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| - Abimelech or Avimelech (Hebrew: אֲבִימֶלֶךְ / אֲבִימָלֶךְ, Modern Aviméleḫ / Avimáleḫ Tiberian ʼĂḇîméleḵ / ʼĂḇîmāleḵ ; "father/leader of a king; my father/leader, a king") was a common name of the Philistine kings.
- In the Book of Judges in the Hebrew Bible, Abimelech was a son of the great judge Gideon (Judges 9:1); thus his name אֲבִימֶלֶךְ / אֲבִימָלֶךְ can best be interpreted "my father, the king". "Abimelech", a name claiming the inherited right to rule, was also a common name of the Philistine kings. He was, however, merely the son of Gideon's concubine, and to make good his claim to rule over Ephraim, he resorted to force. Aided by his mother's relatives, he put to death all of his half-brothers, seventy in number, "on one stone," at Ophrah, only the youngest, Jotham, escaping. Abimelech ruled just three years in Shechem after the death of his father (Judges 8:33-9:6).
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| abstract
| - Abimelech or Avimelech (Hebrew: אֲבִימֶלֶךְ / אֲבִימָלֶךְ, Modern Aviméleḫ / Avimáleḫ Tiberian ʼĂḇîméleḵ / ʼĂḇîmāleḵ ; "father/leader of a king; my father/leader, a king") was a common name of the Philistine kings. Abimelech was most prominently the name of a king of Gerar who is mentioned in two of the three wife-sister narratives in Genesis. The Haggada identifies them as separate people, the second being the first Abimelech's son, and that his original name was Benmelech ("son of the King") but changed his name to his father's. At the time of Abimelech, there was an Egyptian governor of Tyre named Abimilki. They could possibly be the same person. Abimilki's name appears on the Amarna tablets.
- In the Book of Judges in the Hebrew Bible, Abimelech was a son of the great judge Gideon (Judges 9:1); thus his name אֲבִימֶלֶךְ / אֲבִימָלֶךְ can best be interpreted "my father, the king". "Abimelech", a name claiming the inherited right to rule, was also a common name of the Philistine kings. He was, however, merely the son of Gideon's concubine, and to make good his claim to rule over Ephraim, he resorted to force. Aided by his mother's relatives, he put to death all of his half-brothers, seventy in number, "on one stone," at Ophrah, only the youngest, Jotham, escaping. Abimelech ruled just three years in Shechem after the death of his father (Judges 8:33-9:6). He was, according to the Bible, an unprincipled, ambitious ruler, often engaged in war with his own subjects. When engaged in reducing the town of Thebez, which had revolted, he was struck on the head by a mill-stone, thrown by the hand of a woman from the wall above. Realising that the wound was mortal, he ordered his armor-bearer to thrust him through with his sword, so that it might not be said he had perished by the hand of a woman (Judges 9:50-57). Some scholars have pointed with interest to the similarities between Abimelech's story and that of Labaya in the Amarna letters.
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