Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Judges 10:1
And after Abimelech there arose to defend Israel Tola the son of Puah, the son of Dodo, a man of Issachar; and he dwelt in Shamir in mount Ephraim.
1. to save Israel ] Cf. Jdg 2:16; Jdg 2:18, Jdg 3:9 f.
Tola the son of Puah ] According to Gen 46:13, Num 26:23 (P), 1Ch 7:1, Tola and Puah were brothers, ‘sons,’ i.e. clans of Issachar. Tola means ‘the crimson worm,’ ‘cochineal,’ and Puah probably ‘madder,’ a plant from which a red dye was obtained, in Arab, fh; the coincidence can hardly be accidental; see Deu 33:19.
the son of Dodo ] The name again in 2Sa 23:9; 2Sa 23:24, 1Ch 11:12 ; 1Ch 11:26; varieties of it are David, Dodavahu, Eldad; the Babyl. form Ddu occurs in the Amarna letters, e.g. 44 and 45; on the Moab. St. l. 12 Daudoh, apparently a local god worshipped by the Israelites E. of Jordan. Dod = lit. ‘loved one,’ then ‘kinsman,’ ‘uncle’; so LXX and Syr . render here ‘the son of his [Abimelech’s] uncle.’
in Shamir in the hill country of Ephraim ] Site unknown; not the Shamir of Jos 15:48, which was in Judah. LXX. A and Luc. read Samaria, replacing a strange name by a familiar one. In historical times the territory of Issachar lay to the N.E. of the Plain of Jezreel; from this verse we learn that at least one clan of the tribe had its seat further south. There may have been some connexion between Shamir and Shimron, a clan of Issachar (Gen 46:13, Num 26:24).
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Ch. Jdg 10:1-5. The Minor Judges: Tola and Jair
The five Minor Judges, Tola, Jair, Ibzan, Elon, Abdon (Jdg 12:8-15), are so called because, unlike the other Judges, they fill but a small place in the general history; no record of their exploits has been preserved. Sometimes Shamgar is grouped with them, but see the notes on Jdg 3:31. These five Judges are regarded as carrying on the succession ( and after there arose, Jdg 10:1; Jdg 10:3 etc.), and, according to the view adopted in the Introduction 2 a, the 76 years assigned to them (with Jephthah’s 6) are included in the chronological scheme of the book. In each case the few bare particulars are cast into the same form, clearly by the same hand, which is not that of the Deuteronomic editor; the latter uses quite a different formula to conclude each period (Jdg 3:30, Jdg 5:31, Jdg 8:28). It seems probable that these notices were in existence before the Dtc. editor set to work; their general character is early rather than late; they appear to be founded on ancient traditions, like the somewhat similar details embedded in the genealogies of 1 Chron. (e.g. 1Ch 1:46, 1Ch 2:7 ; 1Ch 2:22 f., 1Ch 4:9 f., 1Ch 4:27 ; 1Ch 4:39 ff. etc). Out of the five names, three, Tola, Jair, Elon, occur elsewhere as the names of clans; the other two were probably clan-names also: but it would be rash to conclude that these names were never borne by individuals.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Defend – The marginal reading to deliver, is far preferable. The word is the same as in Jdg 2:16, Jdg 2:18; Jdg 3:9, Jdg 3:15, Jdg 3:31, etc., and is the technical word applied to the judges. Compare Neh 9:27 (saviours who saved them, the King James Version).
The term there arose, also marks Tola as one of the Judges, properly so called, raised by divine providence.
Tola and Puah – Both names of heads of houses in the tribe of Issachar 1Ch 7:1; Gen 46:13.
Shamir – Not the same as that mentioned in Jos 15:48, which was in the hill country of Judah. Issaehar would seem from this to have extended into the northern part of mount Ephraim.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
CHAPTER X
Tola judges Israel twenty-three years, 1, 2.
Jair is judge twenty-two years, 3-5.
After him the Israelites rebel against God, and are delivered
into the hands of the Philistines and Ammonites eighteen
years, 6-9.
They humble themselves, and God reproves them, 10-14.
They put away their strange gods, and gather together against
the Ammonites, 15-17.
The chiefs of Gilead inquire concerning a captain to head them
against the Ammonites, 18.
NOTES ON CHAP. X
Verse 1. Tola the son of Puah] As this Tola continued twenty-three years a judge of Israel after the troubles of Abimelech’s reign, it is likely that the land had rest, and that the enemies of the Israelites had made no hostile incursions into the land during his presidency and that of Jair; which, together continued forty-five years.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
There arose; not of himself, but either chosen by the people; or rather, raised by God, as the other judges were. To defend Israel, or, to save, which he did not by fighting against and overthrowing their enemies, but by a prudent and pious government of them, whereby he kept them from sedition, and oppression, and tyranny, as also from idolatry, as may be gathered from Jdg 10:6, which if not restrained and purged out, would have brought certain ruin upon them.
In Shamir in Mount Ephraim;
which was in the very heart and midst of the land.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
1. after Abimelech there arose todefend Israel, Tolathat is, “to save.” Deliverancewas necessary as well from intestine usurpation as from foreignaggression.
the son of PuahHe wasuncle to Abimelech by the father’s side, and consequently brother ofGideon; yet the former was of the tribe of Issachar, while the latterwas of Manasseh. They were, most probably, uterine brothers.
dwelt in Shamir in mountEphraimAs a central place, he made it the seat of government.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And after Abimelech there arose to defend Israel,…. To save, deliver, and protect Israel; which does not necessarily imply that Abimelech did; for he was no judge of God’s raising up, or the people’s choosing, but usurped a kingly power over them; and was so far from saving and defending them, that he involved them in trouble and distress, and ruled over them in a tyrannical manner, and left them in the practice of idolatry: it only signifies that after his death arose a person next described to which this may well be attributed, that he was raised up as a judge by the Lord; and though we read of no enemies particularly, that he delivered the people from in his days, yet it is not impossible nor unlikely that there might be such, though not made mention of; besides, he might be said to save them, as the word signifies, in that he was an happy instrument of composing those differences and dissensions, which Abimelech had occasioned, and of recovering them from the idolatry they had fallen into in his times, and of protecting them in their liberties, civil and religious: and this was
Tola the son of Puah, the son of Dodo, a man of Issachar; he was of the tribe of Issachar, and bore the same name as the eldest son of Issachar did, as his father Puah had the name of the second son of Issachar, 1Ch 7:1 and as for Dodo his grandfather, this is elsewhere mentioned as the name of a man, as it doubtless is here, 2Sa 23:9 though some copies of the Targum, the Septuagint and Vulgate Latin versions, render it, the son of his uncle, or father’s brother; meaning that his father Puah was the son of Abimelech’s uncle, or father’s brother, and so was one of the family which was raised up to be a judge after his death; but it is not likely that Gideon, the father of Abimelech, and Puah, the father of this man, should be brethren, when the one was of the tribe of Manasseh, and the other of the tribe of Issachar:
and he dwelt in Shamir in Mount Ephraim: that is, when he became judge in Israel he removed to this place, as being in the midst of the tribes, and near the tabernacle of Shiloh, and so fit for a judge to reside in, to whom the people might apply from all parts to have justice and judgment administered to them. It is called Shamir in Mount Ephraim, to distinguish it from another of the same name in the mountain of Judah, Jos 15:48 it seems to have its name from the thorns which grew about it.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Of these two judges no particular deeds are mentioned, no doubt because they performed none.
Jdg 10:1-2 Tola arose after Abimelech’s death to deliver Israel, and judged Israel twenty-three years until his death, though certainly not all the Israelites of the twelve tribes, but only the northern and possibly also the eastern tribes, to the exclusion of Judah, Simeon, and Benjamin, as these southern tribes neither took part in Gideon’s war of freedom nor stood under Abimelech’s rule. To explain the clause “ there arose to defend (or save) Israel,” when nothing had been said about any fresh oppression on the part of the foe, we need not assume, as Rosenmller does, “that the Israelites had been constantly harassed by their neighbours, who continued to suppress the liberty of the Israelites, and from whose stratagems or power the Israelites were delivered by the acts of Tola;” but Tola rose up as the deliverer of Israel, even supposing that he simply regulated the affairs of the tribes who acknowledged him as their supreme judge, and succeeded by his efforts in preventing the nation from falling back into idolatry, and thus guarded Israel from any fresh oppression on the part of hostile nations. Tola was the son of Puah, the son of Dodo, of the tribe of Issachar. The names Tola and Puah are already met with among the descendants of Issachar, as founders of families of the tribes of Issachar (see Gen 46:13; Num 26:23, where the latter name is written ), and they were afterwards repeated in the different households of these families. Dodo is not an appellative, as the Sept. translators supposed ( ), but a proper name, as in 2Sa 23:9 ( Keri), 24, and 1Ch 11:12. The town of Shamir, upon the mountains of Ephraim, where Tola judged Israel, and was afterwards buried, was a different place from the Shamir upon the mountains of Judah, mentioned in Jos 15:48, and its situation (probably in the territory of Issachar) is still unknown.
