Judges 9:37-57
center <02872> [middle. Heb. navel. Meonenim. or, the regarders of the times.]
ran from <06440 05127> [he fled before.]
Arumah <0725> [Arumah.]
This place appears from the next verse to have been near Shechem; and is perhaps the same as Ruma, a village of Galilee, mentioned by Josephus, Bell. 1. iii. c. 9.
Zebul <02083> [Zebul.]
blocked ........... attacked <06584> [rushed forward.]
captured <03920> [he took.]
leveled <05422> [beat.]
spread <02232> [sowed.]
Salt in small quantities renders land extremely fertile; but too much of it destroys vegetation. Every place, says Pliny, in which salt is found is barren, and produces nothing. Hence the sowing of a place with salt was a custom in different nations to express permanent desolation. Sigonius observes, that when Milan was taken, A.D. 1162, the walls were razed, and it was sown with salt. And Brantome informs us, that it was an ancient custom in France, to sow the house of a man with salt, who had been declared a traitor to his king. Charles IX., king of France, the most base and perfidious of human beings, caused the house of Admiral Coligni (whom he and the Duke of Guise caused to be murdered, with thousands more of Protestants, on the eve of St. Bartholomew, 1572,) to be sown with salt!
stronghold <06877> [an hold.]
Zalmon <06756> [Zalmon.]
seen <07200> [What ye.]
do ........ do <06213> [me do. Heb. I have done.]
put ...... stronghold ...... it <07760 06877> [put them.]
Thebez <08405> [Thebez.]
According to Eusebius, thirteen miles from Shechem, towards Scythopolis.
woman <0802> [woman.]
shattered <07533> [and all to.]
An antiquated expression, meaning "full intention" to complete an object. "All to," observes Dr. Johnson, "is a particle of mere enforcement." The original is {wattaritz eth gulgalto,} which is simply as the LXX. render [kai eklase to kranion autou,] "and she brake his skull." Plutarch relates, that Pyrrhus was killed at the siege of Thebes, by a piece of a tile, which a woman threw upon his head.
Draw ... sword <08025 02719> [Draw thy.]
young man ....................... young man <05288> [And his young man.]
It was a disgrace to be killed by a woman.
God repaid <07725 0430> [God rendered.]
Both the fratricide Abimelech and the unprincipled men of Shechem had the iniquity visited upon them of which they had been guilty. Man's judgment may be avoided; but there is no escape from that of God. How many houses have been sown with salt in France, by the just judgment of God, for the massacre of the Protestants on the eve of St. Bartholomew! See Note on ver. 45.
spoken <0935> [upon them.]
