John Gills Exposition of the Bible Commentary - Judges 9:8
The trees went forth on a time to anoint a king over them ,.... This is an apologue or fable, and a very fine and beautiful one; it is fitly expressed to answer the design, and the most ancient of the kind, being made seven hundred years before the times of Aesop, so famous for his fables, and exceeds anything written by him. By the trees are meant the people of Israel in general, and the Shechemites in particular, who had been for some time very desirous of a king, but could not persuade... read more
John Gills Exposition of the Bible Commentary - Judges 9:7
And when they told it to Jotham ,.... Or when it was told him that Abimelech was made king in Shechem by some of his friends: he went and stood in the top of Mount Gerizim ; a mount near Shechem; it hung over the city, as Josephus says F3 Antiqu. l. 5. c. 7. sect. 2. , and so a very proper place to stand on and deliver a speech from it to the inhabitants of it; who, as the same writer says, were now keeping a festival, on what account he says not, perhaps to Baalberith their idol:... read more