Transcendence 4

Thirteen: A Virgin Sacrifice

Strife began to build between the people and Abimelech. Then Gaal, son of Ebed, moved into Shechem. Gaal began to communicate with the people, he accentuated Abimelech's faults and convinced them he would be a much better leader. The people began to put their confidence in him. Gaal told them Abimelech should go back to his own country. He suggested that if it were up to him, and if the people were under his command, he would get rid of him. They soon held a festival and cursed Abimelech. 

It didn't take very long for Word to get back to Abimelech that Gaal and his brothers were stirring up trouble for him.

Abimelech gathered up his men, set out at night and took up concealed positions near Shechem in four companies. Gaal went out and was standing at the entrance to the city gate just as Abimelech and his soldiers came out of hiding. Gaal saw the men coming down the hill in the dark but didn't realize what was happening until Zebul, the governor told him that it was the very people he had ridiculed who were coming down the mountain to fight him. When Gaal understood what was happening he and some of the people of Shechem went out and fought. Abimelech attacked and many fell wounded in the fight. Zebul then drove Gaal and his brothers out of Shechem.

The next day the people of Shechem went out into the fields to discuss what to do. When Abimelech found out he divided his men and set up an ambush against them. He struck all the people in the field down. On hearing this the people who were watching  from the tower of Shechem went into the stronghold of the temple to gather there. When Abimelech heard where they were he took all his men and went up. He took an a ax and cut off branches of a tree and ordered his men to do the same. They piled up the branches against the stronghold and set it on fire over the people inside. About one thousand men and women died there. Next Abimelech went to Thebez and besieged it and captured it. Inside the city was a strong tower, to which all the men and women had fled. They had climbed to the tower roof. 

Abimelech approached the tower intending to set it on fire, but a woman dropped an upper millstone on his head and cracked his skull. Quickly he called to his armor-bearer and said, "Draw your sword and kill me so that they can't say a woman killed me." (Women in the bible were known for their bravery, even in an age when women had little respect. Grinding grain and setting up tents with pegs were traditionally considered women's work. Here a millstone came in handy just as a tent peg had for Jael when she killed Sisera.)

When the Israelite men who was with Abimelech saw that he was dead they retreated and went home. 

(These killings between Abimelech and the people were due to the wickedness that Abimelech had done to his father by murdering his seventy brothers, except for the one that escaped which was Jotham, who had called this curse on him. God avenged the evil. )

God then raised up a man from Shamir in the hill country of the clan of Ephraim as the next freedom fighter to save Israel. When he was old enough he led Israel with God's protection for twenty -three years. Then he died and was buried in Shamir.

He was followed by Jair of Gilead who led them for twenty-two years. He had thirty sons who controlled thirty towns in Gilead. When he died he was buried in Kamon.

After Jair's death the Israelites fell back and began to do evil again. They served the Baals and the Ashtoreths, the gods of Aram, Sidon, Moab and the gods of the Ammonites, and the Philistines. Of course the Lord's anger soon followed. He gave them into the hands of the Philistines and the Ammonites who shattered and crushed them. For eighteen years they oppressed all the Israelites on the east side of the Jordan in Gilead. The Ammonites also crossed the Jordan to fight against Judah, Benjamin and the house of Ephraim. The Israelites were in great distress. They cried out to the Lord admitting their sin, and admitting their need for the one true God.