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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Judges 9:1 - 9:1
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Jdg 9:1-2
Having gone to Shechem, the home of his mother (Jdg 8:31), Abimelech applied to his mother's brothers and the whole family (all the relations) of the father's house of his mother, and addressed them thus: “Speak, I pray you, in the ears of all the lords of Shechem,” i.e., speak to them publicly and solemnly. שְׁכֶם בַּעֲלֶי, the lords, i.e., the possessors or citizens of Shechem (compare Jdg 9:46 with Jdg 9:49, where מִגְדָּל בַּעֲלֶי is interchangeable with אנְשׁי a; also Jdg 20:5, and Jos 24:11): they are not merely Canaanitish citizens, of whom there were some still living in Shechem according to Jdg 9:28, but all the citizens of the town; therefore chiefly Israelites. “What is better for you, that seventy men rule over you, all the sons of Jerubbaal, or (only) one man (i.e., Abimelech)? and remember that I am your flesh and bone” (blood relation, Gen 29:14). The name “sons of Jerubbaal,” i.e., of the man who had destroyed the altar of Baal, was just as little adapted to commend the sons of Gideon to the Shechemites, who were devoted to the worship of Baal, as the remark that seventy men were to rule over them. No such rule ever existed, or was even aspired to by the seventy sons of Gideon. But Abimelech assumed that his brothers possessed the same thirst for ruling as he did himself; and the citizens of Shechem might be all the more ready to put faith in his assertions, since the distinction which Gideon had enjoyed was thoroughly adapted to secure a prominent place in the nation for his sons.
Jdg 9:3
When his mother's brethren spake to the citizens of Shechem concerning him, i.e., respecting him and his proposal, their heart turned to Abimelech.
Jdg 9:4-5
They gave him seventy shekels of silver from the house of Baal-berith, i.e., from the treasury of the temple that was dedicated to the covenant Baal at Shechem, as temple treasures were frequently applied to political purposes (see 1Ki 15:18). With this money Abimelech easily hired light and desperate men, who followed him (attached themselves to him); and with their help he murdered his brethren at Ophrah, seventy men, with the exception of Jotham the youngest, who had hidden himself. The number seventy, the total number of his brethren, is reduced by the exception mentioned immediately afterwards to sixty-nine who were really put to death. רֵיק, empty, i.e., without moral restraint. פֹּחֵז lit. gurgling up, boiling over; figuratively, hot, desperate men. “Upon (against) one stone,” that is to say, by a formal execution: a bloody omen of the kingdom of ten tribes, which was afterwards founded at Shechem by the Ephraimite Jeroboam, in which one dynasty overthrew another, and generally sought to establish its power by exterminating the whole family of the dynasty that had been overthrown (see 1Ki 15:27., 2Ki 10:1.). Even in Judah, Athaliah the worshipper of Baal sought to usurp the government by exterminating the whole of the descendants of her son (2 Kings 11). Such fratricides have also occurred in quite recent times in the Mohammedan countries of the East.
Jdg 9:6
“Then all the citizens of Shechem assembled together, and all the house of Millo, and made Abimelech king at the memorial terebinth at Shechem.” Millo is unquestionably the name of the castle or citadel of the town of Shechem, which is called the tower of Shechem in Jdg 9:46-49. The word Millo (Chaldee מִלֵּיתָא) signifies primarily a rampart, inasmuch as it consisted of two walls, with the space between them filled with rubbish. There was also a Millo at Jerusalem (2Sa 5:9; 1Ki 9:15). “All the house of Millo” are all the inhabitants of the castle, the same persons who are described in Jdg 9:46 as “all the men (baale) of the tower.” The meaning of מֻצָּב אֵלֹון is doubtful. מֻצָּב, the thing set up, is a military post in Isa 29:3; but it may also mean a monument of memorial, and here it probably denotes the large stone set up as a memorial at Shechem under the oak or terebinth (see Gen 35:4). The inhabitants of Shechem, the worshippers of Baal-berith, carried out the election of Abimelech as king in the very same place in which Joshua had held the last national assembly, and had renewed the covenant of Israel with Jehovah the true covenant God (Jos 24:1, Jos 24:25-26). It was there in all probability that the temple of Baal-berith was to be found, namely, according to Jdg 9:46, near the tower of Shechem or the citadel of Millo.