This whoring recalls the whoring that was part of the paradigm of Judges 2:11–19. For the first time in Judges, that whoring comes to pass. “Thus Israel had commenced evildoing in preparation for the next round of oppression even before the current cycle is completed, with the instigator of this harlotry being a judge-deliverer, one of Israel’s own leaders! In fact, Gideon literally engages in harlotry, having sexual relations with a Canaanite (Judges 8:31)."1
27 And Gideon made an ephod of it and put it in his city, in Ophrah. And all Israel whored after it there, and it became a snare to Gideon and to his family.