No King in Israel (22)

You may have heard the expression “sow it with salt” before. It’s most commonly associated with the incident we are reading about today, in which Abimelech destroyed the city of Shechem and sowed it with salt thereafter. Salting the earth apparently became common in the ancient Near East. Hittite and Assyrian sources both mention the practice, but none predates the Judges account.

Maybe Abimelech was a trendsetter.

In Jericho and Shechem: A Religio-Literary Aspect of City Destruction, Stanley Gevirtz suggests salting the earth may have been “a covenantal curse, a means of ensuring desolation, a ritual to avert the vengeance of the shades of the slaughtered, a purification of the site preparatory to rebuilding, or a preparation for final destruction under the herem ritual”.

As usual with historians, they can tell us what happened. The rest is speculation. Let’s leave the purpose of salting as a mystery. That fits nicely with these last few verses of chapter 9, which contain a couple of other mysteries, not to mention truckloads of irony.

II. Twelve Judges in Chronological Order (continued)

5. Gideon (continued)

Judges 9:42-45 — Razed and Salted

“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. And 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 razed the city and sowed it with salt.”

Inexplicably Incautious

As much as Abimelech was a wicked man under the judgment of God, he also appears to have been a competent general, effective in destroying Shechem. Then again, Jotham’s curse, which God was in the process of fulfilling, was not just on Abimelech but also on the men of Shechem who enabled it, so it’s likely Abimelech experienced the assistance of Heaven as he became the unwitting instrument of God’s judgment on his co-conspirators.

Given what had taken place the day before, when Abimelech had stormed down from the hills, attacking Gaal and the leaders of Shechem, you might think it would have been prudent for the citizens of Shechem to take a day or two off from going out into the fields surrounding the city. Instead, they were inexplicably incautious and met their doom. Mystery number one. In the first clash with Abimelech’s men, there was much injury but no deaths are noted. Now that Abimelech’s man Zebul had driven Gaal and his relatives out of Shechem, Abimelech ruthlessly slaughtered the traitorous Shechemites who had first appointed him king, then turned on him.

The Bodies Pile Up

As the dead bodies pile up, we might be inclined to feel pity for any Shechemites who were not an active part of the conspiracy to murder Gideon’s seventy sons. Two things:

First, a great many in Shechem were involved, perhaps most or all. Abimelech pitched his scheme to his mother’s relatives “and to the whole clan of his mother’s family”. These whispered in the ears of the leaders of Shechem, who then financed Abimelech’s coup. There was plenty of guilt to go around.

Second, people generally get the leaders they deserve. Even when they don’t, the fact that God delegates his authority to men means that the choices these leaders make invariably affect everyone under their care, both for good and ill. It’s true in the church, in the family, in the community and at the national level. It was true in Jerusalem in AD70, when Rome unleashed its wrath on Jewish rebels and the innocent alike. Unless God is to intervene in this life to right every potential wrong before it happens, this is how it has to be. Everybody in Shechem paid the price for the betrayal of Gideon’s family, but the leaders of Shechem will also give an account before God in a coming day.

Judges 9:46-49 — A God Who Cannot Save

“When all the leaders of the Tower of Shechem heard of it, they entered the stronghold of the house of El-berith. Abimelech was told that all the leaders of the Tower of Shechem were gathered together. And Abimelech went up to Mount Zalmon, he and all the people who were with him. And Abimelech took an axe 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 1,000 men and women.”

We should not miss a significant point here concerning the burning of the tower. The stronghold in which 1,000 people put their trust and died was also a place of idolatrous worship. Not only that, Baal-berith is twice mentioned in chapters 8 and 9, first as the god Israel whored after the moment Gideon died, then his temple as the place where the leaders of Shechem procured the seventy pieces of silver with which they aided and abetted Abimelech’s murders. So there’s some pretty pungent irony going on here as well. In fulfilling Jotham’s curse, the Lord was also demonstrating the uselessness of idols to protect those who bowed down to them. Baal-berith’s followers perished in flames along with his house of worship. He was a god who could not save.

Rabbinic tradition associates Baal-berith with Beelzebub, the “lord of flies”, an appellation later given to Satan, who also has a notable tendency to reward his devotees with death and destruction.

Judges 9:50-57 — A Timely Toss

“Then Abimelech went to Thebez and encamped against Thebez 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, and 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 Jerubbaal.”

A Mysterious Siege

Shechem was in Manasseh’s territory. Thebez was an Ephraimite city a little over ten miles northeast. Why Abimelech pushed his luck by besieging Thebez is mystery number two, but we already know God was at work in arranging Abimelech’s doom. Perhaps Abimelech feared others might follow the Shechemites’ example in rejecting him as king. Now that God had used him to destroy the Shechemites, it was time for Abimelech to experience the justice he had denied his brothers.

Millstones are generally associated with considerable weight. Why anyone would carry one up the steps of a tower is also a bit mysterious, but the objective was probably to ensure that those trapped within would be able to mill flour to make bread in the event of a lengthy siege. This one must have been on the small side, since a woman was able to throw it and Abimelech was not instantly killed when it caved in his skull. It must have struck him a glancing blow.

Killed by a Woman

If we think back to Deborah, who lived only a few years earlier, it should be evident from this account how very exceptional it was to have a woman judging Israel. Abimelech preferred impalement from his armor-bearer rather than perishing at the hand of a woman. Evidently, he did not consider it an honorable death, though it seems a funny time for Abimelech, a traitor and murderer of his own family, to suddenly concern himself with how history would remember him.

More irony: perishing at the hand of his armor-bearer did not save Abimelech’s reputation. Some years later, David mentioned the woman and the upper millstone while hypocritically chastising Joab for allowing Uriah the Hittite to perish on his watch. So Israel did not forget the incident. Abimelech became a cautionary tale.

The chapter concludes by assuring us that all this was of God. He upheld Jotham’s curse, and every word of it came true.