It was a sign they had provoked God to depart from them that neither any prophet was sent nor any remarkable judgment, to awaken this stupid people, and to stop the progress of this threatening mischief. This was for two reasons: God had not established a hereditary monarchy in Israel, and there were sixty-nine other sons of Gideon (Judges 8:30) who might also want to succeed their father. Is he not the son of Jerubbaal, and is not Zebul his officer? A certain woman dropped an upper millstone on Abimelechs head and crushed his skull: At Thebez, a woman dropped a millstone on Abimelechs head and mortally wounded him. But in the end He acts in His own way, which will ever be what we little expect. Killed his brothers, the seventy sons of Jerubbaal: Therefore, Abimelech killed his brothers with the support of his relatives on his mothers side. Gaal probably was not prepared for a siege; so he had little choice but to leave the city walls behind and confront Abimelech out in the open. (Wolf). Abimelechs mother, though only a maidservant to Gideon, was from Shechem. The end was that he met with the judgment least of all to be coveted by man, most of all detestable to a proud spirit like his own. The truest deliverance from self is in that work where all was judged, and evil put away for ever. But alas! And devour the cedars of Lebanon!. Nevertheless they were beaten the next day; for they must be disciplined before the Lord before He could use them to deal with their brother. If, therefore, they took him for their king, they might rest assured that desolation and blood would mark the whole of his reign. I need not dwell on the deplorable details. But God takes means to make them feel what such a state comes to. Abimelech the son of Jerubbaal went to Shechem--The idolatry which had been stealthily creeping into Israel during the latter years of Gideon was now openly professed; Shechem was wholly inhabited by its adherents; at least, idolaters had the ascendency. The spiritual man understands how it was. But there was a strong tower in the city, and all the men and women; all the people of the city; fled there and shut themselves in; then they went up to the top of the tower. And it sounds sort of farfetched or preposterous but there are many places in the land where the acoustics are just natural; acoustics are really fantastic.If you're standing up on the Herodium there could be children playing two miles away and you can hear their conversations to each other. Of this tribe Samson was born. We come to look at a parable, the parable of the trees. And he said to God the people were under my rule, because I can really do a good job here, you know. He got an opportunity of speaking to them from the top of Mount Gerizim, the mount of blessings, at the foot of which probably the Shechemites were, upon some occasion or other, gathered together (Josephus says, solemnizing a festival), and it seems they were willing to hear what he had to say. a. serve the men of Hamor the father of Shechem: for why should we serve him? Web35 And Gaal the son of Ebed went out, and stood in the entering of the gate of the city: and Abimelech rose up, and the people that were with him, from lying in wait. (30-33) The role of Zebul, the ruler of the city. "It shall be that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me." for oil and wine were used both at God's altars and at men's tables. Then, after many years of study people will be following you wanting what you have and you can share your secret with them. And he sent messengers to Abimelech secretly, saying, Take note! 7. he stood in the top of mount Gerizim and lifted up his voiceThe spot he chose was, like the housetops, the public place of Shechem; and the parable [Jud 9:8-15] drawn from the rivalry of the various trees was appropriate to the diversified foliage of the valley below. The trees went forth on a time to anoint a king over them; and they said unto the olive tree, Reign thou over us. And Samson said unto the lad that held him by the hand, Suffer me that I may feel the pillars whereupon the house standeth, that I may lean upon them. Is it not evident that Samson feebly knew what God was teaching him by the lion which he slew, and by the lion's carcase which he found with the honey in it? He could tell his troops to do as I have done, and they did. The sound just carries very well. 5 Samson went down to Timnah. WebJudges 14:5-7. The king of Ammon had no just claim whatever. So all the men of Israel were gathered against the city, knit together as one man. "So they came to the fig trees and said, "Rule over us." . It has been already said to have been an early fact in the history of the "Judges," and not chronologically near the close of the book. if a man attempts: to put himself under it for shelter, he will find it will be of no use to him, but harmful, since, the nearer and closer he comes to it, the more he will be scratched and torn by it: and if not, let fire come out of the bramble, and devour the cedars of Lebanon; signifying, that if they did not heartily submit to his government, and put confidence in him, and prove faithful to him, they should smart for it, and feel his wrath and vengeance, even