Jdg 10:3-5 After him Jair the Gileadite (born in Gilead) judged Israel for twenty-two years. Nothing further is related of him than that he had thirty sons who rode upon thirty asses, which was a sign of distinguished rank in those times when the Israelites had no horses. They had thirty cities (the second in Jdg 10:4 is another form for , from a singular = , a city, and is chosen because of its similarity in sound to , asses). These cities they were accustomed to call Havvoth – jair unto this day (the time when our book was written), in the land of Gilead. The before is placed first for the sake of emphasis, “ even these they call, ” etc. This statement is not at variance with the fact, that in the time of Moses the Manassite Jair gave the name of Havvoth-jair to the towns of Bashan which had been conquered by him (Num 32:41; Deu 3:14); for it is not affirmed here, that the thirty cities which belonged to the sons of Jair received this name for the first time from the judge Jair, but simply that this name was brought into use again by the sons of Jair, and was applied to these cities in a peculiar sense. (For further remarks on the Havvoth-jair, see at Deu 3:14.) The situation of Camon, where Jair was buried, is altogether uncertain. Josephus (Ant. v. 6, 6) calls it a city of Gilead, though probably only on account of the assumption, that it would not be likely that Jair the Gileadite, who possessed so many cities in Gilead, should be buried outside Gilead. But this assumption is a very questionable one. As Jair judged Israel after Tola the Issacharite, the assumption is a more natural one, that he lived in Canaan proper. Yet Reland (Pal. ill. p. 679) supports the opinion that it was in Gilead, and adduces the fact that Polybius (Hist. v. 70, 12) mentions a town called , by the side of Pella and Gefrun, as having been taken by Antiochus. On the other hand, Eusebius and Jerome (in the Onom.) regard our Camon as being the same as the , six Roman miles to the north of Legio ( Lejun), on the way to Ptolemais, which would be in the plain of Jezreel or Esdraelon. This is no doubt applicable to the of Judith 7:3; but whether it also applies to our Camon cannot be decided, as the town is not mentioned again.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| Government of Tola and Jair. | B. C. 1183. |
1 And after Abimelech there arose to defend Israel Tola the son of Puah, the son of Dodo, a man of Issachar; and he dwelt in Shamir in mount Ephraim. 2 And he judged Israel twenty and three years, and died, and was buried in Shamir. 3 And after him arose Jair, a Gileadite, and judged Israel twenty and two years. 4 And he had thirty sons that rode on thirty ass colts, and they had thirty cities, which are called Havoth-jair unto this day, which are in the land of Gilead. 5 And Jair died, and was buried in Camon.
Quiet and peaceable reigns, though the best to live in, are the worst to write of, as yielding least variety of matter for the historian to entertain his reader with; such were the reigns of these two judges, Tola and Jair, who make but a small figure and take up but a very little room in this history. But no doubt they were both raised up of God to serve their country in the quality of judges, not pretending, as Abimelech had done, to the grandeur of kings, nor, like him, taking the honour they had to themselves, but being called of God to it. 1. Concerning Tola it is said that he arose after Abimelech to defend Israel, v. 1. After Abimelech had debauched Israel by his wickedness, disquieted and disturbed them by his restless ambition, and, by the mischiefs he brought on them, exposed them to enemies from abroad, God animated this good man to appear for the reforming of abuses, the putting down of idolatry, the appeasing of tumults, and the healing of the wounds given to the state by Abimelech’s usurpation. Thus he saved them from themselves, and guarded them against their enemies. He was of the tribe of Issachar, a tribe disposed to serve, for he bowed his shoulder to bear (Gen 49:14; Gen 49:15), yet one of that tribe is here raised up to rule; for those that humble themselves shall be exalted. He bore the name of him that was ancestor to the first family of that tribe; of the sons of Issachar Tola was the first, Gen 46:13; Num 26:23. It signifies a worm, yet, being the name of his ancestor, he was not ashamed of it. Though he was of Issachar, yet, when he was raised up to the government, he came and dwelt in Mount Ephraim, which was more in the heart of the country, that the people might the more conveniently resort to him for judgment. He judged Israel twenty-three years (v. 2), kept things in good order, but did not any thing very memorable. 2. Jair was a Gileadite, so was his next successor Jephthah, both of that half tribe of the tribe of Manasseh which lay on the other side Jordan; though they seemed separated from their brethren, yet God took care, while the honour of the government was shifted from tribe to tribe and before it settled in Judah, that those who lay remote should sometimes share in it, putting more abundant honour on that part which lacked. Jair bore the name of a very famous man of the same tribe who in Moses’s time was very active in reducing this country, Num 32:41; Jos 13:30. That which is chiefly remarkable concerning this Jair is the increase and honour of his family: He had thirty sons, v. 4. And, (1.) They had good preferments, for they rode on thirty ass colts; that is, they were judges itinerant, who, as deputies to their father, rode from place to place in their several circuits to administer justice. We find afterwards that Samuel made his sons judges, though he could not make them good ones, 1 Sam. viii. 1-3. (2.) They had good possessions, every one a city, out of those that were called, from their ancestor of the same name with their father, Havoth-jair–the villages of Jair; yet they are called cities, either because those young gentlemen to whom they were assigned enlarged and fortified them, and so improved them into cities, or because they were as well pleased with their lot in those country towns as if they had been cities compact together and fenced with gates and bars. Villages are cities to a contented mind.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
Judges – Chapter 10
Tola and Jair, vs. 1-5
Two men served Israel as judges after the tyrannical rule of Abimelech. Together they judged Israel a total of forty-five years, but very little is known of them. The Lord raised them up for His wise purpose, but did not see fit to reveal the particulars of their judgeship. Tola was of the western tribe of Issachar, but he lived in Shamir, a town in mount Ephraim. Nothing more is known of him than what is recorded here. Even his town has never been identified.
The other judge was Jair, a Gileadite, meaning that he lived in the eastern portion of the tribe of Manasseh, the part of Gilead assigned to the half tribe of Manasseh. Jair must have been a very prominent and wealthy citizen of Gilead. He had thirty sons who lived royally, it seems. They had each his special mount, and their father made each one ruler of a city in Gilead. They and their cities are the most prominent and remembered event of Jair’s judgeship, for the cities continued to be called Havoth-lair (cities of Jair) after his death. The location of Camon, the burial place of Jair is uncertain today.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
THE BOOK OF JUDGES
Judges 1-21.
THE Book of Judges continues the Book of Joshua. There are some Books of the Bible, the proper location of which require careful study, but Judges follows Joshua in chronological order. The Book opens almost identically with the Book of Joshua. In the latter the reading is, Now after the death of Moses the servant of the Lord it came to pass that the Lord spake unto Joshua. In the Book of Judges, Now after the death of Joshua it came to pass, that the Children of Israel asked thd Lord, saying Who shall go up for us against the Canaanites first, to fight against them? And the Lord said, Judah shall go up. God always has His man chosen and His ministry mapped out. We may worry about our successors and wonder whether we shall be worthily followed, but as a matter of fact that is a question beyond us and does not belong to us. It is not given to man to choose prophets, apostles, evangelists, pastors and teachers. That prerogative belongs to the ascended Lord, and He is not derelict in His duty nor indifferent to the interests of Israel. Before one falls, He chooses another. The breach in time that bothers men is not a breach to Him at all. It is only an hour given to the people for the expression of bereavement. It is only a day in which to calm the public mind and call out public sympathy and centralize and cement public interest.
Men may choose their co-laborers as Judah chose Simeon; leaders may pick out their captains as Moses did, and as did Joshua; but God makes the first choice, and when men leave that choice to Him, He never makes a mistake.
Whenever a captain of the hosts of the Lord is unworthily succeeded, misguided men have forgotten God and made the choice on the basis of their own judgment.
People sometimes complain of some indifferent or false preacher, We cant see why God sent us such a pastor. He didnt! You called him yourself. You didnt sufficiently consult God. You didnt keep your ears open to the still, small voice. You didnt wait on bended knees until He said, Behold your leader; follow him!
When God appoints Judah, he also delivers the Canaanites and the Perizzites into his hands. Adoni-bezek, the brutal, will be humbled by him; the capital city will fall before him; the southland will succumb, also the north and the east and the west, and the mountains will capitulate before the Lord of Hosts.
But the Book of Judges doesnt present a series of victories. There is no Book in the Bible that so clearly typifies the successes and reverses, the ups and downs, the victories and defeats of the church, as the history of Israel here illustrates. It naturally divides itself under The Seven Apostasies, The Successive Judges, and The Civil War.
THE SEVEN APOSTASIES
The first chapter is not finished before failure finds expression. Of Judah it was said he could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley because they had chariots of iron (Jdg 1:19). Of the children of Benjamin it was said, They did not drive out the Jebusites that inhabited Jerusalem (Jdg 1:21). Of Manasseh it was said, They did not drive out the inhabitants of Beth-Shean and her towns, nor Taanach and her towns, nor the inhabitants of Dor and her towns, nor the inhabitants of Ibleam and her towns, nor the inhabitants of Megiddo and her towns: but the Canaanites would dwell in that land (Jdg 1:27). Neither did Ephraim drive out the Canaanites that dwelt in Gezer, (Jdg 1:29); neither did Zebulun drive out the inhabitants of Kitron (Jdg 1:30), nor the inhabitants of Mahalol. Neither did Asher (Jdg 1:31) drive out the inhabitants of Acho nor of Zidon; neither did Naphthali drive out the inhabitants of Beth-Shemesh (Jdg 1:33), and this failure to clear the field results in an aggressive attack before the first chapter finishes, and the Amorites force the children of Dan into the mountain (Jdg 1:34).
If one study these seven apostasies that follow one another in rapid succession, he will be impressed by two or three truths. They resulted from the failure to execute the command of the Lord. The command of the Lord to Joshua was that he should expel the people from before him and drive them from out of his sight, and possess their land (Jos 23:5). He was not to leave any among them nor to make mention of any of their gods (Jos 23:7). He was promised that one of his men should chase a thousand. He was even told that if any were left and marriage was made with them that they should know for a certainty that the Lord God would no more drive out any of these nations from before them; that they should be snares and traps and scourges and thorns, until Israel perished from off the good land that God had given them (Jos 23:13). How strangely the conduct of Israel, once in the land, comports with this counsel given them before they entered it; and there is a typology in all of this.
The Christian life has its enemiessocial enemies, domestic enemies, national enemies! Ones companionship will determine ones conduct; ones marriage relation will eventuate religiously or irreligiously. The character of ones nation is more or less influential upon life.
The ordinance of baptism, the initial rite into the church, looks to an absolute separation from the world, and is expressed by the Apostle Paul as a death unto sin, the clear intent being that no evil customs are to be kept, nor companions retained, nor entangling alliances maintained. The word now is as the word then, Come out from among them, and be ye separate (2Co 6:17).
