Judges 9:27
And they went out into the fields, and gathered their vineyards, and trode the grapes, and made merry, and went into the house of their god, and did eat and drink, and cursed Abimelech. And they went out into the fields, and gathered their vineyards, and trode the grapes, and made merry, and went into the house of their god, and did eat and drink, and cursed Abimelech.
Abimelech was the son of Gideon's maid, and to make himself ruler of Israel he had Gideon's sons slain, gathered vain and light men as his followers, and was chosen as ruler by the men of Shechem. His account belongs to Israel's repeated backsliding from God and the resulting suffering and oppression. After three years of his wicked reign the Lord sent trouble among those who had united in the evil course of making him king, and the verse marks the Shechemites rebelling against Abimelech.
The very men who had made him king became disgusted with his demoralizing rule and heartless tyranny and determined by treachery to remove him as he had gained the throne by treachery. Discord, strife, and hatred therefore prevailed between Abimelech and his subjects. In the outcome Shechem was utterly destroyed by Abimelech.
This discord fulfilled Jotham's words and brought the time of retribution for both Abimelech and the Shechemites who had sustained him, proving that sin will never go unpunished. The choice of Abimelech was folly, for ambition to rule over others shows lack of fitness for leadership, while those doing the most valuable work in the Lord's cause do not seek to rule their brethren. The account's election of the trees personifies things without life by giving them speech and actions, showing that such figurative personification does not prove that the dead are conscious. The verse thus shows the danger of entering the path of disobedience.