Today, I am reading and commenting on  Judges 9-10.

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Now that I read this passage every year, I have started to read what was happening in it a little deeper.  In yesterday’s passage we read that Gideon refused to be made king over Israel, telling the Israelites that God ruled over them.  He did not want to rule over Israel, and did not want for his son, or sons, to rule over Israel.  Today’s passage suggests that all seventy of Gideon’s sons exercised some authority over Israel.  Abimelech, one of Gideon’s sons, appealed to the people of Shechem, because his mother was one of them, suggesting that if they backed him over his brothers, they would benefit.  The leaders of Shechem liked his idea, so they gave him money to hire some mercenaries.  Abimelech took that money, hired some thugs, and led them to kill all of his brothers (although one of them escaped).  The leaders of Shechem who gave him the money knew that Abimelech intended to kill his brothers.  Once Abimelech established his authority, the leaders of Shechem turned to banditry.

And this is where I start getting lost in the weeds about what actually happened.  I was going to try to decipher exactly how it turned out that Abimelech went to war against Shechem, but realized that just distracts from the point.  Abimelech went to war against Shechem and killed the leaders of Shechem as God’s judgement on Shechem for supporting Abimelech’s fratricide (killing of his brothers).  Abimelech was then killed while using the same strategy against the next city he tried to subjugate as judgement for killing his brothers.  The leaders of Shechem supported Abimelech’s treachery, they then treacherously opposed him and paid for their treachery.  Abimelech ruled by violence and that violence led to his death.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.