7. “The King in Shechem” (Judges 8-9)

Good morning everybody, I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving. As you could probably tell from our scripture reading – Thanksgiving is over! In all seriousness, this story is dark but there is so much in here that could be gleaned about leadership and political life. Spiritual lessons about reaping what one sows. The importance of fidelity to the Lord and gratitude for the good things He brings into our lives. But as I’ve sat with this passage the past couple weeks, I think most of all it is meant to create in us a longing for a better King. And so, I think it is a rather fitting story for the Sunday before advent. May this photo negative of God’s better King stir in all of us a deeper love, appreciation, and longing for Jesus. And may His Spirit continue to empower us to faith, hope, and love for the good of this world.

Our story for today picks up where we left off last time. Gideon was a judge that God raised up to save Israel. And Gideon delivered Israel from Baal – which is why he was also known as Jerubaal – because he tore down Baal’s altar. And though he was by no means perfect – he was successful in giving the land rest for 40 years. But “As soon as Gideon died, the people of Israel turned again and made Baal-berith their God.” The people turn from the Lord, they don’t remember that He is the one that truly saved them from their enemies. That is, not that the Lord slipped from their memory, but rather that they don’t allow His reality to be the operating center of their lives. Instead, they consciously pursued and worshiped and centered their lives around a false God. They willingly chose idolatry. And so, we might expect the cycle to begin again, things will go wrong, the people will cry out to God, and He will bail them out. But not this time. This time we do not get salvation and rest and blessing, but death and destruction and curse! One of Gideon’s sons decides to take up his father’s business.

Abimelech is one of Gideon’s many sons. But he isn’t a full-blooded son, no he was born of Gideon’s concubine who lived in Shechem. And we will see how all three of those pieces become central components of this story. First, there is Abimelech’s name which means “My father is king.” And if you were here last week, you know that Gideon actually denied the Israelite’s offer to make him king – and yet our text specifically says he named his son “Abi – Melek,” “My father is king” – interesting. Second, Abimelech’s mom is a concubine – which means she was like a wife yet without the official status. And so, in that culture, Abimelech was viewed as illegitimate, a half-breed, which I think understandably might make you a somewhat resentful of your dad’s “real” kids – all 70 of them. And thirdly, Abimelech’s mother was from Shechem. And that place will become Abimelech’s political power center.

And now we are starting to get a sense of who Abimelech is. A man whose destiny seems bound up with his name, a man of deep resentment, a man with political ambitions.

Abimelech’s first move is to garner political support is by appealing to tribalism. “Say in the ears of all the leaders of Shechem, ‘Which is better for you, that all seventy of the sons of Jerubbaal rule over you, or that one rule over you?’ Remember also that I am your bone and your flesh.” Remember, that I am your bone and your flesh. Ambitious Abimelech is calling them to do to him what our passage has just said the people did not do to God. Remember.

Abimelech is saying, “Remember where your true loyalties lie. Remember who will represent your best interests. Remember that I’m not just Gideon that Yahweh worshipper’s son, rather I am your flesh, your blood runs through my veins – O worshippers of Baal! Your god is my god, and I will be your king!” He repudiates his loyalty to his father, as the people had done to the Lord, and seeks the embrace of the leaders of Shechem, as the people had done to Baal. And it works, “All the leaders of Shechem’s hearts inclined to follow Abimelech, for they said ‘He is our brother.’” And we all know that those kind of appeals still work to this very day. Appeals not on the basis of the content of one’s character, nor the logic and reasoning of one’s position, but on the basis of clan, tribe, flag, or political color. “We are a blue family or we are a red family and so that’s how we vote – like it or get out.” That’s a sad and rather extreme example, but unfortunately we all know it’s not far from the truth of our current moment.

Now that Abimelech has aligned himself with his preferred family, he can dispatch with his half-brothers. And he does so, one by one by one.

