And 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.
Gideon made an ephod thereof, and put it in his city ... Ophrah. That no idolatrous use was in view, nor any divisive course from Shiloh contemplated, is manifest from Judges 8:33. Gideon proposed with the gold he received to make an ephod for his use only as a civil magistrate or ruler, as David did (1 Chronicles 15:27), and a magnificent pectoral or breastplate also. It would seem, from the history, that he was not blameable in making this ephod. etc., as a civil robe or ornament merely, but that it afterward became an object to which religious ideas were attached; whereby it proved a snare, and consequently an evil, by perversion, to Gideon and his ideas were attached; whereby it proved a snare, and consequently an evil, by perversion, to Gideon and his house (Taylor's 'Fragments').