The Bramble King

In context

Gideon crossed the Jordan after the last of Midian’s army, his three hundred men “faint, yet pursuing” (Judges 8:4). The towns of Succoth and Penuel refused them bread, and he punished both on his way back (8:5–17). He captured and killed Zebah and Zalmunna, Midian’s kings, who had killed his brothers at Tabor (8:18–21). When Israel asked him to rule over them, he refused: “Yahweh shall rule over you” (8:22–23). But from the gold earrings of the plunder, about thirty-seven pounds, he made an ephod, a priest’s garment, and it “became a snare to Gideon and to his house” (8:24–27).

After Gideon died, Israel turned to Baal Berith (8:33). His son Abimelech, born to his concubine in Shechem, hired men with silver from Baal Berith’s temple and killed his seventy brothers “on one stone”; only Jotham, the youngest, hid and lived (9:1–5). From Mount Gerizim, above Shechem, Jotham told a story: the olive tree, the fig and the vine would not give up their oil, fruit and wine to reign, so the trees asked the bramble (9:7–15). Three years later Shechem turned against Abimelech. He destroyed the city and burned its stronghold, and at Thebez a woman dropped a millstone on his head (9:22–53). It is a violent chapter, told plainly: “Thus God repaid the wickedness of Abimelech” (9:56).