Fellowship Around the Table
Great conversations about life, faith, and the Bible from Fellowship Bible Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma (www.fbctulsa.org).
Fellowship Around the Table
The Book of Judges: Abimelech's Ruthless Ambition w/ Eric Johnson (Part 5 of 9)
Can ruthless ambition truly lead to lasting power? This week on Fellowship Around the Table, we tackle the intense narrative of Abimelech from Judges 9. Post-Gideon's death, we dissect how the Israelites swiftly abandoned their faith and disregarded Gideon's legacy. Our journey begins with Abimelech, son of Gideon and a concubine, who cunningly secures his mother’s relatives in Shechem to back his ruthless bid for power. With their support, he hires a band of cutthroats and murders 70 of his brothers, with only the youngest surviving, Jotham, who miraculously escapes. This bloodshed sets the stage for Abimelech's dubious rule, raising questions about the morality of leaders and the judgment of those who support them.
Jotham's parable stands as a stark and symbolic critique of Shechem’s leadership choices. Through the metaphor of trees seeking a king and ending up with a bramble, Jotham condemns Shechem's decision to elevate Abimelech. We analyze this powerful allegory, exploring its implications on leadership and the inherent risks in choosing unworthy rulers. Jotham's bold confrontation with Shechem and his escape emphasize the serious consequences of their choices, as divine justice looms on the horizon. The narrative takes a turn as God sends an evil spirit to fracture the alliance between Abimelech and Shechem, marking the beginning of divine retribution and the fulfillment of Jotham's curse.
Our conversation culminates in a reflective examination of divine justice and human responsibility woven throughout Abimelech's story. We delve into the grim fate awaiting Abimelech, whose final moments betray a misplaced concern for reputation rather than repentance. The story powerfully illustrates the destructive ripple effect of sin, affecting generations and leading to inevitable divine justice. Referencing Ecclesiastes 12, we underscore that every deed will be judged by God and ponder the profound notion that while God doesn't need our help, He invites us into His work.
You are listening to Fellowship Around the Table. Welcome back to Fellowship Around the Table, where we endeavor to have great conversations about life, faith and the Bible. Heath Casey here into week five with Eric Johnson in the book of Judges Hi, last week we finished up through chapter eight talking about Gideon. Where are we heading today?
Speaker 2:The question for you, heath, okay, do you ever watch like sitcoms? Oh, yeah, you have a favorite.
Speaker 1:Favorite of all time would be Seinfeld.
Speaker 2:Okay, so my, my favorite would tend to be something more along the lines of parks and recreation. Oh yeah, so I think, there's a bunch of different ways you can break down different types of sitcoms, but one of the ones that I've heard and read some critics talk about is there's the sitcom where you like the characters and want good things to happen to them, okay, and there's the sitcom where the characters are terrible and you enjoy laughing at them for their failures.
Speaker 2:Okay, yes, I can think of those. So All in the Lines is like Arrested Development.
Speaker 1:Yeah, seinfeld also kind of falls in that category. Sometimes, yeah, a little bit.
Speaker 2:And Judges 9, I think, is to some extent the second kind of sitcom where everyone involved is terrible and they fail in spectacular ways that are sometimes very darkly amusing for us to watch. Okay, today we're moving right into Chapter 9. Okay, which is a little bit of a follow-up on the story of Gideon, and we'll actually start at the end of chapter 8, because we get right back into things as Gideon dies In verse 33,. As soon as Gideon died, the people of Israel turned again and followed the Baals and they did not remember the Lord, their God, and they did not show steadfast love to the family of Jerob Baal or Gideon in return for all that he had done for Israel. Wow, so not long ago they were saying, hey, rule over us, you and your son and your grandson. And now they've kind of changed their minds on that, which, to be fair, gideon did tell him he didn't want to be the king, but it would have been nice if they still looked after his family, because he was at least a big part of God's deliverance of them from severe oppression.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, we did also see earlier in the chapter. Gideon, as we mentioned last week, had 70 sons and one of them was the son of his concubine. His name is Abimelech, so starting off in chapter 9. Now Abimelech, the son of Jerob Baal, went to Shechem, to his mother's relatives, and said to them and to the whole clan of his mother's family, say in the ears of all the leaders of Shechem, which is better for you, that all 70 of the sons of Jeroboam rule over you or that one rule over you?
