Abimelech got him up to Mount Zalmon, he and all the people who were with him; and Abimelech took an axe in his hand, and cut down a bough from the trees, and took it up, and laid it on his shoulder: and he said to the people who were with him, What you have seen me do, make haste, and do as I have done.
". . . Abimelech’s government was not a monarchical reign, but simply a tyrannical despotism." [Note: Keil and Delitzsch, p. 365.] 