Judges 9 - The Story of Jephthah | Bible Podcast, David Alley, Peace Christian Church

In this video listen to Judges 9 read by David Alley, followed by comments and prayer.

In Judges 9 the story of Gideon continues as an excursus telling about his sons. Abimelech was an illegitimate son of Gideon from Shechem, who convinced this town to support his initiative. With their support, Abimelech killed 69 of his 70 brothers in an attempt to take total control of Israel. He wanted to be effectively the king.

But his father’s words in 8:23 were to prove prophetic when he said that neither he, nor his son would be king. Jotham, the remaining son of Gideon told a parable and added a prophetic curse to it. He predicted that fire from Abimelech would destroy Shechem and fire from Shechem would destroy Abimelech. The chapter tells how these events come to pass and there is a battle between Shechem and Abimelech.

Ultimately Abimelech dies when a woman drops a millstone on his head from a city wall above.. Skeptics have questioned how a woman could have lifted an upper millstone. They have in mind a huge stone, but they come in all sizes, and this was clearly a smaller one. Female scholars have supported the possibility of this by using small stones to destroy watermelons from a height.

As seen in this article at brainerdispatch.com https://www.brainerddispatch.com/life... Much later in 2 Samuel 11:21 King David was well aware of this story and used it to give battle advice. Abimelech’s death lived on in notoriety. The double prophecy of Gideon and Jotham came to pass. Gideon that his son would not be king, and Jotham that fire would come out and devour.

This chapter is an illustration of how lawless things are starting to become in Israel, but it gets worse as Judges progresses.