Judges 9:47

And it was told Abimelech, that all the men of the tower of Shechem were gathered together.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

9:30-49 Abimelech intended to punish the Schechemites for slighting him now, but God punished them for their serving him formerly in the murder of Gideon's sons. When God uses men as instruments in his hand to do his work, he means one thing, and they another. That, which they hoped would have been for their welfare, proved a snare and a trap, as those will certainly find, who run to idols for shelter; such will prove a refuge of lies.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

An hold of the house of the god Berith - As combining the advantages of a "sanctuary" (compare 1 Kings 2:28) and a fortress. The word rendered "hold" occurs elsewhere only in 1 Samuel 13:6, where it is rendered "high-place." Its exact signification is uncertain.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

28-45. would to God this people were under my hand—He seems to have been a boastful, impudent, and cowardly person, totally unfit to be a leader in a revolutionary crisis. The consequence was that he allowed himself to be drawn into an ambush, was defeated, the city of Shechem destroyed and strewn with salt. The people took refuge in the stronghold, which was set on fire, and all in it perished.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

No text from Poole on this verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And it was told Abimelech,.... Who had his spies about, and particularly to observe the motions of the men in this tower:

that all the men of the tower of Shechem were gathered together; in the hold of the temple of Baalberith.

Geneva Study Bible

And it was told Abimelech, that all the men of the tower of Shechem were gathered together.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Judges 9:47

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

As soon as this was announced to Abimelech, he went with all his men to Mount Zalmon, took hatchets in his hand, cut down branches from the trees, and laid them upon his shoulders, and commanded his people to do the same. These branches they laid upon the hold, and set the hold on fire over them (the inhabitants of the tower who had taken refuge there), so that all the people of the tower of Shechem (about one thousand persons) perished, both men and women. Mount Zalmon, which is mentioned again in Psalm 68:15, was a dark, thickly-wooded mountain near Shechem, - a kind of "Black Forest," as Luther has rendered the name. The plural kardumoth, "axes," may be explained on the ground that Abimelech took axes not only for himself but for his people also. מה in a relative sense, as in Numbers 23:3 (see Ewald, 331, b.).