Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Judges 8:29
And Jerubbaal the son of Joash went and dwelt in his own house.
29 . Originally this verse closed the narrative in Jdg 8:1-3, or that in Jdg 8:4-21. Jdg 8:30-32 form an introduction to the story of Abimelech in ch. 9; some such earlier mention of Abimelech is presupposed by Jdg 9:1.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Jdg 8:29-35
And Jerubbaal the son of Joash went and dwelt in his own house.
Gideon at his worst
Man is a strange mixture of greatness and of littleness, of goodness, and of badness. The one lies very close to the other.
I. Gideon at his worst morally. Biblical saints are not made more than human. Their virtues are described that we may imitate them, their vices depicted that we may avoid them. Gideon not without his failings: many wives, and even concubines. Remember the degenerate times in which he lived. No man altogether superior to the influences of his age; Gideon not. His guilt not so great as if he had lived in our days. Polygamy now almost an impossible crime. Be thankful for what the gospel has done for modern society. In those days, too, a man became a ruler, and was permitted to do things not allowed to the private individual. Great positions have always great moral dangers. In lonely walks of life there is favourable opportunity for the growth of the white flower of a blameless character. Zeal for the Lord of hosts may go along with imperfection. Zeal will not condone for the imperfection.
II. Gideon at his worst physically. Gideon lived to a good old age; still he died, and was buried in the sepulchre of Joash. He who overcame vast multitudes is now overcome of death. Mighty Gideon lies powerless in the sepulchre of Joash. Thousands passing away daily, and yet the living regard not the common fate. Oh, that men would consider their latter end! To live in view of death is not to die the sooner, is not to live less nobly or usefully.
III. Gideon at his worst influentially. Not always true that the good which a man does is buried along with his bones. A good mans influence must abide more or less. A mans greatness shows that he can project an influence that shall outlast his earthly life. Yet how often we appear to see the efforts made by a good man in life blighted at his death. As soon as Gideon was dead, the children of Israel turned again, and went a-whoring after Baalim, and made Baal-berith their god. Pathetic the statement, short-lived Gideons influence. The people restrained by Gideons presence, but not converted by his example. Superficial changes not lasting. Rulers may do much, but the gospel only can work a permanent reformation. (Wm. Burrows, B. A.)
The children of Israel remembered not.
The origin, nature, and baseness of ingratitude
I. What gratitude is, and upon what the obligation to it is grounded. This virtue includes–
1. A particular observation, or taking notice of a kindness received, and consequently of the goodwill and affection of the person who did that kindness. For still, in this case, the mind of the giver is more to be attended to than the matter of the gift; it being this that stamps it properly a favour and gives it the noble and endearing denomination of a kindness.
2. That which brings it from the heart into the mouth, and makes a man express the sense he has of the benefit done him by thanks, acknowledgments, and gratulations; and where the heart is full of the one, it will certainly overflow and run over in the other.
3. An endeavour to recompense our benefactor, and to do something that may redound to his advantage, in consideration of what he has done towards ours.
II. The nature and baseness of ingratitude. There is not any one vice or ill quality incident to the mind of man, against which the world has raised such a loud and universal outcry, as against ingratitude. It is properly an insensibility of kindnesses received, without any endeavour either to acknowledge or repay them. To repay them, indeed, by a return equivalent, is not in every ones power, and consequently cannot be his duty; but thanks are a tribute payable by the poorest. For surely nature gives no man a mouth to be always eating, and never saying grace; nor a hand only to grasp and to receive: but as it is furnished with teeth for the one, so it should have a tongue also for the other: and the hands that are so often reached out to take and to accept, should be sometimes lifted up also to bless. The world is maintained by intercourse; and the whole course of nature is a great exchange, in which one good turn is and ought to be the stated price of another.
III. The principle from which it proceeds. In one word, it proceeds from that which we call ill-nature.
1. A proneness to do ill turns, attended with a complacency, or secret joy of mind, upon the sight of any mischief that befalls another.
2. An utter insensibility of any good or kindness done him by others.
IV. Those ill qualities that inseparably attend ingratitude, and are never disjoined from it.
1. Pride. The original ground of our obligation to gratitude is that each man has but a limited right to the good things of the world, and that the natural and allowed way by which one is to obtain possession of these things is by his own industrious acquisition of them. Consequently, when any good is dealt to him any other way than by his own labour, he is accountable to the person who dealt it to him, as for a thing to which he had no right or claim by any action of his own. But pride shuts a mans eyes against all this, and so fills him with an opinion of his own transcendent worth, that he imagines himself to have a right to all things, as well those that are the effects and fruits of other mens labours as of his own. So that if any advantage accrues to him by the liberality of his neighbour, he does not look upon it as a free and undeserved gift, but rather as a just homage to that worth and merit which he conceives to be in himself, and to which all the world ought to become tributary.
