Judges 9 · a question people ask
Was Abimelech one of the judges?
The text never calls him one. It doesn't say the LORD raised him up, that he saved anyone, or that he judged Israel. It says "the men of Shechem… made Abimelech king" (9:6), that Jotham called him "king over the men of Shechem" (9:18), and that "Abimelech was prince over Israel three years" (9:22). Compare the next man in the book: "After Abimelech, Tola the son of Puah… arose to save Israel" (10:1), and "He judged Israel twenty-three years" (10:2). The book's introduction puts Abimelech's being made king beside Gideon's answer, "I will not rule over you… The LORD shall rule over you" (8:23), and beside the day Israel's elders asked Samuel, "Give us a king to judge us" (1 Samuel 8:6). When they did, the LORD said to Samuel, "they have rejected me as the king over them" (1 Samuel 8:7).
The verses
“All the men of Shechem assembled themselves together with all the house of Millo, and went and made Abimelech king by the oak of the pillar that was in Shechem.”
“and you have risen up against my father’s house today and have slain his sons, seventy persons, on one stone, and have made Abimelech, the son of his female servant, king over the men of Shechem, because he is your brother);”
“Abimelech was prince over Israel three years.”
“After Abimelech, Tola the son of Puah, the son of Dodo, a man of Issachar, arose to save Israel. He lived in Shamir in the hill country of Ephraim. He judged Israel twenty-three years, and died, and was buried in Shamir.”