July 19, 2021
Please use the comment section on this page to share insights from today’s reading OR your own personal Bible reading.
Reading along with us in Judges? Here’s today’s reading:
Judges 9 (NIV)
Abimelek
1 Abimelek son of Jerub-Baal went to his mother’s brothers in Shechem and said to them and to all his mother’s clan, 2“Ask all the citizens of Shechem, ‘Which is better for you: to have all seventy of Jerub-Baal’s sons rule over you, or just one man?’ Remember, I am your flesh and blood.”........Continue Reading
Well this was a chapter full of bad choices! To set someone so evil as Abimelech to be king was such a poor choice. To assist Abimelech in the murder of his 70 brothers was such a bad choice. To not listen to the warning of Jotham was such a bad choice. To try to overturn one bad king for another bad king was a bad choice.
And the destruction that followed was so evident of their disobedience to God it seems the only decent choice that happened in this chapter was the woman dropping a rock on Abimelech’s head!
Judges 9
Abimelech’s thirst for power is what drove him to want to be king. And that thirst only got more intense as he wipes out not only 70 half brothers to gain power but he charges after other cities and people. I’d like to say we see this thinking in our own government officials today. But I won’t. Ironic one woman ends up killing him A nation wanting to be controlled by God. Ends up being controlled by an egomaniac. Have they ever drifted extremely far away!!!
This chapter was like watching a movie where the bad guy keeps getting away with things. And the consequences that come from evil are evident here as well as the reality that evil often breads more evil. And yet as the evil perpetrator goes to do the same thing he has done in the past to kill innocent lives, a woman drops a large rock on his head….and the audience cheers. This is what comes from each person doing what is right in their own eyes and shows how desperately we need the direction and power of God for our lives…..
Judges 9
Judges 7-9
56Thus God repaid the wickedness that Abimelek had done to his father by murdering his seventy brothers. 57God also made the people of Shechem pay for all their wickedness. The curse of Jotham son of Jerub-Baal came on them.
The curse of the youngest son of Jerub-Baal is fulfilled.
Not sure what we learn from this.
Vengeance is the Lord’s?