They imperiled their souls by this forbidden social intercourse. It is very difficult to live with a people and not become like them. It is very difficult to dwell side by side with nations and not intermarry. Intermarriage between believers and unbelievers is almost certain to drag down the life of the former to the level of the latter. False worship, like other forms of sin, has its subtle appeal; and human nature being what it is, false gods rise easily to exalted place in corrupted affections.
If there is one thing God tried to do for ancient Israel, and one thing God tries to do for the new Israel, the Church, it was, and is, to get His people to disfellowship the world.
There are men who think God is a Moloch because He so severely punished Israels compromises. They cant forget that when Joshua went over Jordan and Israel lay encamped on the skirts of the mountains of Moab, her people visited a high place near the camp whereon a festival of Midian, idolatrous, licentious in the extreme, was in process, and they went after this putrid paganism and polluted their own souls with the idolatrous orgy. Then it was that Moses, speaking for the Lord, said, Take all the heads of the people, and hang them up before the Lord against the sun, and while that hideous row of dead ones was still before their eyes, the plague fell on the camp and 24,000 of the transgressors perished! But severe as it was, Israel soon forgot, showing that it was not too severe, and raising the question as to whether it was severe enough to impress the truth concerning idolatry and all its infamous effects.
Solomon is commonly reputed to have been the wisest of men, and yet it was his love alliances with the strange women of Moab, Ammon, Zidon and the Hittites, these very people, that brought the Lords anger against him and compelled God to charge him with having turned from the Lord God of Israel and in consequence of which God said, I will surely rend the kingdom from thee, and will give it to thy servant (1Ki 11:11).
Again and again the kingdom has been lost after the same manner. The present peril of the church is at this point, and by its alliance with the world, the kingdom of our Lord is delayed, and Satan, the prince of this world, remains in power, and instead of 24,000 people perishing in judgment, tens of thousands and millions of people perish through this compromise, and swallowed up in sin, rush into hell.
But to follow the text further is to find their restoration to Gods favor rested with genuine repentance. There are recorded in Judges seven apostasies; they largely result from one sin. There are seven judgments, increasing in severity, revealing Gods determined purpose to correct and save; and there are seven recoveries, each of them in turn the result of repentance. God never looks upon a penitent man, a penitent people, a penitent church, a penitent nation, without compassion and without turning from His purposes of judgment. When the publican went up into the temple to pray, his was a leprous soul, but when he smote upon his breast and cried, God be merciful to me a sinner, his was the instant experience of mercy. When at Pentecost, 2500 sincere souls fell at the feet of Peter and the other Apostles, and cried, Men and brethren, what shall we do, the response was, Repent and be baptized every one of you in the Name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and the promise was, Ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.
When David, who was a child of God, guilty of murder and adultery combined, poured out his soul as expressed in the Fifty-first Psalm, God heard that prayer, pardoned those iniquities, restored him to the Divine favor, and showered him with proofs of the Divine love.
When Nineveh went down in humility, a city of 600,000 souls, every one of whom from Sardana-palus, the king on the throne, to the humblest peasant within the walls, proving his repentance by sitting in sackcloth and ashes, God turned at once from the evil He had thought to do unto them and He did it not, and Nineveh was saved.
The simple truth is, God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked. He never punishes from preference, but only for our profit; and, even then, like a father, He suffers more deeply than the children upon whom His strokes of judgment fall.
What a contrast to that statement of Scripture, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, is that other sentence, Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints. The reason is not far to seek. In the first case it is death indeed; death fearful, death eternal. In the second case, death is a birth, a release from the flesh that held to a larger, richer, fuller life. In that God takes pleasure.
There is then for the sinner no royal road to the recovery of Gods favor. It is the thorny path of repentance instead. It is through Bochim, the Vale of Tears; but it were just as well that the prodigal, returning home, should not travel by a flowery path. He will be the less tempted to go away again if his back-coming is with agony, and home itself will seem the more sweet when reached if there his weary feet find rest for the first time, and from their bleeding soles the thorns are picked; if there his nakedness is clothed, his hunger is fed and his sense of guilt is kissed away. Oh, the grace of God to wicked men the moment repentance makes possible their forgiveness!
The court in Minneapolis yesterday illustrated this very point. When a young man, who had been wayward indeed, who had turned highway-robber, saw his error, sobbed his way to Christ and voluntarily appeared in court and asked to have sentence passed, newspapers expressed surprise that the heart of the judge should have been so strangely moved, and that the sentence the law absolutely required to be passed upon him, should have been, by the judge, suspended, and the young man returned to his home and wife and babe. But our Judge, even God, is so compassionate that such conduct on His part excites no surprise. It is His custom! Were it not so, every soul of us would stand under sentence of death. The law which is just and holy and good has passed that sentence already, and it is by the grace of God we have our reprieve. Seven apostasies? Yes! Seven judgments? Yes! But seven salvations! Set that down to the honor and glory of our God! It is by grace we are saved!
THE SUCCESSIVE JUDGES
Evidently God has no special regard for some of our modern superstitions, for in this period of conquest He deliberately chooses thirteen judges and sets them over Israel in turn, beginning with Othniel, the son of Kenaz, and nephew of Caleb, and concluding with Samson, the son of Manoah.
They represented varied stations of Israelitish society. A careful review of their personal history brings a fresh illustration of the fact that God is no respector of persons; and it also illustrates the New Testament statement that Not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. With few exceptions these judges had not been heard of until their appointment rendered necessary some slight personal history. That is the Divine method until this hour. How seldom the children of the great are themselves great. How often, when God needs a ruler in society, He seeks a log cabin and chooses an angular ladAbe Lincoln. The difference between the inspired Scriptures and yesterdays newspaper is in the circumstance that the Scriptures tell the truth about men and leave God to do the gilding and impart the glory, instead of trying to establish the same through some noble family tree. There is a story to the effect that a young artist, working under his master in the production of a memorial window that represented the greatest and best that art ever knew, picked up, at the close of the day, the fragments of glass flung aside, and finally wrought from them a window more glorious still. Whether this is historically correct or not, we know what God has done with the refuse of society again and again. Truly
God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;
And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are:
That no flesh should glory in His presence * * * * He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord (1Co 1:27-29; 1Co 1:31).
Out of these un-named ones some were made to be immortalGideon, Jephthae, Samson, Deborah.
Gideon, the son of Joash, became such because he dared to trust God. The average Captain of hosts wants men increased that the probabilities of victory may grow proportionately. At the word of the Lord Gideon has his hundreds of thousands and tens of thousands reduced to a handful. What are three hundred men against the multitude that compassed him about? And what are pitchers, with lights in them, against swords and spears and stones; and yet his faith failed not! He believed that, God with him, no man could be against him. When Paul comes to write his Epistle to the Hebrews and devotes a long chapter of forty verses to a list of names made forever notable through faith, Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthaethese all appear, and they are put there properly, reason confirming revelation. Barak had faced the hundreds of iron chariots of the enemy, and yet at the word of the Lord, had dared to brave and battle them. Samson, with no better equipment than the jaw-bone of an ass, had slain his heaps. Jephthae, when he had made a vow to the Lord, though it cost him that which was dearer than life, would keep it. Such characters are safe in history. Whatever changes may come over the face of the world, however notable may eventually be names; whatever changes may occur in the conceptions of men as to what makes for immortality, those who believe in God will abide, and childrens children will call their names blessed. Gideon will forever stand for a combination of faith and courage. Barak will forever represent the man who, at the word of the Lord, will go against great odds. Jephthae will forever be an encouragement to men who, having sincerely made vows, will solemnly keep the same; and Samson will forever represent, not his prowess, but the strength of the Lord, which, though it may express itself in the person of a man, knows no limitations so long as that man remains loyal to his vows, and the spirit of the Lord rests upon him.
Before passing from this study, however, permit me to call your attention to the fact that there was made a political exception in the matter of sex. We supposed that the putting of woman into mans place is altogether a modern invention. Not so; it is not only a fact in English language but in human history, that all rules have their exceptions. Gods rule for prophets is men, and yet the daughters of Philip were prophetesses. Gods rule for kings is men, and yet one of the greatest of rulers was Queen Victoria. Gods rule for judges is men, and yet Deborah was long since made an exception. Let it be understood that the exception to the rule is not intended to supplant the rule. The domestic circle is Gods choice for womankind, and her wisdom, tact and energy are not only needed there, but find there their finest employment. And yet there are times when through the indifference of men, or through their deadness to the exigencies of the day, God can do nothing else than raise up a Deborah, speak to a Joan of Arc, put on the throne a Victoria.
I noticed in a paper recently a discussion as to whether women prominent in politics proved good mothers, and one minister at least insisted that they did. We doubt it! The text speaks of Deborah as a mother in Israel, but we find no mention of her children. Our judgment is that had there been born to her a dozen of her own Israel might never have known her leadership. The unmarried woman, or the barren wife, may have time and opportunity for social and political concern; but the mother of children commonly finds her home sphere sufficient for all talents, and an opportunity to reach society, cleanse politics, aid the church, help the world, as large an office as ever came to man. However, let it be understood that all our fixed customs, all our standard opinions, give place when God speaks. If it is His will that a woman judge, then she is best fitted for that office; if He exalts her to lead armies, then victory will perch upon her banners; if He calls her to the place of power on the throne, then ruling wisdom is with her.
