“Ga‘al the son of a slave came with his brothers and went on to Sh’khem, and the men of Sh’khem put their trust in him. They went out into the field, gathered their grapes and pressed the juice out of them. Then they held a feast and went into the house of their god to eat and drink, and there they insulted Avimelekh.”-Judges 9:26-27
When we last left off, Avimelech was dealing with quite a troubling situation.
The people of Shechem utterly disgusted with Avimelech’s rulership decided to rebel by planting highway robbers in the twin mountains of Ebal and Gerizim.
These thugs would rob any merchants and traders traveling through Avimelech’s territory leading to a major loss of income for him.
And just when things couldn’t get any worse, a new troublemaker arrived on scene to heckle the wicked Avimelech.
Most English Bible translations call this character “Ga’al son of Ebed”.
However, this is NOT the man’s real name for it means “the hated son of a slave“.
The Complete Jewish Bible is most accurate when it says “Ga‘al the son of a slave”.
Obviously, this was an insulting nickname that was ascribed to this man later.
So this Ga’al character arrives on the scene with his group of thugs.
Now what’s interesting about this motley crew is they weren’t affiliated with any particular tribe or king.
They were just lawless bandits roaming the landscape looking for territory they thought they could easily take over.
Sometimes they were hired by kings or governments to do mercenary work.
But for the most part they acted alone as free agents who plundered and pillaged as their evil inclinations saw fit.
Well as fate would have it, in this particular case they were now pawns in the Lord’s hand who would use them to further trouble Avimelech.
We’re told these scoundrels arrived at Shechem during the time of the “grape harvest” and since the Shechemites weren’t exactly the most moral people in the world, Ga’al and his buddies fit right in with the townsfolk there.
Plus the timing of their arrival in Shechem was quite fortuitous.
Because they showed up during the Great New Year event of the heathen Mystery Babylon religions.
This festival consisted of gathering grapes, turning their juice into wine and then getting super wasted.
Does all this sound familiar?
Well, it should because this celebration’s equivalent in Israel would have been SUKKOT or the Feast of Tabernacles.
Except all of the drunken festivities were being done in the honor of Ba’al.
Let’s take a look at the latter half of verse 27.
“Then they held a feast and went into the house of their god to eat and drink, and there they insulted Avimelekh.”
You see the part where it says they went into the house of their god “to eat and drink”?
Well, that’s not exactly accurate.
The original Hebrew says “they went to the house of their god to give HILLULIM“.
HILLULIM means “offerings of praise”.
The root word is HALLEL which means “praise”.
This is a holy term directly connected to worship and observance during SUKKOT (the Feast of the Tabernacles).
Are you seeing the abomination going on here man?
Here we’ve got holy words of praise that should ONLY BE USED TO HONOR THE ONE TRUE GOD OF ISRAEL being used to honor Ba’al.
I dunno about you but my blood is starting to boil as I write this.
This is exactly why the Lord ordered that Joshua and his men COMPLETELY EXTERMINATE OR DRIVE OUT the Canaanites from the Land.
This is the product of religious syncretism folks.
Here we have a mixed crowd of Israelites (the majority Israelites probably) and Canaanites who were observing Sukkot by mixing its festivities with the heathen New Year Wine festival to Ba’al.
All holy meaning of Sukkot had been watered down to the point where there wasn’t any spiritual meaning left remaining at all.
Does this bring to mind to anything?
How about the words “Christmas” and “Easter”?
These gentile celebrations containing nothing but elements of paganism and fertility god worship such as eggs, rabbits, fir trees, ornaments, reindeer and a character called Santa Claus have about as much connection to ANYTHING Biblical as…um…as an un-kosher slab of ham does to a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (can you tell I’m hungry?).
I ain’t gonna mince my words here homies.
There isn’t one ounce of difference between this bastardized version of SUKKOT being described here in Judges Chapter 9 and the gentile churches’ so-called “holy” celebrations.
Since the Hebrews were the majority population at Shechem, they thought it was totally cool to adopt and incorporate these pagan practices into their God-ordained customs and festivals the Lord had passed onto them through Moses.
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