Judges 8:33

33. As soon as Gideon was dead Compare Judges 2:19, note. Gideon’s own example had been a snare to Israel; but in spite of all that, there was so much of uprightness and goodness in his character that he restrained the people from idolatry all his days. Here mark the downward tendency of a questionable example. False, and even evil, opinions and practices may be held by some great minds with apparent innocence and harmlessness, but prove the ruin of others who presume to follow in their steps.

Baal-berith The covenant Baal. The name indicates that these Israelites entered into covenant with Baal, just as Israel, under Moses, had entered into covenant with Jehovah. From Judges 9:4; Judges 9:46, we learn that there was at Shechem a temple or house for his worship. He thus became to them the most sacred of deities, the god in whose name they might solemnize their oaths, thus corresponding with the Ζευς ορκιος of the Greeks, and the Deus Fidius of the Romans.