John Kitto Morning Bible Devotions: June 17

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John Kitto Morning Bible Devotions: June 17

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A King

Judges 9

The history of the Israelites exhibits one peculiarity which does not seem to have been duly noticed. Nothing is more frequent in both ancient and modern history than the real or alleged ingratitude of the people to those who have rendered them signal services. The histories of Greece and Rome teem with instances of this, which will present themselves to the mind of every reader and the modern histories of the nations with which we are best acquainted—our own not excepted—are not wanting in them. But this is exceedingly rare among the Israelites. There may be some touches of the kind in the histories of Moses, of Samuel, and of David; but any ungrateful feeling towards them was but temporary—the permanent feeling towards them was good and proper—and the final estimation of these personages by their nation manifests a high appreciation of their character and motives, and an intense recognition of their services. In fact, all the great names of their history are to this day held by them in more intense respect, than we find to be the case among any other people. We almost think that the disposition of the Hebrews lay all the other way—and that they were more inclined to err on the side of man-worship than of man-neglect. In the time of the Judges, by one great service, a man—from whatever rank in life—so secured the gratitude and respect of the people, that he remained in power as their governor all the rest of his life—however long that life might be. In the case of Gideon they went further. The service rendered by him, in delivering them from so grievous an oppression, was in their view so eminent, that they were not only willing and desirous that he should be their governor during life, but were anxious that the government should be made hereditary in his family—in short, that he should be their own sovereign, and should transmit his power to his descendants. This was a most extraordinary proposal. It shows that the Israelites had already begun to crave after a human monarchical government, and that they imperfectly understood or did not adequately prize the advantages they enjoyed under their peculiar constitution, which brought them into so near a relation to their Divine King. To his great honor—far more to his honor than even his victory over the Midianites—the patriotic virtue of Gideon was not moved by this great temptation. He was mindful of what they had forgotten; and to the invitation, “Rule thou over us, both thou, and thy son, and thy son’s son also,” his prompt answer—in the true spirit of the theocracy, was, “I will not rule over you, neither shall my son rule over you: the Lord shall rule over you.” Considering that the love of power is one of the strongest passions in man, and that Gideon was the father of a large family of promising sons whose advancement might seem a reasonable object of paternal solicitude—this refusal, solely on principle, to become the first monarch of the Hebrew state, deserves to be ranked with the most illustrious examples of patriotic self-denial which history has recorded.

Unhappily, all his sons—and he had many—were not likeminded with their father. There was one of them—son of his concubine, or secondary wife—who, on the death of Gideon, many years after this, determined to grasp the distinction which his father had declined. His mother was a woman of Shechem; and through the connection of her family, his influence was very strong in that quarter. He repaired thither on the death of his father, and, opening his design to his mother’s family, urged them to prevail upon the people of the place to give him the kingdom. He assumed that some of his brethren would govern, notwithstanding Gideon’s disclaimer on their behalf; indeed, he assumed that all of them would govern. Whether this was or not, as we suspect, an imputation devised by himself to advance his own objects, or was founded upon some resolution among Gideon’s sons as to the division of power among, or the common administration of power by, themselves, it is impossible to say. The argument, however, was “Whether it be better for you, either that all the sons of Jerubbaal, Note: A name acquired by Gideon, as stated to Jdg_6:32. which are threescore and ten persons, reign over you, or that one reign over you?” Anticipating the answer to this plain proposition, which, as usual in such cases, presumed no other object than the public good, he proceeded to insinuate that he should be the one person so distinguished. This intimation was conveyed with astute indirectness—“Remember I am your bone and your flesh.” These words were not spoken in vain. Local ties are all-prevailing in the East; and the hearts of the men of Shechem inclined to follow Abimelech, for they said: “He is our brother.” Being so inclined, they were not likely to be restrained by regard for the considerations which withheld Gideon from accepting the throne; for we find in fact that idolatry had gained ground in this and probably in other places during the lifetime of that judge.