Speaker 2:Remember also that I am your bone and your flesh. So, for starters, gideon's 70 sons are not ruling over them. They might to some extent be people of importance, but I mean there was no hereditary title assigned to Gideon that would pass down to his sons automatically. The other thing going on here.
Speaker 1:What's the basis for the appeal that Abimelech makes to these people? Why is he talking to these people specifically and what? What's his pitch? I guess the one pitch is well, I'm tied to Gideon right and in a. Better to just have one leader than 70, uh, than a group, I don't know.
Speaker 2:But why him specifically instead of one of the other sons?
Speaker 1:Is he related to that clan? He may have to help me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so his mother is from there, basically.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:His mother is Gideon's concubine. She is apparently from Shechem.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And so he's the local boy basically Got it. So, to put it differently hey, you should back me as your leader, because we're family, I'm your bone and flesh, yeah. And so, moving on, his mother's relatives spoke all these words on behalf, or on his behalf, in the ears of all the leaders of Shechem and their hearts inclined to follow Abimelech, for they said, he is our brother.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So they're on board. And they gave him 70 pieces of silver out of the house of Baal-Bareth with which Abimelech hired worthless and reckless fellows who followed him so fine upstanding citizens here and he went to his father's house at Ophrah and killed his brothers, the sons of Jerob Baal, 70 men on one stone. But Jotham, the youngest son of Jerob Baal, was left, for he hid himself. And all the leaders of Shechem came together and all Beth Milo, and they went and made a Bimelech king by the oak of the pillar at Shechem.
Speaker 1:So I was going to have the question before you read the last verse. Did he make it clear what he was going to do?
Speaker 2:It's an interesting question. Yeah, the people at least seem to be on board with what has happened.
Speaker 2:And the thing that kind of amazes and to some extent in a dark way, amuses me about this is that you can already tell he's a snake. Oh for sure, because his appeal is you should pick me to be your leader, because we're family. Now let's go kill the rest of my family, yeah, well, clearly family is not actually important to him, because he just killed 70 of his brothers. So if family is not important to him in that sense, how can they trust that it'll be important to him later? If they ever have a conflict with him, great question. If they ever have a conflict with him, great question. So just general tip for going through life If someone undercuts their own arguments, maybe think twice about backing them for power.
Speaker 1:It's just a wild scene for him to murder all of his brothers.
Speaker 2:Absolutely so. We've had Abimelech kill his 70 brothers. We've had the people of Shechem and the neighboring town of Bethmilo decide that they're going to make him a king. It's not entirely clear whether he's exerting authority over the entire nation of Israel at this point or if it's more of a local situation. It will say later. He ruled over Israel for a certain amount of time, but my inclination is to think it's more of a local, regional.
Speaker 1:But the northern side, judah's, probably got its own thing going.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so Shechem is in the territory of Ephraim, which is kind of middle, but North middle. And the other kind of twist on the city of Shechem is that it was set aside as one of the six cities of refuge for the Israelites. And what the purpose of the city of refuge is. At the time, if someone killed a family member of yours, it was your job to go out and take vengeance on them. So a city of refuge was set aside for people who killed someone, but did it by accident. So if there was just an accident out in the fields or you know, some unfortunate circumstance took place and someone died by your hand, but it wasn't something that you intended to have happen, you could run to a city of refuge. You could be kept safe there as long as they established factually that it was an accident, that you did not intend to kill the person. Right, you had to stay in the bounds of the city or else the person who was chasing you down for revenge would. It would be open season on you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the elders of Shechem are in charge of one of the cities of refuge. To be open season on you. So the elders of Shechem are in charge of one of the cities of refuge, and they should know specifically when they're supposed to keep people safe from the consequences of their actions and when they're not. Yeah, and clearly this is one of those cases where they are not, because Abimelech has 100% set out, with malice of forethought, to kill his own brothers, and they are not only keeping him safe from the consequences of his actions, but they're endorsing it and putting him in charge.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, you don't accidentally kill 70 brothers on one stone. Not usually. No, yeah, that would be hard to conjure up.
