9:28a Then Gaal son of Ebed said,

Then Gaal son of Ebed asked,
-or-
Then Gaal the son of Ebed said,

9:28b “Who is Abimelech, and who is Shechem, that we should serve him?

“Who is Abimelek? He is not really from Shechem town, so why should we (incl.) serve him?
-or-
“We should not allow Abimelek to rule over us. He is not a Shechem person.

9:28c Is he not the son of Jerubbaal,

Isn’t he just a son of Jerub-Baal?
-or-
He is one of Gideon’s sons.

9:28d and is not Zebul his officer?

Zebul ⌊who is from Shechem⌋ takes orders from him.
-or-
He appointed Zebul as governor, but Zebul only helps Abimelek to rule.

9:28e You are to serve the men of Hamor, the father of Shechem.

We should have one of the descendants of Hamor the father of Shechem as our leader.
-or-
Let’s be loyal to the family of Hamor, Shechem’s father. ⌊He was the founder of the town.⌋

9:28f Why should we serve Abimelech?

Why should Abimelek be our leader?
-or-
We should not be servants to Abimelek.

© 2023 by SIL International®
Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0.
All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible.
BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.