from Mount Gerizim: "Hearken unto me, ye men of Shechem, that God may hearken unto you. The trees went forth on a time to anoint a king over them." The trees in the parable made application to the olive, fig-tree, and vine, but these refused to reign. The bramble, upon solicitation, consented, and was made king. All the striking facts of the history are recited by Jotham in the parable; and the refusal of the olive, fig-tree, and vine, to reign, will be seen to allude to Gideon refusing to be made king: "I will not rule over you, neither shall my son rule over you: the Lord shall rule over you." (Judges viii. 23.)
In Scripture, good men are called "trees of the Lord's planting, whose leaf fadeth not." "The trees of the Lord are full of sap; the cedars of Lebanon which he hath planted." (Ps. civ. 16.) Evil men, on the contrary, are called trees that bear no fruit, cumberers of the ground, which are to be cut down and rooted up. Thus the degraded state of the people in the time of Gideon, is here described by the trees going forth to choose a king; and that they were not in a condition of being governed by anything celestially or spiritually good or true, but only by a spurious and worldly policy or cunning, is shadowed forth by the refusal of the olive, fig-tree, and vine; while the consent of the bramble to be made king, denotes the spurious good by which they were willing to be governed.
Their first appeal to the olive—"Reign thou over us"—was met with a positive refusal; for the celestial love of God was shadowed forth by the olive and its fatness, and this being directly opposed to that self-love in which they were principled, the olive could