The leaders of Shechem with deep pockets and shallow character take 70 pieces of silver from their Baal temple as bloody money. So that everyone knows, that this will be a religious act; this is sanctioned and financed by Baal, the peoples new God. This whole story is meant to be colored through an idolatrous lens. This isn’t just political, it is deeply spiritual. Abimelech takes the money and “hires worthless and reckless fellows who follow him.” These are people of low character, people of no loyalty, people bought at a rather low price. Abimelech doesn’t have any interest in gaining support the old-fashioned way, with well-reasoned and ethical arguments, a track record of sound business dealings, and a concrete plan to create a stable and flourishing society. What he plans is treachery. And brains won’t be needed, only brawns, a sword, and a stone.

Abimelech and his newly bought friends go to his father’s house at Ophrah and murder all 70 of his brothers. And the text says that they killed every single man on one stone. On one stone which means a single file execution line. And it’s a little hard to tell in our translation but the original suggests that Abimelech is the one who did the executing. Brother after brother after brother after brother after brother. Except for one, who makes like Gideon, and hides himself. And that’s the moment, that’s the moment when the leaders of Shechem went and made Abimelech king.

The leaders of Shechem are corrupt, treasonous, and have freshly crowned ruthless and blood-stained Abimelech king – what could go wrong?

9:7-22

Our passage is obviously very dark and grisly but verses 7-21 are a bright and shining light of sorts. Jotham, the youngest of Gideon’s sons, the only one who escaped Abimelech’s familial cleansing – hears that the leaders of Shechem have made Abimelech king. And instead of high-tailing it out of town – he went and stood on top of Mount Gerizim and uttered a prophetic message. One of the ways the Bible tells stories and gets at meaning is through geography. And we have some sense of this today, for instance as we approach advent – we are all pretty familiar with the little town of Bethlehem. And Shechem in the OT is a place of extraordinary significance although after today’s account there’s unlikely to be any Christmas carols about it.

            Moses gave instructions that once the Israelites entered the promised land they were to split the 12 tribes in half. Half the tribes were to stand on Mt. Ebal and the other half on Mt. Gerizim. The Mt. Ebal group would stand for the curses side of betraying the covenant and the Mt. Gerizim group would stand for the blessing side of obeying the covenant. Curses would echo out from Ebal and blessing would echo out from Gerizim. And this would be a renewal ceremony where all the parties would be entirely aware of what is expected of them and entirely aware of the consequences for dis-loyalty to the Lord. And when did this ceremony take place? In the days of Joshua – the period before the Judges, when our story occurs. And where did it take place? At Shechem – which is situated in the valley between the two mountains. And now around 200 years later, Shechem has devolved into moral, political, and spiritual chaos. And then here comes Jotham, climbing up the mountain, having narrowly escaped death. Having heard all of his brothers be executed. Stands a top not Mt. Ebal which stood for curse, but rather a top Mt. Gerizim the mountain of blessing. Is this going to be a turn the other cheek moment? Or have the people become so corrupt that the mountain of blessing is now only a mountain of curse?

            “Listen to me you leaders of Shechem that God may listen to You.” And Jotham covered in dirt, maybe splattered with his brother’s blood tells a fable. What wonderful courage – to be a lone voice crying out in the midst of crooked and corrupt generation. “The trees went out” says Jotham, “To anoint a king.” And they go out to proposition the olive tree – “reign over us” but the olive tree says, “Shall I leave my abundance by which gods and men are honored, and go hold sway over the trees?” So, the trees ask the fig tree and the fig tree says, “shall I leave my sweetness and my good fruit and go hold sway over the trees?” Another no, so the trees ask the vine, and the vine says, “Shall I leave my wine that cheers God and men and go hold sway over the trees?” Strike three – probably shoulda taken the hint, but the desperate trees have one last idea. “Well, since the trees that are useful to society are all otherwise occupied, let’s ask the bramble.” Anyone willing to guess if Jotham is uttering a blessing or a curse? And the bramble responds with a mountain of sarcasm, “If in good faith you are anointing me king over you, then come and take refuge in my shade, but if not, let fire come out of the bramble and devour the cedars of Lebanon.”  

