Judges, Chapter 9 - Leadership vs Power | Prophets of Israel Daily

[music] >> Shalom friends and welcome back to Judges chapter 9 brought to you by the land of Israel network at the landofisrael.com. Shalom Jeremy, good to see you. Yeah, it's good to be here. Good to see you, too. Last chapter, we stood in the aftermath of Gideon's great victory and he was, you know, a rare leader who, when he was offered, refused the crown. He said, "Hashem will rule over you, not me. Hashem's your king." It felt like clarity. Maybe the nation had finally learned the lesson. And then, chapter 9. Because what happens after a moment of clarity is often, as we've realized by now, the real test. Right, chapter 9 is unlike anything else in the book of Judges. There's no enemy invasion, no foreign oppressor, no Philistines, no Midianites, no iron chariots. It was a little bit painful and disillusioning for me, personally, to really go through this again. You know, the destruction in this chapter comes entirely from within. This is Israel's first experiment with human kingship and it's a catastrophe because of one man, Abimelech, the son Gideon arguably never should have had. The king Israel never should have wanted. Right, the chapter begins with a name, Abimelech, which means "Abi, my father, is king." Melech. Gideon spent his entire life insisting he was not a king and yet he named a son, "My father is king." And that contradiction at the heart of chapter 8 at the end is already embedded in the name of chapter 9's villain. Gideon's mouth said one thing and his life said another and Abimelech is the living consequence of that gap. You know, there's an interesting tension in Tanakh. The question is, is it ideal to have a king or not? I mean, when the nation comes to Samuel and asks for a king, he's devastated. Even God says, "They're not rejecting you, Samuel, they're rejecting me." So, it seems like having a king is not the best case scenario, but then at the same time, there is a Torah command to appoint a king when Israel comes into the land. So, in that way, it seems like it is ideal. But, here that tension reaches a new height because a king can be as good as David or as bad as Abimelech. And so, these stories are the ultimate warning for all of Israel. Like, nothing will impact us more than the king of Israel. And so, chart a path to him wisely or else. Or else. That's it. Right, what does Abimelech do? He goes to Shechem, his mother's city. She was from Shechem. And notice, he does not go to the elders of Israel. He doesn't appeal to shared destiny or divine mission. He goes to family, to blood, to tribal loyalty. Verse 1, Vayelech Abimelech ben Yerubaal and Abimelech, son of Yerubaal, went to Shechem, his mother's brothers. And the Midrash sees this as the seed of the entire corruption. The moment leadership is built on my people instead of Hashem's people, on nepotism instead of mission, it's already distorted at the root. This is the first failed prototype of monarchy and our sages read it as a powerful contrast because one day true malchut, true kingship will emerge from Yehudah, from Judah, from David and it must stand in absolute opposition to everything Abimelech represents. You have to see what kingship is not in some ways before you can recognize what it is. Anyways, Abimelech goes to Shechem and he makes his argument. Verse 2, "Is it better for you that 70 men rule over you or that one man rule over you? Remember that I am your bone and your flesh." The text tells us, Vayedaber el libam, "And he spoke to their hearts." He doesn't argue policy. He doesn't prove merit. He speaks to identity and emotion and tribal instinct. He stirs fear. He makes it about, "What's in it for you? What can I do for you?" And this is always how empty power works, not through argument, through feeling. And Shechem says, "Yes." They give him 70 pieces of silver from the temple of Baal Berith, the idol. And why tell us where the money came from? Because we learn this wasn't just funding. It was funding sourced from idolatry. The very foundation of Abimelech's rise is financed by avodah zarah, by idolatry. When a movement is born from impurity, it carries that impurity through its entire lifespan. The silver here isn't money, it's spiritual DNA. And by the way, what other silver does this remind you of in the Tanakh? The silver of Yosef's sale, of Joseph's sale. The silver his brothers received when they sold him into slavery. Right, small and transactional and yet it shapes all of history. And with that money, what does he do? With that money, he hires b'ischar anashim rekim. Right, he hires reckless and empty men. That's verse 4. Rekim, empty, not wicked, empty. Men with no calling, no purpose, which is exactly what a thornbush needs. Right, he was called a thornbush. It's the empty ones who follow the empty one. And then he goes to Ophrah and does something so horrific it almost defies comprehension. Vayarog et echav shiv'im ish al even achat. He killed his brothers, 70 men on one stone. Why one stone? This wasn't efficiency, it was symbolism. It was a a perverse imitation of of a sacrifice. But instead of elevating life to Hashem as the nation of Israel does, he desecrates it. The stone becomes an altar, but not of holiness, but of violence. But one survives, the youngest, Yotam, who hid himself. >> [snorts] >> Right, and we see the enormous weight in that quiet act. He hid. Wasn't a heroic battle, just hiding. And yet that act preserves the only moral voice left in the entire story. The quiet remnant that refuses to disappear becomes the bearer of the truth in this whole story. Sometimes, you know, it's it's the one that survives that is so important here and so Yotam stands on Har Gerizim, the mountain of blessing, and cries out to Shechem below and he tells them a parable, a parable of the trees. This parable is one of the oldest recorded parables in human literature and it's devastating. Right, it it really cuts to the core. It must have been hard to listen. He said he explains, "The trees go looking for a king. They ask the olive, 'Shall I' And what does the olive say? 'Shall I leave my oil which Hashem and men are honored? No, I won't.' The fig, what does the fig say? 