And Abimelech fought against the city all that day; and he took the city, and slew the people that was therein, and beat down the city, and sowed it with salt. (Judges 9:45)
Abimelech’s anger was not assauged until the entire city, edifices and walls, had been thrown down. Then Abimelech sprinkled salt over the ruins in a symbolic action, to express the wish that it might be barren and uninhabited forever (see Deut. 29:23; Ps. 107:34, margin). It would have been difficult to put enough salt there to spoil the land, at least over an appreciable area. That is hardly what the passage means.
Similar actions have been reported of the Assyrians, Attila, and Charles IX of France. Shechem was a prosperous city again in Solomon’s time (1 Kings 12:1). Its vicinity was too fertile and its location at a crossroad too advantageous to remain unoccupied for long.
Took the city.
The inhabitants of Shechem fought bitterly. It took all day for Abimelech to widen his beachhead at the gate and finally to devastate the city. He let no one escape. Presumably the entire population perished by sword or fire.