The Divine Millstone: God's Humiliating Gravitas Text: Judges 9:50-57
Introduction: The Chickens of Jotham's Curse
The book of Judges is a brutal and bloody affair, and it is so for our instruction. It is a record of Israel's covenantal decay, a relentless downward spiral where every man did what was right in his own eyes. And whenever men do what is right in their own eyes, what is right in God's eyes is soon forgotten, and then what is right in God's eyes is brought to bear upon them with terrible force. This is the law of the harvest. God is not mocked. Whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap. And in the story of Abimelech, we see a man who sowed the wind and reaped a whirlwind that came to a ridiculous and humiliating conclusion at the base of a tower in Thebez.
Abimelech is the quintessential modern man. He is a man driven by raw ambition, unconstrained by piety or principle. He is the son of Gideon, the great judge, but he is the son of Gideon's concubine, and he carries a chip on his shoulder the size of a small principality. He wants to be king. He wants to be a somebody. And so, he wades through the blood of his seventy brothers to get there, financed by the idolaters of Shechem. For three years, his little kingdom of brambles seems to prosper. But God has not forgotten the blood that cried out from the ground at Ophrah. And God has not forgotten the curse that Jotham, the lone surviving brother, shouted down from Mount Gerizim.
Jotham had cursed the unholy alliance between Abimelech and the men of Shechem, prophesying that they would devour one another in fire. And God, in His meticulous providence, sent a spirit of ill will between them to ensure that every jot and tittle of that curse came to pass. The chapter leading up to our text is the fulfillment of the first part of that curse. Abimelech, the bramble king, turns on his subjects and burns them alive in the tower of Shechem. He is a man who keeps his promises, especially the destructive ones. But God also keeps His promises. The story is not over. Abimelech, flush with his bloody victory, now turns his attention to the town of Thebez. But he is not marching toward another conquest. He is marching toward a divine appointment. He is about to learn that the God of Israel has a grim sense of humor and that His judgments are tailored with an exquisite and humiliating irony.
This passage is the capstone of the entire sordid affair. It is the final accounting, the divine audit of a wicked man's life. And in it, we see the absolute sovereignty of God in bringing proud men to nothing, the poetic justice of His retribution, and the unbreakable connection between sin and its consequences.
The Text
Then Abimelech went to Thebez, and he camped against Thebez and captured it. But there was a strong tower in the center of the city, and all the men and women with all the lords of the city fled there and shut themselves in; and they went up on the roof of the tower. So Abimelech came to the tower and fought against it and approached the entrance of the tower to burn it with fire. But a certain woman threw an upper millstone on Abimelech’s head, and she smashed his skull. Then he called quickly to the young man, his armor bearer, and said to him, “Draw your sword and put me to death, lest they say of me, ‘A woman killed him.’ ” So the young man pierced him through, and he died. Then the men of Israel saw that Abimelech was dead, so each went away to his home. Thus God returned the evil of Abimelech, which he had done to his father in killing his seventy brothers. God also returned all the evil of the men of Shechem on their own heads, and the curse of Jotham the son of Jerubbaal came upon them.
(Judges 9:50-57 LSB)
The Tyrant's Last Stand (vv. 50-52)
We begin with Abimelech's final military campaign.
"Then Abimelech went to Thebez, and he camped against Thebez and captured it. But there was a strong tower in the center of the city, and all the men and women with all the lords of the city fled there and shut themselves in; and they went up on the roof of the tower. So Abimelech came to the tower and fought against it and approached the entrance of the tower to burn it with fire." (Judges 9:50-52)
Abimelech is on a roll. He has just crushed the rebellion in Shechem with maximum prejudice, burning a thousand people alive. He is the strongman, the decisive leader, and he moves on to Thebez to mop up the remaining resistance. The pattern is drearily familiar. The city falls, and the inhabitants flee to the last defensible position, a strong tower. This is Shechem all over again. Abimelech has his playbook, and it has worked before. His plan is simple and brutal: approach the entrance and burn it down with everyone inside. This is the logic of totalitarianism. All opposition must be eradicated, utterly and without mercy.
Notice the arrogance. Abimelech himself, the king, approaches the entrance of the tower. This is not a job he delegates. He is leading from the front, basking in the terror he inspires. He is the great and terrible Abimelech, slayer of his brothers, burner of towers. He is at the very pinnacle of his power, about to repeat his signature move. He is utterly confident, utterly self-assured, and utterly oblivious to the fact that he is standing directly under the bullseye of God's retributive justice.
Men always think their sin will be the one that gets away with it. They believe their power, their cunning, or their sheer ruthlessness will exempt them from the moral laws that govern the universe. But the moral laws of the universe are not like traffic laws you can sometimes break without getting caught. They are like the law of gravity. You can defy it for a short time, but it always, always wins in the end. Abimelech is about to have a very personal and terminal lesson in the law of divine gravity.
The Divine Gravitas (vv. 53-54)
Just as Abimelech is about to set his fire, God intervenes, not with a lightning bolt, but with something far more humiliating.
"But a certain woman threw an upper millstone on Abimelech’s head, and she smashed his skull. Then he called quickly to the young man, his armor bearer, and said to him, “Draw your sword and put me to death, lest they say of me, ‘A woman killed him.’ ” So the young man pierced him through, and he died." (Judges 9:53-54 LSB)
Here is the glorious irony of God. The man who lived by fire is not killed by fire. The great warrior is not cut down in single combat by a mighty champion. No, the self-made king, the terror of Israel, is taken out by a "certain woman." She is not even named. She is an anonymous agent of divine providence. And the weapon she uses is not a spear or a sword, but a piece of kitchen equipment. An upper millstone. This was a common household tool, used for grinding grain. It was a symbol of domestic life, of hearth and home.
