Judges 9 · a question people ask
"God sent an evil spirit between Abimelech and the men of Shechem" (9:23). How can God send an evil spirit?
The verse says it plainly, and the next verse says why: "that the violence done to the seventy sons of Jerubbaal might come, and that their blood might be laid on Abimelech their brother who killed them, and on the men of Shechem who strengthened his hands" (9:24). The same two Hebrew words, ruach ra'ah, "evil spirit", come again in Saul's story: "an evil spirit from the LORD troubled him" (1 Samuel 16:14). And the prophet Micaiah saw "the LORD sitting on his throne" (1 Kings 22:19), and "A spirit came out and stood before the LORD" (1 Kings 22:21), and said, "I will go out and will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets" (1 Kings 22:22); Micaiah told Ahab, "the LORD has put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these your prophets" (1 Kings 22:23). Christians read 9:23 in two main ways. Both agree on what the verse says: God sent it, it came "between" Abimelech and the men of Shechem (9:23), and it came so that the blood of the seventy would be laid on those who shed it (9:24). Both also read it beside James: "God can’t be tempted by evil, and he himself tempts no one" (James 1:13).
How Christians read it
Where Christians differ, Favor sets out the main views side by side and doesn't pick one.
A spirit sent as judgment
Those who hold this view read "evil spirit" as a spirit that God, who rules over all, sent to carry out his judgment on those who had already shed blood (9:24). They point to Saul's "evil spirit from the LORD" (1 Samuel 16:14), to the spirit that stood "before the LORD" in Micaiah's vision (1 Kings 22:21-23), and to Paul's words about those who refuse the truth: "God sends them a powerful delusion, that they should believe a lie" (2 Thessalonians 2:11). The treachery, they note, was still the men of Shechem's own: "the men of Shechem dealt treacherously with Abimelech" (9:23).
Judges 9:23-24 · 1 Samuel 16:14 · 1 Kings 22:21-23 · 2 Thessalonians 2:11
Ill will God let loose
Those who hold this view read "evil spirit" as a spirit of ill will and trouble "between Abimelech and the men of Shechem" (9:23), set loose by God as a judgment on the partners in the murder (9:24). They note that Brown-Driver-Briggs gives ruach the sense "temper, disposition" as well as "spirit", and that the Hebrew word for evil covers what is "bad, unpleasant, giving pain" (Brown-Driver-Briggs) as well as moral evil; the LORD says in Isaiah, "I make peace and create calamity" (Isaiah 45:7), where calamity is the same Hebrew word (Strong's H7451). And they read God's sending as God giving people over to what they had chosen, as Paul says, "God also gave them up in the lusts of their hearts" (Romans 1:24).
Judges 9:23-24 · Isaiah 45:7 · Romans 1:24
The verses
“Then God sent an evil spirit between Abimelech and the men of Shechem; and the men of Shechem dealt treacherously with Abimelech, that the violence done to the seventy sons of Jerubbaal might come, and that their blood might be laid on Abimelech their brother who killed them, and on the men of Shechem who strengthened his hands to kill his brothers.”
“Now the LORD’s Spirit departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the LORD troubled him.”
“Let no man say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God,” for God can’t be tempted by evil, and he himself tempts no one.”