In the language of the Apostle Paul, And what shall I say more, for the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and of Samson and of Barak and of Jepkthae. They are all great characters and worthy extended discussion. It would equally fail me to rehearse the confusion, civil and religious, that follows from the seventeenth chapter of this Book to the end, but in chapters nineteen to twenty-one there is recorded an incident that cannot in justice to an outline study, be overlooked, for it results in
THE CIVIL WAR
Tracing that war to its source, we find it was the fruit of the adoption of false religions. We have already seen some of the evil effects of this intermingling with heathen faiths, but we need not expect an end of such effects so long as the compromise obtains. There is no peace in compromise; no peace with your enemies. A compromise is never satisfactory to either side. Heathen men do not want half of their polytheism combined with half of your monotheism. They are not content to give up a portion of their idolatry and take in its place praises to the one and only God. The folly of this thing was shown when a few years since the leaders of the International Sunday School Association attempted to temporarily affiliate Christianity with Buddhism. The native Christians in Japan, in proportion to their sincere belief in the Bible arid in Christ, rejected the suggestion as an insult to their new faith, and the followers of Buddha and the devotees of Shintoism would not be content with Christian conduct unless the Emperor was made an object of worship and Christian knees bowed before him. It must be said, to the shame of certain Sunday School leaders, that they advocated that policy and prostrated themselves in the presence of His Majesty to the utter disgust of their more uncompromising fellows. The consequence was, no Convention of the International Association has been so unsatisfactory and produced such poor spiritual results as Tokios.
Confusion is always the consequence of compromise, and discontent is the fruit of it, and fights and battles and wars are the common issue.
Idolatry is deadly; graven images cannot be harmonized with the true God. The first and second commandments cannot be ignored and the remainder of the Decalog kept. It is God or nothing! It is the Bible or nothing! It is the faith once delivered or infidelity!
The perfidy of Benjamin brought on the battle. We have already seen that men grow like those with whom they intimately associate. This behavior on the part of the Benjamites is just what you would have expected. The best of men still have to battle with the bad streak that belongs to the flesh incident to the fall; and, when by evil associations that streak is strengthened, no man can tell what may eventually occur. Had this conduct been recorded against the heathen, it would not have amazed us at all. We speedily forget that as between men there is no essential difference. Circumstances and Divine aidthese make a difference that is apparent indeed; but it is not so much because one is better than the other, but rather because one has been better situated, less tempted, more often strengthened; or else because he has found God and stands not in himself but in a Saviour.
Pick up your paper tomorrow morning and there will be a record of deeds as dark as could be recorded against the natives of Africa, or those of East India or China, Siberia or the South Sea Islands. The conduct of these men toward the concubine was little worse than that of one of our own citizens in a land of civilization and Christianity, who lately snatched a twelve-year-old girl and kept her for days as his captive, and when at last she eluded him, it was only to wander back to her home, despoiled and demented. Do you wonder that God is no respecter of persons? Do you wonder that the Bible teaches there is no difference? Do you doubt it is all of grace?
The issues of that war proved the presence and power of God. There are men who doubt if God is ever in battle; but history reveals the fact that few battles take place without His presence. The field of conflict is commonly the place of judgment, and justice is seldom or never omitted. We may be amazed to see Israel defeated twice, and over 40,000 of her people fall, when as a matter of fact she went up animated by the purpose of executing vengeance against an awful sin. Some would imagine that God would go with them and not a man would fall, and so He might have done had Israel, including Judah and all loyal tribes, been themselves guiltless. But such was not the truth! They had sins that demanded judgment as surely as Benjamins sin, and God would not show Himself partial to either side, but mete out judgment according to their deserts. That is why 40,000 of the Israelites had to fall. They were facing then their own faithlessness. They were paying the price of their own perfidy. They were getting unto themselves proofs that their fellowship with the heathen and their adoption of heathen customs was not acceptable with God.
Many people could not understand why England and France and Belgium and Canada and Australia and America should have lost so heavily in the late war, 19141918, believing as we did believe that their cause was absolutely just. Why should God have permitted them to so suffer in its defense? Millions upon millions of them dying, enormous wealth destroyed, women widowed, children orphaned, lands sacked, cities burned, cathedrals ruined, sanctuaries desecrated. The world around, there went up a universal cry, Why? And yet the answer is not far to seek. England was not guiltless; France was not guiltless; Belgium was not guiltless.
Poor Belgium! All the world has turned to her with pity and we are still planning aid for the Belgians and to preach to them and their children the Gospel of grace, and this we should do; but God had not forgotten that just a few years ago Belgium was blackening her soul by her conduct in the Belgian Congo. Natives by the score and hundreds were beaten brutally, their hands cut off because they did not carry to the Belgian king as much rubber and ivory as Belgian avarice demanded. American slavery, in its darkest hour, never knew anything akin to the oppression and persecution to which Belgium subjected the blacks in the Congo. Significant, indeed, is the circumstance that when the Germans came into Belgium, many Belgian hands were cut off; hapless and helpless children were found in this mangled state. Frightful as it was, it must have reminded Belgian authorities of their sins in Africa and of the certainty and exactitude of final judgment.
We have an illustration of this truth in the Book of Judges. When Judah went up against the Canaanites and the Lord delivered them into his hands, they slew in Bezek 10,000 men. They found Adoni-Bezek, the king, and fought against him, and caught him and cut off his thumbs and great toes. We cry Horror! and wonder that Gods own people could so behave; but, complete the sentence, and you begin to see justice, And Adoni-bezek said, Threescore and ten kings, having their thumbs and their great toes cut off, gathered their meat under my table. As I have done, so God hath requited me (Jdg 1:7).
Think of England in her infamous opium traffic, forcing it upon natives at the mouths of guns, enriching her own exchecquer at the cost of thousands and tens of thousands of hapless natives of East India and China!
Think of France, with her infidelity, having denied God, desecrated His sabbath, rejected His Son and given themselves over to absinthe and sensuality!
Think of the United States with her infamous liquor traffic, shipping barrels upon barrels to black men and yellow men, and cursing the whole world to fill her own coffers.
Tell me whether judgment was due the nations, and whether they had to see their sin in the lurid light of Belgian and French battlefields; but do not overlook the fact that when the war finally ends, Benjamin, the worst offender, the greater sinner, goes down in the greatest judgment, and one day Benjamins soldiers are almost wiped from the earth! Out of 26,700, 25,000 and more perish. Tell us now whether judgment falls where judgment belongs!
Take the late war. Again and again Germany was triumphant, but when the Allies had suffered sufficiently and had learned to lean not to themselves but upon the Lord; when, like Israel, they turned from hope in self and trusted in God, then God bared His arm in their behalf and Germany went down in defeat, a defeat that made their come-back impossible; a defeat that fastened upon them the tribute of years; a defeat that proved to them that, great as might have been the sins of the allied nations, greater still, in the sight of God, was their own sin; for final judgment is just judgment.
God is not only in history; God has to do with the making of history. If men without a king behave every one as is right in his own eyes, the King of all kings, the Lord of all lords, will do that which will eventually seem right in the eyes of all angels and of all good men. That is GOD!
Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley
FORTY-FIVE YEARS PASSED OVER IN SILENCE
(Jdg. 10:1-5.)
CRITICAL NOTES. Jdg. 10:1. After Abimelech.] This man is recognised as having been a ruler in Israel, notwithstanding his scandalous career. Probably he was permitted to occupy this position for a time, as a new method of chastising the people for their extreme tendency to choose another king than Jehovah, and to show that their sorrows should be multiplied that hasten after another god. The rigorous rule of the bramble-bush sovereign was as severe an affliction, as the inrushing of a marauding foe from without. By this course, too, means were furnished for exhibiting the desperate wickedness of the human heart; and the case is held up as a beacon to warn the men of every age.
To defend Israel.] Not against any actual assault of an enemy, but he stood forth as the guardian of the public safety, ready, when necessary, to ward off all danger, and, by his very presence, to prevent any disturbance of the national peace from within or from without. He would administer justice wisely, and provide against the likely or possible incursions of surrounding foes.
Tola, the son of Puah, the son of Dodo.] Puah is also written Pua and Phuvah. This time the tribe of Issachar is chosen to provide a judge. In Davids time, they were men of renown, that had understanding of the times to know what Israel ought to do (1Ch. 12:32). God chose the saviours from different tribes, to show His readiness to honour all the tribes in turn. This was a proof also that the organic unity of Israel was still preserved. Dodois here a proper name, and is not to be taken as meaning uncle, (Sept.) (2Sa. 23:9).
Dwelt in Shamir.] When he entered on the duties of his office, he found it more convenient to live nearer the centre of the country, and accordingly he went to Mount Ephraim.
Jdg. 10:2. Judged Israel.] The northern and eastern tribes. Twenty-three years and died.] Not a single particular of his public life is recorded. But it was not therefore unimportant. To secure peace was no small blessing. To be a check on the outbreakings of idolatry was for the covenanted people an immense benefit. Though no fame was acquired, the Lord had need of him for a time. He has need of the purling brook as well as the majestic stream. In mans judgment the one may seem insignificant compared with the other, but in Gods estimation everything is beautiful in its place. The family line of Tola, however, appear to have been distinguished in Israel all along, beginning with the ancestor (Gen. 46:13; Num. 26:23), and going on to the days of David (1Ch. 7:1-5), including the judge mentioned in this chapter.
Jdg. 10:3. Jair the Gileadite,] born in Gilead, the half of which was given to the half-tribe of Manasseh (Deu. 3:13). This name has occasioned much discussion. It must be remembered that family names were a feature in Israelitish historythe same name frequently coming in, in the same line of descent, through different generations. Jair was the name of the ancestral head of one of the most influential family lines in Manasseh. He was one, apparently the chief, of the children of Machir, who, in the days of the dividing of the land, dispossessed the Amorite that was in Gilead, and first took some of the small towns, calling them Havoth-jair (the abodes of Jair), and afterwards accomplished the most important feat of taking the 60 great cities with walls and brazen bars that were in the region of Argob, a part of Bashan. This was the land of the giants; and such a victory could only have been gained through faith. To perpetuate it he called these 60 walled towns of the giants by the name of Bashan-havoth-jairmeaning the abodes, or towns, which Jair conquered for himself in the giant country. Hence, honour is done to this ancestor of the line by referring to him frequently (Num. 32:39-41; Deu. 3:13-14; Jos. 13:30; 1Ki. 4:13), and especially as the possessor of these Bashan cities by conquest.
