Their rationale, For you have saved us from the hand of Midian, is telling. The other six times the word save is used in the Gideon narrative all refer to the Lord. It was the Lord who had promised victory to Gideon. It was the Lord who had overwhelmed the 120,000 Midianite swordsmen! Gideon had even said earlier, twice, “You will save Israel by my hand” (Judges 6:36–37). Indeed, the Lord himself wanted to preclude any attempt on Israel’s part to take the honour for their deliverance, which is why he saw to it that the army was heavily reduced (Judges 7:2). But now in the glory and euphoria of their triumph, Israel’s attention is focused not on the Lord. It is on Gideon, Israel’s potential first king. The long and short of it is that this attribution of deliverance to Gideon, made by the men of Israel in Judges 8:22, is preposterous and sacrilegious, particularly when they make no mention of Yahweh’s hand in this deliverance. In fact, they ought to have crowned the real Deliverer, Yahweh, their king.¹