This is the first time I've read of Abimelech. I grew up in a Christian home never reading the Bible myself. I decided one day to start from Genesis and the Lord has shown me many things. I didn't know what each book meant. Who the 12 tribes are. How the high priest came to be. What their job was and how it incorporates with our savior Jesus. Who the judges were. That Israelites only had judges but desperately wanted to have a king like their neighbors. When God was their king. A lot you can learn from this passage. Thank you for shining light on this passage.
I am a pastor at a small church in Maryland. I just came across your channel this week. It breaks my heart to see that you have 7,500 subscribers. You may, in my opinion, offer some of the best, straight forward Bible study on RU-vid. I wish that you had 10,000 times as many subscribers. You are so faithful to the Word and so humble in your presentation. Your ministry has been in my prayers all week. Thank you for your excellent work and thank you for your passion for the true Word of God. Best channel on RU-vid right now in my opinion. May God watch over and bless you and may the Good News of Jesus be proclaimed everywhere and always.
May the lord continue to bless you brother, keep you and continue to use you in his word in a mighty way 🙏 🙌 I praise the lord for you, I love your explanation, and your remarkable way of explaining God's word 🙏 🙌 Thank you Steven 😊
I like that you use Victorian commentators. I dont trust any modern ones, I use John Gill but never heard of the other commentators that you use. Best puritan read is John Owen. I wont read anyone usually unless they are 100-400 years old. Glad to see you have good appreciation them too. God Bless.
Abimelech was a piece of work. He was the first to have himself proclaimed a KING. He had no humility like his father. Pride and presumptuousness caused his demise. A son of Judge Gideon born to his concubine at Shechem. After his father’s death, Abimelech with presumptuous impudence sought to make himself king. Cunningly, he appealed to the landowners of Shechem through his mother’s influential family. Upon obtaining their financial support he hired some ruffians, went to his father’s house at Ophrah and there massacred his seventy half brothers upon a single stone, with only the youngest, Jotham, escaping the slaughter. Abimelech was then proclaimed king, but Jehovah allowed a bad spirit to develop between the Shechemites and their new “king,” in order to avenge the bloodguilt of all those connected with the conspiracy. A revolt was organized by Gaal. Abimelech quickly crushed it, captured and destroyed the city of Shechem and sowed it with salt. Then he attacked the vault or sanctuary of the house of El-berith and set it afire, and in the conflagration about a thousand of his previous collaborators, the landowners of the tower of Shechem who had taken refuge there, were burned to death. Immediately Abimelech followed up this success by attacking Thebez to the north, only to have a woman on the city tower hurl an upper millstone down upon his head. Abimelech’s three-year “reign” came to an end when his armor bearer, in compliance with his dying request, ran him through with the sword, so that it could not be said that a woman had killed him.-Judg. 8:30, 31; 9:1-57; 2 Sam. 11:21.
9:13 PARABLE: Those trees represent (olive tree)Othoniel, (fig tree)Shamgar, (vine)Ehud, and (bramble)Gideon because he devoured the Midianites or Abimelech he devoured his brothers and the people. Another order could be (olive tree)Othoniel, (fig tree)Ehud, (vine)Gideon, and (bramble)Abimelech. I don't mention Deborah because she wasn't the one delivering Israel it was Barac and Jael. Deborah just delivered the prophecy but she was a judge. The Judges couldn't abandon their position to become kings because they were supposed to judge not to rule. 21:10 A COUPLE OF RANDOM THOUGHTS: Abimelech reminds me of a national hero "Juan Santamaría" of my country that died while trying to burn a hut of the enemies back in 1856. Believe it or not in 1856 Stephen and I would've had a tough relationship because of William Walker in 1856 and how he was trying to take my country. Fortunately, now we don't have those problems hahaha because we are in the 21st century besides that my country has no army so If the US came, here again, we would be toast.
Excellent observation on 9:13, brother. And my country appears to have become a monster of corruption. We have amassed a powerful military, but at the price of extreme, unpayable debt. The US government is so corrupt that no one here (or elsewhere) could ever deny that it is irrevocably on a downward path which will likely end in catastrophic calamity. But Lord bless ya, brother, and be safe always.
@@EyesLikeFire Well you would have to see Costa Rica and all that has been happening recently, we are indebted, many of the people who offer to be president are corrupt, and the worst part is that the next year will be my first year voting and actually becoming and adult not by mind and maturity but by age according to the law. I just hope for the eternal kingdom of Christ to come because every time that we take things in our own stregth we just blow it. May the God of Peace be with you brother, amen and may God continue blessing your family and ministry and also those around you. Amen.
