A royal title or name used by Philistine kings; also the name of Gideon's son; meaning 'My father is king'
ʾĂḇîmeleḵ (father + melek, king) appears as the name of multiple figures in the Old Testament. Most notably: (1) Abimelech king of Gerar, who encountered both Abraham (Genesis 20–21) and Isaac (Genesis 26) — possibly a dynastic title rather than a personal name; (2) Abimelech the son of Gideon (Judges 9), who murdered his seventy brothers and seized rule over Shechem, only to be killed by a woman dropping a millstone on his head. The name declares 'my father is king' — a claim that becomes ironic in Judges 9, where Abimelech grasped a kingship that belonged to God alone.
The story of Abimelech in Judges 9 is one of Scripture's sharpest political parables. Jotham's fable of the trees (Judges 9:7–15) exposes the absurdity of human power-grabbing: only the thornbush, worthless for real work, agrees to be king. True kingship belongs to God (1 Samuel 8:7). The Abimelech of Genesis, by contrast, shows that God's protection of His covenant people operates even among pagan rulers — Abimelech feared God when warned in a dream (Genesis 20:8). Both narratives establish that the LORD is the King of kings, sovereign over all human authority.