. But these millstones, probably, many of them weigh, that I have seen, weigh as much as four, five hundred pounds.Interesting that Jesus said concerning teachers that would destroy the faith in the heart of a child, it would be better for them if a millstone were hung around their neck and they were tossed in the Sea of Galilee that they to offend one of these little children. And they have tracks in which the millstone rolls. All rights reserved. This indeed becomes distinctly the moral of the tale. It seems to me then that the reserve of the Holy Spirit is as strikingly according to God as the rashness of Jephthah is a solemn warning to man. It makes wise the simple; it enlightens the eyes. And the tribes of Israel sent men through all the tribe of Benjamin, saying, What wickedness is this that is done among you? And as I say, from the top of Gerizim you've got a good lead on anybody that might want to chase you. And then said Zebul unto him, Okay where's your mouth now, and you said, Who is Abimelech, that we should serve him? yet did he propose a most instructive riddle, which set forth justly the then condition of the people of God. Delilah sells herself to the Philistine lords to entangle the champion of Israel, now beguiled by his lusts: else the various efforts to seize him must have otherwise opened his eyes to her guile and their murderous malice. And the evil that he did against Gideon's sons was sort of recompensed. Trust in his shadow!--more likely to be scratched if they came near him--more likely to be injured by him than benefited. You come and reign over us! Otherwise you will be prompted again when opening a new browser window or new a tab. They decide on matters first, and the case becomes only another instance of man's folly in dealing with evil. Years might pass, hundreds of years roll over, but moral principles and even natural relationships do not lose their power. But God clave an hollow place that was in the jaw, and there came water thereout; and when he had drunk, his spirit came again, and he revived: wherefore he called the name thereof En-hakkore, which is in Lehi unto this day." Once allow your soul to be sullied by judging those living oracles, and real faith in the Bible is gone as far as you are concerned. The spiritual man understands how it was. And it was told Abimelech that all the men of the tower of Shechem were gathered together. The earth is destined to be the theatre where God will display righteousness reigning; but even now, while things are out of course, and His enemy is in power, He holds to His own character, owning and using all He can. Undoubtedly the desire of his own importance and aggrandizement is but too manifest; but when he enters upon the service itself, he not only takes care that the right should be felt by Israel to be indisputably with them, but that this should be known and pressed on the conscience of his adversary. And so in one of those instances where positions, "Okay, now where's your mouth man? WebJotham imputes the slaying of his brothers to the citizens of Shechem, as a crime which they themselves had committed ( Judges 9:18 ), because they had given Abimelech money out of their temple of Baal to carry out his designs against the sons of Jerubbaal ( Judges 9:4 ). Commonly, it is only a matter of time until the same violence is turned against those who helped him come to power. Here the rashness of the man enters the scene, the consequence of which is a display of what was painful in the extreme. And he gave him a real rebuke and then he took off running as fast as he could go. i. it is no new thing to faith; Jesus knew it to the bottom. And he said to the men of Shechem, [Now look fellas] who is Abimelech, and who is Shechem, that we should serve them? So it was a pretty good-sized tower, actually. Had not He a right to do so? Here Gideon had become your deliverer and he freed you from the hand of the Midianites and now this is the way you treat, you know, Gideon and his offspring. The end of the book and it is important to make this remark consists of an appendix. So, heres the secret the end of Judges chapter 8 here shows us how Israel did wrong to God. And its then in chapter 9 where we see the evil that Israel does to Gideons household. Now, Ill say one last thing about this section that we just read. Gideon the judge is dead. And now the people again do evil in the sight of the Lord. Joshua 8; Joshua 24). It is the perfection of the creature, giving God His place, and man his own; it is the lowliest, and withal the morally highest place for one here below, as for the angels above. Note, Those who expect God to hear their prayers must be willing to hear reason, to hear a faithful reproof, and to hear the complaints and appeals of wronged innocency. My object being no more than a sketch, as most of you know, I desire to say but a few words on such of the chapters as bear a similar character to that which has been already pointed out in the early portion of the book. They are not allowed to enter on campaigns out of their own head. Jotham may have hidden in some empty well for a long time (cf. Not without faith, he was a combatant ready to fight the Philistines at any odds. They did not wish to quarrel with the king of Heshbon, Amorite as he was, unless he were actually in the holy land; but it was of God that these Amorites, to their own ruin, would not let them pass peaceably through. WebMatthew Henry's Commentary on Judges 9:8-15 Commentary on Judges 9:7-21 (Read Judges 9:7-21) There was no occasion for the trees to choose a king, they are all the But He knows how to wake them up from such disgraceful insensibility. All these fruit-trees gave much the same reason for their refusal to be promoted over the trees; or, as the margin reads 51-53. all the men and women, . Now it was perfectly lawful for the children of Israel to treat them as intruders and strangers, who had no rightful claim, no valid plea why they should be restored. If I do not trust it in everything, I can trust it in nothing. Then went Abimelech to Thebez, and encamped against Thebez--now Tubas--not far from Shechem. The world was large enough for all. 2. in the use of names, Jerubbaal is used throughout for Gideon, and Yahweh is referred to only by the generic Elohim. And a certain woman took a piece of a millstone ( Judges 9:50-53 ), Now millstones are sort of lava kinds of rock and there are millstones-I've seen them four feet high. Alas! Those whose extraction and education are ever so high know not to what difficulties and straits they may be