With the death of Gideon as reported in Judges 8:32, the narrator is not done. In the earlier judge accounts, it is not said at the end of the account that the people again went astray. That’s only indicated at the start of the following judge account. The Ehud narrative ends with eighty years of peace after Ehud’s victory. When the narrative turns to the Deborah/Barak account, it is reported that Israel again did evil (Judges 4:1). The Deborah/Barak account ends with the destruction of the Canaanites (Judges 4:24), and with forty years of peace after the victory (Judges 5:31). It is then only at the start of the Gideon narrative that the reader learns of the change in the situation after the forty years of peace (Judges 6:1).1 Here, the Gideon account does not end with forty years of rest, but with Israel’s transgression after Gideon’s death. This implies that the transgression is a result of Gideon’s failure. The complications that arose in Gideon’s life outlive him and create even more chaos.2
33 As soon as Gideon died, the people of Israel turned again and whored after the Baals and made Baal-berith their god.