Judges 9:1

TRAGIC TALE OF GIDEON'S SON BY A CONCUBINE

At first glance, it might appear that this pitiful tale of the scoundrel Abimelech is unimportant. However, the events of this chapter came very near to being the end of the nation of Israel. "Shechem, along with a scattering of Israelites, here reverted to the Bronze-age monarchical form of government; it was nearly the end of Israel."[1] If Abimelech had been able to succeed in any extensive sense, all Israel might have renounced their covenant relationship with Jehovah. This reversion to Canaanite Baalism involved the official recognition of Baal as the covenant god.

Three other measures of the importance of this chapter may also be noted:

(1) "Here is revealed the doctrine that wickedness is never allowed to go unpunished."[2]

(2) There is no clearer lesson in the history of mankind exhibiting the consummate wickedness of polygamy and concubinage than is to be found in this extended story of the posterity of Gideon. Hervey stated that, "It was polygamy that produced family discord, destroyed filial affection, resulted in strife, wholesale murder, and produced an ignoble and contemptible herd of helpless princes."[3]

(3) Also, there is a perfect example here of what government by "a king" would inevitably mean for Israel. Yes, David, and a very few others, were exceptions to the rule, but the long, wretched story of the kings of Israel followed perfectly the pattern of that type of government which God allowed His chosen people to see in the atrocious behavior of the scoundrel of Shechem, Abimelech.

ABIMELECH'S RUTHLESS MURDER OF HIS BROTHERS (Judges 9:1-6)

"And Abimelech the son of Jerubbaal went unto his mother's brethren, and spake with them, and with all the family of the house of his mother's father, saying, Speak, I pray you, in the ears of all the men of Shechem, Whether is better for you, that all the sons of Jerubbaal, who are threescore and ten persons, rule over you, or that one rule over you? remember also that I am your bone and your flesh. And his mother's brethren spake of him in the ears of all the men of Shechem all these words: and their hearts inclined to follow Abimelech; for they said, He is our brother. And they gave him threescore and ten pieces of silver out of the house of Baal-berith, wherewith Abimelech hired vain and light fellows who followed him. And he went unto his father's house at Ophrah, and slew his brethren the sons of Jerubbaal, being threescore and ten persons, upon one stone: but Jotham the youngest son of Jerubbaal was left, for he hid himself. And all the men of Shechem assembled themselves together, and all the house of Millo, and went and made Abimelech king, by the oak of the pillar that was in Shechem."

"Speak ... in the ears of all the men of Shechem" (Judges 9:2-3). The meaning here is that the conspiracy was to be carried on quietly, that is, whispered in the ears of the conspirators.

SHECHEM

This place figured prominently in the early history of Israel.

(1) When Abraham came from Haran, it was at the oak of Moreh in the vicinity of Shechem that he erected his first altar (Genesis 12:6f).

(2) It was probably by this oak that Jacob, upon his return from Paddan-aram, compelled his family to bury their false gods (Genesis 35:4).

(3) Jacob here bought a parcel of ground east of the city from the sons of Hamor upon which he pitched his tent and erected an altar which he called "El-Elohe-Israel," "God, the God of Israel." (Genesis 33:18-20).

(4) It was here that Jacob's sons Simeon and Levi brutally and treacherously avenged the date-rape of their sister Dinah (Genesis 34).

(5) Here the bones of Joseph were buried by Joshua on that piece of ground that Jacob had bought from the sons of Hamor (Joshua 24:32).

(6) Although the capture of Shechem is not mentioned in Joshua, it was nevertheless possessed by Israel, because it was at those twin mountains of Shechem, Gerizim and Ebal just south of the city (Mount Ephraim was on the north), that Joshua gave his farewell address to Israel. And it was there that the Law was read, and the people were pledged to obey Jehovah (Joshua 8:33).

This chapter relates the crowning of Abimelech, probably at that same oak where Jacob's family had buried the false gods, and the speech of Jotham from that pulpit-like rock projecting from Mount Gerizim, the narrow valley between Ebal and Gerizim forming a natural amphitheater with very remarkable acoustics. It seems strange that in this chapter, the citizens of Shechem seem to be almost totally Canaanite.

The city was located in the territory of the tribe of Ephraim. And upon the division of the kingdom, Jeroboam I rebuilt Shechem, fortified it and made it his capital. It continued as a very important city until the establishment of Samaria as the capital of the Northern Kingdom, after which Shechem declined. Shechem was located on the principal natural roadway between the East and the Mediterranean Sea, and the ruler of Shechem was able to impose taxes or a tariff on the caravans using that route.

Today, "Just southwest of Shechem is a tiny chapel, constructed upon the place where Jacob is said to have mourned over the blood-stained coat of Joseph."[4]

"Abimelech hired vain and light fellows" (Judges 9:4). This terminology was applied to false prophets in Zephaniah 3:4; and, "In German, this is rendered `sprudelkopf,' meaning, `a hot-headed hasty man.'"[5] Those evil men who followed Abimelech were unscrupulous scoundrels willing to do absolutely anything for a piece of silver.

"Silver out of the house of Baal-berith" (Judges 9:4). The principal establishment in Shechem at this time was this stronghold including a tower and temple of Baal-berith, indicating that, "Shechem was a Canaanite city and that the mother and family of Abimelech were Canaanites."[6] What a fatal mistake it had been for Gideon to father a son by a concubine who, under the rules for certain classes of concubines, reared him in a pagan environment with no knowledge whatever of God. In our own times, parents who rear their children without true spiritual and religious education are committing the same disastrous mistake.

"Upon one stone" (Judges 9:5). This means that all of Gideon's sons, except Jotham who escaped, were executed upon that one rock, used as a block. This type of wholesale murder was often practiced in antiquity, as in the cases of the seventy sons of Ahab (2 Kings 10:7), the seed royal of Judah (2 Kings 11:1), the whole house of Jeroboam (1 Kings 15:29), and the whole house of Zimri (1 Kings 16:11,12). Atrocious as such deeds were, they were no more evil than the wholesale murders inflicted upon mankind by the vicious lords of Communism such as Stalin and Castro in this present century, whose murderous "liquidation" of helpless victims reached a total of millions. No less gargantuan wickedness was that of Adolph Hitler in Nazi Germany.

A group of archaeologists sponsored by Harvard University "discovered that the three buildings mentioned in this chapter, namely, `the Tower of Shechem,' `the house of Baal-berith' and the `House of Millo' were one and the same, and that it was the largest temple-fortress in Palestine."[7] Furthermore, the same group established that Shechem was destroyed about 1150 B.C.

"The men of Shechem ... made Abimelech king, by the oak of the pillar that was in Shechem" (Judges 9:6). By thus engineering his coronation to take place at that famous oak tree which had figured so prominently in previous Israelite history, he contrived, "The defilement of a great covenant sanctuary,"[8] thus indicating his contempt for all the sacred traditions of Israel. This so-called "kingdom" of Abimelech, however, was a very limited thing. "It hardly extended beyond western Manasseh.[9] Nowhere in the Bible is it stated that Abimelech "ruled over all Israel."