Judges 9:43-45

Amplified Bible, Classic Edition

⁴³He took his men and divided them into three companies and laid in wait in the field; and he looked and behold, the people were coming out of the city. And he rose up against them and smote them.

⁴⁴And Abimelech and the company with him rushed forward and stood in the entrance of the city’s gate, while the two other companies rushed upon all who were in the field and slew them.

⁴⁵And Abimelech fought against the city all that day. He took the city and slew the people who were in it. He demolished the city and ^[a]sowed it with salt.

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Footnotes

Judges 9:45 This strewing of salt over Shechem was not intended (even if Abimelech had been able to supply enough salt) actually to make the ground unfruitful; but it was a symbol of perpetual desolation, and a sign that Shechem never would be rebuilt. However, such a forecast of a city’s fate made by a true prophet of God, or by the Lord Himself, was one thing. This forecast, symbolized by the wicked usurper Abimelech, was quite another thing. For Shechem was later rebuilt (I Kings 12:25), and so was denounced Jericho (I Kings 16:34; see also Josh. 6). But this is not true of Samaria (Mic. 1:6), or Nineveh (Nah. 1:9-12), or Ashkelon (Zeph. 2:4), or the cities of Edom (Ezek. 35:9), or Tyre (Ezek. 26:3, 14), or Chorazin, or Bethsaida, or Capernaum (Matt. 11:20, 21, 23). That these cities, as such, would never be rebuilt permanently was foretold on the authority and by order of God Himself. “Sky and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away” (Matt. 24:35).