Judges 9 is the ninth chapter of the

Book of Judges The Book of Judges (, ') is the seventh book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. In the narrative of the Hebrew Bible, it covers the time between the conquest described in the Book of Joshua and the establishment of a kingdom i ...

in the

Old Testament The Old Testament (often abbreviated OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew writings by the Israelites. The ...

or the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. Hebrew: ''Tān ...

. According to Jewish tradition the book was attributed to the prophet

Samuel Samuel ''Šəmūʾēl'', Tiberian: ''Šămūʾēl''; ar, شموئيل or صموئيل '; el, Σαμουήλ ''Samouḗl''; la, Samūēl is a figure who, in the narratives of the Hebrew Bible, plays a key role in the transition from the bibl ...

,Gilad, Elon
Who Really Wrote the Biblical Books of Kings and the Prophets?
''Haaretz'', June 25, 2015. Summary: The paean to King Josiah and exalted descriptions of the ancient Israelite empires beg the thought that he and his scribes lie behind the Deuteronomistic History. but modern scholars view it as part of the Deuteronomistic History, which spans the books of Deuteronomy to 2 Kings, attributed to nationalistic and devotedly Yahwistic writers during the time of the reformer Judean king

Josiah Josiah ( or ) or Yoshiyahu; la, Iosias was the 16th king of Judah (–609 BCE) who, according to the Hebrew Bible, instituted major religious reforms by removing official worship of gods other than Yahweh. Josiah is credited by most biblical s ...

in 7th century BCE. This chapter records the activities of

judge A judge is a person who presides over court proceedings, either alone or as a part of a panel of judges. A judge hears all the witnesses and any other evidence presented by the barristers or solicitors of the case, assesses the credibility an ...

Gideon Gideon (; ) also named Jerubbaal and Jerubbesheth, was a military leader, judge and prophet whose calling and victory over the Midianites are recounted in of the Book of Judges in the Hebrew Bible. Gideon was the son of Joash, from the Abiez ...

's son,

Abimelech Abimelech (also spelled Abimelek or Avimelech; ) was the generic name given to all Philistine kings in the Hebrew Bible from the time of Abraham through King David. In the Book of Judges, Abimelech, son of Gideon, of the Tribe of Manasseh, is ...

. belonging to a section comprising Judges 6 to 9 and a bigger section of Judges 6:1 to 16:31.

Text

This chapter was originally written in the

Hebrew language Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

. It is divided into 57 verses.

Textual witnesses

Some early manuscripts containing the text of this chapter in

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

are of the

Masoretic Text The Masoretic Text (MT or 𝕸; he, נֻסָּח הַמָּסוֹרָה, Nūssāḥ Hammāsōrā, lit. 'Text of the Tradition') is the authoritative Hebrew and Aramaic text of the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) in Rabbinic Judaism. ...

tradition, which includes the

Codex Cairensis The Codex Cairensis (also: ''Codex Prophetarum Cairensis'', ''Cairo Codex of the Prophets'') is a Hebrew manuscript containing the complete text of the Hebrew Bible's Nevi'im (Prophets). It has traditionally been described as "the oldest dated He ...

(895),

Aleppo Codex The Aleppo Codex ( he, כֶּתֶר אֲרָם צוֹבָא, romanized: , lit. 'Crown of Aleppo') is a medieval bound manuscript of the Hebrew Bible. The codex was written in the city of Tiberias in the tenth century CE (circa 920) under the ...

(10th century), and

Codex Leningradensis The Leningrad Codex ( la, Codex Leningradensis [Leningrad Book]; he, כתב יד לנינגרד) is the oldest complete manuscript of the Hebrew Bible in Hebrew, using the Masoretic Text and Tiberian vocalization. According to its colopho ...

