Judges 8

I'm not going to give away the ending to Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (the film famous--or infamous--for its shower stabbing scene), but the climax proves suitably surprising and yet consistent with the twisted nature of the film. But after that high point, the film ends with a rather bizarre denouement in which one character basically psychoanalyzes another character, telling us what we've basically been shown in vivid detail just a few seconds earlier. Sleeping Beauty (the fairy tale) is similar--we're all familiar with the story of how some fairy gets pissed off at not being invited to Briar Rose's christening and curses the princess to sleep until awakened by true love's kiss. Well, after the prince awakens the princess with said kiss, the fairy tale embarks upon a kooky tangent, telling of how the prince's mother is really an ogre who wants to consume her son's newborn kids. This is one case where I'm glad that Disney decided to change the original fairy tale.

After Gideon's resounding victory over the Midianites, his life also takes a rather bizarre path. (I'll take the opportunity here to take a bizarre tangent of my own: The word "bizarre" always reminds me of this one time I gave that word to a kid for a spelling test. Quick as a shot, she cheekily--though not inaccurately--retorted, "You're bizarre.")

Anyway, the bizarreness starts when Gideon pacifies the Ephraimites (who believe they've been given a thankless task chasing down the scattered remnants of the Midianite army) by basically stuffing their egos (verses 2-3). After that, the people of Sukkoth and Peniel spurn Gideon's request for food for his army, thinking that there's no way that Gideon can defeat Zebah and Zalmunna, the kingz of Midian. Well, guess what, Gideon does capture the Z-bros, so on the way back, he teaches "the men of Sukkoth a lesson by punishing them with desert thorns and briers" (verse 16). Think about that the next time you use or hear the threat "I'll teach you a lesson!" Gideon also pulls "down the tower of Peniel" (verse 17) for good measure. I wonder--did Gideon pull down the tower with his bare hands? Not much of a tower if he did.

But Gideon isn't done with the Z-bros. He tells his son, who's only a boy, to kill them, but his son understandably balks. Perhaps Gideon was expecting his son to be like Hit-Girl or young Elektra Natchios, but I do wonder what Gideon's thought process was. Was he trying to train his son to "become a man"? Was he trying to humiliate the Z-bros by having them killed by a mere boy? In any case, I don't envy this kid.

The Israelites are so enamored with Gideon that they ask him to be their king, but Gideon knows who the real King is, saying, "The LORD will rule over you" (verse 23). But he does ask everyone to give him a gold earring from their share of the Midianite plunder, which adds up to the not unsubstantial mass of about 20 kilograms. And what does he do with all this loot? He makes it into an ephod. Now, an ephod is basically a shirt that the priests wore, so imagine this gargantuan 40-pound T-shirt just hanging out in the middle of the town. As bizarre as this must have looked--or maybe because it looked so bizarre--the Israelites start worshipping this giant shirt, as if they had nothing better to do. The author states that the ephod "became a snare to Gideon and his family" and leaves it at that (verse 27). Come on, you can't leave us hanging like that! What happened next? Did the ephod gain sentience and walk away to form a society of like-minded apparel?

Gideon manages to pump out 70 sons before he dies, which seems horrifying on the woman's end until the author explains that "he had many wives" (verse 30). Gideon did have a full life--even if much of it consisted of unusual incidents, in the end he could take satisfaction from his trust in God and how that allowed him to be God's instrument in defeating the Midianites. Life is full of weird, unpredictable twists and turns, but God is the unwavering constant.