Judges 9:14

14. All the trees Not one of all the trees was willing to be king, but all were willing that the bramble should rule over them a stinging reflection on the Shechemites. We understand Gideon and his sons, under the refusal of royalty, (Judges 8:23,) to be represented by the olive and the vine, and Abimelech by the bramble. The bramble does not refuse to be king. Jotham sarcastically makes the bramble invite them to come under his shade, as an image of the felicity? of the Shechemites if they have done well in their choice. But if, as he believes, they have done wickedly, their bramble will prove a torch to burn their very cedars of Lebanon, the tallest of the Shechemite nobility.

The bramble The word אשׂד , atad, occurs elsewhere only in Psalms 58:9, where it is rendered thorns, and Genesis 50:10, where it is rendered as a proper name. “It is generally thought to denote the southern buckthorn, a brier bush indigenous in Egypt and Syria, shooting up from the root in many branches, (ten to fifteen feet high,) armed with spines, and bearing leaves resembling those of the olive, but light coloured and more slender, with little whitish blossoms that eventually produce small, black, bitter berries. The Arabs still call it atad. Rauwolf found it growing at Jerusalem.” M’Clintock and Strong’s Cyclopaedia. From this same bush it is supposed the Saviour’s crown of thorns was made. Compare note on Matthew 27:29.