Abimelech

The name Abimelech ("my father is king") attaches to two distinct figures in the canon: a Philistine king of Gerar who appears in two generations of the patriarchal narrative, and the son of Gideon who briefly seized rule over Shechem after the slaughter of his brothers. The two stories run in opposite moral directions. The Gerar Abimelech is met by God in a dream and corrected; the Shechem Abimelech is left to the consequences of his own crimes until a woman on a tower wall ends him.

Abimelech of Gerar and Abraham

Abraham's first encounter with Abimelech follows the move south from the oaks of Mamre. "And Abraham journeyed from there toward the land of the South, and dwelt between Kadesh and Shur. And he sojourned in Gerar" (Gen 20:1). The Canaanite frontier already ran through this region: "And the border of the Canaanite was from Sidon, as you go toward Gerar, to Gaza" (Gen 10:19). Abraham repeats his earlier evasion, "And Abraham said of Sarah his wife, She's my sister. And Abimelech king of Gerar sent, and took Sarah" (Gen 20:2).

What follows is the rare scene in Genesis where a Gentile king is addressed directly and sympathetically by God. "But [the Speech of] God came to Abimelech in a dream of the night, and said to him, Look, you are but a dead man, because of the woman whom you have taken. For she is a man's wife" (Gen 20:3). Abimelech's defense is that he acted "in the integrity of my heart and the innocence of my hands" (Gen 20:5), and the divine response concedes the point: "Yes, I know that in the integrity of your heart you have done this, and I also withheld you from sinning against me" (Gen 20:6). The remedy is intercession by the patriarch — "for he is a prophet, and he will pray for you, and you will live" (Gen 20:7) — and restitution. Abimelech rebukes Abraham ("What have you done to us? And in what have I sinned against you, that you have brought on me and on my kingdom a great sin?", Gen 20:9), gives him sheep and oxen, slaves, and a thousand shekels of silver (Gen 20:14-16), and Abraham prays so that "God healed Abimelech, and his wife, and his female slaves. And they gave birth. For [the Speech of] Yahweh had fast closed up all the wombs of the house of Abimelech, because of Sarah, Abraham's wife" (Gen 20:17-18).

A second meeting closes the cycle peacefully. "And it came to pass at that time, that Abimelech and Phicol the captain of his host spoke to Abraham, saying, [The Speech of] God is with you in all that you do" (Gen 21:22). Abimelech asks Abraham to swear faithfulness "with me, nor with my son, nor with my son's son" (Gen 21:23), and the two settle a dispute over a well that "Abimelech's slaves had violently taken away" (Gen 21:25). Abraham sets aside seven ewe lambs as witness that he had dug the well (Gen 21:28-30), and "he called that place Beer-sheba. Because there they swore both of them" (Gen 21:31). "So they made a covenant at Beer-sheba. And Abimelech rose up, and Phicol the captain of his host, and they returned into the land of the Philistines" (Gen 21:32).

Abimelech of Gerar and Isaac

A generation later the same kingship in Gerar receives Isaac, with the same name on the throne. "And there was a famine in the land, besides the first famine that was in the days of Abraham. And Isaac went to Abimelech king of the Philistines, to Gerar" (Gen 26:1). Yahweh forbids the descent into Egypt and renews the Abrahamic oath in Isaac's hearing (Gen 26:2-5). "And Isaac dwelt in Gerar" (Gen 26:6).

The wife-as-sister stratagem is repeated and again exposed, but here without divine warning. Abimelech "looked out at a window, and saw, and, look, Isaac was playing with Rebekah his wife" (Gen 26:8), and his rebuke is sharper than the one he had delivered to Abraham: "What is this you have done to us? One of the people might easily have lain with your wife, and you would have brought guilt on us" (Gen 26:10). He issues a public protection order: "He who touches this man or his wife will surely be put to death" (Gen 26:11). Yahweh's blessing on Isaac is cumulative — "Isaac sowed in that land, and found in the same year a hundredfold" (Gen 26:12) — and the Philistines respond first with envy, then by stopping up the wells Abraham's slaves had dug (Gen 26:14-15). Abimelech finally asks Isaac to leave: "Go from us. For you are much mightier than we" (Gen 26:16).