'Shall I leave my sweetness and my good fruit? No.' Goes to the vine, 'Shall I leave my wine that cheers up Hashem and men?' The wine The vine says, 'No.' Three times the answer is no. Three times genuine leadership rooted in calling, producing fruit, knowing exactly what it is for, refuses to to to exchange its mission for power over others. Right, the olive, the fig, the vine, they're rooted in their calling. They produce fruit that nourishes and gladdens and because they're genuinely fruitful, because they know what they are for, they have no hunger for power. They're too busy being what they were made to be. And then the tree turns to the thornbush. Vayomru kol ha'etzim, "And all the trees said to the thornbush, 'You come and reign over us.'" Right, a thornbush, dry and spiky, something you you trip over, something that catches fire and spreads the flame to everything around it. And the thornbush says, "If in truth you are anointing me king over you, come and take refuge in my shade." The shade. Shade? The shade of a thornbush? A thornbush has no shade. It has thorns, dry wood that catches fire, nothing to offer anyone seeking shelter and yet it promises shade. And it threatens devastation if you don't comply. That is Abimelech in one image. You know, it's not just about Abimelech. It's important to know that Yotam's parable is about a people. It's about the people that chose him. I mean, the question isn't just why did you choose a thornbush? It's even deeper than that. I mean, the trees had to exhaust every worthy candidate first. The olive said no, the fig said no, the vine said no. Shechem passed over genuine leadership three times and still chose wrong. So, the question is, why did you choose thorns? The deeper question is, what does it say about you that fruit was available and you turned it down and turned to emptiness? I mean, this guy wasn't just murder. He murdered his own brothers. Is that what Gideon would have wanted? Yeah, and Yotam applies the parable directly, recounting what Gideon did for Israel, what Shechem did in return, and he pronounces a curse. Verse 20, "Let fire come out from Abimelech and consume the men of Shechem and let fire come out from the men of Shechem and consume Abimelech. They will destroy each other." And Yotam runs and he flees into exile and we never hear from him again. And so, for 3 years Abimelech rules and then exactly as the parable predicted Hashem sends an evil spirit between Abimelech and the men of Shechem. The alliance built on murder and idolatry idolatrous silver, right? The the product of it fractures from within. Ambushes and there's betrayals and rebellions and Abimelech Abimelech crushes it destroying Shechem burning the tower with a thousand men and women trapped inside a thousand lives gone and still he's not finished. I mean just so evil. He moves on to Thebez the the city falls the people flee to the tower and Abimelech who has burned his way through the city who believes himself unstoppable approaches the door to set it ablaze and an unnamed woman drops an upper millstone from the roof and it crushes his skull. Verse 55 and the battle withdrew every man to his place. Right? The moment the thorn bush falls the fire goes out. It was never about ideology or mission always about one man's hunger for power and the moment that man is gone nothing is left. No movement no legacy just men folding up and going home. And the sages notice something chilling. Abimelech killed 70 brothers on one stone and then he's killed by one stone. Midah k'neged midah. The stone he used as an altar of fratricide becomes the instrument of his own judgment. I mean he thought he was building something and really he was signing his own sentence and the woman who drops the millstone she doesn't have a name. There's no tribe. It's just a woman on a roof watching the most feared man in Israel approach with fire in his hands. She picks up what she has a grinding stone and like pretty much the most ordinary object and she drops it. And that's it. And the book keeps on returning to this. Yael with a tent peg, Devorah under the palm tree and here again the instrument of Hashem's justice is the person nobody's really watching. It's like an unnamed woman the one holding is what she has. And Abimelech's last words it says everything about him. He says don't let them say a woman killed me. I mean he goes to his death still more concerned about his image than his soul. And so the thorn bush to the end can't give shade only thorns. And with that the chapter reaches its final culmination it's it's verdict. Right? Chapter 9 verse 56. Thus God returned the wickedness of Abimelech which he did to his father in killing his 70 brothers. Verse 57 and all the evil of the men of Shechem did God return upon their heads and the curse of Yotam son of Jerubbaal came upon them. Right? God returned. Not eventually intervened not barely noticed God returned. He returned it upon them as if justice always is on the way as if the curse of Yotam was not wishful thinking from a traumatized survivor standing alone on a mountain but a statement of fact about how the world works that when you build on murder it that you will consume yourself. That what you plant with impurity will burn. That the fire always comes back to the thorn bush. Chapter 9 has no judge no Hashem appointed deliver no army of 300 no shofars just a man who wanted to be king and a God who would not let him escape what he did to get there. And and one young man on a mountain with a parable and a curse that came true because that is the warning of this chapter about any generation that trades calling for control that chooses thorns over fruit. Unfortunately we see it even today. You know any generation that empowers empty voices speaking to fear instead of to mission. So this chapter is a clearing the ground showing what kingship is not so that one day when true Malkhut emerges from Judah rooted not in self but in submission to Hashem it will stand in absolute contrast to everything we witnessed here. Sometimes redemption doesn't begin with light. Sometimes it begins with the exposure of darkness so that when the light finally comes we know exactly what we're being redeemed from and that's the difference between the thorn bush and the vine between a man who speaks to your heart with flattery and a man whose heart speaks to Hashem with humility. Right? David King David doesn't chase the throne the throne chases David. And Yotam he did not need an army. He needed only words and the God who heard them. There are different ways to connect my friends with us here at the Land of Israel Network. Each one is a little deeper than the last. At the foundation is the founder level where you become a yesod a cornerstone of the mission going out from here in Judea to the world. You carry us in ways that we feel every single day and we're super grateful for that. We don't take that for granted so please consider it and come find your place at the landofisrael.com. [music] Okay chazak u'baruch my friends we'll see you tomorrow for Judges chapter 10.