2. Hard-heartedness, or want of compassion. It was ingratitude that put the poniard into the hand of Brutus, but it was want of compassion which thrust it into Caesars heart.
V. Some useful consequences, by way of application, from the premises.
1. Never enter into a league of friendship with an ungrateful person: that is, plant not thy friendship upon a dunghill; it is too noble a plant for so base a soil.
2. As a man tolerably discreet ought by no means to attempt the making of such an one his friend, so neither is he, in the next place, to presume to think that he shall be able so much as to alter or ameliorate the humour of an ungrateful person by any acts of kindness, though never so frequent, never so obliging. Flints may be melted, but an ungrateful heart cannot; no, not by the strongest and the noblest flame. I limit not the operation of Gods grace; but, humanly speaking, it seldom fails but that an ill principle has its course, and nature makes good its blow.
3. Wheresoever you see a man notoriously ungrateful, you may rest assured that there is in him no true sense of religion. (R. South, D.D.)
.
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Not in his fathers house, as he did before; nor yet in a court, like a king, as the people desired; but in a middle state, as a judge, for the preservation and maintenance of their religion and liberties.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
And Jerubbaal the son of Joash,…. That is, Gideon, Jerubbaal being another name of his; see Jud 6:32 went and dwelt in his own house; which was at Ophrah, as appears from Jud 9:5 the war being ended, he disbanded his army, and retired to his own house; not that he lived altogether a private life there, but as a judge in Israel.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
| Israel’s Return to Idolatry. | B. C. 1249. |
29 And Jerubbaal the son of Joash went and dwelt in his own house. 30 And Gideon had threescore and ten sons of his body begotten: for he had many wives. 31 And his concubine that was in Shechem, she also bare him a son, whose name he called Abimelech. 32 And Gideon the son of Joash died in a good old age, and was buried in the sepulchre of Joash his father, in Ophrah of the Abiezrites. 33 And it came to pass, as soon as Gideon was dead, that the children of Israel turned again, and went a whoring after Baalim, and made Baal-berith their god. 34 And the children of Israel remembered not the LORD their God, who had delivered them out of the hands of all their enemies on every side: 35 Neither showed they kindness to the house of Jerubbaal, namely, Gideon, according to all the goodness which he had showed unto Israel.
We have here the conclusion of the story of Gideon. 1. He lived privately, v. 29. He was not puffed up with his great honours, did not covet a palace or castle to dwell in, but retired to the house he had lived in before his elevation. Thus that brave Roman Who was called from the plough upon a sudden occasion to command the army when the action was over returned to his plough again. 2. His family was multiplied. He had many wives (therein he transgressed the law); by them he had seventy sons (v. 30), but by a concubine he had one whom he named Abimelech (which signifies, my father a king), that proved the ruin of his family, v. 31. 3. He died in honour, in a good old age, when he had lived as long as he was capable of serving God and his country; and who would desire to live any longer? And he was buried in the sepulchre of his fathers. 4. After his death the people corrupted themselves, and went all to naught. As soon as ever Gideon was dead, who had kept them close to the worship of the God of Israel, they found themselves under no restraint, and then they went a whoring after Baalim, v. 33. They went a whoring first after another ephod (v. 27), for which irregularity Gideon had himself given them too much occasion, and now they went a whoring after another god. False worships made way for false deities. They now chose a new god (ch. v. 8), a god of a new name, Baal-berith (a goddess, say some); Berith, some think, was Berytus, the place where the Phoenicians worshipped this idol. The name signifies the Lord of a covenant. Perhaps he was so called because his worshippers joined themselves by covenant to him, in imitation of Israel’s covenanting with God; for the devil is God’s ape. In this revolt of Israel to idolatry they showed, (1.) Great ingratitude to God (v. 34): They remembered not the Lord, not only who had delivered them into the hands of their enemies, to punish them for their idolatry, but who had also delivered them out of the hands of their enemies, to invite them back again into his service; both the judgments and the mercies were forgotten, and the impressions of them lost. (2.) Great ingratitude to Gideon, v. 35. A great deal of goodness he had shown unto Israel, as a father to his country, for which they ought to have been kind to his family when he was gone, for that is one way by which we ought to show ourselves grateful to our friends and benefactors, and may be returning their kindnesses when they are in their graves. But Israel showed not this kindness to Gideon’s family, as we shall find in the next chapter. No wonder if those who forget their God forget their friends.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
Gideons Children; His Death Jdg. 8:29-32
29 And Jerubbaal the son of Joash went and dwelt in his own house.
30 And Gideon had threescore and ten sons of his body begotten: for he had many wives.
31 And his concubine that was in Shechem, she also bare him a son, whose name he called Abimelech.
32 And Gideon the son of Joash died in a good old age, and was buried in the sepulchre of Joash his father, in Ophrah of the Abiezrites.
