And would to God this people were under my hand! then would I remove Abimelech. And he said to Abimelech, Increase thine army, and come out.
Would to God this people were under my hand! He seems to have been a boastful, impudent, and cowardly person, totally unfit to be a leader in a revolutionary crisis. The consequence was, that he allowed himself to be drawn into an ambush, was defeated, the city of Shechem destroyed and strewn with salt-Abimelech thereby intimating his desire that it might always continue barren and uninhabited-and the people took refuge in the stronghold, which was set fire to, and all in it perished.