Judges 9:39-45: a reflection

39Gaal went out before the men of Shechem, and fought with Abimelech. 40Abimelech chased him, and he fled before him, and many fell wounded, even to the entrance of the gate. 41Abimelech lived at Arumah; and Zebul drove out Gaal and his brothers, that they should not dwell in Shechem. 42On the next day, the people went out into the field; and they told Abimelech. 43He took the people and divided them into three companies, and laid wait in the field; and he looked, and behold, the people came out of the city. So, he rose up against them and struck them. 44Abimelech and the companies that were with him rushed forward and stood in the entrance of the gate of the city; and the two companies rushed on all who were in the field and struck them. 45Abimelech fought against the city all that day; and he took the city and killed the people in it. He beat down the city and sowed it with salt.

Abimelech had made himself ruler by murdering his seventy brothers, and this passage shows what his rule produced: a brutal battle against the very city that had backed him, its people slaughtered, the city torn down, and, in a final act of spite, sown with salt to make its ground barren. The salt is a fitting image. A rule seized by bloodshed and held by force produces not flourishing but destruction and barrenness.

Notice the sterile fruit of Abimelech's ambition. He grasped power by murder, and what came of it was more killing, betrayal, and ruin, ending in salt scattered over the ground so nothing would grow. His violent ambition did not build anything; it only destroyed, leaving barrenness behind. What is grasped by bloodshed and held by cruelty cannot bear good fruit; it sows salt.

There is a sober warning here about the ways we pursue power, position, or our own advantage. Abimelech is an extreme case, but the principle reaches wider: what we seize by wrong means, by cutting others down, by ambition that tramples, tends to bear bitter and barren fruit, however successful it looks for a while. Ambition that grasps at the cost of others sows salt in the end. Better to receive what God gives than to seize what we want by trampling others, for the harvest of violent ambition is barrenness. Do not build on Abimelech's foundation.

Lord, Abimelech grasped power by murder, and it produced only destruction and barren, salted ground. Keep me from pursuing position or advantage by trampling others, from ambition that grasps at the cost of people. Help me receive what you give rather than seize what I want by wrong means, for the harvest of violent ambition is barrenness. Let me build on faithfulness, not on Abimelech's foundation.