Judges 9: Abimelech’s conspiracy, the parable of the trees, Abimelech’s downfall.

This chapter follows the story of Gideon’s many sons; he had seventy sons by his many wives, and also one other son, Abimelech, by a concubine. After Gideon’s death, Abimelech went to the men of Shechem, where his mother’s family lived, and asked them if they would rather be ruled by seventy sons, or by him. The men of Shechem agreed it would be better to have one king, so they gave him seventy pieces of silver from the temple of Baal. Using the silver, Abimelech hired men to come with him, and they killed the seventy sons of Gideon except the youngest, Jotham, who hid. Then they anointed Abimelech king.

When Jotham heard the news, he stood on the top of Mount Gerizim and taunted the men of Shechem with a parable. In his parable, the trees were searching for a king to lead them; they ask the olive, then the fig, then the vine to rule over them. Each refuses, because they do not want to give up their special purpose. Finally, the bramble agrees to lead them, but gives them the choice of either sheltering in its non-existent shade or being consumed by its own fire.

Jotham explained the parable, warning that Abimelech and the men of Shechem would more than likely tear each other down in the end. Then he fled to Beer to escape his brother’s vengeance.

After Abimelech had ruled Israel for three years, the Lord sent an evil spirit to spark ill-will between Abimelech and the men of Shechem. This evil spirit was meant to avenge the killing of Gideon’s seventy sons.

The rest of this chapter describes the city’s descent into chaos, illustrating the various manifestations of evil and falsity through many examples. Robbers were sent to ambush travellers in the mountains, the people of Shechem drunkenly cursed Abimelech in the temple of their god, and the tower of Shechem was burned, killing a thousand hiding in it. Finally, Abimelech lay siege to Thebez, and the people took shelter on the top of a tower there. When he tried to burn that tower, a woman hurled down a millstone to break Abimelech’s skull. In his final moments, Abimelech commanded his armourbearer to kill him with his sword, so that people would not say he was killed by a woman. All of these incidents depict the absolute corruption under Abimelech’s rule.

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The key to understanding this story is that Gideon’s son, Abimelech, is the son of a concubine, not a lawful wife. Spiritually speaking, a concubine stands for a love that has become distorted. A genuine love for someone is a love for sake of that other person, while a distorted love means loving someone for what we can get from them (see Swedenborg’s work, Divine Love and Wisdom 271[2], on the love of dominating for the sake of self-love).

The references to Gideon’s seventy sons stand for the enormity of Abimelech’s wrongdoing. The number ‘seven’ stands for something fully worked through, and seventy even more so.

Jotham’s parable presents three levels of pure love: the love of the Lord (the olive with its fragrant oil), the love of truth (the vine with its rich wine), and the love of use (the fig with its abundant seeds). The bramble, with its painful grip, stands for a love of evil and falsity (see Swedenborg’s work, Arcana Caelestia 273).

The evil spirit sent by the Lord seems to show that God was punishing his own people, but that is only how things appear (Arcana Caelestia 1838). When we look deeper, we will realize that we are punished by our own evil actions, for evil breeds more evil and there is no rest for the wicked (see Isaiah 48:22). In regeneration, the process of breaking down the power of evil and false states in ourselves is called “vastation”. Once we have done the grueling work to minimize these influences over us, we can fully appreciate the joys of spiritual life (Arcana Caelestia 2694[2]).

Spiritually, an ambush depicts the way hell attacks our minds: without warning. Drunkenness and cursing a former ally stands for the abandonment of all values and integrity. The tower represents the pride which rises up in self-love and love of dominance, and beyond that, Abimelech’s aversion to being killed by a woman stands for the rejection of all that is good and true. Her millstone grinds corn to make it edible, in the same way that we must process truths to put them to use (see Swedenborg’s work, Apocalypse Explained 1182).

This powerful chapter shows the descent of evil into greater evils, until they become so consuming they have no vestige of good left, and no recognition of truth remaining. The final two verses state: “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 Gideon.”

