- verses
- 9
- first named
- Judges 9:26
- last named
- Judges 9:41
- period
- before Israel's Monarchy
- role
- Man
Description
Who was Gaal?
Gaal, the son of Ebed, appears in Judges 9 as the leader of a revolt against Abimelech, the ruler of Shechem. After Abimelech had ruled Shechem for three years, Gaal arrived in the city and gained the trust of the people (Jdg.9.26-29). He challenged Abimelech's authority and encouraged the people to follow him instead. When Abimelech was informed of Gaal's actions, he devised a plan to attack the city (Jdg.9.30-33). Gaal and his followers went out to fight against Abimelech but were defeated and driven out of Shechem (Jdg.9.34-41). Abimelech then destroyed the city and scattered salt over it, symbolizing its complete destruction (Jdg.9.45). The story of Gaal's failed revolt illustrates the internal conflicts and power struggles that occurred during the period of the judges in Israel.
Relations
Direct connections
Every entity the graph places in a stated relation with this one, grouped by the kind of link. Each relation is authored once and its inverse derived, so both ends always agree. Rows marked “registry” come from the identity spine rather than from a verse, and a row marked “which bearer is the source’s decision” is one where the name could have meant more than one person. The last group is not a relation at all — it counts the events two entities stand in together.
Child of
- EbedregistryJudges 9:26Judges 9:28Judges 9:30 +2
Took part in
Stands in the same events as
- Abimelech4 events
- Shechem3 events
- Leaders Shechem2 events
- Men1 event
- Zebul1 event
- Abimelech Coming Laying Wait1 event
Places
Where this happens
A person is placed by the events they take part in, and an event has to clear three things to place them: it must say where it happened, that place must be one the gazetteer can put a coordinate on, and the verse must report it rather than foretell, command or ask it. Nothing anchored here clears all three. Where the text names a setting no gazetteer surveys — a vineyard, a palace, a plot of ground — it is left off rather than guessed at; where a place is named only in a prophecy, the map does not draw what was said to be coming as though it had happened; and a place reached only through a relation is not inherited, because standing beside somebody is not being somewhere.
No verse Atlas has read as a report puts this person anywhere.
Not read yet
Read it
Where to read it
Every verse of the text carried here that names this entity — 9, across 1 book.
Onward
Where this page goes
Not the direct relations above — these are one hop further out, ranked so that a rare shared connection outweighs a common one.
Where they appear
Chapter by chapter
Atlas's reading of each chapter this person appears in, in canonical order. One line per chapter, and each leads to the whole of it.
Sources