Judges 9:16

16 Now if you have acted faithfully and honestly in making Abimelech king, if you have done well by Jerubbaal and his family, and if you have done to him as he deserves—

Judges 9:16 Meaning and Commentary

Judges 9:16

Now therefore, if ye have done truly and sincerely, in that ye
have made Abimelech king
If they had done this conscientiously, and in the uprightness of their hearts, to take such a base man, and a murderer, and make him their king, which Jotham doubted, and put it in this manner to them, that they might consider of it themselves:

if ye have dealt well with Jerubbaal, and his house;
if they could think so, which surely they could not, when they reflected upon the murder of his family they had consented to:

and have done unto him according to the deserving of his hands;
to his memory, and to his family, according to the merit of his works which he had performed on their account, next mentioned.

Judges 9:16 In-Context

14 Finally all the trees said to the thornbush, ‘Come and reign over us.’

15 But the thornbush replied, ‘If you really are anointing me as king over you, come and find refuge in my shade. But if not, may fire come out of the thornbush and consume the cedars of Lebanon.’

16 Now if you have acted faithfully and honestly in making Abimelech king, if you have done well by Jerubbaal and his family, and if you have done to him as he deserves—

17 for my father fought for you and risked his life to deliver you from the hand of Midian,

18 but you have risen up against my father’s house this day and killed his seventy sons on a single stone, and you have made Abimelech, the son of his maidservant, king over the leaders of Shechem because he is your brother—