Abimelech at Shechem and Jotham's Parable

After Gideon's death his son Abimelech came to Shechem, to his mother's kin, and said to the townsmen: which is better for you, that seventy men rule over you, or one? They gave him seventy pieces of silver from the house of Baal-berith; he hired men and killed his seventy brothers on one stone. "And Jotham the youngest son of Jerubbaal was left, for he hid himself."

When Abimelech was being made king by the oak at Shechem, Jotham stood on the top of Mount Gerizim and called out a parable. The trees went to anoint a king over themselves. They called the olive—it will not leave its fatness; the fig—its sweetness; the vine—its wine. Then they spoke to the bramble, and it answered: "if in truth you anoint me king over you, come and take refuge in my shade; and if not, let fire come out of the bramble and devour the cedars of Lebanon."

Three years later Shechem and Abimelech turned on each other. Abimelech burned the tower of Shechem, and at Thebez a woman cast a piece of a millstone from the tower onto his head, and he asked his armour-bearer to finish him with the sword. The book sums it up with Jotham's words: fire came out from both sides.

The book of Judges does not call Abimelech a judge. Of him it says "va-yasar"—he held power; a different verb from all the others.