(1008). Fragments containing parts of this chapter in Hebrew were found among the

Dead Sea Scrolls The Dead Sea Scrolls (also the Qumran Caves Scrolls) are ancient Jewish and Hebrew religious manuscripts discovered between 1946 and 1956 at the Qumran Caves in what was then Mandatory Palestine, near Ein Feshkha in the West Bank, on the nor ...

including 1Q6 (1QJudg; < 68 BCE) with extant verses 1–3, 5–6, 28–31, 40–43, 48–49.Dead sea scrolls - Judges
/ref> Extant ancient manuscripts of a translation into

Koine Greek Koine Greek (; Koine el, ἡ κοινὴ διάλεκτος, hē koinè diálektos, the common dialect; ), also known as Hellenistic Greek, common Attic, the Alexandrian dialect, Biblical Greek or New Testament Greek, was the common supra-reg ...

known as the

Septuagint The Greek Old Testament, or Septuagint (, ; from the la, septuaginta, lit=seventy; often abbreviated ''70''; in Roman numerals, LXX), is the earliest extant Greek translation of books from the Hebrew Bible. It includes several books beyond th ...

(originally was made in the last few centuries BCE) include

Codex Vaticanus The Codex Vaticanus ( The Vatican, Bibl. Vat., Vat. gr. 1209), designated by siglum B or 03 (in the Gregory-Aland numbering), δ 1 ( von Soden), is a fourth-century Christian manuscript of a Greek Bible, containing the majority of the Greek Old ...

(B;

\mathfrak

^B; 4th century) and

Codex Alexandrinus The Codex Alexandrinus (London, British Library, Royal MS 1. D. V-VIII), designated by the siglum A or 02 (in the Gregory-Aland numbering of New Testament manuscripts), δ 4 (in the von Soden numbering of New Testament manuscripts), is a manu ...

(A;

\mathfrak

^A; 5th century).

Analysis

A linguistic study by Chisholm reveals that the central part in the Book of Judges (Judges 3:7–16:31) can be divided into two panels based on the six refrains that state that the Israelites did evil in Yahweh's eyes: Panel One : A 3:7 ::And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the (KJV)Judges 3:7 Hebrew Text Analysis
Biblehub :: B 3:12 :::And the children of Israel did evil ''again'' in the sight of the ::B 4:1 :::And the children of Israel did evil ''again'' in the sight of the Panel Two :A 6:1 ::And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the ::B 10:6 :::And the children of Israel did evil ''again'' in the sight of the ::B 13:1 :::And the children of Israel did evil ''again'' in the sight of the Furthermore, from the linguistic evidence, the verbs used to describe the Lord's response to Israel's sin have chiastic patterns and can be grouped to fit the division above: Panel One :3:8 , “and he sold them,” from the root , :3:12 , “and he strengthened,” from the root , :4:2 , “and he sold them,” from the root , Panel Two :6:1 , “and he gave them,” from the root , :10:7 , “and he sold them,” from the root , :13:1 , “and he gave them,” from the root , Chapters 6 to 9 record the Gideon/Abimelech Cycle, which has two major parts: # the account of Gideon (6:1–8:32) # the account of Abimelech (8:33–9:57). The Abimelech Narrative is really a sequel (and conclusion) of the Gideon account, resolving a number of complications originated in the Gideon Narrative. It contains a prologue (8:33–35), followed by two parts: # Part 1: Abimelech's rise (9:1–24) # Part 2: Abimelech's decline (9.25–57). Each of these two parts has a threefold division with interlinks between the divisions, so it displays the following structure: :Prologue (8:33–35) :Part 1: Abimelech's Rise (9:1–24) ::A. Abimelech's Treachery Against the House of Jerub-Baal (9:1–6) ::B. Jotham's Four-Part Plant Fable and Conditional Curse (9:7–21) ::::a. The Fable (9:7–15) ::::b. The Curse (9:16–21) ::C. The Narrator's First Assertion (9:22–24) :Part 2: Abimelech's Demise (9:25–57) ::A. Shechem's Two Acts of Treachery Against Abimelech (9:25–41) ::B. The Fable's Fulfillment: Abimelech's Three Acts of Repression (9:42–55) ::::a. First Act of Repression (9:42–45) ::::b. Second Act of Repression (9:46–49) ::::c. Third Act of Repression (9:50–55) ::C The Narrator's Second Assertion (9:56–57)

The rise of Abimelech (9:1–24)

After

's death, his son of a concubine (a secondary wife; Judges 8:31),

, appealed to his mother's kin in

Shechem Shechem ( ), also spelled Sichem ( ; he, שְׁכֶם, ''Šəḵem''; ; grc, Συχέμ, Sykhém; Samaritan Hebrew: , ), was a Canaanite and Israelite city mentioned in the Amarna Letters, later appearing in the Hebrew Bible as the first cap ...

for support in his plans to take over the political power. Using the money from his kinsmen Abimelech hired mercenaries (labeled as 'empty' and 'wanton' people; cf. Genesis 49:4) to kill all other Gideon's sons, a total 70 of them. Gideon's youngest son of the seventy,

Jotham Jotham or Yotam (; el, Ιωαθαμ, Ioatham; la, Joatham) was the eleventh king of Judah, and son of King Uzziah and Jerusha (or Jerushah), daughter of Zadok. Jotham was 25 years old when he began his reign, and he reigned for 16 years. Ed ...