the greatest men among them, comparable to the cedars of Lebanon; for thorns and brambles catching fire, as they easily do, or fire being put to them, as weak as they are, and placed under the tallest and strongest cedars, will soon fetch them down to the ground; and the words of the bramble, or Abimelech, proved true to the Shechemites, he is made to speak in this parable. And Jehovah said, Go up; for tomorrow I will deliver them into thine hand." We ought to be serving Hamor and his family, let them be the kings. The case before us, in Judges 17:1-13; Judges 18:1-31, is one where God was openly, deliberately, and systematically dishonoured. By the Holy Spirit only can we enter in and enjoy. And they bound him with two new cords, and brought him up from the rock. And he took thereof in his hands, and went on eating, and came to his father and mother, and he gave them, and they did eat: but he told not them that he had taken the honey out of the carcase of the lion. Such then was the bloody crisis at which a deliverer of Israel arrives in his unsparing resentment. So it was pressed on Israel then. Then the trees said to the fig tree, "If your conduct towards the house of Gideon be such as can be justified at any bar of justice, honour, or conscience, much good may it do you with your new king." But, if you ignore God and just reduce this world to what you can see, you will eliminate the value of human life and be capable of heinous things. Even the man who above all others perhaps illustrates the danger of rash vows in the joy of a divine deliverance, and that affecting him in the nearest possible way, was the very reverse of rash in entering on his service for the people of Israel. By proceeding, you consent to our cookie usage. Then follows the story of his companions and the riddle a riddle which he was clever enough to put, but which he had little faith to understand or appropriate himself. As long as the world is under the usurped rule of the enemy of God, the path of obedience must always be one of suffering, and this, I may add, increasingly, as we see in Him. WebJudges 9:8-15. Here God had to rebuke the people, even when morally right in the main, until the wrong their state and haste mixed up with it was purged out. 23. Thus we may find the most striking manifestations of power in men as disorderly as the Corinthian Christians; but the same persons are a plain proof that it is a far harder thing to do the will of the Lord, and harder still to suffer according to God, than to work any miracles whatever. 1. The result in the type alas! says Jephthah, "Jehovah God of Israel hath dispossessed the Amorites from before his people Israel, and shouldest thou possess it?" Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible. Now when they told Jotham: Jotham was the only son of Gideon to escape the massacre at the stone (Judges 9:5). If this be submitted to (and you might more consistently reject the Bible altogether, if you do not submit), one sees the hollowness and falsehood of sitting in judgment upon it: for who can question that to doubt that which comes directly from God Himself would be to take the place, not merely of an unbeliever, but of a blasphemer or an atheist? Now when all the men of the tower of Shechem had heard that, they entered the stronghold of the temple of the god Berith. in the use of names, Jerubbaal is used throughout for Gideon, and Yahweh is referred to only by the generic Elohim. Modern history records a case, in which soldiers on the hill shouted to the people in the city and endeavored to instigate them to an insurrection. All promise, no performance. So Abimelech rose up, and all the people that were with him, by night, and they laid wait at Shechem and four companies. Explanation - The following list includes not only commentaries but other Christian works by well known evangelical writers. . Of course, that's where Jesus was addressing so many people, and also they're at the Temple Mount where Jesus addressed so many people.So this Jotham, son of Gideon, the one that Abimelech didn't kill, went up to the top of Mount Gerizim, and here is Shechem down below. Yet was God behind and above all; and God, deigning to employ even such a man, at such a time, and under such circumstances, to accomplish, or at least to begin, the deliverance of His people. You come and reign over us! And all the evil of the men of Shechem God returned on their own heads, and on them came the curse of Jotham the son of Jerubbaal. But, in order for us to know the sweetness of that care, it becomes us to care for Him, His name and glory. You can check these in your browser security settings. Most likely, when we talk about parables, our thoughts immediately Why Does God Compare Our Relationship with Him to That of a Bride and Groom? "To the church of" and "He who has an ear let him hear" Yes indeed God is ever present both as a protector and also as a Judge for we each make our own bed and we must all sleep in the bed we make for ourselves! ., and all the house of Millo--that is, a mound or rampart, so that the meaning is, all the men in the house or temple; namely, the priests of Baal. Proud even in death, he then had to answer to God for his