Judges 9:42-49

Abimelech Destroys Shechem. These verses seem to contain a second, independent account of the attack on Shechem, the sequel to Judges 9:22.

Judges 9:43. Abimelech adopts the same tactics whereby his father routed the Midianites (Judges 7:16).

Judges 9:44. Read, with the LXX, the company that was with me.

Judges 9:45. To sow a city with salt was to declare symbolically that it was henceforth to be as fruitless and desolate as a salt desert (Deuteronomy 9:23; Psalms 107:34). But, in the case of Shechem, nature itself made that impossible.

Judges 9:46. Read Migdal-Shechem, evidently a town in the neighbourhood. El-berith is another name for Baal-berith (Judges 8:33), which the LXX has here. The translation hold is a guess; the word may mean an underground chamber. Mount Zalmon is unknown.

Judges 9:49. Abimelech burns the town of Shechem; King Bramble's fire devours the cedars as Jotham had predicted.