{"id":1111,"date":"2010-03-10T13:00:53","date_gmt":"2010-03-10T18:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.danielgoepfrich.com\/?p=1111"},"modified":"2022-10-24T19:08:01","modified_gmt":"2022-10-24T23:08:01","slug":"thoughts-on-judges-9","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theologyisforeveryone.com\/thoughts-on-judges-9\/","title":{"rendered":"Thoughts on Judges 9"},"content":{"rendered":"

We\u2019re reading through Judges at Oak Tree Church<\/a>, and I\u2019m posting some observations from my daily readings here within a day or two after the reading. I\u2019d love for you to join in the discussion.<\/p>

Thoughts on Judges 9<\/h3>

Now Abimelech son of Jerub-Baal went to Shechem to see his mother\u2019s relatives. He said to them and to his mother\u2019s entire extended family\u2026<\/em> Judges 9:1 NET<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>

I wonder if this story would have been any different had Gideon (Jerub-Baal) simply not named his son \u201cAbimelech\u201d (meaning \u201cmy father is king\u201d). Did Abimelech \u2013 who was not a legitimate heir \u2013 feel entitled to something because of Gideon\u2019s stupid decision to name him that?<\/p>

The thornbush said to the trees, \u2018If you really want to choose me as your king, then come along, find safety under my branches! Otherwise may fire blaze from the thornbush and consume the cedars of Lebanon!\u2019<\/em> Judges 9:15 NET<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>

Jotham\u2019s parable has a great principle about leadership. The first three plants the trees asked to be king (olive tree, fig tree, grapevine) all said essentially the same thing: \u201cIn order for me to lead you, I would have to stop my daily tasks and rise to the occasion, but this would not be beneficial to me or you.\u201d<\/p>

The thornbush, on the other hand, replied, \u201cIf you want me to be your leader, you come down to my level, but I\u2019m not going to change.\u201d God has not wired everyone to be a leader, but those he has will be willing to step up to it.<\/p>

Abimelech commanded Israel for three years.<\/em> Judges 9:22 NET<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>

The change of words is significant here. All of the other leaders of Israel so far are said to have \u201cjudged\u201d or \u201cdelivered\u201d or \u201cruled\u201d Israel for a period of time. Abimelech \u201ccommanded\u201d Israel, and it wasn\u2019t for very long.<\/p>

When the Israelites saw that Abimelech was dead, they went home.<\/em> Judges 9:55 NET<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>

Such an anticlimactic end to the story. Not one Bible translation I read even tries to make it look like they ran home scared. It\u2019s a simple statement of fact: their leader died, so they went home (ready to follow the next whomever could buy their loyalty).<\/p>

What did you see in these verses? What was important to you in Judges 9 that I did not see?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We\u2019re reading through Judges at Oak Tree Church, and I\u2019m posting some observations from my daily readings here within a day or two after the reading. I\u2019d love for you to join in the discussion. Thoughts on Judges 9 Now Abimelech son of Jerub-Baal went to Shechem to see his mother\u2019s relatives. He said to them and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_eb_attr":"","_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[95],"class_list":["post-1111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-other","tag-judges"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"gutentor_comment":0,"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false,"widget-thumbnail":false,"rpwe-thumbnail":false,"woocommerce_thumbnail":false,"woocommerce_single":false,"woocommerce_gallery_thumbnail":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Daniel Goepfrich","author_link":"https:\/\/www.theologyisforeveryone.com\/author\/dgoepfrich\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"We\u2019re reading through Judges at Oak Tree Church, and I\u2019m posting some observations from my daily readings here within a day or two after the reading. I\u2019d love for you to join in the discussion. Thoughts on Judges 9 Now Abimelech son of Jerub-Baal went to Shechem to see his mother\u2019s relatives. He said to them and…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologyisforeveryone.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1111"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologyisforeveryone.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologyisforeveryone.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologyisforeveryone.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologyisforeveryone.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologyisforeveryone.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1111\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologyisforeveryone.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologyisforeveryone.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologyisforeveryone.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}