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Foreign comes from Judges chapter 9 beginning again at verse 7. When it was told to Jotham, he went and stood on top of Mount Gerizim and cried aloud and said to them, “Listen to me, you leaders of Shechem, that God may listen to you.
The trees once went out to anoint a king over them, and they said to the olive tree, ‘Reign over us.’ But the olive tree said to them, ‘Shall I leave my abundance by which gods and men are honored, and go hold sway over the trees?’ And the trees said to the fig tree, ‘You come and reign over us.’ But the fig tree said to them, ‘Shall I leave my sweetness and my good fruit and go hold sway over the trees?’ And the trees said to the vine, ‘You come and reign over us.’ But the vine said to them, ‘Shall I leave my wine that cheers god and men and go hold sway over the trees?’ Then all the trees said to the bramble, ‘You come and reign over us.’ And the bramble said to the trees, ‘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.’
Now therefore, if you acted in good faith and integrity when you made Abimelech king, and if you have dealt well with Jerubbabel and his house, and have done to him as his deeds deserved—for my father fought for you and risked his life and delivered you from the hand of Midian—and you have risen up against my father’s house this day and have killed his sons, seventy men, on one stone, and have made Abimelech the son of his female servant king over the leaders of Shechem because he is your relative; if you then have acted in good faith and integrity with Jerubbabel and with his house this day, then rejoice in Abimelech, and let him also rejoice in you.
But if not, let fire come out from Abimelech and devour the leaders of Shechem and Beth Milo, and let fire come out from the leaders of Shechem and Beth Milo and devour Abimelech.
And Jonathan ran away and fled, and went through fear and lived there because of Abimelech his brother. Abimelech ruled Israel three years, and God sent an evil spirit between Abimelech and the leaders of Shechem, and the leaders of Shechem dealt treacherously with Abimelech, that the violence done to the seventy sons of Jerubbabel might come, and their blood be laid on Abimelech their brother who killed them and on the men of Shechem who strengthened his hands against his brothers.
The leaders of Shechem put men in ambush against him on the mountaintops, and they robbed all who passed by them along that way, and it was told to Abimelech. And all the son of Ebed moved into Shechem with his relatives, and the leaders of Shechem put confidence in him.
They went down to the field and gathered the grapes from the vineyards and trod them, and held a festival. They went into the house of their God and ate and drank and reviled Abimelech. And Gaul the son of Ebed said, “Who is Abimelech and who are we of Shechem that we should serve him? Is he not the son of Jerubbabel? And is not Zabul 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!’”
When Zabul the ruler of the city heard the words of the son of Ebed, his anger was kindled, and he sent messengers to Abimelech secretly, saying, “Behold, Gaul the son of Ebed and his relatives have come to Shechem, and they are stirring up the city against you. Now therefore, go by night, you and the people who are with you, and set an ambush in the field. Then in the morning as soon as the sun is up, rise early and rush upon the city. And when he and the people who are with him come out against you, you may do to them as your hand finds to do.”
So Abimelech and all the men who were with him rose up by night and set an ambush against Shechem in four companies.
And Gaul the son of Ebed went out and stood in the entrance of the gate of the city. And Abimelech and the people who were with him rose from the ambush. And when God saw the people, he said to Zabul, “Look, people are coming down from the mountaintops.” And Zabul said to him, “You must take the shadow of the mountains for men.” God spoke again and said, “Look, people are coming down from the center of the land, and one company is coming from the direction of the diviner’s oak.”
Then Zabul said to him, “Where is your mouth now, you who said, ‘Who is Abimelech that we should serve him?’ Are not these the people whom you despised? Go out now and fight with them.”
And Gaul went out at the head of the leaders of Shechem and fought with Abimelech. And Abimelech chased him, and he fled before him, and many fell wounded up to the entrance of the gate. And Abimelech lived at Arumah, and Zabul drove Gaul and his relatives so that they could not dwell at Shechem.
On the following day, the people went out into the field, and Abimelech was told. He took his people and divided them into three companies and set an ambush in the fields. He looked and saw the people coming out of the city, so he rose against them and killed them. Abimelech and the company that was with him rushed forward and stood at the entrance of the gate of the city, while the two companies rushed upon all who were in the field and killed them.
