Sunday, January 15, 2012

Week 17 Day 3 The Rise and Fall of a Leader

Judges 8 and 9

I have to admit. I have had a hard time with this passage. I have mentioned before...I am not a violence person. And that basically covers these two chapters.

I don't really care to relive it all.

So I will just give highlights.

Gideon was asked to be the ruler of the people.

He refused. In fact, he went as far as to say he wouldn't rule over them, nor would his son.

Except that Gideon didn't have just one son. He had 70 sons.

70.

That is a lot.

How would you keep up with all of them?

Anyway, one of those sons was the son of a slave woman.

Abimelech.

He was not like his father.

He did want to rule.

And after Gideon died, Abimelech convinced the relatives that he should be made ruler.

Then he promptly killed all of his brothers. (Nice guy, huh???)

Except for one.

One brother.

Jotham escaped.

In the end, Abimelech continued to grab power anyway he could.

Until his quest for power ended up being the death of him.

(One kind of funny, as funny as this stuff gets anyway...during an attack, a woman dropped a grinding stone on his head which obviously was going to kill him. Abimelech actually asked someone to kill him with a sword so that nobody could say a WOMAN killed him.)

Hoping for calmer waters in tomorrow's reading...

Judges 10-12

Reba

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