Putting it mildly, Abimelek is not happy with his position as an outsider, and he is dominated by a ruthless craving to change his marginal existence (cf. Jephthah later [11:1–7]). He deliberately splits his next-of-kin into two irreconcilable groups: the mother’s side, whom he uses to raise him to the throne, and the father’s side, whom he, with deep hatred, murders in the most gruesome execution imaginable. The scene is inconceivable—one victim after another after another on the same single stone. Body upon body upon body dispatched with unspeakable horror. Again and again and again until
...more