Reference is made also to Jair in 1Ch. 2:22, who cannot be the same with the first Jair, for the towns of Jair are spoken of as existing before his time (1Ch. 2:23), i.e., the towns of the first, or ancestral Jair. Some suppose the allusion is to Jair, the judge. It may have been so, notwithstanding the statement that this Jairs grandmother is said to have been the daughter of Machir (1Ch. 2:21-22), and as hundreds of years elapsed between the days of Machir and the time of Jair the judge, there must have been several generations during the interval. Yet that difficulty could be solved by understanding the word daughter to mean descendant of Machir, which is so often done in the accounts given of family lines among the Israelites. But where the accounts given are so meagre, it is impossible to decide definitely whether the Jair in 1Ch. 2:22 was the same with Jair, the judge here, or was another person of the same name. If he was the same, then he had at first 23 cities, and must have increased them to 30, that every one of his sons might have a city; or, as some think, he got possession of the 60 cities which the first Jair took out of the hands of the Amorite (1Ch. 2:23). It is, however, probable that there were more than even two persons, heads of families, called by this name, for on account of its fame many would be desirous to hand it down.
Judged Israel twenty-two years.] From this long period of peaceable government, we may suppose, he was a very capable administrator of justice, as well as a man of high character for piety like his great ancestors.
Jdg. 10:4. That rode on thirty ass colts.] Horses were not then in the country. To ride on an ass was at that time equivalent to a man keeping his carriage now. It was a mark of wealth, which few could afford, for nearly the whole population were accustomed to go from place to place on foot. This must, therefore, have been a large and opulent family. The ass was then a superior type of animal to what it is and long has been in these more recent times. This was especially true of the white ass (ch. Jdg. 5:10, also ch. Jdg. 12:14; 1Ki. 1:33; 1Ki. 10:28). The horse when it appeared was generally associated with war, while the ass being quiet and the reverse of formidable, was regarded as the symbol of peace. Hence Zions King came riding on an ass, His kingdom being one of peace (Zec. 9:9).
Thirty cities which are called Havoth-jair unto this day.] Probably the same towns as those in Num. 32:41, when the name Havoth-jair was first used; also in 1Ki. 4:13 (second clause). They are here called cities, though in reality only villages. Villages are cities to a contented mind (Henry).
Jdg. 10:5. Was buried in Camon.] Probably on the west side of Jordan. It deserves to be noticed, that of all whom God called to serve Him in the office of judge or king, care is taken to say what became of their dust.
A FRESH COURSE OF SIN AND PENITENCE
Jdg. 10:6. Did evil again in the sight of the Lord.] (See on ch. Jdg. 2:12-19; Jdg. 3:7-8; Jdg. 3:12; Jdg. 4:1-3; Jdg. 6:1-2, &c.). They continue to do evil, as if there were no curing of this plague of the heart, in departing from the living and true God.
The gods of Syria (Aram), of Zidon, of Moab, &c.] Notwithstanding all the expostulation used, the warnings given, and the severe applications of the rod, they still persisted in apostasy, nay, more, they are worse than ever; for now they go in for idolatry wholesale. Well might the prophet call on heaven and earth to listen to the tale of such dreadful impiety (Isa. 1:2-7; Jer. chs. 110; Hosea-passim. The heathen being left only with the dim light of nature, could never rise to the vast conception of supposing universal power, infinite wisdom, and perfect goodness, to be concentrated in one God. Hence they supposed it laid a broader and safer basis, to have many gods, as implying greater resources. Even Cicero, though he set forth in his book, De Natura Deorum, the vanity of the heathen deities, yet declared in one of his orations, that it did not become the majesty of the Roman empire to worship one god only. But on this point, Israel had the most precise teaching, and therefore sinned against the clearest light.
The gods of Syria, or Aram, are not named, but one of them was Rimmon (2Ki. 5:18), They were worshipped by Ahaz, as the gods of Damascus (2Ch. 28:23; 2Ki. 16:10), Those of the Zidonians, or Phenicians, were Baal and Ashteroth; of the Moabites, Chemosh; of the children of Ammon, Moloch, or Milcom; and of the Philistines, Dagon. These probably had all substantially the same features of character, just as all wicked men have a family likeness, yet there might be many varieties owing to local and accidental associations. The great fact always coming out was, that the worship of Jehovah was set aside (1Ki. 11:6-8). This amounted to the plucking up of religion by the roots, had it been allowed to continue.
Jdg. 10:7. The anger of the Lord was kindled.] After the modes of speech used among men, the strong Divine opposition to such high-handed sin is here intimated; but we are not to suppose there was any ungovernable emotion in the Divine mind, such as we always associate with anger in human bosoms. Sold them into the hands of, &c.] comp. Deu. 32:30 (see on Jdg. 3:8; Jdg. 4:2). The idolatry seems to have been on all sides, and so one enemy is raised up on the east, and another on the west. The Ammonites oppressed those on the east side of Jordan principally, and the Philistines, the tribes of Judah, Simeon and Benjamin, being nearest to them. This oppression by the Philistines is that which is referred to in the days of Samson, but is supposed to have been coeval with that of the eastern tribes by the children of Ammon, so long as that continued. The calamity which befel the trans-Jordanic tribes is first described.
Jdg. 10:8. That year they vexed and oppressed for eighteen years. &c.] We take it to be the year when God first gave them up helplessly into the hands of the enemy. That year on for 18 years. The enemy hated that people above all others, and as soon as they got the opportunity they were not slow to improve it. They oppressed with a will, and that for as many years as they had permission. Well might David say, Let me not fall into the hands of man. The verbs and have much the same meaning, and express rough and violent treatment, nearly equivalent to Psa. 2:9 (last clause). They were crushed, or dashed to pieces. The use of the two words is to give emphasis to the statement (comp. ch. Jdg. 4:3; Jdg. 6:1-6.
9. Passed over Jordan to fight against Judah, &c.] Probably they had laid bare all the country on the east side, and now they wished to ravage the lands on the west side. This appears to have been when many years of the oppression had gone, and before as yet the weight of the Philistine power had been much felt.
10. Cried unto the Lord, &c.] Comp. ch. Jdg. 2:9-15; Jdg. 4:3; Jdg. 6:6. This was no doubt a cry of distress, which is little more than an instinct of nature, but it also contains some acknowledgement of their sins, as the cause of their misery, and so is better than the mere howling of an animal when it is stricken (Hos. 7:14). The connecting particles in that, is a specific putting of the finger on the cause of all their distress. We have tinned, inasmuch as we have forsaken God and served Balaam.
Jdg. 10:11. Did not I deliver you?] This is supplemented, but most justly so. From the Egyptians Exodus 1-14); from the Amorites (Num. 21:21-35); from the children of Ammon (ch. Jdg. 3:12-13, etc.); from the Philistines (ch. Jdg. 3:31, through Shamgar). [In 1Sa. 12:9, the Philistines come between Moab and Sisera, but we are not to take that as meaning the historical connection].
Jdg. 10:12. The Zidonians also (the general name for the league of nations to the north of Canaan whose forces were commanded by Sisera); the Amalekites (the reference here is chiefly to ch. Jdg. 3:13 and Jdg. 6:3. When any attack was to be made on Israel, Amalek was always ready); and the Maonites (the Midianites, or probably that section of the Midianites that were next to Israel, and planned the invasion of ch. 6, but were joined by the great mass of the confederated people) see 2Ch. 26:7.
Jdg. 10:13. Yet ye have forsaken me, etc.] All this is said to produce deeper conviction of sin. For the really serious thing is to have thorough work in dealing with the sin. That well done, it is quick and easy work to bring round the deliverance. God keeps count of His deliverances; much more ought we to do so(Trapp), comp. Deu. 32:5-6; Ezr. 9:13-14. The great deliverances which God here calls to mind are seven in number, corresponding with the number of the different national idols which they had served, every one of which had brought them low, almost to the point of destruction. A most valuable double instruction was conveyed by these sevens. A seven times trial (complete) was made of their hearts, and they were found capable of casting off their God in order to serve any idol, no matter what, all round the compass! An equally full trial was made of the character of their God, and He was found incapable of casting them off and breaking His covenant, notwithstanding their repeated and highly aggravated sins!
I will deliver you no more.] Speaking after the manner of men, this was the treatment they deserved. They could not reasonably expect anything else. It is the language of upbraiding, and partly of threatening. But even in Israels worst days the assurance is held out, that where there is true penitence, there will be pardon (Jer. 26:3; Jer. 26:13; Jer. 31:18-20; Rev. 2:5). For God often threatens that He may not punish. He pardons such sin too, as no man could do (see Jer. 3:1)(Trapp). The whole of this remonstrance is parallel to the case of Hos. 5:15; Hos. 6:1-3, where God chastises His people by hiding His face from them which soon brings them into deep waters, so that they are glad to return to Him; comp. also Isa. 57:17-18.
Jdg. 10:15. Do to us what seemeth good unto Thee.] They leave themselves, confessedly guilty, in Gods hands. They are ready to accept the punishment of their iniquity (Lev. 26:41; Lev. 26:43). They practically say we will bear the indignation of the Lord, for we have sinned against Him (Mic. 7:9). This was the very best thing they could doto confess at once they were all in the wrong and deserved chastisement, but leaving themselves entirely at Gods disposal. No sinner can take a safer course than, while confessing his sins with sorrow, to leave himself to the promptings of Gods heart. That heart never fails, if only the obstruction is removed to the outflow of the Divine loving kindness (Jer. 31:18-19 with Jer. 31:20). Their confessions are followed up by deeds. They put away the strange gods, and so the sincerity of their penitence is crowned (Pro. 28:13; Hos. 14:8; 1Sa. 7:2-3; Gen. 35:1-5; Job. 34:31-32).