There was here a “house, of Baal-Berith,” which, if it mean a temple, as it probably does, is the first of which there is any mention in Scripture—in fact the first on record. Temples must therefore have existed among the heathen nations of Canaan before this date, or they would not have been thus early imitated by the idolatrous Israelites. Not very long after we find other instances of temples, also called “houses,” among the Philistines. Out of the treasures accumulated in this house from the offerings of the votaries, the people of Shechem, after having chosen Abimelech king, supplied him with money, which enabled him to attach a considerable number of loose and idle vagabonds to his person and service, by whose aid he was enabled to assume some of the state, and exercise some of the power, of a king. It will occur to the reader to ask what right the people of Shechem had to nominate a king, by their sole authority. In the first place, it must be remembered that the land had formerly been governed by a number of petty kings, ruling over some strong town and its immediate district and dependent villages; and it is likely that the Shechemites claimed no more than to appoint Abimelech as such a king over themselves, assuming that they, for themselves, whatever might be the view of others, had a right to choose a king to reign over them. Besides, Shechem was one of the chief towns of the tribe of Ephraim and that proud and powerful tribe always claimed to take the leading part in public affairs, if not to determine the course of the other tribes—except, perhaps, of those connected with Judah in the south. It was under the influence of this desire for supremacy, that the revolt against the house of David was organized in that tribe, and resulted in the establishment of the separate kingdom for the ten tribes—in which kingdom Ephraim had the chief influence. Indeed, that establishment of a separate monarchy was accomplished at this very place where Abimelech is now declared king. Taking all this into account, it may seem reasonable to conclude that the Shechemites had the support of the tribe in this transaction, or might, at least, reckon with reasonable confidence upon its not being withheld. Then, again, a king chosen at Shechem, and supported by this powerful tribe, might reasonably calculate that the other tribes would soon give in their adhesion, seeing that, in the time of his father, their monarchical predilections had been so strongly manifested.

Abimelech was certainly a king. He is called such by one who had reason to hate him; and his government is called a reign. He, therefore; was the first king in Israel, though it is usual to give Saul that distinction. He was inaugurated with some considerable ceremony “by the plain of the pillar that was in Shechem”—or rather, as in the original, by the “oak of the pillar”—which, we strongly incline to think, alludes to the tree near which Joshua erected a pillar, as a witness of the covenant renewed between God and Israel. We need not be amazed that worshippers of Baal-Berith should seek the sanction of so venerable an association; for, as we have already had occasion to remark, their idolatry did not consist in an absolute rejection of Jehovah and his law, but in the adoption of other gods beside him, resulting in the neglect of his worship and ordinances. This inauguration at a pillar in some sacred place became afterwards part of the regular ceremonial of what we should call a coronation, for we read that the young king Joash stood by a pillar in the court of the temple at his solemn inauguration by the high-priest Jehoiada.— 2Ki_11:14.

After all, it does not appear that Abimelech was able greatly to extend his kingdom—for after three years, we find him besieging towns, not very distant from Shechem, that refused to submit to his authority. In one such siege he met death, for as be advanced to set fire to the gate, a woman cast down upon him the upper mill-stone (called “the rider,” because it is made to revolve upon the lower one). Finding himself mortally wounded, he got his armor-bearer to run him through with his sword, lest it should be said that a woman slew him. This has been curiously, but perhaps needlessly, illustrated as a peculiar point of ancient military honor. But we apprehend that an officer of our own, or any other army of modern Europe, would quite as little relish, as did the ancients, the idea of its being said of them that they died by a woman’s hand, although they may not resort to the same means of evading so great a stain upon their heroic fame. Note: “As we returned into the town (Ceuta) a stone, nearly of the size of a man’s head, was shown to us, by which the skull of the Portuguese commander who first entered the place, was, like that of Pyrrhus, broken by a woman from a tower. A Moorish sovereign, who was so wounded, despatched himself, like Abimelech, with his own sword, to cover his disgrace.”—Urquhart’s Pillars of Hercules, 1850, i. 96.