To mount Zalmon. — Evidently the nearest spot where he could get wood for his hideous design. Zalmon means shady. In Psalms 68:14 we find “as white as snow in Zalmon,” but whether the same mountain is referred to we cannot tell. It may be any of the hills near Gerizim.
An axe. — Literally, the axes — i.e., he took axes for himself and his army.
Cut down a bough. — The word for “a bough” is socath, which does not mean “a bundle of logs,” as the LXX. render it. Every one will recall the scene in Macbeth where Malcolm says: —
“Let every soldier hew him down a bough,
And bear’t before him; thereby shall we shadow
The numbers of our host, and make discovery
Err in report of us.” — Acts 5, sc. 4.
But Abimelech merely wanted combustible materials.
What ye have seen me do. — Comp. what Gideon says in Judges 7:17.