Ophrah was a small town of the Abiezrite clan, in the territory of the tribe of Manasseh, in northern Israel.
There stood the property of Joash, Gideon’s father, with an oak tree in its shade and an altar dedicated to Baal, the Canaanite god of fertility.
It was under that oak tree that the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon, a man who was hiding from the Midianites, and called him a “mighty warrior,” summoning him to deliver the people of Israel. Right there, Gideon built an altar to the Lord, called The Lord Is Peace.
That same night, by God’s command, Gideon tore down the altar of Baal that belonged to his father and, in its place, built another altar to the Lord, offering a bull as a burnt offering.
Years later, however, Gideon himself made a gold ephod in Ophrah, which Israel came to worship as an idol, becoming a snare for him and his family.
It was also in Ophrah that Gideon was buried, and later his son Abimelech returned to that same place to kill his brothers and try to make himself king.
Ophrah shows how the same place can bear witness both to God’s delivering faithfulness and to human frailty in the face of success and power.