15.
Why does the narrator mention Abimelech? Jdg. 8:31
Abimelech was the son of Gideon and his concubine who dwelt in Shechem. Since most of the history recorded in chapter nine deals with Abimelechs abortive attempt to be king over Israel, mention is made of him at this point. The closing verses of chapter eight are a summary of the closing days of the life of Gideon and make special reference of his family. He had seventy sons, and it is not clear whether Abimelech is counted among the seventy or is in addition to them. At any rate, special mention is made of him because of the importance of his role in later history.
16.
What is said of the character of Gideon? Jdg. 8:29-32
He was a good and venerable leader. We are told specifically that he did not erect a palace but went and dwelt in his own house. Mention is made of his seventy sons and his many wives. Special note is also made of Abimelech, the son of Gideon by a concubine in Shechem. We are finally told that he died in a good old age, and was buried in the tomb of Joash, his father, in their home Ophrah, a settlement of the Abiezrites.
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
(29) Jerubbaal.The sudden reversion to this name may be significant. Baal had failed to plead, but nevertheless Gideon was not safe from idolatrous tendencies.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
The Final Days of Gideon ( Jdg 8:29-35 ).
Jdg 8:29
‘ And Jerubbaal the son of Joash went and dwelt in his own house.’
He was now accepted as a ruler in his own right and set up his own household, no longer subject directly to his father. He was of course already a married man of some years as witness his teenage son (Jdg 8:20).
The judges had no palace, no royal court, they obtained no taxes (except for indirect maintenance of the system of tithes which were collected by the Levites), they ruled by divine favour and recognition by the people. But they had the right to call to arms the tribal confederacy when the need arose, and to seek God’s will through Urim and Thummim at the central sanctuary, (which may have been where the ephod came in, a convenient means of doing something similar without the hassle), and arbitrated on behalf of the people in accordance with custom and the law of God.
The switch to Jerubbaal rather than Gideon may be to remind us that he was the conqueror of Baal, a man once maligned, but now made a prince among his people.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
The retired state of Gideon, after the Lord had blessed Israel through his instrumentality, may serve to teach the believer the humbleness of mind becoming the Lord’s servants. It is sweet, when we are enabled through grace to minister to God’s glory in public; and equally so, when we are enabled to enjoy the Lord ourselves in private. Mat 14:23 . That is a very precious precept, and brings its reward with it. Psa 4:4 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Jdg 8:29 And Jerubbaal the son of Joash went and dwelt in his own house.
Ver. 29. Went and dwelt in his own house. ] As finding by experience, that high seats are never but uneasy; and that many a care attendeth greatness. Vacia, the Roman, having been praetor in the time of Tiberius, withdrew himself to his country house. In any public storm, therefore, the people would commonly cry out, O Vacia, solus scis vivere. O Vacia, thou hast the only life of it.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Through Slaughter to a Throne
Jdg 8:29-35; Jdg 9:1-6
The Children of Israel were guilty of great fickleness and instability. They soon relapsed into Baal worship and forgot to show kindness to the family of their great leader. But such is the frailty of the human heart. However hot we may be for Christ today, we may be cold and distant tomorrow. It seems as if the great adversary taunts us with this as he did John Bunyan, to whom he kept whispering. Ill cool you, Ill cool you. We must take our fickle hearts to our Lord, asking Him to keep us true and hot in our love. There are times when His friendship is the most real thing in life, but then the rainbow-glory fades in the sky. Let it not be so any more, O Lord, we beseech thee!
The terrible crime of Abimelech was extenuated by the people of Shechem, because his mother was one of themselves. Compare Jdg 8:31 with 9:1, 18. But the mills of God were grinding out awful trouble for them all, Jdg 9:56-57. Surely, in his lack of self-control, Gideon had much to answer for, Jdg 8:30! The evil that men do lives after them.
Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary
Jerubbaal: Jdg 6:32, 1Sa 12:11
in his own house: Neh 5:14, Neh 5:15
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Jdg 8:29. Dwelt in his own house Not in his fathers house, as he did before; nor yet in a court like a king, as the people desired; but in a middle state, as a judge, for the preservation and maintenance of their religion and liberties.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Gideon’s family 8:29-32
These verses wrap up the story of Gideon and introduce the story of Abimelech that follows (ch. 9).
