This is seen to be the more
impossible when we consider that according to the testimony of
Hosea, Isaiah, and Micah, such images were even in the Assyrian
period a regular part of the belongings of the "houses of God"
not only in Samaria but in Judah as well. We have also to
remember that the contradiction between a human kingship and the
kingship of Jehovah, such as is spoken of in these verses, rests
upon theories which arose later, and of which we shall have more
to say. /1/ Studer will thus be correct in his assertion that the
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1. "The words of Gideon are only intelligible on the presupposition
that the rule of Jehovah had a visible representative prophet or
priest. But this was not the case in the period of the judges,
as Gideon's own history shows us." Vatke, p. 263. We see besides
from ix. 1 seq. that Gideon really was the ruler of Ephraim and
Manasseh.
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old tradition could not see anything in Gideon's refusing the gold
for himself and dedicating it to God but a fine proof of his
unselfishness and piety, and that in viii.
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