593. Verse 1. And I saw another strong angel coming down out of heaven, signifies the Lord as to the Word, here as to its ultimate sense, which is called the sense of the letter. This is evident from the signification of a "strong angel," as being the Lord as to the Word (of which presently); it means as to the Word in its ultimate sense, which is called the sense of the letter, because it is from that sense that the Lord is called "strong," for all the strength and all the power of Divine truth exist and consist in its ultimate, consequently in the sense of the letter of the Word (of which also presently).

[2] Because it is the sense of the letter of the Word that is meant, therefore it is said that the angel was seen "coming down out of heaven." The like is said of the Word, which is the Divine truth; this comes down from the Lord through the heavens into the world, consequently it is adapted to the wisdom of the angels who are in the three heavens, and is also adapted to men who are in the natural world. For this reason the Word in its first origin of all is wholly Divine, afterward celestial, then spiritual, and lastly natural; it is celestial for the angels of the inmost or third heaven, who are called celestial angels, it is spiritual for the angels of the second or middle heaven who are called spiritual angels, and it is celestial-natural and spiritual-natural for the angels of the ultimate or first heaven who are called celestial-natural and spiritual-natural angels, and it is natural for men in the world; for so long as men live in a material body they think and speak naturally. This then is why the Word is with the angels of each heaven, but with a difference according to the degrees of their wisdom, intelligence, and knowledge [scientia]; and although it differs in its sense in each heaven, still it is the same Word, because it is the Divine itself, which is in the Word from the Lord that becomes Divine celestial when it comes down to the inmost or third heaven, and becomes Divine spiritual when it comes down therefrom to the middle or second heaven, and becomes Divine celestial-natural or spiritual-natural when it comes down from that heaven to the ultimate or first heaven, and when it comes down therefrom into the world becomes a Divine natural Word, such as it is with us in the letter. These successive derivations of Divine truth proceeding from the Lord Himself exist by virtue of correspondences, established from creation itself, between things higher and lower, respecting which, the Lord willing, more will be said hereafter.

[3] All strength and all power are in the ultimates of Divine truth, thus in the natural sense of the Word, which is the sense of the letter, because this sense is the containant of all the interior senses, that is, of the spiritual and celestial (spoken of above); and as it is the containant it is also the base, and in the base lies strength itself. For if higher things do not rest upon their base they fall and are scattered. So would it be if the spiritual and celestial things of the Word did not rest upon its natural or literal sense, for this not only sustains the interior senses, but also contains them, consequently the Word or Divine truth is not only in its power, but also in its fullness in this sense. (But on this subject more may be seen above; namely, that strength is in the ultimate, because the Divine is there in its fullness, n. 346, 567. That interior things flow in successively into exteriors, even into the most external or ultimate, and that they coexist there, see Arcana Coelestia 634, 6239, 6465, 9215, 9216; that they not only flow in successively, but also form in their ultimate what is simultaneous, in what order, n. 5897, 6451, 8603, 10099. That therefore there is strength and power in ultimates, n. 9836; that therefore responses and revelations were given in ultimates, n. 9905, 10548; that therefore the ultimate is more holy than the interiors, n. 9824.) From this, too, it follows that everything of doctrine of the church ought to be formed and confirmed from the literal sense of the Word, and that also doctrine has its power from that (See above, n. 356). This is why the "angel coming down out of heaven" is said to be "strong." That "angel" in the Word means in the highest sense the Lord, in a relative sense every recipient of Divine truth from the Lord, and in an abstract sense Divine truth itself, may be seen above (n. 130, 302); here, therefore, "angel" means the Lord as to the Word, because the Word is Divine truth itself. That the Lord Himself is here meant by "angel" can be seen from a like representation of the Lord Himself as to face and feet in the first chapter of this book, where it is said of the Son of man, who is the Lord:

That His face shone as the sun in his power, and that His feet were like unto burnished brass glowing in a furnace (verses Revelation 1:15, 16).