Abimelech (Judges)
Abimelech or Abimelek was the king of Shechem and the tribal territory of Manasseh, and a son of biblical judge Gideon. His name can best be interpreted as "my father is king", claiming the inherited right to rule. He is introduced in Judges 8:31 as the son of Gideon and his Shechemite concubine, and the biblical account of his reign is described in chapter nine of the Book of Judges. According to the Bible, he was an unprincipled and ambitious ruler who often engaged in wars against his own subjects.
Quotes
[edit]- (Last words) (after being struck by a woman, addressed to his squire}) Then he called quickly to the young man, his armorbearer, and said to him, “Draw your sword and kill me, lest men say of me, ‘A woman killed him.’ ” So his young man thrust him through, and he died.
- Book of Judges 9:54 NKJV.
Quotes about
[edit]- (King David) Who struck Abimelech the son of [d]Jerubbesheth? Was it not a woman who cast a piece of a millstone on him from the wall, so that he died in Thebez?
- 2 Samuel 11:22 NKJV.
- And when the men of Israel saw that Abimelech was dead, they departed, every man to his place.
- Thus God repaid the wickedness of Abimelech, which he had done to his father by killing his seventy brothers. And all the evil of the men of Shechem God returned on their own heads, and on them came the curse of Jotham the son of Jerubbaal.
- Judges 9:55-57 NKJV.