wicked actions. Undoubtedly the children of Moab, Ammon, and Edom, for reasons of relationship at least, were exempted from the sentence to which God subjected the races of Canaan. In every point of view therefore the ground taken by Israel was solid, and could not be disputed righteously. Such is the blinding power of sin; for was he ignorant of her vileness or of his own danger? Then Jerubbaal (that is, Gideon) and all the people who were with him rose early and encamped beside the well of Harod, so that the camp of the Midianites was on the north side of them by the hill of Moreh in the valley. And I don't know what phenomena it is that creates it but sound would have to carry for Jesus to be able to address such large multitudes of people.Even down by the beach there is Caesarea right near the Mediterranean in an amphitheater that is there that was built by the Romans. Now when they told Jotham, he went and stood on top of Mount Gerizim, and lifted his voice and cried out. (Judges 9:1-57), On Tola and Jair (Judges 10:1-18) we need not pause; but in Jephthah again we have solemn issues brought out But here again is found the same brand of what was worthless or untowardly in the instruments that God used in a day of declension "Jephthah the Gileadite," we are told in Judges 11:1-40, "was a mighty man of valour, and he was the son of an harlot." Even his father and mother knew nothing about their son's movements. So in this rash vow says Jephthah, "it shall be that whatsoever," etc. how the very thought of Jehovah's name seems lost at this time among the children of Israel. This is our calling; but we see even in Israel that outside the limits, the very narrow limits, in which God called them to be the executors of divine vengeance even they calmly bear and brook as they best might; and there were those that understood the mind of God, and knew perfectly well why they were not so called to do. "And Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, stood before it in those days, saying, Shall I yet again go out to battle against the children of Benjamin my brother, or shall I cease? Obviously the bramble represented Abimelech, the trees and vine more noble individuals, and the cedars of Lebanon the upright leaders of Shechem. But the crisis came; and we see that at last, pressed by the harlot's toils, he tells out the secret of Jehovah. . And go to sway over trees? But God was about to magnify Himself and His own ways. Now when Jotham heard that they had made Abimelech king, he went to the top of mount Gerizim ( Judges 9:5-7 ). God's Word is the Truth see John 17:17). When they had it in their thoughts to choose a king they did not offer the government to the stately cedar, or the lofty pine, which are only for show and shade, and not otherwise useful till they are cut down, but to the fruit-trees, the vine and the olive. 10 And the trees said to the fig tree, Come thou, and reign over us. And a certain woman took a piece of a millstone ( Judges 9:50-53 ), Now millstones are sort of lava kinds of rock and there are millstones-I've seen them four feet high. The fact which comes out first is that Gibeah of Benjamin was scarce better than Sodom or Gomorrah, on which Jehovah rained fire and brimstone for their uncleanness. And the bramble said unto the trees, If in truth ye anoint me king over you, Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers, Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament. Contrariwise it was courted and continued down to the captivity. Never indeed is good the fruit of man's will, but of God's. There is something about the elastic atmosphere of an Eastern clime which causes it to transmit sound with wonderful celerity and distinctness [Hackett]. Let fire come out of the bramble A strong catachresis. We use cookies to let us know when you visit our websites, how you interact with us, to enrich your user experience, and to customize your relationship with our website. yet did he propose a most instructive riddle, which set forth justly the then condition of the people of God. Now; in Abimelech's history we see that he had begun with the most intense selfishness taking an utterly reckless advantage of those who had a better claim to represent their father than himself. And this, I need scarce say, is still more due on the score of brotherly relation and divine love, not merely on the ground of that which we might expect for our own souls. And it was of the greatest importance that His people should be trained in this. There is little moral elevation in Samson, little in any way to command respect or love. Samson was afterwards about to put a riddle to the Philistines from this lion. Trust in his shadow!