Usurpation by Abimelech

8:29Jerubbaal the son of Joash went and lived in his own house.

8:30Gideon had seventy sons conceived from his body, for he had many wives.

8:31His concubine who was in Shechem also bore him a son, and he named him Abimelech.

8:32Gideon the son of Joash died in a good old age, and was buried in the tomb of Joash his father, in Ophrah of the Abiezrites.

8:33As soon as Gideon was dead, the children of Israel turned again and played the prostitute following the Baals, and made Baal Berith their god.

8:34The children of Israel didn’t remember the LORD their God, who had delivered them out of the hand of all their enemies on every side;

8:35neither did they show kindness to the house of Jerubbaal, that is, Gideon, according to all the goodness which he had shown to Israel.

9:1Abimelech the son of Jerubbaal went to Shechem to his mother’s brothers, and spoke with them and with all the family of the house of his mother’s father, saying,

9:2“Please speak in the ears of all the men of Shechem, ‘Is it better for you that all the sons of Jerubbaal, who are seventy persons, rule over you, or that one rule over you?’ Remember also that I am your bone and your flesh.”

9:3His mother’s brothers spoke of him in the ears of all the men of Shechem all these words. Their hearts inclined to follow Abimelech; for they said, “He is our brother.”

9:4They gave him seventy pieces of silver out of the house of Baal Berith, with which Abimelech hired vain and reckless fellows who followed him.

9:5He went to his father’s house at Ophrah, and killed his brothers the sons of Jerubbaal, being seventy persons, on one stone; but Jotham the youngest son of Jerubbaal was left, for he hid himself.