Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Judges 9:14
Then said all the trees unto the bramble, Come thou, [and] reign over us.
14. the bramble ] LXX, Vulgate rhamnus, the common, worthless thornbush, the very opposite of the noble trees just mentioned.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Verse 14. Then said all the trees unto the bramble] The word atad, which we translate bramble, is supposed to mean the rhamnus, which is the largest of thorns, producing dreadful spikes, similar to darts. See Theodoret on Ps 58:10.
There is much of the moral of this fable contained in the different kinds of trees mentioned.
1. The olive; the most profitable tree to its owner, having few equals either for food or medicine.
2. The fig tree; one of the most fruitful of trees, and yielding one of the most delicious fruits, and superior to all others for sweetness.
3. The vine, which alone yields a liquor that, when properly prepared, and taken in strict moderation, is friendly both to the body and mind of man, having a most direct tendency to invigorate both.
4. The bramble or thorn, which, however useful as a hedge, is dangerous to come near; and is here the emblem of an impious, cruel, and oppressive king.
As the olive, fig, and vine, are said in this fable to refuse the royalty, because in consequence, they intimate, they should lose their own privileges, we learn that to be invested with power for the public good can be no privilege to the sovereign. If he discharge the office faithfully, it will plant his pillow with thorns, fill his soul with anxious cares, rob him of rest and quiet, and, in a word, will be to him a source of distress and misery. All this is represented here under the emblem of the trees losing their fatness, their sweetness and good fruits, and their cheering influence. In short, we see from this most sensible fable that the beneficent, benevolent, and highly illuminated mind, is ever averse from the love of power; and that those who do seek it are the thoughtless, the vain, the ambitious, and those who wish for power merely for the purpose of self-gratification; persons who have neither the disposition nor the knowledge to use power for the advantage of the community; and who, while they boast great things, and make great pretensions and promises, are the tyrants of the people, and often through their ambition, like the bramble in the fable kindle a flame of foreign or domestic war, in which their subjects are consumed.
The sleepless nights and corroding cares of sovereignty, are most forcibly described by a poet of our own, whose equal in describing the inward workings of the human heart, in all varieties of character and circumstances, has never appeared either in ancient or modern times. Hear what he puts in the mouth of two of his care-worn kings: –
“How many thousand of my poorest subjects
Are at this hour asleep? – Sleep, gentle sleep,
Nature’s soft nurse! how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down,
And steep my senses in forgetfulness?
Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,
Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee,
And hush’d with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber
Than in the perfumed chambers of the great,
Under the canopies of costly state,
And lull’d with sounds of sweetest melody?
O thou dull god! why liest thou with the vile
In loathsome beds; and leav’st the kingly couch
A watch-case, or a common ‘larum bell?
Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast
Seal up the ship-boy’s eyes, and rock his brains
In cradle of the rude imperious surge;
And in the visitation of the winds,
Who take the ruffian billows by the top,
Curling their monstrous heads and hanging them,
With deafening clamours, in the slippery clouds,
That, with the hurly, death itself awakes?
Canst thou, O partial sleep! give thy repose
To the wet sea-boy, in an hour so rude;
And, in the calmest and most stillest night,
With all appliances and means to boot,
Deny it to a king? Then, happy low, lie down!
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.”____
“O hard condition! twin-born with greatness,
Subjected to the breath of every fool,
Whose sense no more can feel but his own wringing!
What infinite heart’s ease must kings neglect,
That private men enjoy!
And what have kings, that privates have not too,
Save ceremony, save general ceremony?”____
“‘Tis not the balm, the sceptre, and the ball,
The sword, the mace, the crown imperial,
The intertissued robe of gold and pearl,
The farced title running ‘fore the king,
The throne he sits on, nor the tide of pomp
That beats upon the high shore of this world,
No, not all these, thrice gorgeous ceremony,
Not all these, laid in bed majestical,
Can sleep so soundly as the wretched slave.”