Gideon enjoyed the fruits of his heroism for the rest of his life. He was wealthy enough to afford many wives who bore him 70 sons. In this respect Gideon lived like many ancient Near Eastern kings who normally married many wives and fathered many offspring. He followed pagan cultural customs and violated God’s will (Gen 2:24). He not only accumulated much gold as a king (Jdg 8:26), but he also collected many wives as a king (cf. Deu 17:17).
He also kept a concubine in Shechem, which the Canaanites controlled at this time (cf. Jdg 9:2; Jdg 9:28). His concubine appears from references in chapter 9 to have been a Canaanite. The Israelites were to eradicate the Canaanites, but their leader decided to marry one (cf. Exo 34:15-16; Deu 7:3-4). The son this woman bore Gideon was evidently a young man of outstanding promise since Gideon named him Abimelech (lit. My father is king). This name may have been a cognomen (nickname) rather than a proper name given to him at birth (cf. Gen 20:2; Gen 26:1; et al.). In giving it Gideon may have hoped that this son might one day become the father of Israel’s first king. Alternatively it is possible that even though Gideon had formally refused the office of king, the people may have referred to him popularly as their king.
"The name of his son Abimelech (’my father is king’) probably does not mean that Gideon regarded himself as monarch. In personal names ’my father’ normally refers to God; so Gideon could have been reemphasizing the assertion of Jdg 8:23 ["the LORD shall rule over you"]." [Note: Wolf, p. 434.]
However, the fact that Abimelech regarded himself as the successor to Gideon suggests that he understood the king in view to be Gideon (cf. Jdg 9:2). Probably "Abimelech" reflects Gideon’s perception of his own status in Israel. Abimelech perpetuated and extended Gideon’s bad practices rather than his good theology. Gideon had said the right things but done the wrong things.
The sons of concubines usually did not partake of their father’s inheritances in the ancient Near East (cf. Genesis 16; Gen 21:8-21). People considered them the heirs of, and members of, the family of their mother, but not their father. Abimelech, therefore, was different from Gideon’s other 70 sons.
Gideon eventually died, and his survivors buried him in his ancestral tomb (Jdg 8:32).
"In relation to the book as a whole, Gideon receives attention as the focal point because he represents a significant shift in the ’quality’ of the judges that served Israel. A progressive deterioration begins with Othniel and continues through Samson. Othniel was almost an idealized judge, and Samson was a debauched self-centered individual. God used each judge, whether strong or weak, to accomplish His sovereign will and effect deliverance for the theocratic nation. Gideon, on the other hand, stands somewhere between these two extremes and represents the primary turning point from the ’better’ judges to the ’weaker’ ones." [Note: Tanner, pp. 152-53.]
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
ABIMELECH AND JOTHAM
Jdg 8:29-35; Jdg 9:1-57
THE history we are tracing moves from man to man; the personal influence of the hero is everything while it lasts and confusion follows on his death. Gideon appears as one of the most successful Hebrew judges in maintaining order. While he was there in Ophrah religion and government had a centre “and the country was in quietness forty years.” A man far from perfect but capable of mastery held the reins and gave forth judgment with an authority none could challenge. His burial in the family sepulchre in Ophrah is specially recorded, as if it had been a great national tribute to his heroic power and skilful administration.
The funeral over, discord began. A rightful ruler there was not. Among the claimants of power there was no man of power. Gideon left many sons, but not one of them could take his place. The confederation of cities half Hebrew, half Canaanite, with Shechem at their head, of which we have already heard, held in check while Gideon lived, now began to control the politics of the tribes. By using the influence of this league a usurper who had no title whatever to the confidence of the people succeeded in exalting himself.
The old town of Shechem situated in the beautiful valley between Ebal and Gerizim had long been. a centre of Baal worship and of Canaanite intrigue, though nominally one of the cities of refuge and therefore specially sacred. Very likely the mixed population of this important town, jealous of the position gained by the hill village of Ophrah, were ready to receive with favour any proposals that seemed to offer them distinction. And when Abimelech, son of Gideon by a slave woman of their town, went among them with ambitious and crafty suggestions they were easily persuaded to help him. The desire for a king which Gideon had promptly set aside lingered in the minds of the people, and by means of it Abimelech was able to compass his personal ends. First, however, he had to discredit others who stood in his way. There at Ophrah were the sons and grandsons of Gideon, threescore and ten of them according to the tradition, who were supposed to be bent on lording it over the tribes. Was it a thing to be thought of that the land should have seventy kings? Surely one would be better, less of an incubus at least, more likely to do the ruling well. Men of Shechem too would not be governed from Ophrah if they had any spirit. He, Abimelech, was their townsman, their bone and flesh. He confidently looked for their support.