--more likely to be scratched if they came near him--more likely to be injured by him than benefited. and where such a sufferer? We have value because God says we do. Alas! Not without faith, he was a combatant ready to fight the Philistines at any odds. And it came to pass on the next day, that the people went out into the field; and they told Abimelech. They decide on matters first, and the case becomes only another instance of man's folly in dealing with evil. And so then he went to Thebez, and encamped against Thebez. Should I cease my sweetness and my good fruit, In Samson's case, tested in a seemingly little sign but a sign of entire subjection to God, and this in separation from all others, it was obedience; not so in our case, where we have the highest treasure in earthen vessels, but obedience in everything, and this formed and guided by the Spirit according to the written word, now set in the fullest light, because seen in the person, and ways, and work, and glory of Christ. The name of the LORD is a strong tower; the righteous run to it and are safe (Proverbs 18:10). The men of Shechem put their confidence in him: The men of Shechem lost their confidence in Abimelech, so they chose a new leader named Gaal, the son of Ebed. It's an interesting thing to me how far sound travels over there in that land. We have had the power of God acting in deliverance, but man alone is incapable even of a safe vow to Jehovah; and who could fail to foresee the bitter fruit of rashness here? But if it was his hidden power, it acted also as a test; and now the enemy possessed it, disclosed to a harlot, who had wrung it for gold from his foolish heart. Whatever might have been his low state through unchecked animal nature, whatever his delinquencies before, so long as he kept his secret with God, strength never failed him from God, be the strain what it might. Suffice it to say that even in such a state the immediate feeling of the common conscience in Israel (roused, it is true, by an awful appeal to the twelve tribes) could not but reply that "there was no such deed done nor seen from the day that the children of Israel came up out of the land of Egypt unto this day: consider of it, take advice, and speak your minds." Dear Searching (i.e. And they went into the house of their god, and ate and drank, and cursed Abimelech. One test of the character of a man is to see how he treats those who disagree with him. Then, in judgment, God removed the peace that was between them and sent this spirit of ill will. But we must look a little into the great principles of divine truth that meet us in weighing the history of Samson. Anything like full deliverance must await that day, itself a type of the day of Jehovah. 50 - 57. And it shall be, as soon as the sun is up in the morning, that you shall rise early and rush upon the city; and when he and the people who are with him come out against you, you may then do to them as you find opportunity.. Here sound decibels are rising year by year and all of the sounds that we're subjected to the sound pollution. Why Does God Compare Our Relationship with Him to That of a Bride and 36 And when Gaal saw the people, he said to Zebul, Behold, there come people down from the top of the mountains. Others may have shown as mighty works, as great displays of power; nay, even the blessed Lord Jesus Himself said, "Greater works than these shall ye do." We see a man, not without faith indeed (Hebrews 11:32), though his confidence was largely in the strength with which God had invested him, rather than in Him who would yet prove Himself the sole source of it; a man who was roused by personal affront and desire of vengeance, not by a solemn duty; a man who slowly and weakly wakes up to any sense of his mission, who is ever too ready to sink down again into the lowest indulgence of fallen nature among the enemy. I have been reading/studying the Bible all my life; I am now 74 years old and in a wheelchair. For He won by no external strength but by suffering. What a man sows he must reap: if he sows to the flesh, of the flesh he reaps corruption. Scripture does not in any way vouch for the immaculateness of those even who wrought in faith. Then I would remove Abimelech. So he said to Abimelech, Increase your army and come out!. Indeed, for Him to obey in such a world must have been suffering It could not be otherwise. His application is very close and plain. Ambitious of sovereign power, and having plied successfully the arts of a demagogue with his maternal relatives and friends, he acquired both the influence and money by which he raised himself to a throne. Not till they desired a king like the nations. or, as the margin reads it, go up and down for the trees? 9 But the olive tree said unto them, Should I leave my fatness, wherewith by me they honour God and man, and go to be promoted over the trees? So he "sent messengers unto the king of the children of Ammon, saying, What hast thou to do with me, that thou art come against me to fight in my land? 2. And he looked, and there were the people, coming out of the city; and he rose against them and attacked them. "Thus saith Jephthah," was his answer, "Israel took not away the land of Moab, nor the land of the children of Ammon." Either they could not reach him or they were so far convinced that they would not add the guilt of his blood to all the rest. Again, it is not of course any attainment of mine that leads me to speak as I have done now. b. It was flying in the face of His law and word to have an idol; it was adding profane insult to enter on its worship with such ceremony as to get a Levite consecrated priest in order to invest it with solemnity.

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