Inner Judgment of Judges 9:55-57

Neville's Inner Vision

Judges 9:55-57 speaks of an inner law disguised as outward events. Abimelech, who slew his seventy brethren, stands for a ruling image born of ambition and fear—an attempt to crown the self at the expense of life. When Abimelech dies, the people depart, and the inner horizon clears; this is the mind’s way of saying: that tyrant image has collapsed. “Thus God rendered the wickedness…” becomes the language of inner consequence, the I AM returning thoughts to their causes and dissolving them by not feeding them. The men of Shechem, who joined the crime, reap the outcomes of that collective dream as if it were punishment from above; in Neville’s terms, the curse is simply the natural fallout of a mental agreement that no longer serves. The message is not external judgment but an inner correction: Providence is your awareness, not an outpost beyond you. By turning to I AM as sovereign, you slay the old tyrant in imagination, and the old effects fall away, leaving a new harmony within your life.