And Abimelech fought against the city all that day. He captured the city and killed the people who were in it, and he raised the city and sowed it with salt. When all the leaders of the tower of Shechem heard of it, they entered the stronghold of the house of El-barith. Abimelech was told that all the leaders of the tower of Shechem were gathered together, and Abimelech went up to Mount Zalman, he and all the people who were with him.
Abimelech took an ax in his hand and cut down a bundle of brushwood and took it up and laid it on his shoulder, and he said to the men who were with him, “What you have seen me do, hurry and do as I have done.” So every one of the people cut down his bundle and following Abimelech put it against the stronghold, and they set the stronghold on fire over them. So that all the people of the tower of Shechem also died about a thousand men and women.
Then Abimelech went to Thebes and encamped against Thebes and captured it. But there was a strong tower within the city, and all the men and women and all the leaders of the city fled to it and shut themselves in. They went up to the roof of the tower, and Abimelech came to the tower and fought against it and drew near to the door of the tower to burn it with fire. And a certain woman threw an upper millstone on Abimelech’s head and crushed his skull.
Then he called quickly to the young man, his armor-bearer, and said to him, “Draw your sword and kill me, lest they say of me, ‘A woman killed him.’” And his young man thrust him through, and he died. And when the men of Israel saw that Abimelech was dead, everyone departed to his home.
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 Jerubbabel.
This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Let us pray.
Lord, your word is sometimes very difficult to hear. Sometimes we are needing to be reminded of the terrible things that your people have done, whether or not it is in your name. Help us to learn what we must to not repeat the sins of our ancestors, to be a more faithful people, to show love, to prefer mercy, to not seek vengeance, but to trust in you for all things.
You are the one who justifies, and you are the one who vindicates. You are the one who will judge, and we thank you for the mercy that we find in your son Jesus. Help us to find that mercy here in this story. It’s in Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
So believe it or not, Abimelech was the first Israelite king. He was not a good, righteous, or just king. He became king through wicked means, covenanting with the leaders of Shechem, his mother’s kinfolk, against the legitimate sons of Gideon, his father. He murdered his brothers and then was proclaimed king by the people of one city.
But Israel itself did not have a king; Israel needed no earthly king because the Lord is their sovereign king. The Lord had not raised up anyone yet to replace Gideon as a judge in Israel. God, in his mercy and grace, however, had established a provision so that Israel one day could have a human king, fully knowing that one day they would demand one to be like everybody else.
Therefore, Gideon’s son Abimelech usurped an authority to which he had no legitimate right. Moses wrote, “When you come to the land that the Lord your God is giving you and you possess it and dwell in it, and then say, ‘I will send a king over me like all the nations that are around me,’ you may indeed set a king over you whom the Lord your God will choose,” telling them that when the time came for them to elevate a human king, he would be a king chosen by God, not by the people.
People can’t be trusted to select a good, righteous, honest, and godly king. We can only expect them to choose someone who looks like them, who checks all the boxes of their personal preference, but that would not necessarily make him a good king. God’s choosing was critical because not only does the Lord alone know the true heart of a man but because the Lord is truly the sovereign God and king over Israel and all creation.
So a human king must exercise his authority on the Lord’s behalf; his authority would be delegated to him by God. He could not seize or claim it for himself, nor could the people give it to him because only God grants a person authority. The same principle of divinely delegated authority continues to apply for us today, and it’s why scripture commands us to obey, respect, and honor those in authority because their authority comes from God.
Let every person be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and those that resist have been instituted by God. Therefore, whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.
See, even the ruling authorities that are wicked and evil are appointed by God and are permitted to rule for a time, often because the Lord uses them to enact His decrees of judgment. But fortunately, we know that the Lord will not allow them to persist in their unrighteousness forever, which is why Christians are permitted and even commanded to stand up and speak out against their wickedness, like Peter and the other disciples did when they answered the Sanhedrin after being commanded against preaching Christ. They confidently declared, “We must obey God rather than men.”
See, God often affects his changes in the political realm through the faithful witness and obedience of believers like Daniel, Ananiah, Michelle, and Azariah as they served in Babylon’s court.
