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Book of Judges chapter From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Judges 9 is the ninth chapter of the Book of Judges in the Old Testament or the Hebrew Bible.[1] According to Jewish tradition the book was attributed to the prophet Samuel,[2][3] but modern scholars view it as part of the Deuteronomistic History, which spans the books of Deuteronomy to 2 Kings, attributed to nationalistic and devotedly Yahwistic writers during the time of the reformer Judean king Josiah in 7th century BCE.[3][4] This chapter records the activities of judge Gideon's son, Abimelech,[5] belonging to a section comprising Judges 6 to 9 and a bigger section of Judges 6:1 to 16:31.[6]
Judges 9 | |
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![]() The pages containing the Book of Judges in Leningrad Codex (1008 CE). | |
Book | Book of Judges |
Hebrew Bible part | Nevi'im |
Order in the Hebrew part | 2 |
Category | Former Prophets |
Christian Bible part | Old Testament (Heptateuch) |
Order in the Christian part | 7 |
This chapter was originally written in the Hebrew language. It is divided into 57 verses.
Some early manuscripts containing the text of this chapter in Hebrew are of the Masoretic Text tradition, which includes the Codex Cairensis (895), Aleppo Codex (10th century), and Codex Leningradensis (1008).[7] Fragments containing parts of this chapter in Hebrew were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls including 1Q6 (1QJudg; < 68 BCE) with extant verses 1–3, 5–6, 28–31, 40–43, 48–49.[8][9][10] [11]
Extant ancient manuscripts of a translation into Koine Greek known as the Septuagint (originally was made in the last few centuries BCE) include Codex Vaticanus (B; B; 4th century) and Codex Alexandrinus (A; A; 5th century).[12][lower-alpha 1]
A linguistic study by Chisholm reveals that the central part in the Book of Judges (Judges 3:7–16:31) can be divided into two panels based on the six refrains that state that the Israelites did evil in Yahweh's eyes:[14]
Panel One
Panel Two
Furthermore, from the linguistic evidence, the verbs used to describe the Lord's response to Israel's sin have chiastic patterns and can be grouped to fit the division above:[16]
Panel One
Panel Two
Chapters 6 to 9 record the Gideon/Abimelech Cycle, which has two major parts:
The Abimelech Narrative is really a sequel (and conclusion) of the Gideon account, resolving a number of complications originated in the Gideon Narrative.[17] It contains a prologue (8:33–35), followed by two parts:[18]
Each of these two parts has a threefold division with interlinks between the divisions, so it displays the following structure:[18]
After Gideon's death, his son of a concubine (a secondary wife; Judges 8:31), Abimelech, appealed to his mother's kin in Shechem for support in his plans to take over the political power.[5] Using the money from his kinsmen Abimelech hired mercenaries (labeled as 'empty' and 'wanton' people; cf. Genesis 49:4) to kill all other Gideon's sons, a total 70 of them.[5] Gideon's youngest son of the seventy, Jotham, survived the slaughter and went to the top of Mount Gerizim to deliver a mashal ("parable") to the people about useful trees, which decline rulership as beneath them, allow the useless and prickly bramble to reign over them with disastrous ending.[19] Jotham's speech was a righteous complaint of a wronged person that would bring about vengeance through divine intervention, as the subsequent story of Abimelech's decline shows.[20] The parable is often recited on Tu BiShvat in Israel until today.[21] The bramble or "jujube" was translated from Hebrew אטד (atad), that is, Ziziphus spina-christi ("Christ's thorn")[22] which according the Christian tradition was used to make Crown of thorns placed on the head of Jesus Christ during his crucifixion.[23]
OpenBible lists 7 possible identifications in modern places:[25]
As predicted by Jotham, the evil coup without 'good faith' was doomed to failure (verses 16–20) and that those who were disloyal to Gideon (verses 17–18) would also be disloyal to Abimelech.[20] The divine control of Abimelech's demise is stated as YHWH 'sent an evil spirit' between Abimelech and the Shechemites (cf. 1 Samuel 16:14.) The Shechemite chieftains soon transferred their affections to a new strongman while attempting to undermine the Abimelech's leadership credentials through the taunts of some drunken louts. Abimelech and his loyalist, Zebul, succeeded in defeating Gaal, the challenger, and then proceeded to take further vengeance on the people of Shechem (verses 42–49).[20] Abimelech continued with his vengeance at Thebez, another fortress city, but this time, an unnamed woman threw down an upper millstone (a symbol of the woman's domestic realm) and crushed Abimelech's skull. Abimelech quickly begged his armor-bearer to kill him so it wouldn't be said that a woman actually killed him (cf. 2 Samuel 11:21). Abimelech's death concludes the whole Gideon Narrative.[20]