What is the meaning of the fable?

While the main part of the fable deals with the commissioning of a king, the interpretation principally represents the rejection of Abimelech’s style of kingship.¹ Indeed, kingship as such is not the issue, and therefore kingship itself is not being rejected—though that is a widely held opinion. Nowhere is there a hint that Abimelech’s crime was that he became king, and nowhere is it suggested that the Shechemites’ crime was that they made him king. The crime, rather, is their treachery and unfaithfulness shown to the house of Gideon.² Indeed…the climax (vv. 14–15), and not the preliminary scenes, carries the heaviest freight; the main concerns are the stupidity of the tress (v. 14) and the uselessness (except for bringing disaster!) of the bramble (v. 15). The fable does not stress the worthlessness of kingship but the worthlessness of Abimelech; the concern is not that the worthy candidates depreciate the offer of kingship but that a bramble accepts it.³

Jotham provides the interpretation of the fable. He wonders, tongue-in-cheek, if the leaders of Shechem acted in good faith when they made Abimelech king and in how they treated Gideon and his family (Judges 9:16–19). He knows they have not, that they conspired with Abimelech against Gideon’s house and sons. And they made the murderer of Gideon’s sons their king, which was an act of uttermost treachery and unfaithfulness.⁴ If they had acted honourably and in good faith, then they would have every reason to rejoice in making Abimelech king. But instead, Jotham invokes the curse, that fire would come out from the bramble, from Abimelech, and devour those foolish trees of Shechem. Yet Jotham also goes beyond the fable to make it a two-way curse: Let fire come out from the leaders…and devour Abimelech.