So, do be clear: Although Abimelech illegitimately and falsely exercised authority as a king in Israel, he was never actually Israel’s king. And those of us who have the rest of the story at our fingertips know that the Lord will execute judgment upon him and his conspirators because the Lord is a God of justice and a God of love, and he always does what is in the best interest of his chosen people.
We only need to wait and see how the Lord will respond after the murder of his 69 brothers. Jotham, the last surviving legitimate son and heir of Gideon, stood upon Mount Gerizim and proclaimed a parable using trees who desired a king and called for the Lord to issue a curse upon the betrayers of his family.
The trees, see, they wanted to have one of their own be king and rule over them. Trees asked each in turn—the olive tree, the fig tree, and the grapevine—to rule over them. Each one graciously refused. They preferred to remain in their divinely appointed and ordered roles, using their gifts as they were intended. They wanted to do nothing more and nothing less than what the Lord had created them to do.
Then the trees turned to the bramble bush, and this bramble, which is a wild plant that will overrun and take over everything according to its nature, gladly accepted the trees’ willing appointment, which eventually led to the trees’ unfortunate demise.
See, Jotham compares the people of Shechem to the trees in his story while the olive tree, fig tree, and grapevine each represent Israel’s earlier faithful leaders who were each satisfied to only fulfill their divinely appointed vocation, while the bramble represented the treacherous Abimelech overrunning the land and taking over.
The point of Jotham’s parable is very clear: It is best for everyone to remain in their proper and appointed roles to which they’ve been called and gifted. Just as the bramble had no right, reason, or just cause to rule over the trees, he declares that Abimelech also has no right or reason to rule over Shechem or greater Israel, despite his desire and his willingness, because his overreach will lead to their mutual destruction.
Jotham was speaking prophetically: “Listen to me, you leaders of Shechem, that God may listen to you.” He was speaking to God and to the people. He was praying an imprecatory prayer—a prayer against those who had wronged him and his family. A prayer that God would punish the wicked. He was praying in the hope that the Lord would judge them and vindicate the wronged.
Pay close attention to the fact that Jotham did not seek out his own revenge; he prayed and trusted that the Lord would deliver justice for his family. The example of Jotham’s prayer reminds us that when we are wronged, we must trust and keep our hope in the Lord. He’s the only one who holds the power of justice and mercy in His holy hands.
As it’s written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.” What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means! For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.” So that then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who has mercy.
And since we hope to one day receive the Lord’s mercy, we know that justice must also be done, for the hope of mercy cannot exist without the promise of justice, although justice itself does not require mercy.
We must remember that it is God who will judge the wicked, that God will justify the righteous and faithful ones, and that God will pay out vengeance for sin because He is whom they offend most by all of their sinfulness.
“Claiming is not this laid up in store with me, sealed up in my treasuries? Vengeance is mine, and recompense, for the time when their foot shall slip; for the day of their calamity is at hand, and their doom comes swiftly.”
Then Jotham ran away. He ran away to hide from his brother’s vengeance, and Abimelech ruled Israel three years. Fortunately, the boy who would be king did not get to be king for very long. God sent an evil spirit between Abimelech and the leaders of Shechem, and the leaders of Shechem dealt treacherously with Abimelech, that the violence done to the seventy sons of Jerubbabel might come, and their blood be laid on Abimelech, their brother who killed them and on the men of Shechem who strengthened his hands to kill his brothers.
See, the Lord had seen what Abimelech and the leaders of Shechem had done, and the Lord had heard Jotham’s prayer, and the Lord answered him. God sent an evil spirit and established it between Abimelech and Shechem.
Now, God did not command a demon to go and possess or oppress anyone; this is most clearly understood as being a spirit of ill favor, a negative spirit, or a spirit of contrariness and not a demon. That’s true; the Lord is sovereign over all things, and He is capable of commanding demons, as we often see Jesus do with just a word in the Gospels. But the Lord is never the author, creator, or causer of any objective evil; God is objectively good.
But sometimes from our human viewpoint, we consider things that are ultimately good as evil. But God caused a great divide between Abimelech and Shechem; He turned their own evil spirit against them—the spirit which they had earlier fed with the murder of the house of Jerubbabel.
