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WE doubt whether the high priest of Israel, in all the glory of his festival robes, wore so costly an ephod as this. His was, indeed, to be of gold and blue and scarlet and fine twisted linen; gold beaten into plates and cut into wires, with engraved jewels in ouches of gold to rest on the shoulder-pieces, very fair to the eye. But a heavier mass of magnificence is before us than even the consecrated garment of Aaron appears to have been; a marvellous weight of gold, such as a Crœsus or a Darius might have worn to dazzle the eyes of their subjects.
Had we asked one of the men of Ophrah in the days of Gideon concerning this gorgeous ephod, his answer might have been something like this: "Behold a nation's offering of gratitude to the hero who burst the bonds of Midian, and made Israel to triumph over their oppressors! Gideon, the favoured of Heaven, the honoured of men! He to whom signs and miracles have been vouchsafed; he whose faith hath made him the deliverer of a nation, yet who hath refused to become its king; -Gideon formed this ephod. 'I would desire a request of you,' said our hero to his warriors: 'That ye would give me every man the ear-rings of his prey.'