The chapter ends, like the Abraham cycle, with a covenant. Abimelech travels to Beer-sheba with Ahuzzath his friend and Phicol the captain of his host (Gen 26:26), and Isaac confronts the inconsistency: "Why have you⁺ come to me, seeing you⁺ hate me, and have sent me away from you⁺?" (Gen 26:27). Their answer is the recognition that has run through both cycles: "We saw plainly that [the Speech of] Yahweh was with you" (Gen 26:28). They eat, swear an oath, and part in peace (Gen 26:30-31).

Abimelech, Son of Gideon

The other Abimelech is announced as a footnote to Gideon's domestic arrangements. "And his concubine that was in Shechem, she also bore him a son, and he named him Abimelech" (Jud 8:31). The Shechem parentage will become decisive. After Gideon's death this Abimelech "went to Shechem to his mother's brothers" (Jud 9:1) and persuaded them to back his bid against the seventy legitimate sons of Jerubbaal: "Whether it is better for you⁺, that all the sons of Jerubbaal, who are seventy persons, rule over you⁺, or that one rule over you⁺? Remember also that I am your⁺ bone and your⁺ flesh" (Jud 9:2).

Funded with "seventy [shekels] of silver out of the house of Baal-berith" (Jud 9:4), he hired "vain and reckless fellows, who followed him. And he went to his father's house at Ophrah, and slew his brothers the sons of Jerubbaal, being seventy persons, on one stone: but Jotham the youngest son of Jerubbaal was left; for he hid himself" (Jud 9:4-5). Shechem and the house of Millo then "made Abimelech king, by the oak of the pillar that was in Shechem" (Jud 9:6).

The narrative pauses for Jotham's parable from Mount Gerizim. The trees go to anoint a king, and the olive, fig, and vine in turn refuse to leave their fruit "and go to wave to and fro over the trees" (Jud 9:9, 11, 13). Only the bramble accepts: "If in truth you⁺ anoint me king over you⁺, then come and take refuge in my shade; and if not, let fire come out of the bramble, and devour the cedars of Lebanon" (Jud 9:15). Jotham's application is conditional and bitter: "if not, let fire come out from Abimelech, and devour the men of Shechem, and the house of Millo; and let fire come out from the men of Shechem, and from the house of Millo, and devour Abimelech" (Jud 9:20). He flees to Beer "for fear of Abimelech his brother" (Jud 9:21).

The reign and its unraveling are compressed. "And Abimelech was prince over Israel three years. And God sent an evil spirit between Abimelech and the men of Shechem; and the men of Shechem betrayed Abimelech: that the violence done to the seventy sons of Jerubbaal might come, and that their blood might be laid on Abimelech their brother, who slew them, and on the men of Shechem, who strengthened his hands to slay his brothers" (Jud 9:22-24). Gaal the son of Ebed arrives, the men of Shechem transfer their trust to him, and at a festival in the house of their god they curse Abimelech (Jud 9:26-27). Gaal's taunt — "Who is Abimelech, and who is Shechem, that we should serve him? Isn't he the son of Jerubbaal?" (Jud 9:28) — is reported back to Abimelech by Zebul, and Abimelech ambushes the city by night in four companies (Jud 9:34).

The escalation runs through Gaal's defeat and exile, the slaughter of those who go out into the field, and the fall of the city itself: "he took the city, and slew the people who were in it: and he beat down the city, and sowed it with salt" (Jud 9:45). The men of the tower of Shechem retreat to "the stronghold of the house of El-berith" (Jud 9:46), and Abimelech burns it down on them — "about a thousand men and women" (Jud 9:49).

The end comes at Thebez. The city's tower offers the same kind of refuge that Shechem's had, and Abimelech approaches it the same way: "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 cast an upper millstone on Abimelech's head, and broke his skull. Then he called hastily to the young man his armorbearer, and said to him, 'Draw your sword, and kill me. Or else men will say of me, A woman slew him.' And his attendant thrust him through, and he died" (Jud 9:52-54). The narrator's verdict is explicit: "Thus God returned the wickedness of Abimelech, which he did to his father, in slaying his seventy brothers; and all the wickedness of the men of Shechem did God return on their heads: and on them came the curse of Jotham the son of Jerubbaal" (Jud 9:56-57).

The death is remembered in David's instructions to his messenger about the wall at Rabbah, where the same lesson about siege geometry furnishes the cover story for Uriah's killing: "Who struck Abimelech the son of Jerubbaal? Didn't a woman cast an upper millstone on him from the wall, so that he died at Thebez? Why did you⁺ go so near the wall? Then you will say, Your slave Uriah the Hittite is dead also" (2Sa 11:21).