Then went Abimelech to Thebez, and encamped against Thebez, and took it.
Abimelech was the son of Gideon's maidservant, and he made himself ruler of Israel by killing or causing the slaying of Gideon's sons, his own brothers. His rise reflected the folly of the Shechemites in choosing such a man, who surrounded himself with worthless followers. His story belongs to Israel's repeated cycle of backsliding from God followed by suffering, oppression, captivity or servitude, and then return to God, forgiveness and deliverance. He reigned three years marked by treachery, demoralizing rule and heartless tyranny.
Jotham's parable of the trees in this setting teaches that those doing valuable work for the Lord do not seek to rule over their brethren, and that ambition to be exalted over others shows a person is wholly unfit to rule. Discord, strife and hatred sent by the Lord fulfilled Jotham's words that Abimelech and the men of Shechem would destroy each other. Abimelech attacked rebellious Shechem, slew its inhabitants, utterly destroyed the city, reduced it to ashes and sowed the ground with salt as a token of perpetual desolation.
The verse records his next move after Shechem against Thebez, a neighboring city that had united with Shechem in insurrection against him, where he went, encamped against it and took it. Having taken Thebez, he determined to burn its inhabitants with the tower as he had done at Shechem. At Thebez his career was cut short when a woman mortally wounded him by dropping a millstone from the tower, after which he urgently told his armor-bearer to kill him so people would not say a woman had slain him. He had been permitted to execute God's vengeance upon Israel, but at Thebez he passed the limits of divine forbearance, so his career of crime was ended there in retribution upon both him and the Shechemites who had sustained him. His end teaches that sin will never go unpunished and that entering the path of disobedience is dangerous.
Abimelech was the son of Gideon's maidservant, and he made himself ruler of Israel by killing or causing the slaying of Gideon's sons, his own brothers. His rise reflected the folly of the Shechemites in choosing such a man, who surrounded himself with worthless followers. His story belongs to Israel's repeated cycle of backsliding from God followed by suffering, oppression, captivity or servitude, and then return to God, forgiveness and deliverance. He reigned three years marked by treachery, demoralizing rule and heartless tyranny.
Jotham's parable of the trees in this setting teaches that those doing valuable work for the Lord do not seek to rule over their brethren, and that ambition to be exalted over others shows a person is wholly unfit to rule. Discord, strife and hatred sent by the Lord fulfilled Jotham's words that Abimelech and the men of Shechem would destroy each other. Abimelech attacked rebellious Shechem, slew its inhabitants, utterly destroyed the city, reduced it to ashes and sowed the ground with salt as a token of perpetual desolation.
The verse records his next move after Shechem against Thebez, a neighboring city that had united with Shechem in insurrection against him, where he went, encamped against it and took it. Having taken Thebez, he determined to burn its inhabitants with the tower as he had done at Shechem. At Thebez his career was cut short when a woman mortally wounded him by dropping a millstone from the tower, after which he urgently told his armor-bearer to kill him so people would not say a woman had slain him. He had been permitted to execute God's vengeance upon Israel, but at Thebez he passed the limits of divine forbearance, so his career of crime was ended there in retribution upon both him and the Shechemites who had sustained him. His end teaches that sin will never go unpunished and that entering the path of disobedience is dangerous.