Gideon had seventy sons with his wives in his home town of Ophrah, but had one son with his concubine who lived in Shechem named Abimelech. After Gideon (Jerub-Baal) died Abimelech used the seventy shekels of silver the citizens of Shechem gave him from the temple of Baal-Berith in Shechem to hire outlaws to help him kill his seventy brothers in Ophrah. On one stone in Ophrah Abimelech killed 69 of his 70 brothers, but the youngest brother, Jotham, escaped. The citizens of Shechem crowned Abimelech king beside the great tree at the stone pillar in Shechem. (Which was the site of the great tree Abraham worshipped at in Genesis 12:6 and the stone pillar set up by Joshua at the great tree in Joshua 24:26. The remains of this site and the ruins of the Temple of Baal-Berith can be seen here.)

After ruling as king over Israel from Shechem for three years, Abimelech’s treacherous act that had been supported by the citizens of Shechem was confronted by the Lord. The Hebrew word for “ruled” in Judges 9:22 where it says, “Abimelech ruled over Israel three years,” is wayyasar, a verb used only here in Judges. This Hebrew word for “ruled” is from the Hebrew noun sar which is always used to communicate confrontation and violence, or a king who establishes his authority for “ruling” with enforced military activity. The people of Shechem crowned Abimelech king (melek) of Israel, but he “ruled” (wayyasar) like a warlord. Israel was forced into obedience through military action by this son of Gideon. Clearly, Abimelech is trying to continue Gideon’s dynasty as ruler, or “king,” over Israel.

After Abimelech’s three years of “ruling” Israel the Lord caused Abimelech’s support base at Shechem to turn against their warlord/king by sending an “evil spirit” (Hb. ruah ra’a, or “spirit” and “ill/bad”) to turn them against Abimelech. God did this to avenge the conspiracy between Abimelche and the citizens of Shechem that led to the crime of killing the seventy sons of Gideon in order that Shechem and Abimelech could “rule” all of Israel in Gideon’s place. This animosity caused by God ends with Abimelech attacking the city of Shechem and burning its fortress which killed about a thousand citizens in Shechem. Then, Abimelech moved his attacked to the city of Thebez ten miles NE of Shechem where he was killed by a falling millstone dropped on his skull by a woman from the top of a tower in the city of Thebez.

“An individual’s misdeed can be the beginning of a nation’s disaster. The sun goes down, but the deed goes on…Eve a single deed generating an endless set of effects…may place the lives of countless men in the chains of its unpredictable effects…"
- A. J. Heschel

Anselm – Anselm was born in the Italian Alps, 1033, and joined a monastery in Bec, Normandy under a great teacher named Lanfranc. England was conquered by King William of Normandy in 1066 and Lanfranc was moved from the main continent to England as an archbishop of Canterbury. Anselm then took Lanfranc’s position in Bec, Normandy in the monastery. When King William I died, William II brought Anselm over to England as the new archbishop of Canterbury. But, William II wanted to appoint clergy in church positions based on political reasons and political advantages which was against Anselm’s desire for pure spiritual leadership. William II exiled Anselm and confiscated the church property. While in exile away from England on the continent of Europe Anselm wrote some of the major theological concepts during the early days of the Scholastic movement in the Middle Ages. In his work entitled Cur Deus Homo (or, “Why Did God Become Man?”) Anselm presented the theory of Christ’s work of reconciliation which became known as the Satisfaction Theory of the Atonement. It is considered one of the best explanations of why and how Christ’s death on the cross reconciled men to God. The basis of Anselm’s Satisfaction Theory of the Atonement says that God is the Lord of the cosmos who is very nature is offended by man’s sin and in order to maintain order in the universe he created He cannot simply “overlook” or “forgive” sin without some equal satisfaction being made for man’s sin. Since sin is man’s problem, the satisfaction must come from man; but man is incapable of adequately providing an equal payment. To resolve this hopeless quagmire and the damned universe God became a man and offered the satisfaction. This theory is supported by
2 Corinthians 5:19, “God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them.”
(Details here and here)