All this happened so the divine justice would be done as the Lord enacted His vengeance against their sins in a measured and appropriate way. The leaders of Shechem put an ambush against him on the mountaintops, and they robbed all who passed by them along that way, and it was told to Abimelech.
Em was turned against Abimelech; he had betrayed Gideon and his family. Now, they betrayed Abimelech; they broke their covenant with him—a covenant which they had sealed before their God, Baal Berith, with the blood of Abimelech’s brothers. Only a fool would trust a betrayer because when they’ve done it once, they will surely do it again.
And not only did Shechem betray Abimelech, but the men of Shechem were also betrayed when the fact of Shechem’s duplicity was told to Abimelech. See, no one in this story is trustworthy. And all the son of Ebed moved into Shechem with his relatives, and the leaders of Shechem put confidence in him.
So who’s this new player freshly come to town? His name, Gaul, comes from a Hebrew word meaning to abhor or to loathe, which is what the Lord promised to do to Israel if they broke covenant with Him.
And the name Ebed is the very ordinary Hebrew word for slave or servant. So this Gaul the son of Ebed, who appears on the scene to oppose Abimelech, the son of a Paragish and the son of a concubine, a servant girl, is simply the “abhorred son of a servant or slave.”
And Gaul the son of Ebed said, “Who is Abimelech, and who are we of Shechem that we should serve him? Is he not the son of Zerubbabel, of Jerubbabel? And is not Zabul his officer? Would that this people were under my hand! Then I would remove Abimelech! I would say to Abimelech, ‘Increase your army and come out!’”
Gaul was raised up in judgment to abhor and loathe Abimelech because Abimelech had first loathed and abhorred his father, his brothers, and the Lord, his father’s God.
Gaul encouraged the people to serve the men of Hamor, the father of Shechem, instead of remaining faithful to Abimelech. Now, Haymore was a Hivite—one of the former local indigenous Canaanite peoples. His sons shechem raped Jacob’s daughter Dinah before offering to marry her. Hamor and Shechem also hoped that if he married Dinah and united their two families, then Jacob’s wealth would become theirs, and the financial position of Shechem would be vastly improved.
However, after he and all the men of the city fulfilled the condition of circumcision as demanded by Jacob’s sons, Simeon and Levi executed every male in the city as they were recovering from their minor surgery. Then they recovered their sister and plundered the wealth of the city.
See, the whole history between the people of Shechem and Israel has been characterized by duplicity and betrayal. To Gaul, encouraging them to serve the men of Hamor was only encouraging them to be true to their nature, to be more like their Canaanite forebears, to indulge their fallen, endemic nature rather than to keep faith with Abimelech, their king; rather than to keep faith with their fellow Israelites.
He wanted them to treat Abimelech the same way Hamor treated Jacob and his children: lying to them, taking advantage of them to take what was theirs and claim it for themselves. So they plotted their betrayal within the house of their God, Baal Berith.
Once again, they planned to break a covenant while feasting within the temple of their lord of the covenant. Gaul denied Abimelech’s identity as a man of Shechem, rebranding him as his father’s son, a man of Manasseh and not a friend to Ephraim, asking, “Is he not the son of Jerubbabel? And is not Zabul his officer?”
Then he also tried to turn the people against Zabul, Abimelech’s deputy there in Shechem. But Zabul’s loyalty was with Abimelech, his king. So Zabul, the ruler of the city, heard the words of the servant of Ebed. His anger was kindled, and he did what any loyal servant should do. He sent messengers to Abimelech secretly, saying, “Behold, Gaul the son of Ebed and his relatives have come to Shechem, and they’re stirring up the city against you.”
So he sees Zabul betrayed the leaders of Shechem to Abimelech. Zabul conspired against Gaul and his allies by suggesting that Abimelech go by night and set up an ambush in the field.
“Then in the morning as soon as the sun is up, rise early and rush upon the city. And then when he and the people who are with them come out against you, you may do to them as your hand finds to do.”
He suggested that he ambushed the would-be ambushers, turned the tables on them, and beat them at their own game, which is what Abimelech does. He set the ambush and, using himself as bait, he showed himself to draw out to Gaul and entice him to meet him on a battleground of his choosing.