We cannot tell how far there was reason for saying that the family of Gideon were aiming at an aristocracy. They may have had some vague purpose of the kind. The suggestion, at all events, was cunning and had its effect. The people of Shechem had stored considerable treasure in the sanctuary of Baal, and by public vote seventy pieces of silver were paid out of it to Abimelech. The money was at once used by him in hiring a band of men like himself, unscrupulous, ready for any desperate or bloody deed. With these he marched on Ophrah, and surprising his brothers in the house or palace of Jerub-baal speedily put out of his way their dangerous rivalry. With the exception of Jotham, who had observed the band approaching and concealed himself, the whole house of Gideon was dragged to execution. On one stone, perhaps the very rock on which the altar of Baal once stood, the threescore and nine were barbarously slain.
A villainous coup detat this. From Gideon overthrowing Baal and proclaiming Jehovah to Abimelech bringing up Baal again with hideous fratricide-it is a wretched turn of things. Gideon had to some extent prepared the way for a man far inferior to himself, as all do who are not utterly faithful to their light and calling; but he never imagined there could be so quick and shocking a revival of barbarism. Yet the ephod dealing, the polygamy, the immorality into which he lapsed were bound to come to fruit. The man who once was a pure Hebrew patriot begat a half-heathen son to undo his own work. As for the Shechemites, they knew quite well to what end they had voted those seventy pieces of silver; and the general opinion seems to have been that the town had its moneys worth, a life for each piece and, to boot, a king reeking with blood and shame. Surely it was a well spent grant. Their confederation, their god had triumphed. They made Abimelech king by the oak of the pillar that was in Shechem.
It is the success of the adventurer we have here, that common event. Abimelech is the Oriental adventurer and uses the methods of another age than ours; yet we have our examples, and if they are less scandalous in some ways, if they are apart from bloodshed and savagery, they are still sufficiently trying to those who cherish the faith of divine justice and providence. How many have to see with amazement the adventurer triumph by means of seventy pieces of silver from the house of Baal or even from a holier treasury. He in a selfish and cruel game seems to have speedy and complete success denied to the best and purest cause. Fighting for his own hand in wicked or contemptuous hardness and arrogant conceit, he finds support, applause, an open way. Being no prophet he has honour in his own town. He knows the art o! the stealthy insinuation, the lying promise and the flattering murmur; he has skill to make the favour of one leading person a step to securing another. When a few important people have been hoodwinked, he too becomes important and “success” is assured.
The Bible, most entirely honest of books, frankly sets before us this adventurer, Abimelech, in the midst of the judges of Israel, as low a specimen of “success” as need be looked for; and we trace the well known means by which such a person is promoted. “His mothers brethren spake of him in the ears of all the men of Shechem.” That there was little to say, that he was a man of no character mattered not the least. The thing was to create an impression so that Abimelechs scheme might be introduced and forced. So far he could intrigue and then, the first steps gained, he could mount. But there was in him none of the mental power that afterwards marked Jehu, none of the charm that survives with the name of Absalom. It was on jealousy, pride, ambition he played as the most jealous, proud, and ambitious; yet for three years the Hebrews of the league, blinded by the desire to have their nation like others, suffered him to bear the name of king.
And by this sovereignty the Israelites who acknowledged it were doubly and trebly compromised. Not only did they accept a man without a record, they believed in one who was an enemy to his countrys religion, one therefore quite ready to trample upon its liberty. This is really the beginning of a worse oppression than that of Midian or of Jabin. It shows on the part of Hebrews generally as well as those who tamely submitted to Abimelechs lordship a most abject state of mind. After the bloody work at Ophrah the tribes should have rejected the fratricide with loathing and risen like one man to suppress him. If the Baal worshippers of Shechem would make him king there ought to have been a cause of war against them in which every good man and true should have taken the field. We look in vain for any such opposition to the usurper. Now that he is crowned, Manasseh, Ephraim, and the North regard him complacently. It is the world all over. How can we wonder at this when we know with what acclamations kings scarcely more reputable than he have been greeted in modern times? Crowds gather and shout, fires of welcome blaze; there is joy as if the millennium had come. It is a king crowned, restored, his countrys head, defender of the faith. Vain is the hope, pathetic the joy.
