Bible Strands
Judges 9:6
Then all the leaders of Shechem and Beth-millo gathered beside the oak at the pillar in Shechem and proceeded to make Abimelech their king.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Judges 9:6 records the leaders of Shechem and Beth-millo assembling at a designated oak and pillar to formally crown Abimelech, occurring immediately after his massacre of seventy brothers and before Jotham’s public rebuke.
The words — The Hebrew וַיֵּאָסְפוּ (va.ye'asefu) literally means "and they gathered," while בַּעֲלֵי (ba'alei) denotes the "citizens" or "lords" of the cities, marking the specific political body that executes the coronation.
The thread — The oak and pillar imagery recalls Joshua 24:26, where Joshua sets a stone under an oak as a witness, while Shechem resurfaces in 1 Kings 12:25 as a royal center for Jeroboam, and the fortress reference in 2 Samuel 5:9 describes David fortifying Jerusalem, not Shechem.
Why it lands — The verse documents a concrete political coronation that requires the reader to assess the human machinery of power before confronting the divine judgment that follows.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
And all the men of Shechem gathered together, and all the house of Millo, and went, and made Abimelech king, by the plain of the pillar that was in Shechem.
Cross-references
- 2 Samuel 5:9 So David took up residence in the fortress and called it the City of David. He built it up all the way around, from the supporting terraces inward.
- 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.
- Joshua 24:26 Joshua recorded these things in the Book of the Law of God. Then he took a large stone and set it up there under the oak that was near the sanctuary of the LORD.
- 1 Kings 12:1 Then Rehoboam went to Shechem, for all Israel had gone there to make him king.
- 1 Kings 12:20 When all Israel heard that Jeroboam had returned, they summoned him to the assembly and made him king over all Israel. Only the tribe of Judah followed the house of David.
- 2 Kings 12:20 And the servants of Joash rose up and formed a conspiracy and killed him at Beth-millo, on the road down to Silla.