SHAKESPEARE
This is precisely the sentiment expressed in the denial of the olive, fig tree, and vine.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
The bramble, or thorn; a mean, and barren, and hurtful tree, fitly representing Abimelech, the son of a concubine, and a person of small use, and great cruelty.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
Then said all the trees unto the bramble,…. Perceiving they could not prevail upon any of the useful and fruitful trees to take the government of them, they unite in a request to a bramble, scarce to be called a tree, and however a very barren and fruitless one, yea, hurtful and distressing:
come thou, and reign over us; this respects Abimelech, and describes him as a mean person, the son of a concubine, as having no goodness in him, not any good qualifications to recommend him to government, but all the reverse, cruel, tyrannical, and oppressive; and this exposes the folly of the Shechemites, and their eagerness to have a king at any rate, though ever so mean and despicable, useless and pernicious.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
(14) Unto the bramble.Despairing of their best, they avail themselves of the unscrupulous ambition of their worst. The brambleatadis rather the rhamnus, or buckthorn, which Dioscorides calls the Cartha ginian atadin. There seems to be an echo of this fable in sops fable of the fox and the thorn, where the fox is dreadfully rent by taking hold of the thorn to save himself from a fall, and the thorn asks him what else he could expect.
Reign over us.They seem to address the thorn in a less ceremonious imperativenot mlekah, as to the olive, or mlek, as to the fig-tree and vine, but a mere blunt melk!
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
14. All the trees Not one of all the trees was willing to be king, but all were willing that the bramble should rule over them a stinging reflection on the Shechemites. We understand Gideon and his sons, under the refusal of royalty, (Jdg 8:23,) to be represented by the olive and the vine, and Abimelech by the bramble. The bramble does not refuse to be king. Jotham sarcastically makes the bramble invite them to come under his shade, as an image of the felicity? of the Shechemites if they have done well in their choice. But if, as he believes, they have done wickedly, their bramble will prove a torch to burn their very cedars of Lebanon, the tallest of the Shechemite nobility.
The bramble The word , atad, occurs elsewhere only in Psa 58:9, where it is rendered thorns, and Gen 50:10, where it is rendered as a proper name. “It is generally thought to denote the southern buckthorn, a brier bush indigenous in Egypt and Syria, shooting up from the root in many branches, (ten to fifteen feet high,) armed with spines, and bearing leaves resembling those of the olive, but light coloured and more slender, with little whitish blossoms that eventually produce small, black, bitter berries. The Arabs still call it atad. Rauwolf found it growing at Jerusalem.” M’Clintock and Strong’s Cyclopaedia. From this same bush it is supposed the Saviour’s crown of thorns was made. Compare note on Mat 27:29.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
“ Then all the trees said to the boxthorn, ‘You come and reign over us.’ ”
Now the trees were getting desperate. They are pictured as foolishly longing for a king over them, come what may. They went to the lowest tree of all, the boxthorn which could not be used for timber, bore no edible fruit and hurt men with its thorns. It was renowned for its thorniness (Psa 58:9).
So Jotham pictures Abimelech as a boxthorn, useless and prickly, who was only offered the position because no one better would take it, for none other wanted full kingship.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Jdg 9:14 Then said all the trees unto the bramble, Come thou, [and] reign over us.
Ver. 14. Then said all the trees unto the bramble. ] Or, Thistle, or teazle; which is not a tree but a shrub, prickly, barren, base, abject, good-for-nothing but to stop gaps, or kindle a fire. Abimelech was a right bramble indeed, who grew in the base hedgerow of a concubine, and scratched and drew blood to purpose, when once he had scrambled up to be king of Israel.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
the bramble. This is prophetic of the false nation under the rule of Antichrist, which will devour the nation as foreshown in Jdg 9:20.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
bramble: or, thistle, 2Ki 14:9
Reciprocal: Jdg 9:18 – Abimelech Ecc 10:6 – Folly
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Jdg 9:14-15. Then said all the trees unto the bramble, &c. Or thorn, fitly representing Abimelech, the son of a concubine, and a person of small use and great cruelty. If in truth ye anoint me king If you deal truly and justly in making me king. Then trust Then you may expect protection under my government. Devour the cedars Instead of protection, you shall receive destruction by me; especially you cedars, that is, nobles, such as the house of Millo, who have been most forward in this work. By this fable Jotham signified to the Shechemites that the most worthy men in Israel, figured by the olive, the fig-tree, and the vine, which bear the most useful and excellent fruits, had not aimed at kingly dominion over them; and that his father Gideon had even refused it, when offered to him. By the bramble, the most worthless of shrubs, accepting the offer of the trees to be their king, and calling to them to put their trust in its shadow, though by its nature it could afford no shadow or protection to them, he shows what a worthless choice they had made. The speech of the bramble represents how foolish Abimelech was, in imagining he should be able to maintain the authority of a king, as he could by no means, any more than the bramble, afford the shade or protection he had promised: and the threat of the bramble seems to indicate the cruelty of Abimelechs temper, that he would destroy the Shechemites, if he found them unfaithful.