Thus God rendered the wickedness of Abimelech, which he did unto his father, in slaying his seventy brethren:
Parallel translations
- WEB Thus God repaid the wickedness of Abimelech, which he did to his father, in killing his seventy brothers;
- BSB In this way God repaid the wickedness that Abimelech had done to his father in murdering his seventy brothers.
- NKJV Thus God repaid the wickedness of Abimelech, which he had done to his father by killing his seventy brothers.
- NASB So God repaid the wickedness of Abimelech, which he had done to his father in killing his seventy brothers.
- NLT In this way, God punished Abimelech for the evil he had done against his father by murdering his seventy brothers.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
God thus repaid Abimelech's wickedness in murdering his seventy brothers. The narrator names the events as divine justice.
Overview
The text interprets Abimelech's death as God's deliberate recompense for the slaughter of Gideon's sons (9:5). What looked like chance battlefield events were the hand of God repaying bloodguilt. This explicit theological summary assures readers that God governs history and will not leave evil unpunished.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 11
- Ps 94:23And he shall bring upon them their own iniquity, and shall cut them off in their own wickedness; yea, the LORD our God shall cut them off.
- Prov 5:22His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins.
- Ps 58:10–11The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance: he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked.
- Ps 11:6Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest: this shall be the portion of their cup.
- Ps 9:12When he maketh inquisition for blood, he remembereth them: he forgetteth not the cry of the humble.
- Judg 9:24That the cruelty done to the threescore and ten sons of Jerubbaal might come, and their blood be laid upon Abimelech their brother, which slew them; and upon the men of Shechem, which aided him in the killing of his brethren.
- Matt 7:2For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.
- Gal 6:7Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.
- Acts 28:4And when the barbarians saw the venomous beast hang on his hand, they said among themselves, No doubt this man is a murderer, whom, though he hath escaped the sea, yet vengeance suffereth not to live.
- Rev 19:20–21And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone.
- Job 31:3Is not destruction to the wicked? and a strange punishment to the workers of iniquity?
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Christ at the center
Israel's cycle of sin and rescue through flawed deliverers cries out for a Savior who never fails — the true and final Judge and Deliverer who saves his people not for a season but forever.
How Judges 9:56 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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