Judges 9:49

_AND ALL THE PEOPLE LIKEWISE CUT DOWN EVERY MAN HIS BOUGH, AND FOLLOWED ABIMELECH, AND PUT THEM TO THE HOLD, AND SET THE HOLD ON FIRE UPON THEM; SO THAT ALL THE MEN OF THE TOWER OF SHECHEM DIED ALSO, ABOUT A THOUSAND MEN AND WOMEN._ All the people ... followed Abimelech ... and set the hold on fire upon them. Since this tower or fortress was so strong, and there was no hope of its being taken by storm, Abimelech resolved to set it on fire, being a wooden edifice. With this view he went up to mount Zalmon, which, in the opinion of Dr. Robinson ('Physical Geography of Palestine,' p. 36), 'could only be some part of Gerizim or Ebal, then covered with wood, since there is no other mountain near to Shechem.' There having cut down a branch, he lifted it on his shoulder, and bade all the people around do the same. A large quantity of fuel was thus brought down from the mountain, and laid in th...

30-49 Abimelech intended to punish the Schechemites for slighting him now, but God punished them for their serving him formerly in the murder of Gideon's sons. When God uses men as instruments in his hand to do his work, he means one thing, and they another. That, which they hoped would have been for their welfare, proved a snare and a trap, as those will certainly find, who run to idols for shelter; such will prove a refuge of lies....

EXPOSITION JUDGES 9:22 HAD REIGNED. The Hebrew word here used is quite a different one from that in Judges 9:8, Judges 9:10, Judges 9:12, Judges 9:14, and elsewhere, where the reign of a king is designated. It means to exercise dominion, to be a chief or captain over a people. The use of it here suggests that though, as we read in Judges 9:6, the Canaanite men of Shechem and the house of Millo had made him their king, yet he was not made king b

AND ALL THE PEOPLE LIKEWISE CUT DOWN EVERY MAN HIS BOUGH, AND FOLLOWED ABIMELECH,.... With their boughs on their shoulders, so that they were men that seemed to be as trees walking: AND PUT THEM TO THE HOLD, AND SET THE HOLD ON FIRE UPON THEM; upon the men in it, or with them, the boughs of trees; it is probable the hold was made of wood, and so could the more easily be set on fire. Jarchi says it was a wood or forest, where they bent the trees, and divided them round about, and made a fence of them; but they would scarcely have left the tower for such a shelter: SO THAT ALL THE MEN OF THE TOWER OF SHECHEM DIED ALSO; fire being put to the hold, and they burnt in it; the Vulgate Latin version adds, with fire and smoke; for they being boughs of trees just cut down, with which they set fire to the hold, they would not burn easily and clearly, but make a prodigious smoke, with which many m...

CHAPTER 9 ABIMELECH THE KING AND HIS WICKEDNESS _ 1. The murder of Gideon's sons (Judges 9:1)_ 2. Jotham's parable (Judges 9:7) 3. Scenes of strife and destruction of Shechem (Judges 9:22) 4. Abimelech's end (Judges 9:50) The story of Abimelech is intensely interesting in its typical meaning. Abimelech was the offspring of an unlawful union: the son of Gideon and the concubine in Shechem. He was half Israelite and half Canaanite. Abimelech means “my father was king”; he claims therefore supremacy, lordship over the people Israel on the basis of succession. His father had refused that honor; the bastard offspring

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 (Deuter

_Abimelech destroys Shechem and Migdal-Shechem_ After the Shechemites have suffered the severe defeat just described, and Abimelech has retired and dwelt at Arumah, it is incredible that, on the next morning, the people should come out of the city as if nothing had happened, and that Abimelech should be able to surprise them by the same device which had proved so successful the day before. All difficulties disappear if we regard these verses, not as the sequel to 34 41, but as a second account of Abimelech's attack on Shechem, originally following 22 25. The Shechemites break out into open treason (Judges 9:25); A. takes instant (-on the morrow" Judges 9:42) and severe revenge. Moore thinks that Judges 9:22 are derived from E,...

_The Conspiracy of Gaal Judges 9:22-49_ 22 When Abimelech had reigned three years over Israel, 23 Then God sent an evil spirit between Abimelech and the men of Shechem; and the men of Shechem dealt treacherously with Abimelech: 24 That the cruelty done to the threescore and ten sons of Jerubbaal might come, and their blood be laid upon Abimelech their brother, which slew them; and upon the men of Shechem, which aided him in the killing of his brethren, 25 And the men of Shechem set liers in wait for him in the top of the mountains, and they robbed all that came along that way by them: and it was told Abimelech. 26 And Gaal the son of Ebed came with his brethren, and went over to Shechem: and the men of Shechem put their confidence in him. 27 And they went out into the fields, and gathered their vineyards, and trode the grapes, and made merry, and went into the house o

THE STORY OF ABIMELECH This chapter breaks the regular order of the book, since Abimelech is not thought of as a judge, and the Canaanites are not here regarded as oppressors. The story, however, throws a valuable light on the way in which Israel fell into unfaithfulness, when free from the yoke of foreign oppression. 1-6. The rise of Abimelech....

LIFE WITHOUT LAW JUDGES _PHILIP SMITH_ CHAPTER 9 V1 Abimelech, Jerubbaal’s son, went to his mother’s brothers in Shechem. He spoke to them and he spoke to all his mother’s *tribe. V2 ‘Ask all the people who live in Shechem this question. Is it better to have Jerubbaal’s 70 sons to rule over you? Or is it better to have only one? Remember that I am a member in your family.’ V3 The brothers repeated this to the people in Shechem. As a result, they decided to serve Abimelech. ‘He is our brother’, they said. V4 They gave him 70 pieces of silver from Baalberith’s *temple. Abimelech used these to hire some men. These men were worth nothing and they were lazy. They followed him. V5 He went to his father’s house in Ophrah. There he murdered his 70 brothers, Jerubbaal’s sons, on a b