What Goes Around - King Adoni-bezek

Adoni-bezek said, “I once had seventy kings with their thumbs and big toes cut off, eating scraps from under my table. Now God has paid me back for what I did to them.” They took him to Jerusalem, and he died there.

Judges 1:7

A middle-aged father, disturbed by his children’s unkind words and behavior toward one another, asked his pastor to come to his home to talk about it.

“I don’t understand why they’re so mean and cruel to one another,” he lamented. Just then, his son walked up to the table and interrupted his conversation. Rather than gently instructing the boy to go play so he could continue his conversation, the man snapped at him, sending him away hurt and sulking.

The Bible tells us that we always reap what we sow. Or, as the more secular saying has it, “What goes around, comes around.”

Adoni-bezek, a Canaanite king during the biblical period of the judges, learned that truth in a gruesome way. His unpleasant story shows the importance of treating others with fairness, justice, and kindness.

Adoni-bezek enjoyed some success as a king and military leader as he defeated and took into captivity seventy nearby kings. He went terribly wrong and sealed his own fate by mistreating these captives. He cut off their thumbs and big toes and forced them to beg for scraps from his table.

When the armies of the tribes of Judah and Simeon attacked Canaan, they took Adoni-bezek into custody and cut off his thumbs and big toes—just as he had done to the seventy kings he’d held in captivity—and sent him off to Jerusalem, where he died.

The story of Adoni-bezek reminds us that we do reap what we sow. If you want to reap kindness and love, then sow them in your every word and action.

Remember Jesus’ Golden Rule? When you treat others with the same kindness and respect that you want, they will be more likely to treat you that way. When you don’t . . . well, that’s a different story.