Judges 9:16-21 Fire Smoldered

 16Now if you have acted faithfully and honestly in making Abimelech king, if you have done well by Jerubbaal and his family, and if you have done to him as he deserves— 17for my father fought for you and risked his life to deliver you from the hand of Midian, 18but you have risen up against my father’s house this day and killed his seventy sons on a single stone, and you have made Abimelech, the son of his maidservant, king over the leaders of Shechem because he is your brother— 19if you have acted faithfully and honestly toward Jerubbaal and his house this day, then may you rejoice in Abimelech, and he in you.

20But if not, may fire come from Abimelech and consume the leaders of Shechem and Beth-millo, and may fire come from the leaders of Shechem and Beth-millo and consume Abimelech.”

21Then Jotham ran away, escaping to Beer, and he lived there for fear of his brother Abimelech.

“Jotham raised this just for the sake of argument. He didn’t believe that 68 of his brothers were murdered for the sake of truth and sincerity.

b. Because he is your brother: The real reason the men of Shechem supported Abimelech was because he was their brother. Abimelech’s mother, though only a maidservant to Gideon, was from Shechem. Abimelech probably grew up in Shechem (Judges 8:31).” (Guzik)

“Abimelech’s mother is called a ‘slave girl’, a term usually referring to a wife’s servant who is also a concubine, such as Hagar or Bilhah.” (Wolf)

“The prophecy of Jotham was not to be immediately fulfilled. The fire smoldered for three years but at last manifested itself.” (Morgan)

When I read Morgan’s quote I can’t help to see a similarity to sin. 

The thought of sin begins with an ember in our mind, “the fire smoldered” until we allow and succumb to it, and “at last manifested itself”. 

But there is hope in Jesus Christ!

1 John 3: 5But you know that Christ appeared to take away sins, and in Him there is no sin. 

Thank you for allowing me to send you this devotional because I’m not sinless but by doing them it brings me closer to Jesus and helps me sin less.

Please keep my wife in your prayers, she lost her cousin two weeks ago to lung cancer, this last weekend her aunt passed away (last of that generation, her mother’s sister) and her stepmother is in hospice and not expected to last long.

Blessings