Judges 9:46

When the inhabitants of the castle of Shechem ("lords of the tower of Shechem" = "all the house of Millo," Jdg 9:6) heard of the fate of the town of Shechem, they betook themselves to the hold of the house (temple) of the covenant god (Baal-berith), evidently not for the purpose of defending themselves there, but to seek safety at the sanctuary of their god from fear of the vengeance of Abimelech, towards whom they also had probably acted treacherously. The meaning of the word צריח, which answers to an Arabic word signifying arx, palatium, omnis structura elatior, cannot be exactly determined, as it only occurs again in Sa1 13:6 in connection with caves and clefts of the rock. According to v. 49, it had a roof which could be set on fire. The meaning "tower" is only a conjecture founded upon the context, and does not suit, as צריח is distinguished from מגדּל. Jdg 9:47-49 As soon as this was announced to Abimelech, he went with all his men to Mount Zalmon, took hatchets in his hand, cut down branches from the trees, and laid them upon his shoulders, and commanded his people to do the same. These branches they laid upon the hold, and set the hold on fire over them (the inhabitants of the tower who had taken refuge there), so that all the people of the tower of Shechem (about one thousand persons) perished, both men and women. Mount Zalmon, which is mentioned again in Psa 68:15, was a dark, thickly-wooded mountain near Shechem, - a kind of "Black Forest," as Luther has rendered the name. The plural kardumoth, "axes," may be explained on the ground that Abimelech took axes not only for himself but for his people also. מה in a relative sense, as in Num 23:3 (see Ewald, 331, b.).

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."