What Does Judges 8:31 Mean?

(31) **His concubine that was in Shechem.**—In Judges 9:18 she is contemptuously called his “maid servant.” The sequel (Judges 9:1-4) seems to show that she belonged to the Canaanite population of Shechem. If so, Gideon’s conduct in making her a concubine was as much against the Mosaic law as that of Solomon, though it may have had the same colour of worldly expediency. But it is probable that the requirements of the Mosaic law were much better known in the reign of Solomon, when the priests had once more become influential, than they were in this anarchical period. This concubine exercised an influence sufficiently important to cause the preservation of her name by tradition—Drumah (Jos. *Antt. v.* 7, § 1). **Whose name he called Abimelech.**—For “called” the margin has *set. *The phrase is not the ordinary one, and perhaps implies that Abimelech (Father-king—“a king, my father”) was a surname given him by his father on observing his ambitious and boastful character. It seems more probable that the name was given by the Shechemites and his mother, and it may not have been without some influence for evil upon his ultimate career. The name has exactly the same significance as Padishah and Attalik, the title of the Khan of Bokhara (Gesenius). Being a well-understood dynastic title (Genesis 20; Psalms 34 title), it would be all the more significant. He was like a bad reproduction of Gideon, with the courage and energy of his father, but with none of his virtues.