{"id":55478,"date":"2019-05-14T16:05:05","date_gmt":"2019-05-14T13:05:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=55478"},"modified":"2022-12-06T09:19:19","modified_gmt":"2022-12-06T07:19:19","slug":"the-gold-standard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/the-gold-standard\/","title":{"rendered":"The Go(l)d Standard"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[384,429,440],"acf":{"old_id":"55478","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":34245,"related_cahpter":"219","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"Gideon gives credit to God, but seems to place more stock in gold...","content":"

In Judges, God uses victories to make a point. Yet the Israelites, as we saw in previous chapters, keep forgetting His point in every generation. In Judges 8 we learn that maybe the problem wasn\u2019t one of memory, but of perception. Maybe the Israelites didn\u2019t merely fail to remember God\u2019s redemptions, but rather failed to recognize His hand in them at all.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThen the men of Israel said to Gideon, \u2018Rule over us\u2014you, your son, and your grandson as well; for you have saved us from the Midianites\u2019\u201d(8:22).<\/span><\/p>\n

The Israelites fail to attribute their victory to the right source. Furthermore: not only do they attribute their victory to Gideon, they also attribute importance to dynastic rule. It makes sense: in their world, where judges occasionally rise to save them but only after long periods of fear and suffering, isn\u2019t it natural to crave the kind of steady, constant protection that can outlive a ruler\u2019s death?<\/span><\/p>\n

Natural or not, this desire leads the Israelites to latch onto the wrong solutions. Their periods of subjugation, according to the book of Judges, are not caused by their political practices, but rather by their repetitive betrayals of God. With each judge, God offers them another opportunity to remember their debt to Him, reestablish their loyalty to Him, and thus earn the constant protection they so crave. By focusing on the particular judge and his line as a solution to their problem, the Israelites squander this chance. They grasp onto the tool of their deliverance and ignore the source that gave it power, and so they doom themselves to subjugation yet again.<\/span><\/p>\n

Gideon seems to understand this underlying danger. \u201c\u2018I will not rule over you myself, nor shall my son rule over you; the LORD alone shall rule over you\u2019\u201d (8:23). But Gideon does not correct their misattribution of the victory, and his own actions undermine his point. The man who argued against fetishizing himself or any other ruler, offers the people a golden token to fetishize instead.<\/span><\/p>\n

Perhaps Gideon thought that a tangible symbol will help the people to remember God. Perhaps, as Yoram Hazoni suggests (in <\/span>The Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture<\/span><\/em>), Gideon thought that he was protecting the people from doing something worse. Whatever his motivation, Gideon\u2019s token leads Israel astray, and serves as a grim lesson: Even those who interpret their present correctly, can sometimes misjudge the way they influence the future. It\u2019s not enough to understand what events are telling us: we must consider how we shape reality in turn.<\/span><\/p>\n

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