God reaches into a kitchen in Thebez, picks up a piece of a food processor, and uses it to crush the skull of the tyrant. This is not just death; this is mockery. The man who murdered his seventy brothers on one stone (Judges 9:5) is killed by one stone from above. The man who built his kingdom on masculine aggression and brute force is undone by a woman engaged in a domestic act. God loves to use the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He did it with Jael and a tent peg, and He does it here with an unnamed woman and a millstone. The head of the serpent is crushed by the seed of the woman, and here we have a small, historical foretaste of that great principle.
But the humiliation does not end there. Abimelech's final concern is not for his soul, but for his reputation. His dying thought is about his public relations. "Lest they say of me, 'A woman killed him.'" His masculine pride, the very engine of his sin, is what torments him in his final moments. He would rather be run through by his own servant than have the history books record the truth. He is so consumed with his own glory that he orchestrates his own assisted suicide to protect his image. But God's irony is thicker still. In trying to escape the shame, he immortalizes it. The only reason we know his pathetic last wish is because the Holy Spirit made sure it was written down for all time. His attempt to avoid the disgrace has become the very thing for which he is most remembered. Joab would later reference this very event as a cautionary tale (2 Samuel 11:21). Abimelech's legacy is not that of a king, but that of the fool who got too close to a wall and was killed by a woman.
The Final Accounting (vv. 55-57)
The story concludes with the aftermath and the divine commentary, leaving us in no doubt as to who was really in charge of these events.
"Then the men of Israel saw that Abimelech was dead, so each went away to his home. Thus God returned the evil of Abimelech, which he had done to his father in killing his seventy brothers. God also returned all the evil of the men of Shechem on their own heads, and the curse of Jotham the son of Jerubbaal came upon them." (Judges 9:55-57 LSB)
The death of a tyrant often brings not a power struggle, but simple relief. The army that followed him, bound likely by fear and greed, simply dissolves. "Each went away to his home." The great movement, the kingdom of Abimelech, was a one-man show, and when the man is gone, the whole thing evaporates. This is the fate of all man-centered enterprises. They have no lasting substance.
But verses 56 and 57 are the key to the whole chapter. The narrator pulls back the curtain of history and shows us the hand of God at work. "Thus God returned the evil of Abimelech." And "God also returned all the evil of the men of Shechem." The word "returned" here is crucial. It is the language of recompense, of paying back a debt. God is the great bookkeeper, and no sin is ever overlooked. The accounts may not be settled immediately, but they will be settled. The evil Abimelech did to his father's house, in murdering his brothers, was a debt that God has now called in, paid in full by a millstone and a sword.
And notice the scope. God not only judged Abimelech, but also the men of Shechem who enabled him. They were burned in their tower, just as Jotham's curse predicted. This is a sober warning for us. It is not just the active perpetrators of evil whom God holds accountable, but also those who aid, abet, and applaud them. Those who finance the wicked, who vote for the wicked, who cheer for the wicked, become partners in their wickedness and will be partners in their judgment.
Finally, the text explicitly states that "the curse of Jotham... came upon them." Jotham's words from the mountain were not just the desperate cry of a victim. They were prophetic. He spoke what was right and just, and God honored it. God's world is a world of cause and effect, of sowing and reaping. Jotham's curse was simply an articulation of the moral law that was already in motion. The fire they used to establish their kingdom became the fire that consumed them. They got what they asked for, good and hard.
Conclusion: The Millstone of the Gospel
It is easy to read a story like this and feel a grim satisfaction. The bad guy gets his, and it is a fitting end. But we must not stop there. The story of Abimelech is a warning to every proud heart, which is to say, it is a warning to every one of us. We are all tempted to be Abimelech in our own little kingdoms. We want to be sovereign. We want our will to be done. We resent any authority over us, especially God's. We build our towers of self-importance and dare God to touch them.
And the judgment for this pride is as certain for us as it was for Abimelech. The wages of sin is death. And a humiliating death at that. To stand before a holy God in our own righteousness is to be crushed, to have our skulls smashed by the weight of His perfect law.
But this is where the gospel comes in. There is another story of a king who had his head crushed. On the cross, the true King, Jesus Christ, took the curse that we deserved. He stood under the weight of all our sin, the full force of the divine millstone of justice, and it crushed Him. He was pierced by a spear, taking the judgment that men like Abimelech and you and I have earned.
He did this so that the curse would not have to fall on us. He took the humiliating death so that we would not have to. The story of Abimelech shows us the problem of our pride and the certainty of God's justice. The story of the cross shows us the solution in God's grace. Abimelech died trying to save his reputation. Christ died to save His people, reputation be damned. He endured the cross, despising the shame, for the joy that was set before Him.
Therefore, the question for us is this: will we be like Abimelech, standing in our pride at the foot of our own tower, waiting for the inevitable millstone of judgment? Or will we flee to the cross, to the tower of salvation, and hide ourselves in the King whose head was crushed for us? Will we trust in our own strength, which will fail, or in His, which is everlasting? God returned the evil of Abimelech on his own head. But for those who are in Christ, God returned our evil on Christ's head, so that He might give us Christ's righteousness. That is the great exchange, and it is the only safe place to stand when the millstones of God begin to fall.