And Gaul spoke again and said, “Look, people are coming down from the center of the land, and one company is coming from the direction of the diviner’s oak.” Then Zabul said to him, “Where is your mouth now, you who said, ‘Who is Abimelech that we should serve him?’ Are not these the people whom you have despised? Go out now and fight with them.”
So you see, now Gaul was in a very difficult position because his enemy was near at hand while his boastful words were still ringing fresh in the ears of his allies, his friends, and his neighbors. So unless his actions matched his earlier words, he would be shamed before the entire community, and he would lose any respect or influence that he and his family might have had.
Gaul had to go out and face Abimelech, and he had to do it on Abimelech’s terms. So Gaul went out at the head of the leaders of Shechem and fought with Abimelech. And Abimelech chased him, and he fled before him, and many fell wounded up to the entrance of the gate. And Zabul drove Gaul and his relatives so that they could not dwell at Shechem.
Gaul went out for battle; he lost, fled in disgrace, and his defeat was so complete that he was not even worth killing. Zabul kicked everybody connected to Gaul out of the city, so Abimelech successfully defended his authority as king.
The nascent rebellion was over, or was it? While his deputy Zabul drove out those who were disloyal, scripture tells us that Abimelech lived at Arumah, although the people of Shechem, who were the ones who elevated him to power, he chose to dwell somewhere else. Perhaps he was leery of the city because of its penchant for betrayal. Perhaps he was not confident after recent events that he would be gladly welcomed. Or perhaps this suggests that he had developed a suspicious nature.
Then on the following day, the people went out into the field, and Abimelech was told. After his overbearing victory against Gaul, the people went out into the field again.
Now ordinarily, this would have been a normal thing, but Abimelech was told earlier when the people were told, or described as going out, they were going out to do battle against Abimelech, whether it was setting ambushes against Abimelech.
So rather than assume something positive or considering the situation charitably, he jumped to the worst possible conclusion. If you were Abimelech and you just had some of your top supporters conspire against you, betray you, attack you, and then afterwards you hear about them carrying on business as usual when that business looks an awful lot like the work of betrayal, how would you react?
You rinse and repeat. You do what worked before. Abimelech set another ambush in the fields, and when the people came out of the city, he rose against them 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 raised the city and sowed it with salt. He killed everyone; he raised the city, he destroyed it, burning it to the ground, and sowed it with salt. Shechem was rendered uninhabitable in retribution for their many betrayals—those real and those presumed.
He taught the people of Shechem a lesson that would never be forgotten. But he did not stop there because his thirst for revenge was not complete. And when the leaders of the tower of Shechem heard of it, they entered the stronghold of the house of El-barith. All the leaders of Shechem, the city officials, the elders, and probably even loyal Zabul locked themselves in the temple of El-barith. They took up defensive positions; they may have thought that they were setting themselves up for a strong defense, but instead all they did was trap themselves and seal themselves up in their own tomb.
And Abimelech went up to Mount Zalman, he and all the people who were with him. And Abimelech took an ax in his hand and cut down a bundle of brushwood and took it up and laid it on his shoulder. And he said to the men who were with him, “What you’ve seen me do, hurry and do as I have done.”
So every one of the people cut down his bundle, and following Abimelech put it against the stronghold, and they set the stronghold on fire over them, so that all the people of the tower of Shechem also died—about a thousand men and women. Trapped within their stone stronghold, they were baked alive in Abimelech’s fury.
Shechem tried to destroy Abimelech but failed, so Abimelech destroyed Shechem. And considering this severe example of a king’s vengeance, we should pause to think about what Machiavelli wrote in The Prince: “If an injury has to be done to a man, it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared.”
Or what Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote: “When you strike at a king, you must kill him.” When we witness such a response by this wronged king being so extreme and so severe, we also remember the terrible acts of retribution enacted by so many other leaders in history.
So the question we must each ask ourselves is this: If the wrath and vengeance of an aggrieved human king is so terrible, then how much more terrible must the wrath and vengeance of our aggrieved God be? How great must the wrath and how terrible the vengeance of the sovereign Creator God—the king and ruler of the universe—be when His creations repeatedly ignore His commandments, ruthlessly violate His holy laws, deny His existence, deny His works of providence and His life-giving power, and obstinately refuse to accept His freely offered grace, mercy, and love?
