Judges 9:11, commentary and pictures

Jotham spoke it from Mount Gerizim as a sharp rebuke to the people of Shechem for choosing Abimelech as king after he had Gideon's sons slain to make himself ruler. In his story the trees hold a council and election to choose a king, and when they ask the fig tree to reign over them it refuses to forsake its sweetness and good fruit to be promoted over them. The account is an imagined fable that uses impossible speech and actions of plants to impress a moral truth, giving a lifeless tree human thoughts, words, and choice as if it were a rational being. Its refusal exposes the folly and injustice of making Abimelech king and portrays the noble, unambitious leader like Moses or Joshua, who blesses others and does not seek rank or rulership over his brethren. The speech does not prove that trees are conscious or can literally speak, but illustrates how Scripture figuratively makes inanimate and lifeless things speak and act as though alive.

Setting and Literary Form

The verse belongs to Jotham's keen reproof of the people of Shechem for choosing Abimelech as king. It was spoken from Mount Gerizim where he could be seen and heard while they celebrated Abimelech with mirth and indulgence after the murder of Gideon's family. Abimelech was the son of Gideon's maid, who had Gideon's sons slain in order to become ruler of Israel and who utterly destroyed Shechem.

In the story the trees seek and choose a king and hold a council and election. They say to the fig tree to come and reign over them. The fig tree answers that it will not forsake its sweetness and good fruit to be promoted and to rule over the trees.

The passage is an apologue, parable, or fable. It uses fictitious, imagined, and impossible speech and actions of plants to impress a moral truth in a striking way through an imaginary scene. Its impossible events signal that it is not meant as literal fact or a report of events that actually occurred. Such imaginative features do not make the account false or create a false impression.

The device is personification. An inanimate and lifeless tree is given animation and represented as if alive. It is given the figure, human thoughts, sentiments, affections, reasoning, actions, words, and language of a rational being. So it speaks and answers and chooses a ruler and expresses the sentiments of a person.

Moral Meaning and Application

Jotham's word from Mount Gerizim, where he could be seen and heard by the people while they celebrated Abimelech with mirth and indulgence after the murder of Gideon's family, is keen reproof in which the fig tree will not forsake its fruit to be promoted over the trees. In that fitting parable the refusal exposes the folly and injustice of making Abimelech king. It portrays the unselfish, unambitious conduct of Gideon and his sons against the ingratitude of the Shechemites.

The fig tree stands for the noble, upright leader like Moses or Joshua, whose work was to bless others and who did not seek rank or power. Those doing valuable work in the Lord's cause do not seek rulership over their brethren. Ambition to be exalted over others shows lack of qualification to rule.

To take the rulership would mean giving up sweetness and good fruit. Churches therefore should contend to bear the best fruit rather than to be most unprofitable. Unlike the trees in the fable, people can choose and are accountable for their choices.

Light on Lifeless Speech

The talking trees do not show that trees possess awareness or understanding or the power of literal speech, and the story must not be employed to establish that they do. The refusal to abandon pleasantness and valuable produce in order to take dominion over other trees belongs to imagined dialogue, not to a factual report of vocal plants. The whole scene of trees conversing from Judges 9:8-15 is a parable using invented utterance to convey its lesson.

The verse exemplifies the scriptural practice of figuratively ascribing utterance and conduct to objects without life, causing what has no life to express human words and deeds. Here the trees are depicted as conferring together and selecting a ruler, with the fig tree furnished with human thoughts and replying to their invitation. A tree is thus made to speak and answer as if it were living, illustrating how an inanimate thing can be made to voice the sentiments of a person.

It is the same device of personification by which lifeless things are granted animation and the dead are presented as speaking and acting as though alive. The fig tree declining to leave its pleasantness and valuable produce to govern the other trees is an inanimate object speaking as if alive. In the election the trees invite the fig tree to come and reign, and it responds with the figure, feelings, affections, actions and language of a rational being. By that figure the dead are likewise personified to speak and act with reference to the facts of their own cases as though they were alive.