John Gill Commentary Judges 8:33

"And it came to pass, as soon as Gideon was dead, that the children of Israel turned again, and played the harlot after the Baalim, and made Baal-berith their god." — Judges 8:33 (ASV)

And it came to pass, as soon as Gideon was dead, that the
children of Israel turned again
from God, and the pure worship of him, to idolatry:

and went a whoring after Baalim ;
the gods of the Phoenicians and Canaanites, the several Baals of other nations, the lords many which they served; these they committed spiritual whoredom with; that is, idolatry: particularly

and made Baalberith
their god; which was the idol of the Shechemites, as appears from a temple being built at Shechem for it, (Judges 9:4) and had its name either from Berytus, a city of Phoenicia, of which Mela

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``and they made a covenant with Baal, that he should be their god;'' as if he had his name from hence; though rather from his presiding over covenants, as Janus is said ^F19 to do, and from his avenging the breach of them, and rewarding those that kept them; the same with Jupiter Fidius Ultor, and Sponsor ^F20 with the Romans, and Horcius ^F21 with the Greeks.

FOOTNOTES:

• F19: Servius in Virgil. Aeneid. l. 12. "Latonaeque genus" Vid. Liv. Hist. l. 8. c. 5, 6.
• F20: Vid. Kipping. Antiqu. Roman. l. 1. c. 1. p. 48.
• F21: Pausan. Eliac. 1. sive. l. 5. p. 336. Sophocles in Philoctete, prope finem.