He said to them, What have I now done in comparison with you? Isn't the gleaning of the grapes of Ephraim better than the vintage of Abiezer?
"When the plot resumes, something seems to have happened to the character of the hero. In chaps. 6-7 we have witnessed his transformation from a fearful private citizen to a fearless agent of God, willing to take on the enemy against all odds, not to mention a sensitive diplomat. But the portrait of the man the author paints in this chapter creates a radically different impression in the reader’s mind. If Judges 8:1-32 had been handed down without the literary context in which it is embedded, modern readers would reject Gideon as a tyrant, arbitrary in his treatment of the enemy and ruthless in his handling of his own countrymen. Instead of ’hacking’ and ’contending’ with the enemy, Gideon/Jerubbaal ’contends’ and ’hacks’ his own people." [Note: Block, Judges . . ., p. 287. Cf. Klein, p. 62.] 