The spoil from the golden ear-rings alone amounted to one thousand seven hundred shekels, as we learn from the narrative, and this treasure in the hands of Jerubbaal was not left unemployed, but was made, doubtless, to contribute something to the prestige he had already acquired:  the men of Israel, whom he had just saved from their foes, expressed their gratitude by offering the crown to him and his successors.  The mode of life of the Hebrews had been much changed after they had taken up their abode in the mountains of Canaan.  The tent had given place to the house, and, like their Canaanite neighbours, they had given themselves up to agricultural pursuits.  This change of habits, in bringing about a greater abundance of the necessaries of life than they had been accustomed to, had begotten aspirations which threw into relief the inadequacy of the social organisation, and of the form of government with which they had previously been content.  In the case of a horde of nomads, defeat or exile would be of little moment.  Should they be obliged by a turn in their affairs to leave their usual haunts, a few days or often a few hours would suffice to enable them to collect their effects together, and set out without trouble, and almost without regret, in search of a new and more favoured home.  But with a cultivator of the ground the case would be different:  the farm, clearings, and homestead upon which he had spent such arduous and continued labour; the olive trees and vines which had supplied him with oil and wine—­everything, in fact, upon which he depended for a livelihood, or which was dependent upon him, would bind him to the soil, and expose his property to disasters likely to be as keenly felt as wounds inflicted on his person.  He would feel the need, therefore, of laws to secure to him in time of peace the quiet possession of his wealth, of an army to protect it in time of war, and of a ruler to cause, on the one hand, the laws to be respected, and to become the leader, on the other, of the military forces.  Jerubbaal is said to have, in the first instance, refused the crown, but everything goes to prove that he afterwards virtually accepted it.  He became, it is true, only a petty king, whose sovereignty was limited to Manasseh, a part of Ephraim, and a few towns, such as Succoth and Penuel, beyond the Jordan.  The Canaanite city of Shechem also paid him homage.  Like all great chiefs, he had also numerous wives, and he recognised as the national Deity the God to whom he owed his victories.

Out of the spoil taken from the Midianites he formed and set up at Ophrah an ephod, which became, as we learn, “a snare unto him and unto his house,” but he had also erected under a terebinth tree a stone altar to Jahveh-Shalom ("Jehovah is peace").* This sanctuary, with its altar and ephod, soon acquired great celebrity, and centuries after its foundation it was the object of many pilgrimages from a distance.

Jerubbaal was the father by his Israelite wives of seventy children, and, by a Canaanite woman whom he had taken as a concubine at Shechem, of one son, called Abimelech.**