What is more egregious, our sins against the Lord that demand justice, or our refusal to accept His mercy and grace after that justice was satisfied on the cross? Do you fear God’s wrath or do you not know and understand what it is that you deserve?
The vengeance of a king is so terrible because it is his duty to enforce justice. Do you ever wonder or still fear whether justice will be done to you? Only one man knows the completeness of God’s vengeance: Jesus Christ, because He suffered on the cross so that we need never know. So that we might not experience the fullness of God’s wrath ourselves, so that we who trust in Him may truly enjoy His love and eternal good fellowship.
So it was that the first half of Jotham’s imprecatory prophecies fulfilled: “Let fire come out from Abimelech and devour the leaders of Shechem and Beth Milo.” But wait, there’s still more. He still was not done.
Abimelech went to Thebes and encamped against Thebes and captured it. After wiping Shechem from the face of the earth, he carried on to the next town over. Why? We don’t know; scripture doesn’t say.
Apart from an oblique reference to it in Second Samuel, the Bible never mentions this town again. Perhaps his rage was entirely uncontrollable and he became blood drunk. Perhaps he suspected Thebes of collaborating and conspiring with Shechem against him. Or perhaps he was looking to make a further example of them, using the example of these two destroyed cities to send a message to his enemies—those real and imaginary—of what he’s capable of and the lengths that he will go to hold on to power.
Perhaps the why doesn’t really matter. What matters is that he carried on far beyond any possible just cause. Abimelech captured Thebes just as he did Shechem, and like Shechem, Thebes had a tower where all the men, women, and children, and the leaders of the city went and locked themselves up.
Then when he tried to do what he did in Shechem, as he drew near to the door of the tower to burn it with fire, a brave woman standing upon the tower’s roof threw an upper millstone on Abimelech’s head and crushed his skull. She went and dropped a millstone—a large heavy rock used to grind grain and make flour—right over the side of the tower. She dropped it smack dab on top of Abimelech’s head.
She gave this false king a new crown, lying on the ground, bleeding and dying with a crushed skull. Abimelech commanded his young armor-bearer, “Draw your sword and kill me, lest they say of me, ‘A woman killed him.’”
And so he did. The king is dead. And when the people of Israel saw that Abimelech was dead, everyone departed to his home.
The king is dead! King Abimelech died, and then the battle just ends; everyone just stops fighting and goes home. A rather anticlimactic ending, isn’t it? The king is dead, and even though the final blow came from his servant, all that anyone would remember was that he died disgracefully—that he died when an anonymous woman dropped a heavy rock on his head.
To end Abimelech and his short-lived kingdom. The disgraceful demise of General Sisera, who was betrayed and executed by his hostess, the woman Jael, when she drove a tent peg through his skull as he lay sleeping hid in her tent, was far less embarrassing and disgraceful than the death of King Abimelech, who foolishly approached an enemy fortification, who recklessly endangered himself, and who was heedlessly placing his own head upon the executioner’s block as he walked beneath the enemy.
He died carelessly, all because a rock fell on his head. See why it’s so important to wear a helmet? And even having his servant finish the job could not wash away the shame or dishonor from his own negligence.
So there was no funeral dirge for King Abimelech. That’s the second half of Jotham’s prophecies fulfilled: “Let fire come out from the leaders of Shechem and from Beth Milo and devour Abimelech.” The spark that was first lit when Shechem turned against Abimelech grew into a burning flame as Gaul went out against the illegitimate king and grew into a raging inferno fanned by the wings of suspicion and distrust until it consumed all of Shechem.
And then the fire finally burnt itself out beneath the tower of Thebes, where Abimelech was utterly consumed by his revenge. 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 Jerubbabel.
Justice delayed is still justice. Justice was done for Jerubbabel and his sons, and vengeance came for the murderers of Gideon’s house.
So what’s the lesson we should take from the story of Abimelech? Where is the hope that I promised last week we would see? First, we must remember that betrayal will beget betrayal, just as sin begets sin. It’s an endless cycle, trapping us with no hope of ending unless someone outside of the chain breaks it—someone like Jesus Christ.
We all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and apart from the divine, alien grace and mercy of Jesus Christ, all we would ever do is sin against God and His holy law, endlessly betraying the sovereign king of the universe and the trust He placed in us, constantly trying to overthrow Him and usurp His rightful authority over our lives.
