Though the young man obeyed deals the final blow, the credit for slaying this king goes to the unnamed woman. The irony then is that “the man who had accomplished so much so quickly—gaining the kingship of the significant city of Shechem, murdering sixty-nine of his sibling rivals, staving off a revolt and destroying all the rebels, conquering the city of Thebez—falls victim to a woman. The man who had shamelessly played the female card to seize the throne (Judges 9:1–2) now shamefully falls victim to a representative of this gender. Indeed the story of Abimelech the macho man is framed by two women: the first, who gave him life (Judges 8:31), and the second, who took it (Judges 9:53).1
54 Then he called quickly to the young man his armor-bearer and said to him, “Draw your sword and kill me, lest they say of me, ‘A woman killed him.’” And his young man thrust him through, and he died.