Speaker 2:That would be a tough argument to make in court. Yeah, so with all that in mind, we get to the brother who escaped and he shows up and calls out the leaders of Shechem, who definitely deserve it at this point. Yes, so Jotham tells a parable, and if you'll start off with that, in verse 8.
Speaker 1:Once the trees went forth to anoint a king over them, and they said to the olive tree reign over us. But the olive tree said to them shall I leave my fatness, with which God and men are honored, and go wave over the trees? Then the tree said to the fig tree you come, rain over us. But the fig tree said to them shall I leave my sweetness and my good fruit and go to wave over the trees? Then the tree said to the vine you come, reign over us. But the vine said to them shall I leave my new wine, which cheers God and men, and go to wave over the trees. Finally, all the tree said to the bramble you come, reign over us. The bramble said to the trees if in truth you are anointing me as a king over you, come and take refuge in my shade. But if not, may fire come out of the bramble and consume the cedars of Lebanon.
Speaker 2:This is kind of a lot going on there. I'm kind of amused by the idea that the trees are going to take refuge in the shade of the thorn bush. Like that doesn't cast a lot of shade, especially not high enough to, you know, get a 50 foot high tree in it.
Speaker 2:And this parable is being delivered by the brother that fled, by the brother that escaped and survived, okay, and he's telling it to the leaders of Shechem, okay, and it's an interesting perspective too, because it implies, I think, that it says something about the people who want to be in charge, like just in general.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like they go to the cool trees, you know, the fig tree or the vine or the olive tree, and all of them have better things to do, like they already have an important role to fill, that is not being the boss of all the other trees. And so then they go find the thorn bush, which is just sitting there on the side of the road and poking people occasionally, and no one really likes it.
Speaker 1:Just more literally, a result of the fall and the curse? Definitely yeah.
Speaker 2:Definitely. Yeah. Yeah, that's very true. Yeah, because thorns and brambles and briars didn't exist until then, and it's happy to be in charge. It's just not a good thing In general.
Speaker 1:Be careful before glorifying politicians too much.
Speaker 2:Wise words. And so Jotham finishes his parable there, but he's not done. Calling out the leaders of Shechem, he says, starting in verse 16, now, therefore, if you acted in good faith and integrity when you made Abimelech king, and if you have dealt well with Jerob Baal and his house and have done to him as his and have made Abimelech, the son of his female servant, king over the leaders of Shechem, because he is your relative, if then you have acted in good faith and integrity with Jerob Baal and with his house this day, then rejoice in Abimelech and let him also rejoice in you. But if not, let fire come out from Abimelech and devour the leaders of Shechem and Bethmilo, and let fire come out from the leaders of Shechem and Bethmilo and devour Abimelech. And Jotham ran away and fled and went to Beer and lived there because of Abimelech, his brother. Beer, to be clear, is a town, not the beverage, right, right, yes.
Speaker 2:So I enjoy the way that Jotham phrases this, because he says if you've acted in good faith, then great. But he also lays out very clearly all the ways in which they have definitely not acted in good faith. You've acted in good faith in, you know, turning on Gideon's family, the guy who saved your butts from Midian and then going and exterminating all of his sons and just putting this guy, who was, you know, the lowest born of his sons, in charge of everything. Great, clearly you haven't, but I'm not going to say that, that's not my place to actually judge. And then, yeah, jotham just goes and hides, which is pretty reasonable.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because all his other brothers were killed by these people.
Speaker 1:If he hadn't hit the first time, he'd be dead yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if you think of it from the perspective of a secular story, you're basically giving Jotham Batman's backstory here, like his entire family has been killed by a corrupt city and now he's going to come back and exert vengeance on the corrupt city. That's not what happens at all. We don't actually see Jotham again. Okay.
Speaker 1:But, it's.