But Jesus has broken that cycle for all of us who love and trust in Him. And although we all still sin, He gives us the opportunity to repent of our sin, to turn away from our cosmic betrayal, to receive mercy and forgiveness, to have the guilt and stains of our crimes washed away so that we may be made clean and washed whiter than snow. Praise God that because of the work of Jesus Christ, we are no longer trapped in that cycle, doomed for destruction and certain to receive justice.
The second thing we must remember is that the Lord God is the only one qualified to enforce justice—the only one justified to take revenge. God alone is just and righteous. Yes, we are made in His image and therefore we reflect His justice and His righteousness, but only imperfectly.
We are not qualified to enforce either because we deserve to have them both enforced against us. Jesus said, “You’ve heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,’ but I say to you, ‘Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.’”
Jesus says this not so that we would become doormats and allow the world to step on us, but as a way of reminding us to surrender our supposed right of vengeance to the one who is truly aggrieved and to place our hope of justice in the hands of the only one who can dispense it—the Lord God, through Jesus Christ.
The Apostle Paul commands us to do the same: “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine; I will repay,’ says the Lord.”
Every sin, first and foremost, is an offense against the Lord. Even the offenses which we feel are against us are of no meaningful consequence compared to their offensiveness to God. This truth was proclaimed by King David when he repented after ordering the murder of Uriah the Hittite, praying to God, “Against you, you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment.”
Therefore, we must not be quick to take offense at anything, but instead trust that God will deal justly and rightly in His time. Solomon wrote in Proverbs, “Do not say, ‘I will repay evil;’ wait for the Lord, for He will deliver you.”
The Lord God will be vindicated, and He will deliver the righteous. We must be patient and wait on the Lord as difficult as that often is. Sometimes He seems to move quickly, and sometimes He seems to move more slowly, but the plain and eternal truth is that God is moving, and when He moves slowly, He is giving us time and the opportunity to repent in faith and trust in Him.
He is willing and sure to forgive you of all your wrongdoings if you only ask Him, because Jesus has already suffered His justice for you. He has already suffered our Father’s great and terrible wrath that you and I deserve.
“Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.” Hanging upon the cross, Jesus stood in the gap between us and God and bore the full brunt of justice for us as our intercessor.
Ultimately, this is the hope we find in the story of Abimelech—that the Lord will condemn and He will punish sin, that judgment is coming. But until it arrives, we still have time to beg for mercy. We still have an opportunity to confess our sins, to repent of them, and ask for His forgiveness.
But since we do not know when it will pass us by, if we don’t take the opportunity now, our final chance will end at a moment when we are least prepared, when we are at the height of our powers, at the moment of our greatest pride.
Then we will be brought down into death and disgrace. The Lord our God will defend His honor and yours. He will punish sin and wickedness, either in the person of His Son, Jesus, or in your own person. The proud will be humbled, and the humble will be exalted, and God will be glorified in all of it.
So if you placed all of your trust in Jesus, has He mercifully taken your sins upon Himself and elevated you into the ranks of His elect? I truly hope and pray so. Remember: God will be vindicated, and we will be vindicated in Him. Justice will always be done, but justice is a great and terrible thing.
Consider Jotham one final time. What good came from his cry asking for justice from the Lord? Did justice bring his brothers back? No.
And while I’m certain that after he heard about Abimelech’s demise, Jotham rejoiced, but then what was he left with? His family was gone. Justice was done, but now he is only an empty, hollow shell devoid of love. It would have been far better for Jotham to have forgiven Abimelech and to have prayed that God would show him mercy, because then there would have been signs of love in his heart, and he too would have surely been forgiven.
Remember that right after Paul reminds us not to seek revenge, he concludes by saying, “To the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him something to drink, for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”
So it is a far, far better thing to pray for mercy than to ask for justice, because at the end of all things, the Lord Jesus Christ is going to give you one or the other. Which do you want it to be? Amen.
Please stand and let us say what we believe using the words of the Apostles’ Creed:
I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and Earth, and in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried. He descended to hell. The third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended to heaven and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Ghost, the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.
Our closing hymn is number 358: Because He Lives.