His soul was (vexed) grieved for the misery of Israel.] was shortened or impatient (Num. 21:4), like one who is restless or uneasy, and so is moved to take action. My bowels are troubled for him (Hos. 11:8-9; Isa. 40:2).
Jdg. 10:17. Gathered together.] Assembled by public proclamation (ch. Jdg. 4:13; Jdg. 7:23). The purpose is stated in next chapter. Encamped in Gilead.] Here it refers to the whole territory possessed by Israel on the east side of Jordan, but sometimes it refers only to that part which was occupied by the half tribe of Manasseh. The children of Israel assembled.] No longer deserted by their God, they are animated with fresh courage (Psa. 60:11-12; Psa. 118:8-12; Psa. 18:29-34). In Mizpeh.] Mizpeh (masc.) is said to be the town; Mizpah (fem.), the district (Jos. 11:3; Jos. 11:8), Other references are made to it as Ramoth-mizpeh, or simply Ramoth in Gilead (Jos. 13:26; Jos. 20:8; 1Ch. 6:80, see also 1Ki. 4:13; 1Ki. 22:3; 1Ki. 22:6. It was a convenient centre for rendezvous, and a place of great natural strength. With the article it means the watch-tower, or heap of witness (Gen. 31:48-49).
Jdg. 10:18. And the people and princes, etc.] Rather, and the people, even the princes of Gilead, i.e., the heads of tribes and families on the east side of Jordan. The name captain is used in ch. Jdg. 11:6; Jdg. 11:11, where it means the chief leader.
HOMILETIC REMARKS.Jdg. 10:1-18
QUIET TIMES
1. These come undeserved. On the principle, that there is no peace to the wicked, we might expect, in the ordinary exercise of justice, that troubles would never cease in a community where sin was daily committed. The existence of sin is always a cause of war with God, and, as it is manifest, that in every generation of Israel, the great majority of the people were idolaters in heart, the natural expectation was, that there would be no modifying of the severity of the Divine dealings with them at any period of their history. Yet, in fact, mild and pacific dealings did come in frequently, and so must be set down as the undeserved loving kindness of the Ruler of Providence.
How erroneous are the data, on which men form their judgments of Gods ways of dealing with them. They forget that they are ever provoking God to anger, by living every day for their own pleasure, and refusing to acknowledge His claims on their obedience, or even recognising His presence in their midst. They habitually banish him from their very thoughts, and yet murmur if He should send them trouble in any degree. They take for granted that immunity from trouble is their due; whereas it is of the Lords mercies we are not consumed. Were justice alone the rule of dealing, we could look for no respite. Quiet times, when they come, are entirely undeserved (Ezr. 9:13; Ezr. 9:15).
2. They come only after a vindication of the Divine Righteousness. In the frightful tragedy which came like a sweeping torrent on the great transgressors at Shechem, when a hurried and awful death overtook Abimelech and the inhabitants of Shechem, not a single man excepted, the whole nation were aroused from their slumbers to read the lesson of Gods anger against the idolaters. Every man seemed to hear the voice for himself, Stand in awe and sin not. It was God vindicating His own character as the righteous Moral Governor of the world. This being done in the sight of all Israel, it was fit that a pause should take place in the further sending of troubles on the land.
3. Quiet times fill the large spaces of human history. Even in this Book of Judges, which many think describes a tempestuous period of Israelitish history, the calamitous times are the exception, while those of peace and quiet are the rule. Israels first oppression was for eight years. This was followed by a rest of 40 years, or five times as long. The next period of distress lasted 18 years, and then the land had respite for 80 years. Then came trouble for 20 years, and rest for 40 years. Again we read of seven years oppression, and this followed by 40 years of quiet. Once more, we have the cataract of bloodshed and sin for three years, and now a pause, and dead stillness for 45 years.
So it is in human life generally, notwithstanding mens high-handed provocations. Times of immunity from trial form by far the larger portions of our life. Our days of good health greatly outnumber the days of sickness. Our times of peace and comfort, are greatly longer than the periods of severe pain and great calamity. Our seasons of sunshine also are long, compared with those when our sky is overcast. Our hopes, as a rule, by many degrees exceed our fears. Cases also are numerous where, if we be true Christians, when our troubles abound, our consolations do much more abound. Generally, the expression of friendly feeling greets our ears more frequently than those of anger and disaffection. All things go to show that the largest spaces in human life partake of the character of quiet and goodwill, notwithstanding the provocations we give to the Ruler of Providence.
4. Quiet times are greatly needed.
(1). To preserve the benign attitude of God in dealing with guilty men.
To keep up this attitude is essential, for without this view of the Divine character, men would never be brought back to God. We love Him because He loves us. A free and full revelation of the loving nature of God, is necessary to remove the prejudice which is natural to the human heart against God, that He is hard and inexorable, ever disposed to say, Pay me that thou owest to the uttermost farthing. Happy is the man who gets entirely free of that prejudice.
By often sending seasons of quiet when He might justly appoint times of great distress, God shows that he will not be always frowning, as if, like weak man, He could not remain self-controlled in the face of so many provocations. But as He must show Himself jealous for His own great name, there are junctures when he comes forth to vindicate His honour. He reserves special occasions, called emphatically the day of the Lord, when He lays judgment to the line, and righteousness to the plumbline, and so vindicates His own Majesty on the one hand, while He visits sin as it deserves on the other. On these special occasions, He shows what he might do at any time, though for the most part he forbears. Thus the times of forbearance, or of quiet, are many compared with the times of smiting: His tender mercies are over all His works.
He will not chido continually,
Nor keep His anger still;
With us He dealt not as we sinned,
Nor did requite our ill.
(2.) To allow time to recover from the effects of great agitation. After the violent spasm to which the country was subjected by Abimelech, it required a period of calm to recover from the shock and the confusion. Each oppression of the land through the in-rush of Vandalic hordes produced a disastrous effect. The country was desolated, the homes of Israel were broken up, the bonds of society were loosed, the administration of justice ceased, and the whole nation was scattered and peeled (ch. Jdg. 5:6; Jdg. 5:8.) Quiet times were needed to set the nation on its feet again, to give heart to its people, and bring back days of prosperity and of hope. The operations of industry must be resumed, fields must be sown and reaped, the useful arts of life must be prosecuted, channels for trade must be opened up, and laws for the security of life and property must be established. God never wished to make a full end of His chosen people, and, though they were often brought very low for their sins, and made to feel how easy it would have been to dash them to the ground beyond all possibility of rising again, He ever remembered that they were the people on whom He had set His love, out of whom should arise the promised seed that was one day to bless the whole earth, and so they were restored.
(3) To carry on all the useful activities of life. If a nation is to live, there must be scope for its activity. Freedom of action must be allowed to the mass of its people to carry out their schemes and fulfil their duties. And it is in the unfettered, healthful working out of the innumerable small schemes and duties of life that the temporal wellbeing of a nation mainly consists. The great deeds of its heroes are things to dazzle the eye, and perhaps enkindle hope, inspire courage, and excite to lofty aspiration. But it is far less on these, that the true prosperity of a people depends, than on the industry and energy of the myriads of hands that are ever plying the loom in the common machinery of human life.
Niagara excites our wonder, and we stand amazed at the power and greatness of God as He pours it from the hollow of His hand. But one Niagara is enough for a continent and a world, while that same world needs tens of thousands of silver fountains and gently flowing rivulets, that shall water every farm, every meadow, and every garden, and shall flow on every day and night with their gentle and quiet beauty. So with the acts of our lives. It is not by great deeds only, like those of Howard, nor by great sufferings only, like those of the martyrs, that good is to be done. It is by the quiet and useful virtues of the Christian character, the meek forbearance of the Christian temper, the spirit of forgiveness in the husband, the wife, the father, the mother, the brother, the sister, the friend, and the neighbour in every avenue in which men move, that society is to be improved and its bonds strengthened.[Barnes.]
(4) For purposes of consideration and profitable meditation. Calm thought is always needed to weigh things in even scales. Amid the hurry and excitement of strong passing events the mind cannot estimate the strength of the forces at work around it, and is disturbed in its judgments, like the trembling of the needle in a rolling ship. Quiet hours are needed to consider the why and the wherefore of Gods dealings. Proper meditation on what has happened is apt to lead to self-humiliation and amendment of ways. It prompts men to say, Let us search and try our ways, and turn to the Lord. The broken and contrite spirit is cherished (Lam. 3:28-36), arguments are weighed, motives and aims are examined, and new resolutions in the strength of Gods grace are formed. Deeper attention is paid to the roots of character, new seeds of profitable thought are deposited in the mind, and a more careful, more mature, and better-weighed decision is come to, not to continue the war any longer with God, but to yield up everything at the expression of His will.
THE SILENCES OF HISTORY
Here are two judges mentioned by name, as having occupied the posts of most public observation in the whole nation, and in charge of its public welfare for the long period of close on half a century, and yet not a single deed is noticed that either of them did. Their family circle is referred to, and their high social position, but as regards the share they took in the public events of their time there is a perfect blank in the narrative. On this we remark
1. The silences of Scripture history are sometimes speaking silences. It is so in the case of Melchizedeck. All that is told of him in the narrative is comprised in one short paragraph. We are only told what he did in blessing Abraham, when he returned from the slaughter of the kings; but not a word is said about his father and mother on the one hand, nor about his death on the other. Yet see how much the apostle made of this silence in Heb. 7:3; also David in Psalms 110. There is silence kept, too, in regard to the Rock in the wilderness as to its being a foreshadowing of Christ in being a Smitten Rock, and water issuing from it sufficient to preserve the life of Gods people to the end of their wilderness journey, with other particulars. But we should hardly have ventured to say that that Rock was Christ had not the inspired writer told us so (1Co. 10:4). It is the same with many other objects in Old Testament history. And the absence of any statement that any one of them was a type of Christ has the significance of saying, that the whole framework of that history was made up in such a way as to foreshadow Christ.
