Judges 9:38
Then said Zebul unto him, Where is now thy mouth, wherewith thou saidst, Who is Abimelech, that we should serve him? is not this the people that thou hast despised? go out, I pray now, and fight with them. Then said Zebul unto him, Where is now thy mouth, wherewith thou saidst, Who is Abimelech, that we should serve him? is not this the people that thou hast despised? go out, I pray now, and fight with them.
Zebul confronts Gaal with his earlier contemptuous question of who Abimelech was that they should serve him, challenging him to act on his boast against Abimelech. He points out that the people Gaal had despised are now before him, and urges him to go out and fight with them. The taunt comes during the rebellion against Abimelech and marks the fulfillment of Jotham's parable and words in the conflict between the ruler and his subjects.
Abimelech was the son of Gideon's maidservant, who caused Gideon's sons to be slain in order to make himself ruler, gathered worthless followers about him, and later utterly destroyed Shechem. His course exposed the folly of Shechem's choice of him as king. Shechem was a very ancient place where Jacob stopped on returning from Padan-aram to Canaan and was afterward fortified as a capital.
The wider events surrounding the verse show retribution coming upon Abimelech and the Shechemites who supported him for their violence and disobedience. The account teaches that those doing the most valuable work for the Lord do not seek to rule over their fellow believers, and that ambition to be exalted over others shows unfitness to rule.