As soon as Gideon died, Israel turned again and went as harlots after the Baalim, making Baal-berith their god. They did not remember Jehovah their God, who had delivered them from the hand of all their enemies all around, nor did they show mercy to the house of Gideon for all the good he had done to Israel (8:33-35).
Abimelech, the son of Jerubbaal, Gideon, slew his brothers, the sons of Jerubbaal, seventy men, on one stone (9:1-5). He was supported by his mother’s brothers, all the family of his mother’s father, and all the men of Shechem (vv. 1-3). They supported Abimelech with seventy pieces of silver from the temple of the idol Baal-berith, with which he hired worthless and wanton men to follow him (v. 4). However, the youngest son of Jerubbaal, Jotham, was left, for he hid himself (v. 5).
The men of Shechem and all the house of Millo made Abimelech king at Shechem (v. 6).
Jotham protested against Abimelech (vv. 7-21). He likened Abimelech not to a good olive tree or a good fig tree or a good vine but, derisively, to an evil bramble (vv. 7-15). Then he cursed the men of Shechem, the house of Millo, and Abimelech with God’s punishment over them (vv. 16-20). After Jotham did this, he ran off and fled (v. 21).
Abimelech ruled over Israel three years (v. 22).
God sent an evil spirit between Abimelech and the men of Shechem, and they dealt treacherously with him, so that the violence done to the seventy sons of Jerubbaal might be avenged and so that their blood might be upon Abimelech their brother and upon the men of Shechem, who strengthened him to slay his brothers (vv. 23-24).
The men of Shechem dealt treacherously with Abimelech, revolting against him and being strengthened by Gaal the son of Ebed (vv. 25-29).
Zebul the ruler of the city helped Abimelech to defeat Gaal and the men of Shechem, tear down the city of Shechem, and set its stronghold on fire to burn about a thousand men and women who escaped there (vv. 30-49).
Abimelech went to take Thebez. When he came up to the tower and fought against it, a certain woman threw a millstone upon Abimelech’s head, and it cracked his skull. He immediately called to the young man who bore his armor and told him to draw his sword and kill him, lest people say that he was slain by a woman. The young man pierced him through, and he died. Thus, God repaid the evil of Abimelech and all the evil of the men of Shechem, and the curse of Jotham came upon them (vv. 50-57).
After considering chapter nine of Judges, we can see that it presents to us a picture of what a mess God’s elect Israel had become and to what extent they had degraded. Their degradation was initiated in their forsaking of Jehovah their God and their worshipping of the idols of the Canaanites, which issued in their indulgence in fleshly lust by having many wives to produce many sons. Gideon produced seventy-two sons of many wives (8:30-31; 9:5); another judge produced thirty sons (10:4); another judge produced thirty sons and thirty daughters (12:8-9); and another judge produced forty sons and thirty grandsons (vv. 13-14). Israel’s degradation also issued in the wantonness of their hatred in slaying one another, ending themselves in full destruction.
After Abimelech, Tola, a man of Issachar, rose up to save Israel, and he judged Israel twenty-three years. After Tola, Jair the Gileadite, who had thirty sons, rose up and judged Israel twenty-two years (10:1-5).