‘ And Abimelech fought against the city all that day, and he took the city and slew the people that were in it, and he beat down the city, and sowed it with salt.'
Having dealt with the people outside, and no doubt having joined up with Zebul and his supporters, Abimelech now took the attack to the city itself.
Resistance was fierce and the battle continued all day. But eventually after much slaughter he took the city itself, apart from the fortified Temple, showing little mercy on the inhabitants and killing them, apart of course from those who had remained faithful to him. He was in no mood for compromise. Then he destroyed much of the city and spread salt in it.
This may be as a symbol of its destruction as salt fell on Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19:26 with Genesis 19:24), or to indicate that he was making it a sacrifice to God (compare Ezekiel 43:24), or to indicate that it would ever be a wilderness (Job 39:6; Psalms 107:34). Whichever is so it would make the cleaning up of the city more difficult and unpleasant. Tiglath Pileser I (1115-1077 BC) (probably, the word is uncertain) claimed in his annals that he did the same to Hunusa around this time. ‘The whole of the city I laid waste, I destroyed, I turned into heaps and ruins, and on it I sowed salt (?).'