratefulness towards the Lord, Gideon made an ephod and placed it in his home town, Ophrah. But God's Word the Bible tells us that instead, it became a snare for Gideon and his family.

From the proceeding verses (22-26) we see that Gideon had no intentions of taking any leadership role amongst the Israelites. He wanted to give all the honor and glory to God for this marvelous victory. From the spoils of this war he wanted to set up a memorial to glorify God, that too from the voluntary portions given by the people. Gideon had no intentions of using any idol or representations of pagan gods as a memorial; rather, he wanted to do this through an ephod. An ephod was a part of the unique dress worn by the priests in the service of God's Tabernacle (Exodus 28:4-8) and it was also used to find God’s will (1 Samuel 30:7-8). Thus we see that Gideon had no intention of going contrary to God in any manner in his desire to set up a memorial honoring God. His only mistake was that although he wanted to do this to honor and glorify God, but he did it according to his own wisdom, understanding, and desire, without asking God about it and without receiving any instructions about it from God; he went ahead and did whatever seemed right and good to him according to his own understanding and desire.

We see subsequently in, verses 33, 34 that after some time, after Gideon had passed away, the Israelites turned away from God and started following pagan gods again. It seems from verse 27 even while Gideon was alive, they started venerating the memorial set up by Gideon, using it as one of the objects of worship amongst others they had adopted from the gentile deities; because of which “It became a snare to Gideon and to his house.”

This example shows that Satan, without our knowing about it or realizing it, can use our good and God honoring intentions to entice people away from God and make them fall into false worship, which can then become a cause for stumbling, and falling into sin, instead of being a blessing. Whatever is necessary and required for worshiping and honoring God, God has already got it recorded along with the necessary instructions in His Word. Whatever else is there besides that which God has had recorded, is not from God; it is not in God’s will, and no matter how reverently it may be believed in and observed, it is, in Lord Jesus’s own words a “vain worship” (Matthew 15:9), i.e. an inconsequential and fruitless worship, or even an act of “iniquity” (Matthew 7:21-23). Therefore it is essential for Christian Believers to not rely upon their own wisdom and understanding and act on assumptions in things related to God, more so in things related to worshiping and glorifying God, but to first seek God's will and only then act accordingly (1 Thessalonians 5:21); lest something we do today, creates problems for our children and subsequent generations. All that is required to honor and glorify God, has already been given to us by Him in His Word. To please God, we only need to learn His Word and obey it (1 Samuel 15:22), instead of devising our own assumed ways and methods of worshiping and glorifying God, and creating problems for ourselves and others, as happened through Gideon's ephod.