The Burning Of The Bramble. So Abimelech came to the tower and fought against it, and approached the entrance of the tower to burn it down with fire. But a certain woman threw an upper millstone [down] on Abimelech’s head and crushed his skull.
Then he called quickly to the young man who was his armor bearer, and said to him, “Draw your sword and kill me, so that it will not be said of me, ‘A woman killed him.'” So the young man pierced him through, and he died. Jdg 9:53-54
INTRODUCTION
This is a history of the chosen people during the 400 or 450 years which intervened between the death of Joshua and the time of Eli, Act_13:20. It is not a connected history, but a collection of outstanding incidents, which determined the fortunes of the chosen people, and gave special illustrations of the power of faith in God. The chief lesson of the book is the intimate connection between loyalty or disloyalty to God and the corresponding results in well-being or misery. This is distinctly stated in Jdg_2:11-23.
The judges were extraordinary agents of the divine pity and helpfulness, raised up as the urgency of the people’s need demanded, to deliver Israel from their oppressors, to reform religion, and to administer justice. Their administration was generally local, as Barak among the northern tribes, Samson in the extreme south, and Jephthah across the Jordan in Gilead.
It must not be supposed that Israel perpetrated an unbroken series of apostasies. Though these and their special deliverances occupy the major part of the book, there were evidently long interspaces of fidelity and prosperity. And in the darkest hours, there were probably large numbers who, amid the abominations, sighed and cried for a better day.
There are two appendices, relating events which took place not long after Joshua’s death, and therefore preceding the greater part of the history. We may almost consider the book of Ruth as the third. The touches of human characteristics are very vivid and instinctive, and the book deserves much more attention than it receives from the ordinary reader.
Israel’s Apostasies and Deliverances
INTRODUCTION, Jdg_1:1-36; Jdg_2:1-23; Jdg_3:1-432.
RULE OF THE JUDGES, Judges 3:5-16:31
Following repeated apostasy and oppression, the Israelites were successively delivered:
4. From the Kings of Midian by Gideon, Jdg_6:1-40; Jdg_7:1-25; Jdg_8:1-35
(Story of Gideon’s sons), Jdg_9:1-57
22. How was Abimelech punished?
THE LORD RAISES UP JUDGES
THE DOWNFALL OF ABIMELECH
Then Abimelech stayed at Arumah, and Zebul drove out Gaal and his relatives so that they could not remain in Shechem.
The next day the people went out to the field, and it was reported to Abimelech.
So he took his people and divided them into three companies, and set an ambush in the field; and he looked and saw the people coming out of the city. And he rose up against them and struck them down.
Then Abimelech and the company with him advanced forward and stood in the entrance of the city gate; the two other companies attacked all who were in the field and killed them.
Abimelech fought against the city that entire day. He took the city and killed the people who were in it; he demolished the city and sowed it with salt.
When all the leaders of the Tower of Shechem heard about it, they entered the inner chamber (stronghold) of the temple of El-berith (the god of a covenant).
Abimelech was told that all the leaders of the Tower of Shechem were assembled together.
So Abimelech went up to Mount Zalmon, he and all the people with him; and Abimelech took an axe in his hand and cut down a branch from the trees, picked it up, and laid it on his shoulder. And he said to the people with him, “What you have seen me do, hurry and do just as I have done.”
So everyone of the people also cut down his branch and followed Abimelech, and they put the branches on top of the inner chamber and set it on fire over those inside, so that all the people in the Tower of Shechem also died, about a thousand men and women.
Then Abimelech went to Thebez, and camped against Thebez and took it.
But there was a strong (fortified) tower in the center of the city, and all the men and women with all the leaders of the city fled to it and shut themselves in; and they went up on the roof of the tower.
So Abimelech came to the tower and fought against it, and approached the entrance of the tower to burn it down with fire.
But a certain woman threw an upper millstone [down] on Abimelech’s head and crushed his skull.
Then he called quickly to the young man who was his armor bearer, and said to him, “Draw your sword and kill me, so that it will not be said of me, ‘A woman killed him.'” So the young man pierced him through, and he died.
When the men of Israel saw that Abimelech was dead, each departed to his home.
In this way God repaid the wickedness of Abimelech, which he had done to his father [Jerubbaal] by killing his seventy brothers.
Also God repaid all the wickedness of the men of Shechem on their heads, and the curse of Jotham the son of Jerubbaal (Gideon) came upon them. [Jdg_9:19-20]
Comments by
F.B.Meyer
OnJudges 9:41-57
THE BURNING OF THE BRAMBLE
Terrible deeds like these give tokens of the power of the god of this world, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience. Alas, similar atrocities are being perpetrated still, after all these centuries of what is called Christian civilization. But this Christianity is only a very shallow veneer, and when national passions break loose, there is little to choose between war today and in pre-Christian ages.
Men have no right to attribute the sins, cruelties, barbarities and enormities of the present day to Christianity. They are due to its absence. The whole Gospel of the Son of man protests against them. We must sadly admit that His “enemy hath done this.” And there will be no real cessation of the evils beneath which the world groans until the King comes to His own and sets up His everlasting Kingdom. What has happened of late in Europe, (WW1) notwithstanding all the efforts toward arbitration and peace, proves that something new must be brought to pass before the Father’s kingdom can come and His will be done on earth.
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