And when they told it to Jotham, he went and stood in the top of mount Gerizim, and lifted up his voice, and cried, and said unto them, Hearken unto me, ye men of Shechem, that God may hearken unto you.
He went and stood in the top of mount Gerizim, and lifted up his voice. The spot he chose was, like the house-tops, the public place of Shechem; and the parable drawn from the rivalry of the various trees was appropriate to the diversified foliage of the valley below. Eastern people are exceedingly fond of parables, and use them for conveying reproofs which they could not give in any other way. The top of Gerizim is not so high in the rear of the town as it is nearer to the plain. With a little exertion of voice, he could easily have been heard by the people of the city; because the hill so overhangs the valley that a person from the side or summit would have no difficulty in speaking to listeners at the base. Modern history records a case in which soldiers on the hill shouted to the people in the city, and endeavoured to instigate them to an insurrection. There is something about the elastic atmosphere of an Eastern clime which causes it to transmit sound with, wonderful celerity and distinctness (Hackett, 'Illustrations of Scripture,' p. 198; Buckingham's 'Palestine,' 2:,
p. 470; Stanley's Sinai and Palestine,' p. 235, note).