Bible Strands
Judges 9:45
And all that day Abimelech fought against the city until he had captured it and killed its people. Then he demolished the city and sowed it with salt.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Abimelech directs a day-long assault on Shechem while his troops simultaneously secure the gate and slaughter those in the surrounding fields (Judges 9:44). The verse records the moment of total conquest before the surviving leaders retreat to the temple tower (Judges 9:46).
The words — נִלְחָם (nil.Cham) describes the continuous action of fighting, while כֹּל הַיּוֹם הַהוּא (kol hai./Yom ha./Hu') emphasizes the unbroken duration of the siege. וַיִּלְכֹּד (va/i.yil.Kod) marks the decisive transition from combat to capturing the city.
The thread — Sowing the ruined city with salt directly mirrors the covenant warning in Deuteronomy 29:23, where soil becomes a sulfur-and-salt waste left unsown. The systematic destruction of infrastructure and crops also aligns with the scorched-earth tactics recorded in 2 Kings 3:25.
Why it lands — The text demands recognition that military conquest, when paired with agricultural desolation, enacts a permanent severance from the land. It forces a reader to confront the finality of judgment without softening the historical reality of the event.
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The Hebrew words
King James Version
And Abimelech fought against the city all that day; and he took the city, and slew the people that was therein, and beat down the city, and sowed it with salt.
Cross-references
- Deuteronomy 29:23 All its soil will be a burning waste of sulfur and salt, unsown and unproductive, with no plant growing on it, just like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the LORD overthrew in His fierce anger.
- 2 Kings 3:25 They destroyed the cities, and each man threw stones on every good field until it was covered. They stopped up every spring and cut down every good tree. Only Kir-haraseth was left with stones in place, but men with slings surrounded it and attacked it as well.
- 1 Kings 12:25 Then Jeroboam built Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim and lived there. And from there he went out and built Penuel.
- Psalms 107:34 and fruitful land into fields of salt, because of the wickedness of its dwellers.
- Ezekiel 47:11 But the swamps and marshes will not become fresh; they will be left for salt.
- Zephaniah 2:9 Therefore, as surely as I live,” declares the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, “surely Moab will be like Sodom and the Ammonites like Gomorrah—a place of weeds and salt pits, a perpetual wasteland. The remnant of My people will plunder them; the remainder of My nation will dispossess them.”
- James 2:13 For judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment.