Judges 9:27
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And after they had gone out into the fields, gathered grapes from their vineyards, and trodden them, they held a festival and went into the house of their god; and as they ate and drank, they cursed Abimelech.
Commentaries
Excerpts gathered from published commentaries to ground the reading.
Judgment upon the House of Gideon, or Abimelech's Sins and End - Judges 9 After the death of Gideon, Abimelech, his bastard son, opened a way for himself to reign as king over Israel, by murdering his brethren with the help of the Shechemites (Jdg 9:1-6). For this grievous wrong Jotham, the only one of Gideon's seventy sons who escaped the massacre, reproached the citizens of Shechem in a parable, in which he threatened them with punishment from God (Jdg 9:7-21), which first of all fell upon Shechem within a very short time (vv. 22-49), and eventually reached Abimelech himself (Jdg 9:50-57).
Open source ↗The apostasy of Israel after the death of Gideon is punished, not as the former apostasies by a foreign invasion, or the oppressions of any neighbouring power, but by intestine broils among themselves, which in this chapter we have the story of; and it is hard to say whether their sin or their misery appears most in it. It is an account of the usurpation and tyranny of Abimelech, who was base son to Gideon; so we must call him, and not more modishly his natural son: he was so unlike him. We are here told, I. How he thrust himself into the government at Shechem, his own city, by subtlety and cruelty, particularly by the murder of all his brethren (Jdg 9:1-6). II. How his doom was read in a parable by Jothan, Gideon's youngest son (Jdg 9:7-21). III. What strifes there were between Abimelech and his friends the Shechemites (v. 22-41). IV. How this ended in the ruin of the Shechemites (Jdg 9:42-49), and of Abimelech himself (Jdg 9:50-57). Of this meteor, this ignis fatuus of a prince, that was not a protector but a plague to his country, we may say, as once was said of a great tyrant, that he came in like a fox, ruled like a lion, and died like a dog. "For the transgression of a land, such are the princes thereof."
Open source ↗Cross-references
Other passages the community most often connects to this one. Tap to read.
So they gave him seventy shekels of silver from the temple of Baal-berith, with which Abimelech hired some worthless and reckless men to follow him.
On hearing of this, all the leaders in the tower of Shechem entered the inner chamber of the temple of El-berith.
As Moses approached the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, he burned with anger and threw the tablets out of his hands, shattering them at the base of the mountain.
Now the lords of the Philistines gathered together to offer a great sacrifice to their god Dagon. They rejoiced and said, “Our god has delivered Samson our enemy into our hands.”
The cursing that he loved, may it fall on him; the blessing in which he refused to delight, may it be far from him.
So you are to prophesy all these words against them and say to them: ‘The LORD will roar from on high; He will raise His voice from His holy habitation. He will roar loudly over His pasture; like those who tread the grapes, He will call out with a shout against all the inhabitants of the earth.
“Am I a dog,” he said to David, “that you come at me with sticks?” And the Philistine cursed David by his gods.
The son of the Israelite woman blasphemed the Name with a curse. So they brought him to Moses. (His mother’s name was Shelomith daughter of Dibri, of the tribe of Dan.)
So the next day they arose, offered burnt offerings, and presented peace offerings. And the people sat down to eat and drink, and got up to indulge in revelry.
And as soon as Gideon was dead, the Israelites turned and prostituted themselves with the Baals, and they set up Baal-berith as their god.