translation_id: net-engnet

book_id: JDG

label: NET study note

text: Ephraim’s leftover grapes are better quality than Abiezer’s harvest . Gideon employs an agricultural metaphor. He argues that Ephraim’s mopping up operations, though seemingly like the inferior grapes which are missed initially by the harvesters or left for the poor, are actually more noteworthy than the military efforts of Gideon’s family.


text: I will thresh . The metaphor is agricultural. Threshing was usually done on a hard threshing floor. As farm animals walked over the stalks, pulling behind them a board embedded with sharp stones, the stalks and grain would be separated. See O. Borowski, Agriculture in Iron Age Israel , 63-65. Gideon threatens to use thorns and briers on his sledge.


text: Seventeen hundred gold shekels would be about 42.7 pounds (19.4 kilograms) of gold.


text: In Exod 28:4-6 and several other texts an ephod is described as a priestly or cultic garment. In some cases an ephod is used to obtain a divine oracle ( 1 Sam 23:9; 30:7 ). Here the ephod is made of gold and is described as being quite heavy (70-75 lbs?). Some identify it as an idol, but it was more likely a cultic object fashioned in the form of a garment which was used for oracular purposes. For discussion of the ephod in the OT, see C. F. Burney, Judges , 236-43, and R. de Vaux, Ancient Israel , 349-52.


text: A concubine was a slave woman in ancient Near Eastern societies who was the legal property of her master, but who could have legitimate sexual relations with her master. A concubine’s status was more elevated than a mere servant, but she was not free and did not have the legal rights of a free wife. The children of a concubine could, in some instances, become equal heirs with the children of the free wife. After the period of the Judges concubines may have become more of a royal prerogative ( 2 Sam 21:10-14 ; 1 Kgs 11:3 ).


text: The name Abimelech means “my father is king.”


text: Baal-Berith was a local manifestation of the Canaanite storm god. The name means, ironically, “Baal of the covenant.” Israel’s covenant allegiance had indeed shifted.