There is no man of spirit to oppose Abimelech in the field. The duped nation must drink its cup of misrule and blood. But one appears of keen wit, apt and trenchant in speech. At least the tribes shall hear what one sound mind thinks of this coronation. Jotham, as we saw, escaped the slaughter at Ophrah. In the rear of the murderer he has crossed the hills and he will now utter his warning, whether men hear or whether they forbear. There is a crowd assembled for worship or deliberation at the oak of the pillar. Suddenly a voice is heard ringing clearly out between hill and hill, and the people looking up recognise Jotham, who from a spur of rock on the side of Gerizim demands their audience. “Hearken unto me,” he cries, “ye men of Shechem, that God may hearken unto you.” Then in his parable of the olive, the fig tree, the vine, and the bramble, he pronounces judgment and prophecy. The bramble is exalted to be king, but on these terms, that the trees come and put their trust under its shadow; “but if not, then let fire come out of the bramble and devour the cedars of Lebanon.”
It is a piece of satire of the first order, brief, stinging, true. The craving for a king is lashed and then the wonderful choice of a ruler. Jotham speaks as an anarchist, one might say, but with God understood as the centre of law and order. It is a vision of the Theocracy, taking shape from a keen and original mind. He figures men as trees growing independently, dutifully. And do trees need a king? Are they not set in their natural freedom, each to yield fruit as best it can after its kind? Men of Shechem, Hebrews all, if they will only attend to their proper duties and do quiet work as God wills, appear to Jotham to need a king no more than the trees. Under the benign course of nature, sunshine and rain, wind and dew, the trees have all the restraint they need, all the liberty that is good for them. So men under the providence of God, adoring and obeying Him, have the best control, the only needful control, and with it liberty. Are they not fools then to go about seeking a tyrant to rule them, they who should be as cedars of Lebanon, willows by the watercourses, they who are made for simple freedom and spontaneous duty? It is something new in Israel, this keen intellectualising; but the fable, pointed as it is, teaches nothing for the occasion. Jotham is a man full of wit and of intelligence, but he has no practicable scheme of government, nothing definite to oppose to the mistake of the horn. He is all for the ideal, but the time and the people are unripe for the ideal. We see the same contrast in our own day; both in politics and the church the incisive critic discrediting subordination altogether fails to secure his age.
Men are not trees. They are made to obey and trust. A hero or one who seems a hero is ever welcome, and he who skilfully imitates the roar of the lion may easily have a following, while Jotham, intensely sincere, highly gifted, a true-sighted man, finds none to mind him.
Again the fable is directed against Abimelech. What was this man to whom Shechem had sworn fealty? An olive, a fig tree, fruitful and therefore to be sought after? Was he a vine capable of rising on popular support to useful and honourable service? Not he. It was the bramble they had chosen, the poor grovelling jagged thorn bush that tears the flesh, whose end is to feed the fire of the oven. Who ever heard of a good or heroic deed Abimelech had done? He was simply a contemptible upstart, without moral principle, as ready to wound as to flatter, and they who chose him for king would too soon find their error. Now that he had done something, what was it? There were Israelites among the crowd that shouted in his honour. Had they already forgotten the services of Gideon so completely as to fall down before a wretch red handed from the murder of their heros sons? Such a beginning showed the character of the man they trusted, and the same fire which had issued from the bramble at Ophrah would flame out upon themselves. This was but the beginning; soon there would be war to the knife between Abimelech and Shechem.
We find instruction in the parable by regarding the answers put into the mouth of this tree and that, when they are invited to wave to and fro over the others. There are honours which are dearly purchased, high positions which cannot be assumed without renouncing the true end and fruition of life. One, for example, who is quietly and with increasing efficiency doing his part in a sphere to which he is adapted must set aside the gains of long discipline if he is to become a social leader. He can do good where he is. Not so certain is it that he will be able to serve his fellows well in public office. It is one thing to enjoy the deference paid to a leader while the first enthusiasm on his behalf continues, but it is quite another thing to satisfy all the demands made as years go on and new needs arise. When anyone is invited to take a position of authority he is bound to consider carefully his own aptitudes. He needs also to consider those who are to be subjects or constituents and make sure that they are of the kind his rule will fit. The olive looks at the cedar and the terebinth and the palm. Will they admit his sovereignty by and by though now they vote for it? Men are taken with the candidate who makes a good impression by emphasising what will please and suppressing opinions that may provoke dissent. When they know him, how will it be? When criticism begins, will the olive not be despised for its gnarled stem, its crooked branches and dusky foliage?