            If you don’t know, I didn’t, brambles don’t offer shade – they are thorn bushes that don’t produce edible fruit, the only thing they are good at is catching fire. The trees, that is the leaders of Shechem, aren’t asking in good faith and integrity – they are asking because they ran out of other options. Good faith and integrity is repeated in verses 16 and 19, and it is the same phrase that Joshua used with the people of Shechem between those two mountains all those years ago. These leaders aren’t ignorant or mistaken they are willfully and consciously choosing a malevolent king. So Jotham continues – he denounces what they did to his brothers, denounces their making Abimelech king simply because “he is your relative” and then he pronounces a curse. But if you have not “acted in good faith and integrity then let fire come out from Abimelech and devour the leaders of Shechem, and let fire come out from the leaders Shechem and devour Abimelech.” Jotham says to the leaders of Shechem there will be devastating retribution for the evil you have sown, Abimelech will destroy you and you will destroy him.

            And now the stage is set for the rest of the story. Abimelech has stamped out any rival claim to the throne. The leaders of Shechem have a message of doom ringing in their ears. How will this story play out? This is the moment we are meant to pause and take stock of things – to remember where we are at in the book of Judges. Geoff mentioned in our first sermon that the key verse of this book is the final verse, “In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” And in our story, we are getting a glimpse of a brief slice in time when there was a king in Israel – at least in Shechem. And so we are meant to ask questions such as: Will God allow an immoral king and faithless leaders to reign with impunity? How will his plans and purposes, for blessing and shalom, come about when evil seems to have won the day? Will Jotham’s prophetic word and curse come true? Or will Abimelech pass on the family business to a third generation?

9:23-57

            After Abimelech’s sordid rise to power, we now hear of his divisive reign. But before the story continues we are given an explanatory note in verses 23-24. “God sent an evil spirit between Abimelech and the leaders of Shechem.” We might suspect that this kingly experiment in Shechem will end poorly without any outside help. But the author wants us to know that God is related to what’s about to occur. He sent an evil spirit between Abimelech and the leaders of Shechem. And a statement like that can raise so many questions in our minds. While we can in no way resolve the mystery of a good and powerful God’s relationship to evil there are a few things that we can be clear on. God is sovereign over every aspect of his creation. He doesn’t need to ask anyone’s permission to do something. He can use evil, to accomplish his purposes, without being the origin of evil. It’s also worth noting that this isn’t something that God does all the time. We see something similar with Pharoah and a direct parallel with King Saul – but those seem to be acutely strong medicines for particularly evil situations. So yes, God is sovereign over every dust mote, there are no maverick molecules in his cosmos, to quote RC Sproul, and yet He is not a God that delights in destruction and judgment but in forgiveness and grace, in blessing and life. But when people rise up against Him and his beloved, as Abimelech and the leaders of Shechem have done – he takes it personally. As he says in Zechariah “for he who touches you touches the apple of my eye.” That is sticks their finger in my pupil. So, God will return the evils that they have perpetrated back on both of their heads.

Enter Gaal son of Ebed. The new guy in town. He starts getting wind of the discord between Abimelech and the leaders of Shechem. And Gaal says to himself, “Self, I know your just son of Ebed, that is son of a servant, but you’ve got a real opportunity here to dethrone Abimelech, son of the king.” Will this town big enough for the both of ‘em? We’re about to find out because the leaders of Shechem flip loyalties to Gaal. Harvest time comes and everybody gets blitzed. And lubricated Gaal steeled with liquid courage, decides to start a coup. “Who is Abimelech, and who are we of Shechem, that we should serve him? Is he not the son of Jerubaal, and is not Zebul his officer? Serve the men of Hamor the father of Shechem; but why should we serve him? Would that this people were under my hand! Then I would remove Abimelech. I would say to Abimelech, ‘Increase your army, and come out’” Apparently, Abimelech hasn’t made a name for himself because the new guy in town still knows him as Jerubaal’s son. And Gaal seems to be more qualified in terms of what the leaders of Shechem care about – blood lines. He is after all a descendant of Hamor, who oh by the way was one of the founders of Shechem.