, survived the slaughter and went to the top of

Mount Gerizim Mount Gerizim (; Samaritan Hebrew: ''ʾĀ̊rgā̊rīzēm''; Hebrew: ''Har Gərīzīm''; ar, جَبَل جَرِزِيم ''Jabal Jarizīm'' or جَبَلُ ٱلطُّورِ ''Jabal at-Ṭūr'') is one of two mountains in the immediate vicinit ...

to deliver a '' mashal'' ("parable") to the people about useful trees, which decline rulership as beneath them, allow the useless and prickly bramble to reign over them with disastrous ending. Jotham's speech was a righteous complaint of a wronged person that would bring about vengeance through divine intervention, as the subsequent story of Abimelech's decline shows. The parable is often recited on Tu BiShvat in

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

until today. The bramble or "jujube" was translated from Hebrew (''atad''), that is, ''

Ziziphus spina-christi ''Ziziphus spina-christi'', known as the Christ's thorn jujube, is an evergreen tree or plant native to northern and tropical Africa, Southern and Western Asia. It is native to the Levant, East Africa, Mesopotamia and some tropical countries. Fr ...

'' ("Christ's thorn") which according the Christian tradition was used to make

Crown of thorns According to the New Testament, a woven crown of thorns ( or grc, ἀκάνθινος στέφανος, akanthinos stephanos, label=none) was placed on the head of Jesus during the events leading up to his crucifixion. It was one of the instru ...

placed on the head of

Jesus Christ Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious ...

during his crucifixion.

Verse 5

:''And he went to his father's house at Ophrah and killed his brothers the sons of Jerubbaal, seventy men, on one stone. But Jotham the youngest son of Jerubbaal was left, for he hid himself.'' *"

Ophrah Ophrah ( he, עֹפְרָה), ( or ) is a name in the Hebrew Bible meaning "a fawn" given to: * A city of Benjamin (), probably identical with Ephron () and Ephraim (), the modern Palestinian city of Taybeh. The Israeli settlement of Ofra is close ...

": A place within the territory of the

tribe of Manasseh According to the Hebrew Bible, the Tribe of Manasseh (; Hebrew: ''Ševet Mənašše,'' Tiberian: ''Šēḇeṭ Mănašše'') was one of the Tribes of Israel. It is one of the ten lost tribes. Together with the Tribe of Ephraim, Manasseh also fo ...

in the west of Jordan, only mentioned in 5 verses of Hebrew Bible (Old Testament): Judges 6:11, 6:24, 8:27, 8:32, 9:5,Places in the Bible Today: Ophrah 2
OpenBible.info all in connection with Gideon and with his son Abimelech, because it is a family property, belonging to Joash the Abiezrite, the father of Gideon. Apparently located not far from the plain of Esdraelon (Judges 6:33f).
Bible Atlas.org *"Seventy men": the same number as

Ahab Ahab (; akk, 𒀀𒄩𒀊𒁍 ''Aḫâbbu'' 'a-ḫa-ab-bu'' grc-koi, Ἀχαάβ ''Achaáb''; la, Achab) was the seventh king of Kingdom of Israel (Samaria), Israel, the son and successor of King Omri and the husband of Jezebel of Sidon, ...

's sons slaughtered in

Jehu ) as depicted on the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III , succession = King of Northern Israel , reign = c. 841–814 BCE , coronation = Ramoth-Gilead, Israel , birth_date = c. 882 BCE , death_date = c. 814 BCE , burial_place = ...