reduced. But the time came when God would act upon that promise, and when those that disputed the title of God must pay the penalty. Thus men boast of a false gift. Brambles bore no fruit and offered no shelter or protection. But the vine said to them, Jotham did not go about to raise an army out of the other cities of Israel (in which, one would think, he might have made a good interest for his father's sake), to avenge his brethren's death, much less to set up himself in competition with Abimelech, so groundless was the usurper's suggestion that the sons of Gideon aimed at dominion (Judges 9:2; Judges 9:2); but he contents himself with giving a faithful reproof to the Shechemites, and fair warning of the fatal consequences. Click to enable/disable _ga - Google Analytics Cookie. By contrast Abimelech is like a bramble: he can give neither shelter nor protection. "And Israel sent messengers unto Sihon king of the Amorites, the king of Heshbon; and Israel said unto him Let us pass, we pray thee, through thy land into my place." Now he said, You have done a good thing, great. The reference to the men of Shechem (Judges 9:2) is literally the baals of Shechem, the word having here its original meaning of lord or owner. (Cundall). Absolutely immaculate Himself, He was made sin for us, that we might become God's righteousness in Him who for us by death annulled him that had the power of death, and gave us out of that defeat our unfailing comfort. says Jephthah, "Jehovah God of Israel hath dispossessed the Amorites from before his people Israel, and shouldest thou possess it?" Click to enable/disable _gat_* - Google Analytics Cookie. ". To Samson, as we see, it was far different. ii. But the children of Benjamin would not hearken to the voice of their brethren the children of Israel: but the children of Benjamin gathered themselves together out of the cities unto Gibeah, to go out to battle against the children of Israel.". God might be said to be "cheered" by it, when the sacrifices were accepted, as He is said also to be honored by oil ( Judges 9:9 ). But how perfectly He stood, though tried as none ever was or could be but Himself! b. ii. "Then all the children of Israel went out, and the congregation was gathered together as one man.". Gideon had rejected, with abhorrence, the proposal to make himself or any of his family king, and there is no evidence that any of his other sons coveted the title. Undoubtedly the children of Moab, Ammon, and Edom, for reasons of relationship at least, were exempted from the sentence to which God subjected the races of Canaan. Could, at the beck of the Philistine, there be found at once three thousand men so willing and prompt to betray the champion of Israel? He could, if he had reflected, hardly expect an ox or a sheep to walk out of the house. Nevertheless he "was a mighty man of valour," who lived a kind of freebooter's life the chief of a reckless company of outcasts and desperadoes. But verse 30 seems adverse to this view. i. 1 - 6. He went to Thebez and attacked the city and the tower there. But the wages of transgressors are hard, and the guilty man falls under the strange woman's spell again and again. another point, still more important, going along with it. The king of Ammon had no just claim whatever. So dangerous is apt to be the reaction against one ever so honest; the more you have trusted, when you begin to doubt, the worse it is apt to be, even with poor erring man, who knows not what a serious thing it is. i. Where was the just horror at the idolatry of Micah? All the people of the tower of Shechem died, about a thousand men and women: With this, Abimelech massacred the last survivors of the city of Shechem, killing about a thousand men and women. It seems therefore that the two extremes of moral weakness and of outward strength find each its height in this extraordinary character. "Then went Samson to Gaza, and saw there an harlot;" yet here, though fallen lower than ever, we find power put forth under these deplorable circumstances. Which cheers both God and men, God Himself had ordered things so. Let fire come out of the bramble A strong catachresis. It was not merely that the people were unworthily oppressed by the Ammonites, but Jephthah does not venture to go to war, nor does the Spirit of God clothe him with energy for the conflict, until he had the certainty in his soul that the cause was a righteous one, and this founded upon the dealings of God with the children of Israel and with Ammon respectively. But if not, let fire come from Abimelech and devour the men of Shechem and Beth Millo; and let fire come from the men of Shechem and from Beth Millo and devour Abimelech! And Jotham ran away and fled; and he went to Beer and dwelt there, for fear of Abimelech his brother. serve the men of Hamor the father of Shechem: for why should we serve him? b. Whatever then might be Samson's motives and conduct, it was the Holy One, as we are told, who prompted him against the aggressors of Israel. i. We should each consider if God is warning us about something in the present time. ( Judges 9:28 ). Over there you can hear children miles away, dogs barking and so forth. Chapter 9Now here's what happened. Abimelechs mother, though only a maidservant to Gideon, was from Shechem. The top of Gerizim is not so high in the rear of the town, as it is nearer to the plain. Then Abimelech went up to Mount Zalmon, he and all the people who were with him. a. So they gave him seventy shekels of silver from the temple of Baal-Berith, with which Abimelech hired worthless and reckless men; and they followed him. The great point of the preface is that "in those days there was no king in Israel" the opening words of Judges 18:1-31. It's an interesting thing to me how far sound travels over there in that land. His kingdom probably consisted only of Shechem and a few towns round about (9:1-6). And he took thereof in his hands, and went on eating, and came to his father and mother, and he gave them, and they did eat: but he told not them that he had taken the honey out of the carcase of the lion. Being thus proved to be in arms without right, the king of Ammon was only so much the more fierce, as is usual with people when convicted of a wrong to which their will is engaged. God held even to the distant tie of connection a most striking proof and witness of the ways of our God. But, if you ignore God and just reduce this world to what you can see, you will eliminate the value of human life and be capable of heinous things.
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