Today’s passage is Judges 9:42-57.
Abimelech attacks the people of Shechem, kills them and destroys the city, scattering salt over it. When some of them hide in a temple stronghold, he burns, killing everyone in it. Then he captures Thebez but the people hide in their tower. When he gets close to it, a woman drops a millstone on him, mortally wounding him. He tells his armor bearer to kill him with a sword. Thus God repaid Abimelech and Shechem for their actions, allowing Jotham’s curse to come upon them.
Why does Abimelech attack another city?
Why is he killed by a woman and a stone?
Gideon, Abimelech’s father, said the Israelites should be ruled by God, not by him or his sons.
Abimelech pridefully chose otherwise and murdered his seventy brothers on one stone (5).
In today’s passage a stone hurled by a woman cracks his skull (53).
There’s a nice symmetry about God using a stone to kill Abimelech.
Jotham is not involved in any kind of revenge. It’s clearly God’s.
And, as with the death of Sisera by Jael, a woman is the agent of God’s punishment.
The prideful warrior king Abimelech is humiliated in death by a woman and a stone.
How have I been brought down by a woman and a stone to my head?
My pride at my insight into literature and literary characters was completely humiliated by my utter failure to perceive my first wife’s character and alcoholism.
I remember the moment I learned of her alcoholism.
It was like receiving a blow to my head. My knees buckled and I fell into a chair.
If the chair hadn’t been there I would have fallen to the floor.
Another time I got whacked in the head was Mallory’s rejection of me and marriage.
Again, my single-minded and ill-considered desire to create a fantasy life after the death of my first wife, utterly blinded me to reality.
I sought no one’s opinion and I didn’t ask God about the relationship.
I was consumed with my desire to create my own happiness.
I replaced God with myself as the architect of my life.
God used a woman to crack my skull of pride and usher in the time of my greatest humiliation.
Unlike Abimelech, I lived to tell my story of God’s great mercy in my life, of being humiliated in order for me to begin to hear God and interpret my life through his word.
Lord, continue to throw stones at my head as necessary. Praise your name and your lovingkindness!