's time ( 1 Kings 10:1–7.Benson, Joseph
'’Commentary on the Old and New Testaments''. Judges 9.
Accessed 9 Juli 2019. *"

": his survival recalls the survival of Joash, the son of

Ahaziah Ahaziah ( he, אֲחַזְיָהוּ, "held by Yah(-weh)"; Douay–Rheims: Ochozias) was the name of two kings mentioned in the Hebrew Bible: *Ahaziah of Israel *Ahaziah of Judah Ahaziah ( he, אֲחַזְיָהוּ, "held by Yah(-weh)"; Douay– ...

king of Judah The Kings of Judah were the monarchs who ruled over the ancient Kingdom of Judah. According to the biblical account, this kingdom was founded after the death of Saul, when the tribe of Judah elevated David to rule over it. After seven years, David ...

( 1 Kings 11:1–2).

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges is a biblical commentary set published in parts by Cambridge University Press from 1882 onwards. Anglican bishop John Perowne was the general editor. The first section published was written by theologian ...

Judges 9
Accessed 28 April 2019. OpenBible lists 7 possible identifications in modern places: #

Afula Afula ( he, עפולה Arabic: العفولة) is a city in the Northern District of Israel, often known as the "Capital of the Valley" due to its strategic location in the Jezreel Valley. As of , the city had a population of . Afula's ancient ...

(55% confidence) #Khirbet Taiyibeh (20% confidence) #

Ramat Rahel Ramat Rachel or Ramat Raḥel ( he, רָמַת רָחֵל, ''lit.'' Rachel's Heights) is a kibbutz located in central Israel. An enclave within Jerusalem's municipal boundaries and overlooking Bethlehem and Rachel's Tomb (for which the kibbutz is ...

(less than 10% confidence) #Et Taiyibeh (less than 10% confidence) #Silat ad Dhahr (less than 10% confidence) #Farata (less than 10% confidence) #Tell el Farah (less than 10% confidence)

The demise of Abimelech (9:25–57)

As predicted by

, the evil coup without 'good faith' was doomed to failure (verses 16–20) and that those who were disloyal to Gideon (verses 17–18) would also be disloyal to Abimelech. The divine control of Abimelech's demise is stated as YHWH 'sent an evil spirit' between Abimelech and the Shechemites (cf. 1 Samuel 16:14.) The Shechemite chieftains soon transferred their affections to a new strongman while attempting to undermine the Abimelech's leadership credentials through the taunts of some drunken louts. Abimelech and his loyalist, Zebul, succeeded in defeating Gaal, the challenger, and then proceeded to take further vengeance on the people of

(verses 42–49). Abimelech continued with his vengeance at Thebez, another fortress city, but this time, an unnamed woman threw down an upper millstone (a symbol of the woman's domestic realm) and crushed Abimelech's skull. Abimelech quickly begged his armor-bearer to kill him so it wouldn't be said that a woman actually killed him (cf. 2 Samuel 11:21). Abimelech's death concludes the whole Gideon Narrative.

Verses 52–53

:''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.'' *"Upper millstone": A hand mill usually consists of an upper millstone (with a handle) and larger lower stone to grind grains placed between the stones. An upper millstone was typically about thick and in diameter, probably weighed 25–30 pounds (11.4–13.6 kg).Moore, G. F. "Judges" (ICC), p. 268; Burney, C. F. , "Judges", p. 288. ''apud'' Note on Judges 9:53 in

NET Bible The New English Translation (NET Bible) is a free, "completely new" online English translation of the Bible, "with 60,932 translators' notes" sponsored by the Biblical Studies Foundation and published by Biblical Studies Press. History and text ...

Notes

References

Sources

* * * * * * * * * *

External links

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

translations: *
Shoftim - Judges - Chapter 9 (Judaica Press)
Hebrew text and English translation ith_Rashi's_commentary.html"_;"title="Rashi.html"_;"title="ith_Rashi">ith_Rashi's_commentary">Rashi.html"_;"title="ith_Rashi">ith_[ ith_Rashi's_commentary.html"_;"title="Rashi.html"_;"title="ith_Rashi">ith_Rashi's_commentary">Rashi.html"_;"title="ith_Rashi">ith_Rashi's_commentaryat_Chabad.org *_Christianity">Christian_ Christians_()_are_people_who_follow_or_adhere_to_Christianity,_a__monotheistic__Abrahamic_religion_based_on_the_life_and_teachings_of_Jesus_Christ._The_words_''Christ''_and_''Christian''_derive_from_the_Koine_Greek_title_''Christós''_(Χρι_...