Discovery BoxJudges 9:45 
Context9:45 Abimelech fought against the city all that day. He captured the city and killed all the people in it. Then he leveled 1 the city and spread salt over it. 2
Judges 9:50
Context9:50 Abimelech moved on 3 to Thebez; he besieged and captured it. 4
Judges 9:56-57
Context9:56 God repaid Abimelech for the evil he did to his father by murdering his seventy half-brothers. 5 9:57 God also repaid the men of Shechem for their evil deeds. The curse spoken by Jotham son of Jerub-Baal fell 6 on them.
1 tn Or “destroyed.”
2 tn Heb “sowed it with salt.”
sn The spreading of salt over the city was probably a symbolic act designed to place the site under a curse, deprive it of fertility, and prevent any future habitation. The practice is referred to outside the Bible as well. For example, one of the curses in the Aramaic Sefire treaty states concerning Arpad: “May Hadad sow in them salt and weeds, and may it not be mentioned again!” See J. A. Fitzmyer, The Aramaic Inscriptions of Sefire (BibOr), 15, 53. Deut 29:23, Jer 17:6, and Zeph 2:9 associate salt flats or salty regions with infertility and divine judgment.
3 tn Or “went.”
4 tn Heb “he camped near Thebez and captured it.”
5 tn Heb “seventy brothers.”
6 tn Heb “came.”