The fable does not make the refusal of olive and fig tree and vine rest on the comfort they enjoy in the humbler place. That would be a mean and dishonourable reason for refusing to serve. Men who decline public office because they love an easy life find here no countenance. It is for the sake of its fatness, the oil it yields, grateful to God and man in sacrifice and anointing, that the olive tree declines. The fig tree has its sweetness and the vine its grapes to yield. And so men despising self-indulgence and comfort may be justified in putting aside a call to office. The fruit of personal character developed in humble unobtrusive natural life is seen to be better than the more showy clusters forced by public demands. Yet, on the other hand, if one will not leave his books, another his scientific hobbies, a third his fireside, a fourth his manufactory, in order to take his place among the magistrates of a city or the legislators of a land the danger of bramble supremacy is near. Next a wretched Abimelech will appear; and what can be done but set him on high and put the reins in his hand? Unquestionably the claims of church or country deserve most careful weighing, and even if there is a risk that character may lose its tender bloom the sacrifice must be made in obedience to an urgent call. For a time, at least, the need of society at large must rule the loyal life.
The fable of Jotham, in so far as it flings sarcasm at the persons who desire eminence for the sake of it and not for the good they will be able to do, is an example of that wisdom which is as unpopular now as ever it has been in human history, and the moral needs every day to be kept full in view. It is desire for distinction and power, the opportunity of waving to and fro over the trees, the right to use this handle and that to their names that will be found to make many eager, not the distinct wish to accomplish something which the times and the country need. Those who solicit public office are far too often selfish, not self-denying, and even in the church there is much vain ambition. But people will have it so. The crowd follows him who is eager for the suffrages of the crowd and showers flattery and promises as he goes. Men are lifted into places they cannot fill, and after keeping their seats unsteadily for a time they have to disappear into ignominy.
We pass here, however, beyond the meaning Jotham desired to convey, for, as we have seen, he would have justified every one in refusing to reign. And certainly if society could be held together and guided without the exaltation of one over another, by the fidelity of each to his own task and brotherly feeling between man and man, there would be a far better state of things. But while the fable expounds a God-impelled anarchy, the ideal state of mankind, our modern schemes, omitting God, repudiating the least notion of a supernatural fount of life, turn upon themselves in hopeless confusion. When the divine law rules every life we shall not need organised governments; until then entire freedom in the world is but a name for unchaining every lust that degrades and darkens the life of man. Far away, as a hope of the redeemed and Christ-led race, there shines the ideal Theocracy revealed to the greater minds of the Hebrew people, often restated, never realised. But at present men need a visible centre of authority. There must be administrators and executors of law, there must be government and legislation till Christ reigns in every heart. The movement which resulted in Abimelechs sovereignty was the blundering start in a series of experiments the Hebrew tribes were bound to make, as other nations had to make them. We are still engaged in the search for a right system of social order, and while rearers of God acknowledge the ideal towards which they labour, they must endeavour to secure by personal toil and devotion, by unwearying interest in affairs the most effective form of liberal yet firm government.
Abimelech maintained himself in power for three years, no doubt amid growing dissatisfaction. Then came the outburst which Jotham had predicted. An evil spirit, really present from the first, rose between Abimelech and the men of Shechem. The bramble began to tear themselves, a thing they were not prepared to endure. Once rooted, however, it was not easily got rid of. One who knows the evil arts of betrayal is quick to suspect treachery, the false person knows the ways of the false and how to fight them with their own weapons. A man of high character may be made powerless by the disclosure of some true words he has spoken; but when Shechem would be rid of Abimelech it has to employ brigands and organise robbery. “They set liers in wait for him in the mountains who robbed all that came along that way,” the merchants no doubt to whom Abimelech had given a safe conduct. Shechem in fact became the headquarters of a band of highwaymen, whose crimes were condoned or even approved in the hope that one day the despot would be taken and an end put to his misrule.
It may appear strange that our attention is directed to these vulgar incidents, as they may be called, which were taking place in and about Shechem. Why has the historian not chosen to tell us of other regions where some fear of God survived and guided the lives of men, instead of giving in detail the intrigues and treacheries of Abimelech and his rebellious subjects? Would we not much rather hear of the sanctuary and the worship, of the tribe of Judah and its development, of men and women who in the obscurity of private life were maintaining the true faith and serving God in sincerity? The answer must be partly that the contents of the history are determined by the traditions which survived when it was compiled. Doings like these at Shechem keep their place in the memory of men not because they are important but because they impress themselves on popular feeling. This was the beginning of the experiments which finally in Samuels time issued in the kingship of Saul, and although Abimelech was, properly speaking, not a Hebrew and certainly was no worshipper of Jehovah, yet the fact that he was king for a time gave importance to everything about him. Hence we have the full account of his rise and fall.
