Context No. 3688 of 4322 · Judges

Judges 9:26-33: in context

26Gaal the son of Ebed came with his brothers and went over to Shechem; and the men of Shechem put their trust in him. 27They went out into the field, harvested their vineyards, trod the grapes, celebrated, and went into the house of their god and ate and drank, and cursed Abimelech. 28Gaal the son of Ebed said, “Who is Abimelech, and who is Shechem, that we should serve him? Isn’t he the son of Jerubbaal? Isn’t Zebul his officer? Serve the men of Hamor the father of Shechem, but why should we serve him? 29I wish that this people were under my hand! Then I would remove Abimelech.” He said to Abimelech, “Increase your army and come out!” 30When Zebul the ruler of the city heard the words of Gaal the son of Ebed, his anger burned. 31He sent messengers to Abimelech craftily, saying, “Behold, Gaal the son of Ebed and his brothers have come to Shechem; and behold, they incite the city against you. 32Now therefore, go up by night, you and the people who are with you, and lie in wait in the field. 33It shall be that in the morning, as soon as the sun is up, you shall rise early and rush on the city. Behold, when he and the people who are with him come out against you, then may you do to them as you shall find occasion.”

This is a story of intrigue and coming violence, part of the unraveling of Abimelech, who had murdered his seventy brothers to seize power. Now the men of Shechem, who had backed him, turn against him, following a newcomer named Gaal, and Abimelech's officer Zebul secretly plots to crush them. It is a tangle of shifting loyalties, treachery, and looming bloodshed.

And it is the harvest of what Abimelech sowed. He rose to power through murder and betrayal, and now murder and betrayal come back upon him and upon those who helped him; the whole story is God repaying the violence they had done. There is a sober lesson running through it: those who grasp power through treachery and blood set in motion the very forces that will one day consume them. What we sow in the way we treat others tends, in time, to be reaped. Abimelech's kingdom, built on his brothers' blood, was already crumbling back into the violence from which it came.

Do I recognize that treachery and violence tend to recoil on those who use them, and do I build my life and relationships on faithfulness rather than on grasping power by wrong means?

Sources

Judges 9:28: "Gaal the son of Ebed said, Who is Abimelech, and who is Shechem, that we should serve him?"
Judges 9:23: "God sent an evil spirit between Abimelech and the men of Shechem; and the men of Shechem dealt treacherously with Abimelech."
Judges 9:56: "Thus God repaid the wickedness of Abimelech, which he did to his father, in killing his seventy brothers."