Here there is a speaking silence, when two men follow each other as chief magistrates of the nation, at a most difficult juncture of affairs, when public morality was low, when the public administration of justice was all but paralysed, when the tide of ungodliness swept over the land, and nothing was so likely to happen as a series of the most tragic occurrences, and yet there is nothing to say! This fact speaks volumes for the practical wisdom, the tact and prudence, and the comprehensive understanding of the times on the part of these men to know what Israel ought to do. An uneventful age means a period of peace and contentment. Hence the adage, Happy is the nation that hath no history.
2. These silences are numerous. Over the history of the whole world before the Flood the veil of silence is spread. Only a few fragmentary utterances are given respecting the lives of thousands, nay, millions of actors for more than sixteen centuries! And the history of the whole heathen world is left out, except some black edgings of history, which are so bad that we scarcely can desire to have had more! But even among good men the silences are many, as in the case of Enoch, and Abel, and Seth; of Adam himself, also, after his fall; of the parents of Moses, and Jesse, the father of David; of Caleb, and Jethro, and Obadiah, and Jabez, with many more, all of whom are dismissed with a comparatively brief notice, and yet they are names of which we might well desire to hear more. Indeed, the persons selected for a moderately full notice on the page of Scripture history are very few.
3. They often occur in tenderness. This is specially the case, in the infrequent notices taken of the sins of Gods people. A few cases of aggravated offences are mentioned, but what multitudes are passed over in silence! David, by his own account, had so many transgressions to confess before his God that he felt them to be more in number than the hairs on his head (Psa. 40:12). And of men generally, he says, Who can understand his errors? But with the sins which might exist with David before his God men had not to do, and God does not speak of them in the ears of men. It is of those that were a scandal before the world and the Church that open notice is taken in the Book of God. How many sins are covered (Psa. 32:1); removed far away (Psa. 103:12); blotted out as a thick cloud (Isa. 44:22); passed by (Mic. 7:19); remembered no more! (Heb. 8:12).
4. They illustrate the sovereignty of God in giving to each one his place in history.
Some have a prominent station given them, while to others an obscure or unconspicuous post is assigned. Some receive notice only as hewers of wood and drawers of water, while others stand forth in the foreground like Joshua, and are made to perform deeds which require a whole Book to preserve a record of them. Gideons life occupies three long chapters; Zola and Jair together only five verses. Ehuds one deed fills a whole page, while Shamgars feat is dismissed in a single verse. The story of Deborah and Barak runs on for fully two chapters, while Ibzan, Ebon, and Abdon all three scarcely occupy a moderate paragraph.
There are reasons for this:
(1.) God has a plan of Providential dealing with His Church, and He selects instruments that are suitable to that plan. Hence one is taken and another is left.
(2.) He has a right to make use of His own creatures as it pleases Him. They are at His absolute disposal, but men forget what that means. It means they are at the disposal of One whose character is the reverse of that of man, He is One who is so just, that He cannot act unjustly by any of His creatures, so kind, that He cannot act by them unkindly, so wise that He cannot fall into any error in His dealings. No creature can be safer than to leave himself entirely in the hands of his God, doing His will.
(3.) In His sovereign disposal of mens lot, He always acts from wise and just reasons.
(4). None have a right to claim a prominent position at His hands.
(5.) Grace always appears with sovereignty in Gods dealings with men in this world. We owe that to the essential character of God, whose grace never faileth.
NEW SINS AND NEW SORROWS
[See Remarks on ch. Jdg. 3:12; Jdg. 4:1, etc.; Jdg. 6:1, etc.]
1. The human heart when left to itself is capable of going the whole round of sin. Here are seven different gods bowed to, and had there been other seven, or even seventy times seven, it would have made no difference in the result. Well might Jehovah say, My people are bent to backsliding from Me.
2. There is no possibility of serving Jehovah and other gods at the same time. Beginning with an attempt at the combination, they soon gave up even the semblance of worshipping Jehovah (Eze. 20:39).
3. There is a fascination in worshipping false gods. The bias of the heart to that worship must have been strong, when such solemn arguments were used all along against it, but in vain. What was the magnetic force that drew them on?
(1) There was a charm in mere scenic representations. Visibility was given to ones religion, and the senses were exercised rather than the mind. There was music and dancing, and even frivolity mixed up with their religion.
(2) In idolatry they had the power of making gods to their own minds, and they ascribed to them only such features of character as they wished them to possess.
(3) These gods permitted indulgence in all the evil propensities of the depraved heartthose lusts and passions that war against the soul (Numbers 25).
(4) The principle of imitation is strong. All other nations so worshipped. They did not like to be singular. These nations, too, were prosperous and rich.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Tola and Jair Judge Israel Jdg. 10:1-5
And after Abimelech there arose to defend Israel Tola the son of Puah, the son of, Dodo, a man of Issachar; and he dwelt in Shamir in mount Ephraim.
2 And he judged Israel twenty and three years, and died, and was buried in Shamir.
3 And after him arose Jair, a Gileadite, and judged Israel twenty and two years.
4 And he had thirty sons that rode on thirty ass colts, and they had thirty cities, which are called Havoth-jair unto this day, which are in the land of Gilead.
5 And Jair died, and was buried in Camon.
1.
Who was Tola? Jdg. 10:1
Tola is described as the son of Puah. Nothing more is known of this man. He evidently made his home in the hill country of Ephraim in a village called Shamir. Tola judged Israel for twenty-three years and then was buried in the inheritance of his father in Shamir. In his case there is no indication of the people seeking out a leader. On the contrary, it is said that after Abimelech Tola arose to defend Israel. This man must have seen the conditions which prevailed in his beloved homeland and his righteous soul became vexed within him. In an effort to change the situation, he offered himself as a champion for his people.
2.
Where was Tolas home? Jdg. 10:2
The town of Shamir was a location in the mountains of Ephraim, It was a different place from the Shamir in the hill country of Judah (Jos. 15:48), but its exact situation is still unknown. It may have been actually in the territory of Issachar; or since Issachar and Ephraim bordered each other, Tola may have chosen to live outside the boundaries of his own territory in a town which was a part of the inheritance of Ephraim, their neighbors to the south.
3.
Who was Jair? Jdg. 10:3-4
Jair was a Gileadite. He is the first of the judges to have a residence east of the Jordan, and this seems to be one of the most significant things about him. In addition, we learn an interesting detail about his family. He had thirty sons, and each had an ass colt on which he rode. These men also each possessed a city, and the group of cities and the territory in which they were situated became known as Havoth-jair. The fact that it is said the land was known as Havoth-jair is not a contradiction of the fact that in the time of Moses the Manassite, Jair, gave the name of Havoth-jair to the towns of Bashan which had been conquered by him (Num. 32:41 and Deu. 3:14). It is not stated here that the thirty cities which belonged to the sons of Jair received this name for the first time from the judge, Jair, but simply that this name was brought into use again. It was applied to these cities in a peculiar sense.
4.
Can we locate Camon today? Jdg. 10:5
After Jair judged Israel for twenty-two years, he died and was buried in Camon. Josephus (Antiquities, V, i, 6) describes it as a city of Gilead. This is probably because of his assuming that it would not be likely for Jair, the Gileadite who possessed so many cities in Gilead, to be buried outside Gilead. Keil and Delitzsch in their Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Joshua, Judges, Ruth, say that Jair was probably from the tribe of Issachar. They base this on the assumption that he followed Tola in the judgeship, and Tola was from Issachar. Other commentators, however, take a more likely view that Camon is on the east of the Jordan, and Jair was not only buried in Gilead but lived there.
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
(1) After Abimelech.his is merely a note of time. Abimelech is not counted among the judges, though it is not improbable that, evil as was the episode of his rebellions, he may have kept foreign enemies in check.
To defend Israel.Rather, to deliver, as in the margin and elsewhere (Jdg. 2:16; Jdg. 2:18; Jdg. 3:9, &c).
There arose.The phrase implies a less direct call and a less immediate service than that used of other judges (Jdg. 2:18; Jdg. 3:9).
Tola.The name of a son of Issachar (Gen. 46:13) It means worm (perhaps the kermes -worm), and may, like Puah, be connected with the trade in purple dyes. He seems to have been the only judge furnished by this indolent tribe, unless Deborah be an exception. Josephus omits his name.
Puah.Also a son of Issachar (1Ch. 7:1).
The son of Dodo.The LXX. render it the son of his uncle, but there can be little doubt that Dodo is a proper name, as in 1Ch. 11:12; 2Sa. 23:9; 2Sa. 23:24. It is from the same root as David, beloved. Since Tola was of Issachar, he could not be nephew of Abimelech a Manassite.
He dwelt in Shamir.The name has nothing to do with Samaria, as the LXX. seem to suppose. It may be Sanr, eight miles north of Samaria.
In mount Ephraim.As judge, he would have to fix his residence in a town more central than any in his own tribe. There was another Shamir in Judah (Jos. 15:48).
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
TOLA AND JAIR, Jdg 10:1-5.
1. There arose In the providence of God.
To defend Rather, to save Israel. No particular acts of Tola are recorded, but only the general statement (Jdg 10:2) that he judged Israel twenty three years. Hence it has been a question among the commentators, How did Tola save Israel?
There is no record of any new oppressions, or of any special dangers. But the chief difficulty comes from assuming that there was no sense in which he might have saved Israel unless they had been in bondage to some foreign foe. He might have saved them from civil discords and fearful feuds by his wise and prudent judgments. He may have saved them from foreign invasions by a timely and prudent caution. We should also remember that the silence of Scripture respecting an individual is not sufficent ground for assuming that he did no mighty works. Tola was raised up to defend Israel; that is, for the purpose of defending or saving them in case any difficulty or danger came; and perhaps an important part of his labour was to save or reclaim the people from the idolatry into which they had fallen after the death of Gideon.
A man of Issachar One of that tribe by birth.
