Who was Abimelech in the Bible?

Son of Gideon by a Shechemite concubine. He induced the men of Shechem to choose him as ruler and then slew 70 of his brethren. Jotham alone escaped, who pronounced a curse upon the murderers. This was fulfilled by many of the men of Shechem being killed, and Abimelech being mortally wounded by a piece of a millstone cast upon him by a woman at the attack upon Thebez. Judges 8:31; Judges 9; 2 Sam. 11:21.

King of Gerar, who, believing Sarah to be Abraham's sister, took her into his harem, but being warned by God* he returned Sarah, calling Abraham her brother, as a rebuke. Gen. 20.

The story of Abimelech is intensely interesting in its typical meaning. Abimelech was the offspring of an unlawful union: the son of Gideon and the concubine in Shechem. He was half Israelite and half Canaanite. Abimelech means "my father was king"; he claims therefore supremacy, lordship over the people Israel on the basis of succession. His father had refused that honor; the bastard offspring claims it. He gains his object by a conspiracy and by murdering the sons of his father, with the exception of Jotham, who hid himself And this domineerer over the people bears the name of the Philistine kings.

The history of Abimelech, the ruthless and unscrupulous usurper in Israel, is given us in Judges 9. If you have not read that chapter recently, do so now and refresh your memory as to the details. Then specially notice the sarcastic parable which Jotham shouted from the top of Mount Gerizim, which, incidentally, is the first parable put on record. See if it does not strikingly fit the usurpers and tyrants with which Europe is cursed at the present moment: then consider if it does not furnish us with a forecast of what their end is going to be.

The Lord Jesus tells us that the devil was a murderer from the beginning (Jn. 8:44). Abimelech, Gideon's son by a concubine at Shechem, came to power by persuading the men of his home town that it would be more to their advantage to have him rule over them than Gideon's other 70 sons, none of whom were seeking to rule. Having gained his countrymen by political persuasiveness, he hired thugs, killed his brothers, and was made king by the men of Shechem. Understandably, God's will was not sought in the matter at all. Jotham, Gideon's youngest son, alone escaped being killed. He proceeded to propound to the men of Shechem the allegory of the trees choosing a king, predicting the disaster and doom that would come to them and their wicked usurper king.

Abimelech's rule lasted only three years. It was truly a matter of man ruling man to his hurt. God could not bless a kingdom set up in such a way. Both Abimelech and the men of Shechem had left Him out of their calculations. Both came to a tragic end. Today men do likewise. They too will find that God will not be mocked.

Abimelech the son of Jerubbaal (Gideon) wished the men of Shechem to make him king. He received from them seventy pieces of silver with which he hired vain and light persons, and murdered his brethren, slaying threescore and ten, save Jotham, who escaped his hand.

But as Gideon grew older, his faith grew more dim, and I fear his pride increased; and when his concubine, the maid-servant, bare him a son, "he called" him, "Abimelech" (Judges 8:31). And what does 'Abimelech' mean? It means "My Father is King." The very place he had refused in his early days, now he seeks to seize, and his son's name betrays his sad fall. "My Father" (that is, Gideon) "is King": sad, sad departure from the noble faith he once had. Then he had said: "I will not rule over you, neither shall my son rule over you." Now he seeks the place of king, and his maid-servant's son seizes this place, at the cost of all his brothers, except the youngest. Terrible result of their father's self-indulgence and pride: but "what a man soweth, that shall he also reap."

Abimelech did not only forget his father's example, but deliberately chose a contrary path of proud self-pleasing. He wanted to rule over Israel and recognized that in order to do so he must find a following that would reject all 70 of Gideon's sons who were born to him by his wives. He therefore persuaded his mother's relatives to speak to the men of Shechem, asking them if is better that 70 of Gideon's sons should rule over them or just one (vv. 1-2). He appeals to the fact that he himself is their own flesh and bone.

No one had suggested that Gideon's 70 sons should rule over Israel: likely those sons knew that their father had refused the place of ruler (tie. 8:22-23). But a small minority can often force its way into prominence. A little money (seventy shekels of silver) was given Abimelech by his relatives, with which he hired worthless and reckless men to carry out his evil designs (v.4). Then, to quell any likelihood of opposition, he went to Ophrah and killed the other sons of Gideon except the youngest, Jotham, who was able to hide (v. 5). This awful crime of mass murder of his own brothers meant nothing to him. None of them had shown any aspiration to reign over Israel, but he wanted to make sure that none of them would.

He sets himself to exercise authority over the people of God, and in order to do so he builds his throne upon violence. There must be violence if there is rule of that kind; if there is the rule of man, it must be by violence. Therefore, he slays all his brothers, all the many sons of Gideon, with a single exception. Having thus cut off all rivals, he goes to Shechem, the town of his mother, the town according to nature, which is significantly in that very tribe of Ephraim, which is always, as you know, reaching out for rule, and gets the men of Shechem to endorse and recognize him as king. Then it is that his brother Jotham, the one who had escaped, propounds his parable, which is most striking, and embodies the whole lesson of this chapter. This parable on rule and government explains all that occurred, and shows what human government always is in the house of God (chap. 9:7-21).

This chapter introduces us to such a sorrowful phase of declension, that, at first sight, it does not seem to contain a single refuge for faith. In Judges 8, we have seen the congregation of Israel wishing to confer authority on their leader; here, a wolf usurps the Shepherd's place, and seizes upon the flock in order to devour it. It is the arbitrary authority of the evil servant, who, in the absence of his lord, began to smite his fellow-servants, and to eat and drink with the drunken (Matt. 24:48-49). This briefly reminds us of the principle of clericalism in the house of God and its pernicious encroachments. The wretched Abimelech was not a judge; he sought a position still more exalted: he had himself proclaimed king (v. 6), and took, in the midst of the people, the title assumed by those who rule over the nations. In thus openly arrogating to himself this title (v. 2), he acted in the opposite way to a judge who had been raised up of God (cf. Judges 8:23). In order to usurp this place, he resorted to thoroughly human expedients. Through the brothers of his mother, the concubine of Gideon, he beguiled the men of Shechem under the guise of fraternity. They placed confidence in this traitor; their moral state was so low, that they even forgot the bond that united them to all Israel, and said of Abimelech: "He is our brother." Fraternity had lost, for them, its true meaning, and had come to be a name characterizing only a party.