Speaker 2:It's the way you would expect it to go If it was a secular city like Jotham is going to go hide, but he's also going to to come back in vengeance, and that's not what he does. He leaves it up to God Fascinating. And so we see there's a little bit of a pause in between Starting verse 22,. Abimelech ruled over Israel for three years and God sent an evil spirit between Abimelech and the leaders of Shechem, and the leaders of Shechem dealt treacherously with Abimelech that the violence done to the 70 sons of Jeroboam might come and their blood be laid on Abimelech, their brother, who killed them, and on the men of Shechem who strengthened his hands to kill his brothers. That's an interesting passage there. What do you make of that?
Speaker 1:Well, for starters, it's not surprising when a people raise up an evil leader and that that doesn't work out very well, right, and there ends up being, you know, consternation between the two.
Speaker 2:Yeah, again. We talked just in their first exchange about how Abimelech is clearly speaking out of both sides of his mouth Like he's making an appeal based on family. He definitely does not actually care about family, because he just killed his whole family.
Speaker 1:Then they give him some money and he goes and hires a bunch of scoundrels.
Speaker 2:Mercenaries, essentially Mercenaries. Yeah, what do you make of God sending an evil spirit? Oh let's see here. I'll say that the word evil there is not always translated as evil. You'll get like malicious or harmful sometimes, but it's still not something we think about God doing generally. Yeah, it's not the only time in the Old Testament it happens either God sends a harmful or malicious spirit to torment Saul after God's spirit leaves him and he's no longer endorsed as king. But it's weird. It doesn't mesh with our normal viewpoints on how God operates.
Speaker 1:It doesn't, but I think big picture. I'm seeing that God is directing traffic here and he's bringing down the fall of Abimelech. Definitely that's the big picture of what I see.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a hundred percent. And it's interesting too, because again we we mentioned how, in our kind of way of looking at things, you would expect Jotham to be involved in this in some way, and he's not. He gets, I think, one more mention at the end of the chapter, but not as an active agent, it's just it reminds us that he was the one who called down God's justice, essentially.
Speaker 1:I think too the authors and making it clear it's not like the men of Shechem came to their senses and realized that they put the wrong guy in charge, like God had to intervene and create that division between them and even then it wasn't like, oh God put the, or we put the wrong guy in charge and therefore we're going to see the error of our ways.
Speaker 2:They're just going to keep on going and scheming and double dealing. Yeah, so there's a whole kind of comedy of errors that happens after this between Abimelech and the people of Shechem. We won't read it in full detail because there's just a strange level of detail given here. Part of me wants to go to the author of Judges and say, all right, we got like 30 verses of this whole interaction between Abimelech and the people of Shechem, where we have like the name of the guy who's stirring up trouble in the city and then we have kind of the account of, you know, we have Abimelech's agent who's still working in the city and kind of the conversations they have between each other and the conversations with the elders of the city, and it's just this back and forth and they're saying the same thing over and over again. Why do we get that much on this?
Speaker 2:and we get five verses on the whole thing with othniel, where there's a whole battle that we don't know anything about yeah it might not even be one battle, it might be like a whole military campaign we don't know anything about and all we get is and god delivered them into his hand. And now we have this whole exchange between these kind of treacherous guys and this extra treacherous guy, and it's very strange.
Speaker 1:It is strange. It's clearly, you know, we think about how the scripture forms us in our time, but it's almost like this lesson needed to be learned from other city leaders True. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense and maybe that's how I was using that time, because I think the error of their ways needed to be made clear.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my so Abimelech's agent in the town finds out what's been going on. He finds out that the people of Shechem are planning to betray Abimelech and kick him out, and so he sends word to Abimelech and Abimelech brings his army to deal with the people of Shechem and you have a little exchange where the guy who's been stirring up all the trouble, whose name is Gael, he looks out and sees the army coming down from the mountains and Zeebel, who's a Bimblex agent, is standing there with him. And Gale says, hey, people are coming down from the mountains. And Zeeble says no, it's just the shadows of the mountains. And Gale doesn't buy it for a second, he's just like no, it's not. I've lived in the city my whole life. I know what the shadows of the mountains look like. It does not look like people. That's not specifically laid out in the text, but that's kind of like. That's how I see him reacting to that. It's like come on, man, try, try a better excuse, at least right, this is like an erin quality excuse. That's just the.