            But word of the coup gets to Abimelech, pay attention to how many times word gets to Abimelech throughout this section, and he plans to ambush Shechem in the morning while Gaal and his merry men are shaking off last night’s hangover.

            Gaal wakes up as the first rays of the sun are coming up over the mountains and he notices some odd shadows. He rubs his eyes and says, “Look, people are coming down from the mountains.” To which Zebul, one of Abimelech’s loyalists, says “Don’t be silly, your new in town, those shadows always look like that at this time of day.” And then the shadows keep getting closer. And Zebul says, “Where is your mouth now? Go out and fight!” And Gaal runs to the front of the battle line, ready to put up or shut up, until he sees Abimelech. He then runs for his life never to be heard from again. And Abimelech seething, he has chased off his rival but he no longer knows who he can trust in Shechem. The uprising has been squelched but Abimelech’s anger is just getting warmed up.

            And the next day, the people of Shechem went back to work in the fields. But little did they know that Abimelech had decided to punish them for yesterday’s revolt. It was told Abimelech, and he rose against the people and killed them. “Abimelech fought against the city all that day. He captured the city and killed the people who were in it, and he razed the city and sowed it with salt.” In other words, it was a scorched earth campaign. And sowing it with salt was a symbolic way of saying may you be perpetually desolate. May you be forever cursed – Oh Shechem. Abimelech who was willing to destroy his own family for power, is also willing to destroy the people and the place he’s meant to protect. What a king!

            The leaders of Shechem hear that their city is destroyed and they flee seeking refuge in the house of El-berith, that is the tower of the God they chose to serve instead of the Lord. Abimelech was told, so he races towards to the tower cuts down brushwood and sets the whole place on fire. And just as Jotham had said – fire comes from Abimelech and devours the leaders of Shechem. And all the people inside the tower died, about 1,000 men and women.

            And enraged Abimelech enjoyed destroying 1,000 people so much that he thought he’d try it again in the nearby town of Thebez. But his reign of terror comes to an end with a thud, as an unnamed woman “threw an upper millstone on Abimelech’s head and crushed his skull.” But in one last turn of irony – Abimelech still has a little bit of life left in him. “Any last words Abimelech?” “Draw your sword and kill me, lest they say of me, ‘A woman killed him.’” The last words out of his mouth tie a bow on his treacherous and short-lived reign. What motivated Abimelech? An insatiable desire to make a name for himself. After all the destruction and all the death he caused the last thing he cares about is how he will be remembered.

            The narrator concludes, “Thus God returned the evil of Abimelech, which he committed against his father in killing his seventy 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 Jerubbaal.”

            As dark and destructive as this story is, there is something about the darkness that makes the light even more attractive. There is something about adversity that actually makes the one who stands against the tide all the more memorable. Think of Nelson Mandela during the South African apartheid, think of young Anne Frank writing in her diary during the Holocaust, think of Elizabeth Elliot who went back to minister to the tribe who killed her husband, think of William Willberforce and his long battle to abolish slave trade from the British Isles. These are people, and there are countless others, whom we remember because they were not trying to make a name for themselves. These people were seeking to do that which was right, people who lived courageously in the face of the darkness. People who in their own way imaged God’s true and better King. A king who has been given the name that is above every name. A king who sits upon a throne throughout all generations. A king that rose to power not by sacrificing others but by sacrificing himself. A king that wore a crown of thorns. A king whose kingdom is like a tree that provides rest and shelter to all who ask. A king who is the yes and amen to all God’s promises. A king who came to make God’s blessing flow far as the curse is found. A king who calls us brothers and sister. A king who has made us part of his forever family. A king who has ascended on high and given gifts to every single one of us. A king who empowers us to live for the good of this broken world. A king whose name is Jesus.