--- title: "The Danites Take Micah’s Idols" description: "There he captured a young man of Succoth and interrogated him. The young man..." image: "" book: "Judges" bookId: "JDG" testament: "old" startChapter: 8 startVerse: 14 endChapter: 8 endVerse: 31 coversChapters: [8] aiTitle: "The Danites Take Micah’s Idols" aiDescription: "There he captured a young man of Succoth and interrogated him. The young man..." hasAiStory: true location: "Succoth" persons: ["Gideon","Zebah","Zalmunna","Jether","Israelites","Midian","Ishmaelites","God","Jerubbaal","Joash","Abimelech"] hashtags: ["deliverance","idolatry","judgment","war"] genre: "history" readingTime: 3 type: "adaptive" slug: "JDG/the-danites-take-micahs-idols" canonicalId: "JDG.8.14-8.31" chronologicalOrder: 410 relatedSlugs: ["JDG/abimelechs-conspiracy","1SA/samuels-farewell-address"] prevSlug: "JDG/the-danites-settle-in-laish" nextSlug: "JDG/the-levite-and-his-concubine" --- There he captured a young man of Succoth and interrogated him. The young man wrote down for him the names of the seventy-seven leaders and elders of Succoth. And [Gideon](/persons/gideon) went to the men of Succoth and said, “Here are [Zebah](/persons/zebah) and [Zalmunna](/persons/zalmunna), about whom you taunted me, saying, ‘Are the hands of Zebah and Zalmunna already in your possession, that we should give bread to your weary men?’” Then he took the elders of the city, and using the thorns and briers of the wilderness, he disciplined the men of Succoth. He also pulled down the tower of Penuel and killed the men of the city. Next, Gideon asked Zebah and Zalmunna, “What kind of men did you kill at Tabor?”
“Men like you,” they answered, “each one resembling the son of a king.” “They were my brothers,” Gideon replied, “the sons of my mother! As surely as the [LORD](/persons/god) lives, if you had let them live, I would not kill you.” So he said to [Jether](/persons/jether), his firstborn, “Get up and kill them.” But the young man did not draw his sword; he was fearful because he was still a youth. Then Zebah and Zalmunna said, “Get up and kill us yourself, for as the man is, so is his strength.” So Gideon got up and killed Zebah and Zalmunna, and he took the crescent ornaments from the necks of their camels. ### Gideon’s Ephod Then the [Israelites](/persons/israelites) said to Gideon, “Rule over us—you and your son and grandson—for you have saved us from the hand of [Midian](/persons/midian).” But Gideon replied, “I will not rule over you, nor will my son. The LORD shall rule over you.” Then he added, “Let me make a request of you, that each of you give me an earring from his plunder.” (For the enemies had gold earrings because they were [Ishmaelites](/persons/ishmaelites).) “We will give them gladly,” they replied.
So they spread out a garment, and each man threw an earring from his plunder onto it. The weight of the gold earrings he had requested was 1,700 shekels, in addition to the crescent ornaments, the pendants, the purple garments of the kings of Midian, and the chains from the necks of their camels. From all this Gideon made an ephod, which he placed in Ophrah, his hometown. But soon all Israel prostituted themselves by worshiping it there, and it became a snare to Gideon and his household. ### Forty Years of Peace In this way Midian was subdued before the Israelites and did not raise its head again. So the land had rest for forty years in the days of Gideon, and he—[Jerubbaal](/persons/jerubbaal) son of [Joash](/persons/joash)—returned home and settled down. Gideon had seventy sons of his own, since he had many wives. His concubine, who dwelt in Shechem, also bore him a son, and he named him [Abimelech](/persons/abimelech).

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