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ABIMELECH

(Heb. ʾăḇîmeleḵ)

1. The king of Gerar who, believing Sarah to be Abraham’s sister, took her for his own spouse (Gen. 20:2) until God revealed to him that she was Abraham’s wife and death would be the result of his molesting her. Abimelech also appears in a similar story involving Rebekah and Isaac (Gen. 26:1-16), where he warns others not to molest Rebekah or they will be put to death, suggesting he learned from the first episode. In this latter tale he is called “Abimelech of the Philistines,” which can only be an anachronism reflecting a story told well after the events were supposed to have taken place.

2. The son of Gideon (Jerubbaal) and his concubine in Shechem (Judg. 8:31). His story (Judg. 9) is told to demonstrate the dangers of kingship, the divine preference for individually selected rulers, and the futility of trust in gods other than Yahweh. His name, “My father is king,” may be a literary device; otherwise it would suggest that Gideon saw himself as a king and so named this son to reflect that status, or perhaps it was a throne name taken after seizing power to legitimate his own claim to the throne. The name Abi-melek was relatively common in ancient Syria-Palestine.

Seeking the kingship which by inheritance should have belonged to his 70 half-brothers by Gideon’s official wives, Abimelech, with the urging of the citizens of Shechem and the aid of personnel from the temple of Baal-berith (“Baal of the Covenant”), assassinated all but one of his brothers; Jothan, the youngest, managed to escape (a standard plot motif). The populace of Shechem declared Abimelech king in succession to his father, who had been a popular judge. He set up his capital outside Shechem, finally at Arumah (Judg. 9:31, 41), which may explain the ensuing revolt by Shechem. He reigned for three years.

Jothan declared that the duplicity of the Shechemites and of Abimelech would be returned upon them. This was accomplished when Shechem declared Gaal son of Ebed, a newcomer to town, its king in place of Abimelech. In the resultant battle Abimelech and his ally in the city, Zebul, defeated Shechem, overrunning the lower city and then burning the inner city with a thousand of its citizens inside. The temple of El-berith, to which the populace had fled, was no protection, for all were slain and the city’s ruins sown with salt to guarantee its continued destruction.

From there Abimelech moved on Thebez and attempted the same tactic, only here a woman in the city’s fortress dropped a millstone on his head. Knowing he was to die, he asked his attendant to slay him so that no one would say a woman had killed him, but this only insured that it would be remembered (2 Sam. 11:21).

3. In the heading of Ps. 34, , a ruler before whom David feigned insanity in order to escape. The story to which this line alludes appears to concern Achish king of Gath (1 Sam. 21:10–22:1), but may possibly refer to another incident where David used the same ruse with a different ruler otherwise not recorded. Less likely, it has been argued that Achish and Abimelech were two different names for the same ruler.

4. One of David’s two chief priests, the son of Abiathar (1 Chr. 18:16 MT). While some translations retain the Hebrew form of the name, most translators assume a scribal error and read Ahimelech son of Abiathar with 2 Sam. 8:17; 1 Chr. 24:6.

Bibliography. J. P. Fokkelman, “Structural Remarks on Judges 9 and 19,” in “Shaʿarei Talmon,” ed. M. Fishbane and E. Tov (Winona Lake, 1992), 33-45; B. Halpern, “The Rise of Abimeleck Ben-Jerubbaal,” HAR 2 (1978): 79-100.

Lowell K. Handy

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

ABIMELECH

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)