The weight of the golden ear-rings that he requested was one thousand and seven hundred [shekels] of gold, besides the crescents, and the pendants, and the purple clothing that was on the kings of Midian, and besides the chains that were about their camels' necks.
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.] 