Judges 6:30
Then the men of the city said unto Joash, Bring out thy son, that he may die: because he hath cast down the altar of Baal, and because he hath cut down the grove that was by it. Then the men of the city said unto Joash, Bring out thy son, that he may die: because he hath cast down the altar of Baal, and because he hath cut down the grove that was by it.
The verse belongs to the repeated pattern of backsliding and chastisement, confession and deliverance in the days of the judges, when Israel mingled among the heathen and learned their works, when idolatry spread like a plague, and when subjection to enemies came through Israel's own sins until God raised up faithful and valiant men to put down idolatry and deliver them. More specifically, it belongs to the time when the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord and the Lord delivered them into the hand of Midian, following earlier oppressions by Mesopotamia, by Moab, by the Philistines, and by the Canaanites of Hazor under Sisera, from which Othniel, Shamgar, Ehud, Deborah and Barak had delivered them. In this calamity Midian joined with Amalek and the peoples of the east, and the desert hordes came as locusts for multitude with flocks and herds from Jordan to the Philistine plain, stripping harvests and robbing the inhabitants and forcing Israel out of the open country into walled towns, fortresses, caves and rocky fastnesses for seven years, until Israel heeded reproof and confessed its sins and God raised up Gideon as helper.
The men of Ophrah demanded Gideon's death because he had destroyed Baal's altar and the sacred grove and object beside it. Their fury and demand revealed how strongly the town was devoted to idolatry and opposed to Gideon's protest against Baal worship. Joash's defense of his son stopped the violence and ended the threat against Gideon. Joash argued that Baal should be left to defend himself and that the people, not Gideon, deserved the penalty for breaking God's law against idolatry. That appeal exposed Baal's powerlessness and helped turn the people toward Gideon.