Gaal (Hebrew:גַּעַל) was a minor 12th century BCE biblical character, introduced in the 9th chapter of Judges in the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' Shechem Shechem ( ; , ; ), also spelled Sichem ( ; ) and other variants, was an ancient city in the southern Levant. Mentioned as a Canaanite city in the Amarna Letters, it later appears in the Hebrew Bible as the first capital of the Kingdom of Israe ...

and boasted to Zebul, the ruler of Shechem, that he could defeat

Abimelech Abimelech (also spelled Abimelek or Avimelech; ) was the generic name given to all Philistine kings in the Hebrew Bible from the time of Abraham through King David. In the Book of Judges, Abimelech, son of Gideon, of the Tribe of Manasseh, is ...

. Zebul secretly warned Abimelech of Gaal's plans and offered a plan to defeat Gaal. Abimelech defeated Gaal and drove him back to the gates of Shechem. Zebul subsequently drove Gaal and his remaining kinsmen from Shechem altogether. He is not mentioned thereafter in the Bible. Daniel I. Block suggests that he may have been one of the "Lords of Shechem" (, the wording of the

New Revised Standard Version The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) is a translation of the Bible in American English. It was first published in 1989 by the National Council of Churches, the NRSV was created by an ecumenical committee of scholars "comprising about thirt ...

and New American Bible Revised Edition) who had previously gone into exile, being unwilling to support Abimelech. Daniel I. Block, ''Judges, Ruth: An Exegetical and Theological Exposition of Holy Scripture'', p. 325.

References

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External links

''Easton's Bible Dictionary'':
Gaal Book of Judges people Shechem Phoenicians in the Hebrew Bible