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"The men of Israel said unto Gideon, Rule thou over us, both thou and thy son, and
thy son's son also . . . . . And Gideon said unto them, I will not rule over you, neither
shall my son rule over you; the Lord shall rule over you" (Judges 8: 22, 23).
Gideon nobly repudiates Kingship here, but the next verse records what is apparently
a strange action. He requests the golden ear-rings that had been taken as a prey, and we
read:
"Gideon made an Ephod thereof, and put it in his city, even in Ophrah. And all Israel
went thither a-whoring after it, which thing became a snare unto Gideon, and to his
house" (Judges 8: 24-27).
Gideon apparently felt the need of priestly service, but he transgressed the will of the
Lord in providing a substitute for the real thing--always a fruitful cause of failure and
sin.
The reader may remember that the structure of the book as a whole given in
Volume XXVII, page 131, places the Ephod of Gideon and the Ephod of Micah in
correspondence.
We must return, however, to Jotham and his parable. The actual word "parable" is not
used in Judges 9:, but this is evidently what is intended. In Matt. 13: "the parable of
the sower" is not called a parable specifically, but it is a parable nevertheless. Just as the
Lord spoke to the people in parables, because He had been rejected by them (see
Matt. 11: 20-24; 12: 6, 41, 42 and the articles on the parables in Volume II, III, IV, V
and VI), so Jotham uses the same method after Israel's rejection of the Lord as King.
"Hearken unto me, ye men of Shechem, that God may hearken unto you. The trees
went forth on a time to anoint a King over them: and they said unto the OLIVE TREE,
Reign thou over us. But the olive tree said unto them, Should I leave my fatness,
wherewith by me they honour God and man, and go to be promoted over the trees?
And the trees said to the FIG TREE, Come thou and reign over us. But the fig tree
said unto them, Should I forsake my sweetness, and my good fruit, and go to be promoted
over the trees?
Then said the trees unto the VINE, Come thou and reign over us. But the vine said
unto them, Should I forsake my wine, which cheereth God and man, and go to be
promoted over the trees?
Then said all the trees unto the BRAMBLE, Come thou and reign over us. And the
bramble said unto the trees, If in truth ye anoint me King over you, then come and put
your trust in my shadow: and if not, let fire come out of the bramble, and devour the
cedars of Lebanon" (Judges 9: 7-15).
It may be very true that in Scripture the Fig, the Olive, and the Vine foreshadow and
typify three phases of Israel's blessedness. It may be that the Fig represents Israel's
national privileges, the Olive their religious privileges, and the Vine their spiritual
privileges. All this may be true, but it is not necessarily true in the parable of Jotham. In
this parable, the three trees are separate entities, and they each refuse in turn to leave the
work to them by God. It is impossible to apply the answers of these three trees to any
period of Israel's failure or acceptance. The point of the parable is in the self-assertion of
the Bramble. The other trees speak humbly of their "fatness", their "sweetness", their