Perhaps the reader would have next expected Gideon to finally take up the charge of marshalling his army to fight the enemy. But instead, the Lord calls him to destroy the altar of Baal. The reason for this is not explicitly stated. But Gideon, by building an altar to the Lord, has created a situation that can’t remain unresolved. For now there is not one but two altars in Ophrah, to two rival gods: to Yahweh, who has just appeared to Gideon; and to Baal, the god of Gideon’s father’s and the god being worshipped in Ophrah. For Baal, a dumb idol, this was no issue. Pagan gods may tolerate the simultaneous worship of more than one deity, but Yahweh will brook no rivals.
1 That appears the very first of the ten commandments: You shall have no other gods besides me.
Would it not be profanely incoherent and inconsistent if Yahweh’s judge, Gideon, embarked on Yahweh’s mission of deliverance while Gideon’s very own family was worshipping multiple gods at home? Nothing less than the honour and fame of the Lord is at stake here!
So Israel’s real problem is not the Midianites. This unsightly scene in Ophrah is symptomatic of the problem in all of Israel: her addiction to evil. Israel’s problem is spiritual. Israel has no business crying out to the Lord for deliverance while prostrating herself before Baal. Thus, there can be no real peace, shalom for Gideon and Israel. That’s to say, there can be no wholeness in her relationship with the Lord, no enjoyment of the covenant.2
25 That night the LORD said to him, “Take your father’s bull, and the second bull seven years old, and pull down the altar of Baal that your father has, and cut down the Asherah that is beside it