Year 1, Day 270: Judges 9

Judges 9 is an interesting little diversion from the typical passages of the judges.  Here we don’t have a story of God raising up someone holy to fight for his people.  Here we have a story of corruption, deceit and death that people bring upon themselves because of their pride, arrogance, and self-mongerism.

Backstory on Abimelech

To set the story straight, let’s do a little history.  Abimelech is the son of Gideon, but he is a son to one of Gideon’s concubines – a Canaanite woman.  This Canaanite woman comes from Shechem – a city that worships Ba’al-berith, which interestingly means “Ba’al of the Covenent.”  So let me put it all together.  Through Gideon’s ephod the people begin worshipping something other than God.  When Gideon died, the focus of this worship was placed upon Ba’al-berith.  This empowers Abimelech to persuade the Canaanites in a revolt against the “purebred Hebrew” sons of Gideon. 

Jotham and His Curse

Abimelech kills all the other sons of Gideon save Jotham, who pronounces a curse upon Abimelech.  Now here’s an interesting point.  Jothan pronounces the curse and then flees for his life.  Oh, how Abimelech and his supporters must have laughed at Jotham’s curse.  Immediately nothing happens to Abimelech and no doubt everyone assumes that Jotham was insane.  They likely also assume that the God that Jotham pronounced is impotent because nothing immediately happens from the curse.  But the truth is that Abimelech’s true character had not yet been fully revealed and the time for the fulfillment of the curse was therefore not at hand.

Here’s what I learn from this passage.  We live in a world that wants immediate results.  We want a church that turns on its head and becomes immediately spiritual when in reality that kind of spirituality takes time to truly implement.  We want a God who performs great signs in our life on cue without ourselves taking the time to contemplate how God does perform miracles in our life by slowly changing who we are and by slowly reshaping our thoughts, dreams, and our understanding of our calling.  We live in a world that lacks patience and it is our undoing again and again!  God is not always a God of immediate results!  In fact, I find that God is seldom a God of immediate results in the things that truly matter.  But that does not mean God is not at work.

Abimelech’s Reign

In fact, Abimelech rules for 3 years.  During those 3 years, there is not only hostility between Abimelech and the Hebrew people but a rift also grows between Abimelech and the people who asserted his ability to rule – the people of Shechem!  The evil spirit that God sends among Abimelech should not be seen as an evil spirit that controlled Abimelech but as a natural outcropping or enhancement of Abimelech’s true character.  Now we see who Abimelech really is.  He is a man of conflict. He is a man who cannot be trusted.  He is a man who always seems to find himself in the middle of some kind of sinister plot.  Whether he is the master or the subject of the plot is always in question!

This is true about worldly people.  People who are self-centered will continue to be self-centered.  Liars will continue to be liars.  Thieves will continue to be thieves.  I can go on and on with other examples here, but this is what we can learn from Abimelech.

Here we have a greedy king who gives no reason to be trusted.  He gains power by killing his own family.  He kills people mercilessly.  He sows salt into the ground so that nature will not be able to do what God has created it to do (grow crops and sustain life).  Abimelech is only interested in what serves him in the moment.

Abimelech’s Death and more Self-Centeredness

Even in his death his self-centered perspective comes out.  When it is clear that he is going to die from being struck by a millstone, Abimelech calls for his armor-bearer to run him through so that it would be said that he died a man’s death rather than being killed by a woman.  Ambimelech’s self-mongerism does him in.  In the process he puts forth a wake of destruction that takes down his family, Shechem, and much more.

Sometimes it is sad to watch people self-destruct because they are too interested in their own agendas.  I can only imagine how God feels watching the whole world do it time and time again!

However, we need not leave on a sour note.  We can also surmise that the opposite is true.  People who learn humbleness from God will be able to be humble.  People who are God’s disciples will do what disciples are expected to do.  Through the power of God, those who come to God and humble themselves can indeed change and become a new creation.  This is precisely why the prophets and Jesus all say that you judge a person not on who they appear to be but by the results of their actions and the truth of their words.

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