Gideon said to them, I would make a request of you, that you would give me every man the ear-rings of his spoil. (For they had golden ear-rings, because they were Ishmaelites.)
Gideon made this ephod from some of the jewelry the Israelites had taken from the Midianites. The writer called them "Ishmaelites" (Judges 8:24), a term that described loosely any trading nomadic group (cf. Genesis 37:25; Genesis 37:27-28; Genesis 39:1). [Note: See Kitchen, p. 119.] 