Abimelech Rule

Abimelech, son of Gideon by a concubine from Shechem, persuaded the lords of Shechem to back him as one of their own (Judges 9). With 70 pieces of silver from the temple of Baal-berith he hired reckless men, went to Ophrah and killed his 70 half-brothers "on one stone"; only the youngest, Jotham, escaped. Crowned king beside the oak at Shechem, he ruled three years before the Shechemites turned against him under Gaal. Abimelech destroyed the city, sowed it with salt and burned about a thousand people who had taken refuge in the stronghold of El-berith. Besieging the tower of Thebez, he was struck by an upper millstone thrown by a woman and asked his armor-bearer to kill him, so no one would say a woman had slain him.

From Mount Gerizim, Jotham told the Bible's earliest political fable: the trees seek a king, but the olive, fig and vine refuse, and only the thornbush accepts (Judges 9:8–15). At Tell Balata, ancient Shechem, excavators uncovered a massive fortress-temple that G. Ernest Wright proposed identifying with the temple of El-berith, an identification many accept as plausible.