Gideon had not invited the men of Ephraim to join him when he recruited the tribes of Manasseh, Asher, Zebulon, and Naphtali (6:35). I assume he did this at the Lord's command since he did not need more soldiers. The men of Ephraim took this omission as an insult (v. 1).174
The leaders of this tribe protested Gideon's action, ". . . less from any dissatisfied longing for booty, than from injured pride or jealousy, because Gideon had made war upon the enemy and defeated them without the co-operation of this tribe, which was striving for the leadership [in Israel]."175
". . . nothing is more common than for those who will not attempt or venture anything in the cause of God, to be ready to censure those who show more zeal and enterprise than themselves."176
Gideon responded diplomatically and satisfied the Ephraimites (v. 2). The "gleaning"of Ephraim refers to the lives and spoils the Ephraimites took from the fleeing Midianites, and the "vintage"of Abiezer refers to the Midianites that Gideon and his 300 men had defeated and slain. The Ephraimites' victory was greater too in that they had killed two Midianite commanders, Oreb and Zeeb.
It is significant, however, that Gideon based his appeal on psychology rather than theology. Why did he make no reference to God's direction of him or God's provision of victory (cf. ch. 5)? Having participated in a great deliverance, Gideon seems to have begun to exclude the Victor from His own victory. The fact that Gideon specified as the battle cry, "For the LORD and for Gideon"(7:18, 20) suggests that even then he may have wanted to take some credit for the victory.
"When the plot resumes, something seems to have happened to the character of the hero. In chaps. 6-7 we have witnessed his transformation from a fearful private citizen to a fearless agent of God, willing to take on the enemy against all odds, not to mention a sensitive diplomat. But the portrait of the man the author paints in this chapter creates a radically different impression in the reader's mind. If 8:1-32 had been handed down without the literary context in which it is embedded, modern readers would reject Gideon as a tyrant, arbitrary in his treatment of the enemy and ruthless in his handling of his own countrymen. Instead of hacking' and contending' with the enemy, Gideon/Jerubbaal contends' and hacks' his own people."177
