Judges 9:49

49 So each of them cut down some branches, following Abimelech’s example. They piled the branches against the walls of the temple and set them on fire. So all the people who had lived in the tower of Shechem died—about 1,000 men and women.

Judges 9:49 Meaning and Commentary

Judges 9:49

And all the people likewise cut down every man his bough, and
followed Abimelech
With their boughs on their shoulders, so that they were men that seemed to be as trees walking:

and put them to the hold, and set the hold on fire upon them;
upon the men in it, or with them, the boughs of trees; it is probable the hold was made of wood, and so could the more easily be set on fire. Jarchi says it was a wood or forest, where they bent the trees, and divided them round about, and made a fence of them; but they would scarcely have left the tower for such a shelter:

so that all the men of the tower of Shechem died also;
fire being put to the hold, and they burnt in it; the Vulgate Latin version adds, with fire and smoke; for they being boughs of trees just cut down, with which they set fire to the hold, they would not burn easily and clearly, but make a prodigious smoke, with which many might be suffocated, as others burnt with fire; and it is unaccountable that Josephus ^F15 should say that faggots of dry wood were taken, and with them fire set to the hold, when the text is so express for it that they were boughs of green trees just cut off:

about a thousand men and women;
but the above historian makes them to be many more; he says the men were about 1500, and the rest a great multitude; this literally fulfilled Jotham's curse.

---

FOOTNOTES:

F15 Antiqu. l. 5. c. 7. sect. 4.

Judges 9:49 In-Context

47 Someone reported to Abimelech that the citizens had gathered in the temple,

48 so he led his forces to Mount Zalmon. He took an ax and chopped some branches from a tree, then put them on his shoulder. “Quick, do as I have done!” he told his men.

49 So each of them cut down some branches, following Abimelech’s example. They piled the branches against the walls of the temple and set them on fire. So all the people who had lived in the tower of Shechem died—about 1,000 men and women.

50 Then Abimelech attacked the town of Thebez and captured it.

51 But there was a strong tower inside the town, and all the men and women—the entire population—fled to it. They barricaded themselves in and climbed up to the roof of the tower.