Gideon had seventy sons conceived from his body; for he had many wives.
The sons of concubines usually did not partake of their father’s inheritances in the ancient Near East (cf. Genesis 16; Genesis 21:8-21). People considered them the heirs of, and members of, the family of their mother, but not their father. Abimelech, therefore, was different from Gideon’s other 70 sons.