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.
"It is . . . probable that Gideon put on the ephod and wore it as a priest, when he wished to inquire and learn the will of the Lord. . . . The germs of Gideon’s error, which became a snare to him and to his house, lie unquestionably . . . in the fact that the high-priesthood had probably lost its worth in the eyes of the people on account of the worthlessness of its representatives [cf. 1 Samuel 1:3; 1 Samuel 2:22], so that they no longer regarded the high priest as the sole or principal medium of divine revelation; and therefore Gideon, to whom the Lord had manifested himself directly, as He had not to any judge or leader of the people since the time of Joshua, might suppose that he was not acting in violation of the law, when he had an ephod made, and thus provided himself with a substratum or vehicle for inquiring the will of the Lord. His sin therefore consisted chiefly in his invading the prerogative of the Aaronic priesthood, drawing away the people from the one legitimate sanctuary, and thereby not only undermining the theocratic unity of Israel, but also giving an impetus to the relapse of the nation into the worship of Baal after his death. This sin became a snare to him and to his house." [Note: Keil and Delitzsch, pp. 358-59. See also Baruch Halpern, "The Rise of Abimelek Ben-Jerubbaal," Hebrew Annual Review 2 (1978):84-88.] 