Speaker 2:it's just the shadow but we get that exchange in the text yeah, like fascinating, zebel bought like 30 seconds of just gail arguing with him and saying, no, it's clearly not shadows, those are people coming down. So, anyway, a bit, malik, you know attacks, check them, takes a couple of days and a couple of twists and turns militarily, but he captures the city and then at the end of that, the last people of the city go and retreat into kind of a secure fortress which I think is actually the temple of one of the gods not supposed to be worshiping but are worshiping, and so Abimelech puts wood around it and burns it down and kills everyone inside.
Speaker 2:So it's it's a brutal outcome, and it is. It is to some extent that people will check him getting exactly what they deserve and exactly what they should have expected from putting a treacherous snake in charge in the first place. But it's still. It's still a grim outcome there.
Speaker 1:Well, it's the old parable. I've heard it said in multiple ways. But the snake wants to be carried up the mountain to travel. You know the poisonous viper and the man says I ain't going to do that You're a poisonous snake and he's like no, no, it's fine, just help me help me to the scorpion. Tell that.
Speaker 2:So there's a parable of it's called the parable of the frog and the scorpion. Basically, the scorpion comes up to a frog and says hey, I need to cross this river. Can you swim me across the river? The frog says, no, are you crazy? You're a scorpion'm not going to kill you. Like, what kind of person would I be if I killed you? That would be ridiculous. So he talks the frog into it. The frog swims him across the river and as soon as they get across, the scorpion stings him and he dies. And the frog says well, you said you weren't going to do it because I was a scorpion, that's still a scorpion, abimelech and the leaders of shechem.
Speaker 1:Definitely, you know, that makes me think about where we're at today. And that gift of leadership, in terms of the spreading out of gifts amongst people, it's a rare gift and you, you know it when you see it, you know when somebody just has that gift of leadership and can lead people. But what's even rarer is somebody with that gift and of high character. Right, it seems exceedingly rare in our days and I do think a population, whether it's in a town or a state or a nation, can get attracted to that gift of leadership and maybe not even find the character part in its choices but can say, oh yeah, but they can get stuff done.
Speaker 1:And it's a dangerous road to go down and it's frustrating and not to get on too of a tangent. But I think that's one thing I worry about in our culture is that for a long time the purpose of education was to cultivate virtue Right, and today it seems like the purpose of education is technical training. And where are our future leaders getting? Where are they going to have their virtue cultivated Absolutely and I don't know. It's a scary thought. You might end up with people in Shechem appointing people that have leadership but are snakes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I don't know that. I had anything else to add there, sorry.
Speaker 1:This is something I've been thinking about.
Speaker 2:No, it's definitely.
Speaker 1:You just saw it in this story and I had in this story and I share your concerns very much so.
Speaker 2:so let's get to the final fate of Abimelech himself. So Abimelech moves on to the next town, which is called Thebes. We don't actually know what the people of Thebes have done to deserve any of Abimelech's wrath, but he's coming anyway. So he takes the next city, which is Thebes, and there's a strong tower within the city, and all the men and women and the leaders of the city fled to it and shut themselves in and they went up to the roof of the tower. So that was 950 and 51.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And Abimelech's like okay, we've been here before, I know what to do here. So he does the same thing. He comes to the tower and fights against it and draws near to the door of the tower to burn it with fire, and a certain woman there threw an upper millstone on Abimelech's head and crushed his skull. Wow, so an upper millstone is not as heavy as the lower millstone, but it's still very heavy, very heavy.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And it just gets dropped from the top of the tower and hits Abimelech on the head. Wow, and the next few verses are one of those things where, like it's not a happy story, but it makes me want to laugh anyway. Okay. So in verse 54,. Then he called quickly to the young man, his armor bearer, and said to him dry your sword and kill me, unless they say of me. A woman killed him and his young man thrust him through and he died. What are his priorities at this point? Like he's, he seems to be trying to save his reputation.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Which is weird, cause what is his reputation Like? He killed all of his brothers, yeah, which is weird because what is his reputation Like? He killed all of his brothers. He betrayed this. He got into a fight with the city he was working with. He got appointed king by a bunch of people who had no business appointing anyone king in the first place, and then he turned on them and killed all of them. Like, what reputation could he possibly have that's worth preserving at this point? Yeah, and yet that's what his concern is at the end is like I'm going to preserve my reputation so that no one can save me. A woman killed him. Yeah, well, okay, he murdered all of his brothers, but at least a woman didn't kill him, so he's not all bad.
