Judges 9:31
And he sent messengers unto Abimelech privily, saying, Behold, Gaal the son of Ebed and his brethren be come to Shechem; and, behold, they fortify the city against thee. And he sent messengers unto Abimelech privily, saying, Behold, Gaal the son of Ebed and his brethren be come to Shechem; and, behold, they fortify the city against thee.
Abimelech was the son of Gideon's maidservant, who had Gideon's sons slain in order to make himself ruler of Israel and who afterward utterly destroyed Shechem. The verse belongs to the account of his rule and the conflict at Shechem, which provides the setting for Jotham's parable. It stands within the larger account of Israel's backsliding from God and the suffering and oppression that followed that apostasy.
It marks the turning point after three years of Abimelech's wicked reign, when the Lord sent trouble among those united in an evil course in fulfillment of Jotham's words. The very men who had made Abimelech king had become disgusted with his demoralizing rule and heartless tyranny and determined to remove him by treachery, just as by treachery he had gained the throne, so that discord, strife, and hatred prevailed between Abimelech and his subjects. His cruelty had not ended with the sons of Gideon but fell upon everyone who opposed his will, and the rebellion at Shechem brought the time of retribution for both Abimelech and the Shechemites who had sustained him, for he had only been permitted to execute God's vengeance upon Israel until he passed the limits of divine forbearance.
The men of Shechem acted foolishly in choosing as ruler a man who had killed his brothers, showing that those doing valuable work for the Lord do not seek to rule over fellow believers and that ambition to be exalted over others shows unfitness to rule. The event proves that sin will never go unpunished and warns of the danger of entering the path of disobedience.