A House Divided Cannot Stand
A House Divided Cannot Stand
Judges 9:1-2
Now Abimelech the son of Jerubbaal went to Shechem to his mother’s relatives and said to them and to the whole clan of his mother’s family, “Say in the ears of all the leaders of Shechem, ‘Which is better for you, that all seventy of the sons of Jerubbaal rule over you, or that one rule over you?’ Remember also that I am your bone and your flesh.”
I had intended to skip over the authorial note at the end of Judges 8 regarding the fact that Gideon followed the customs of ancient tribal chiefs by taking many wives as well as a concubine for himself, but the civil war that breaks out in the opening verse of chapter 9 has left me no choice. The point is clear as day throughout the Old Testament: multiplying wives does not increase familial love, but dismantles it.
Just ask Abraham if his decision to impregnate Sarah’s servant-girl Hagar increased the love in his marriage or deterred it? Then ask Hagar how it felt to get banished to the wilderness with a newborn son and face the daunting prospect of potential starvation. While you’re at it, ask Jacob about the bliss of marrying two sisters who competed for his affection and kept score by how many children they conceived. Then ask Leah what it felt like to be undesired and unloved, always living in the shadows of her sister’s beauty. See, polyamorous people today like to fancy polygamy as a love triangle, but it never is. It’s two love triangles, which is just a square divided.
Gideon evidently meets a woman in Shechem who suits his fancy, makes her a concubine, and produces a boy with her named Abimelech. Perhaps this seemed to him like an addition rather than a subtraction at first, but cracks in a foundation don’t remain hidden for long. I wonder: what was it like for Abimelech to grow up in the fringes of his father’s affections? How much did it sting him when brothers and extended family members called him illegitimate? How crippling must it have been for his psyche to know that he’d only ever be a partial heir to his father’s inheritance?
Gideon’s greatest virtue is that he refused to be a king in Israel, but his greatest weakness is that he still lived like one.