Speaker 1:You know, going back to the root of this story, his father had relations with a concubine that gave birth to him. And there's so much of the Old Testament, so much of the Bible, but definitely the Old Testament and the narrative side that is descriptive and I think that confuses sometimes modern readers, especially people that might read it but aren't believers in Christ, that the Bible talks about it. So it's prescriptive that the Bible talks about it. So it's prescriptive whether it's polygamy or you know. You see some of these bad decisions and I think the Bible's clear that these lead to horrible outcomes.
Speaker 2:This is not prescriptive.
Speaker 1:This is descriptive, and Gideon's sin has consequences onto multiple generations.
Speaker 2:Definitely yes. Yeah, I also love, just in this exchange, that the author of the book is having none of this because he tells us exactly what happened. That's right.
Speaker 1:You didn't want to be told that a woman killed you.
Speaker 2:What I like to do when I teach this is to say all right, everyone, say it with me.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:One, two, three. A woman killed him One more. Okay, one, two, three. A woman killed him One more time.
Speaker 1:One, two, three a woman killed him. Take that, what a snake.
Speaker 2:He's just, he's just awful from beginning to end of the story. It's amazing.
Speaker 1:And he gets quite a bit of content. He does yeah.
Speaker 2:He also gets quite a bit of justice. You see that called out, starting in verse 56. Then God returned the evil of Abimelech, which he committed against his father in killing his 70 brothers, and God also made all the evil of the men of Shechem return on their heads and upon them came the curse of Jotham, the son of Jerob Baal, and that, the son of jared bale. And that curse is his parable. Yeah, what he says right after the parable, which is if you act in good faith, great. If not, let fire come out of you and consume each other, yeah, wow, and that's what happens, that's what I've been like kills the men of shechem and then he essentially is killed while trying to do the same thing he did while killing the men of shechem and a woman killed him a woman killed him.
Speaker 2:so what woman killed him? So what lesson? We talked about leadership, but what other lesson do you take from this? I think big picture.
Speaker 1:You can't outrun God's justice, definitely Right, like even in our time when we say how long Lord, how long? That seems to be an element of the remnant when they see all the injustice around them. But we know the final end even short-term, mid-term, long-term, eternity.
Speaker 2:The verse that comes to mind for me. There is at the end of Ecclesiastes, ecclesiastes 12, the two verses at the end of the book you have, starting in verse 13, the end of the matter. All has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man, for God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil. So God is keeping track, yeah, and if there's justice that needs to be done, god will do it. That's right.
Speaker 2:The other thing, I think too, the other thing that comes to mind for me and there's a few stories that are like this God's justice did not come from God using a righteous person to bring justice about. In this case, it was brought up by just him, sending a spirit to divide Abimelech from the people who had followed him. And they take it out on each other. Essentially, they perform God's justice on each other. There's a tendency, I think, sometimes in the church, when we're trying to get people to help out in doing something, to say like God needs you to do this.
Speaker 2:God does not need our help for anything Like you see in Judges 9, you see in other places in the Bible in even better examples. God can operate just fine on his own. His will is going to be done, regardless of whether you participate or not. So it's not that God needs us to do things, but God wants us to do things and we get to participate in his work we get to.
Speaker 1:It's incredible that the God of the universe and all the ways that he could do things comes along and asks us to join him. Yeah, fantastic, all right, I think that wraps up Judges 9 and the story of Abimelech. It does so. Next week we'll continue on.
Speaker 2:We'll get a little more back into the cycle and we'll talk about the story of Jephthah next week.
Speaker 1:All right, we'll see you all next week.
Speaker 2:Thanks for joining.
Speaker 1:Fellowship Around the Table. If you'd like to learn more, go to fbctulsaorg Keith Casey. Here into week five with Eric John. Week five with Eric Johnson.