And yet the narrative before us has its value from the religious point of view. It shows the disastrous result of that coalition with idolaters into which the Hebrews about Shechem entered, it illustrates the danger of co-partnery with the worldly on worldly terms. The confederacy of which Shechem was the centre is a type of many in which people who should be guided always by religion bind themselves for business or political ends with those who have no fear of God before their eyes. Constantly it happens in such cases that the interests of the commercial enterprise or of the party are considered before the law of righteousness. The business affair must be made to succeed at all hazards. Christian people as partners of companies are committed to schemes which imply Sabbath work, sharp practices in buying and selling, hollow promises in prospectuses and advertisements, grinding of the faces of the poor, miserable squabbles about wages that should never occur. In politics the like is frequently seen. Things are done against the true instincts of many members of a party; but they, for the sake of the party, must be silent or even take their places on platforms and write in periodicals defending what in their souls and consciences they know to be wrong. The modern Baal-Berith is a tyrannical god, ruins the morals of many a worshipper and destroys the peace of many a circle. Perhaps Christian people will by and by become careful in regard to the schemes they join and the zeal with which they fling themselves into party strife. It is high time they did. Even distinguished and pious leaders are unsafe guides when popular cries have to be gratified; and if the principles of Christianity are set aside by a government every Christian church and every Christian voice should protest, come of parties what may. Or rather, the party of Christ, which is always in the van, ought to have our complete allegiance. Conservatism is sometimes right.
Liberalism is sometimes right. But to bow down to any Baal of the League is a shameful thing for a professed servant of the King of kings.
Against Abimelech the adventurer there arose another of the same stamp, Gaul son of Ebed, that is the Abhorred, son of a slave. In him the men of Shechem put their confidence, such as it was. At the festival of vintage there was a demonstration of a truly barbarous sort. High carousal was held in the temple of Baal. There were loud curses of Abimelech and Gaal made a speech. His argument was that this Abimelech, though his mother belonged to Shechem, was yet also the son of Baals adversary, far too much of a Hebrew to govern Canaanites and good servants of Baal. Shechemites should have a true Shechemite to rule them. Would to Baal, he cried, this people were under my hand, then would I remove Abimelech. His speech, no doubt, was received with great applause, and there and then he challenged the absent king.
Zebul, prefect of the city, who was present, heard all this with anger. He was of Abimelechs party still and immediately informed his chief, who lost no time in marching on Shechem to suppress the revolt. According to a common plan of warfare he divided his troops into four companies and in the early morning these crept towards the city, one by a track across the mountains, another down the valley from the west, the third by way of the Diviners Oak, the fourth perhaps marching from the plain of Mamre by way of Jacobs well. The first engagement drove the Shechemites into their city, and on the following day the place was taken, sacked, and destroyed. Some distance from Shechem, probably up the valley to the west, stood a tower or sanctuary of Baal around which a considerable village had gathered. The people there seeing the fate of the lower town, betook themselves to the tower and shut themselves up within it. But Abimelech ordered his men to provide themselves with branches of trees, which were piled against the door of the temple and set on fire, and all within were smothered or burned to the number of a thousand.
At Thebez, another of the confederate cities, the pretender met his death. In the siege of the tower which stood within the walls of Thebez the horrible expedient of burning was again attempted. Abimelech, directing the operations, had pressed close to the door when a woman cast an upper millstone from the parapet with so true an aim as to break his skull. So ended the first experiment in the direction of monarchy; so also God requited the wickedness of Abimelech.
One turns from these scenes of bloodshed and cruelty with loathing. Yet they show what human nature is, and how human history would shape itself apart from the faith and obedience of God. We are met by obvious warnings; but so often does the evidence of divine judgment seem to fail, so often do the wicked prosper, that it is from another source than observation of the order of things in this world we must obtain the necessary impulse to higher life. It is only as we wait on the guidance and obey the impulses of the Spirit of God that we shall move towards the justice and brotherhood of a better age. And those who have received the light and found the will of the Spirit must not slacken their efforts on behalf of religion. Gideon did good service in his day, yet failing in faithfulness he left the nation scarcely more earnest, his own family scarcely instructed. Let us not think that religion can take care of itself. Heavenly justice and truth are committed to us. The Christ life, generous, pure, holy, must be commended by us if it is to rule the world. The persuasion that mankind is to be saved in and by the earthly survives, and against that most obstinate of all delusions we are to stand in constant resolute protest, counting every needful sacrifice our simple duty, our highest glory. The task of the faithful is no easier today than it was a thousand years ago. Men and women cart be treacherous still with heathen cruelty and falseness; they can be vile still with heathen vileness, though wearing the air of the highest civilisation. If ever the people of God had a work to do in the world they have it now.