Dwelt in Shamir The site of Shamir has not been satisfactorily identified. “It is singular that this judge, a man of Issachar, should have taken up his official residence out of his own tribe. We may account for it by supposing that the Plain of Esdraelon, which formed the greater part of the territory of Issachar, was overrun, as in Gideon’s time, by the Canaanites or other marauders, of whose incursions nothing whatever is told us, (though their existence is certain,) driving Tola to the more secure mountains of Ephraim. Or, as Manasseh had certain cities out of Issachar allotted to him, so Issachar, on the other hand, may have possessed some towns in the mountains of Ephraim.” Grove, in Smith’s Bib. Dict. Others have supposed that at this city in the mountains of Ephraim he was more accessible to the various tribes, and could thus more conveniently judge Israel.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Judges 10 The Rise of Ammon.
This chapter gives an account of two judges of Israel, in whose days their parts of Israel enjoyed peace, after which, by sinning against God Israel came into further trouble, and were oppressed by their enemies eighteen years, and were invaded by an army of the Ammonites. When they cried to Yahweh for deliverance, confessing their sins, He at first refused to grant it, although on their continuing and reforming He had compassion on them, and the chapter concludes with the preparations made by both armies for battle.
Further Judges of Israel ( Jdg 10:1-5 ).
Jdg 10:1
‘ And after Abimelech there arose to save Israel, Tola the son of Puah, the son of Dodo, a man of Issachar, and he dwelt in Shamir in the hill country of Ephraim.’
It is noteworthy that it is not said of Abimelech that he delivered Israel, or saved Israel or acted as judge. His short appearance was an interlude between judges, a blot on the picture. But once again, when he was gone, God raised up judges in accordance with His will.
The first was Tola, the son of Puah (sometimes Puvah). For these names (but not the persons) as connected with Issachar, compare Gen 46:13; Num 26:23; 1Ch 7:1. The name Dodo appears in 1Sa 23:9, and, interestingly, in connection with a cult object in the Moabite stone (‘the altar-hearth of Dodo’), connected with the Israelites in Transjordan. The whereabouts of Shamir is not known.
Thus to this point we have had five judges, Othniel of Judah, Ehud of Benjamin, Shamgar, Deborah with Barak of Naphtali, Gideon of Manasseh and this, Tola of Issachar, is the sixth. He will be followed by Jair of Gilead, Jephthah of Gilead, Ibzan of Bethlehem (in Zebulun – Jos 19:15), Elon of Zebulun, Abdon the Pirathonite, and Samson the Danite. Thus making twelve in all, the number of the tribes in the covenant.
Tola ‘saved’ Israel. This would suggest that he was more than just an administrator, but was a charismatic leader raised in a time of trouble. However, we know no more about him except that he judged Israel for twenty three years.
Jdg 10:2
‘ And he judged Israel twenty and three years, and died, and was buried in Shamir.’ We get from these two verses the sense that tranquillity had been restored. The tumult of Abimelech was over. The ‘twenty and three years’ may indicate that he judged for twenty years (half a generation) more than Abimelech was prince over Israel (Jdg 9:22), an indication that righteous rule had replaced unrighteous rule.
Jdg 10:3
‘ And after him arose Jair, the Gileadite, and he judged Israel twenty and two years.’
Jair means ‘he who enlightens’. He judged in a totally different part of the country than Tola, on the east side of the Jordan in Gilead. ‘After him’ may simply signify that he arose after Tola saved Israel and began to judge. Thus the judgeships may overlap. ‘Twenty and two years’ may indicate ‘just over half a generation’. He judged the same general area as that conquered by Jair, the ‘son of Manasseh’, in Num 32:41 (see also Deu 3:14; Jos 13:30 which connect them with Bashan which was part of ‘all the land of Gilead’ (2Ki 10:33)), but the latter only ruled twenty three towns (1Ch 2:22), although compare ‘the towns of Jair’ (Jos 13:30). This suggests that he came from a noble and influential family. His wealth is apparent from Jdg 10:4.
Jdg 10:4
‘ And he had thirty sons that rode upon thirty ass colts, and they had thirty cities, which are called Havothjair unto this day, which are in the land of Gilead.’
He seemingly had a number of wives who gave him thirty sons, each of whom ruled a town. The fact that they rode on ass colts stresses their position and dignity. ‘Havvoth Jair’ means ‘the tent villages of Jair’, but by now, while retaining the old name, they had progressed to small towns and cities.
Jdg 10:5
‘ And Jair died, and was buried in Camon.’
Both these judges appear to have served well and maintained submission to Yahweh, for it was only on their deaths that the children of Israel again backslid.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Jdg 10:6 And the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the LORD, and served Baalim, and Ashtaroth, and the gods of Syria, and the gods of Zidon, and the gods of Moab, and the gods of the children of Ammon, and the gods of the Philistines, and forsook the LORD, and served not him.
Jdg 10:6
Lev 17:7, “And they shall no more offer their sacrifices unto devils, after whom they have gone a whoring. This shall be a statute for ever unto them throughout their generations.”
Deu 32:17, “They sacrificed unto devils, not to God; to gods whom they knew not, to new gods that came newly up, whom your fathers feared not.”
Jdg 10:6 “and the gods of Syria” – Comments – Hadad and Rimmon were some of the Syrian gods. The ISBE says t he name of Hadad, t he supreme god of Syria, “is found in Scripture in the names of the Syrian kings, Benhadad, Hadadezer. The god Hadad (= perhaps, “maker of loud noise”) is mentioned in Assyrian inscriptions” The ISBE says it has been suggested that both of these names are found as well in Scripture within the names of several places (Zec 12:11). [23]
[23] George Rice Hovey, “Hadad,” in International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, ed. James Orr (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., c1915, 1939), in The Sword Project, v. 1.5.11 [CD-ROM] (Temple, AZ: CrossWire Bible Society, 1990-2008).
Zec 12:11, “In that day shall there be a great mourning in Jerusalem, as the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddon.”
Naaman spoke of the god Rimmon in 2Ki 5:18, “In this thing the LORD pardon thy servant, that when my master goeth into the house of Rimmon to worship there, and he leaneth on my hand, and I bow myself in the house of Rimmon: when I bow down myself in the house of Rimmon, the LORD pardon thy servant in this thing.”
Jdg 10:6 “and the gods of Moab” Comments – Moab’s chief god was called Chemosh, who is mentioned in Scriptures (Num 21:29, Jdg 11:24 , 1Ki 11:7, Jer 48:13; Jer 48:46).
Num 21:29, “Woe to thee, Moab ! thou art undone, O people of Chemosh : he hath given his sons that escaped, and his daughters, into captivity unto Sihon king of the Amorites.”
Jdg 11:24, “Wilt not thou possess that which Chemosh thy god giveth thee to possess? So whomsoever the LORD our God shall drive out from before us, them will we possess.”
1Ki 11:7, “Then did Solomon build an high place for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab , in the hill that is before Jerusalem, and for Molech, the abomination of the children of Ammon.”
Jer 48:13, “And Moab shall be ashamed of Chemosh , as the house of Israel was ashamed of Bethel their confidence.”
Jer 48:46, “Woe be unto thee, O Moab! the people of Chemosh perisheth: for thy sons are taken captives, and thy daughters captives.”
Jdg 10:6 “and the gods of the children of Ammon” – Comments – Milcom, or Molech, was the chief god of the children of Ammon. This name is mentioned in Scriptures (1Ki 11:7; 1Ki 11:33).
1Ki 11:7, “Then did Solomon build an high place for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, in the hill that is before Jerusalem, and for Molech, the abomination of the children of Ammon .”
1Ki 11:33 Because that they have forsaken me, and have worshipped Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians, Chemosh the god of the Moabites, and Milcom the god of the children of Ammon , and have not walked in my ways, to do that which is right in mine eyes, and to keep my statutes and my judgments, as did David his father.”
Jdg 10:6 “and the gods of the Philistines” – Comments – The chief gods of the Philistines were called Dagon and Baalzebub, whose names are mentioned in Scripture (Judg 16:33, 2Ki 1:2-3).
Jdg 16:23, “Then the lords of the Philistines gathered them together for to offer a great sacrifice unto Dagon their god , and to rejoice: for they said, Our god hath delivered Samson our enemy into our hand.”
2Ki 1:2-3, “And Ahaziah fell down through a lattice in his upper chamber that was in Samaria, and was sick: and he sent messengers, and said unto them, Go, enquire of Baalzebub the god of Ekron whether I shall recover of this disease. But the angel of the LORD said to Elijah the Tishbite, Arise, go up to meet the messengers of the king of Samaria, and say unto them, Is it not because there is not a God in Israel, that ye go to enquire of Baalzebub the god of Ekron?”
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
The Judgeship of Tola and Jair.
v. l. And after Abimelech there arose to defend, that is, to save, to deliver, Israel Tola, the son of Puah, the son of Dodo, a man of Issachar; and he dwelt in Shamir in Mount Ephraim, in its northern ranges.
v. 2. And he judged Israel twenty and three years, v. 3. And after him arose Jair, a Gileadite, v. 4. And he had thirty sons that rode on thirty ass colts, and they had thirty cities, which are called Havoth-jair, v. 5. And Jair died, and was buried in Camon,
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
EXPOSITION
Jdg 10:1
Tola the son of Puah, the son of Dodo. Nothing more is known of Tola than what is here told us, viz; his name, his parentage, his dwelling-place, his office, the length of time which he held it, and the place of his burial. Who were the enemies from whom Tola was raised up to save Israel we are not told. There was probably no great invasion or grievous servitude, but perhaps frequent border wars requiring an able and watchful chief to maintain the independence of Israel. Tola and Puah (otherwise written Puvah) were both names of families in Issachar (Gen 46:13; Num 26:23). Shamir in mount Ephraim, to distinguish it from Shamir in the hill country of Judah (Jos 15:48). Both are otherwise unknown.
Jdg 10:3
Jair. We read of Jair the son of Segub, the son of Machir’s daughter by Hezron, in 1Ch 2:21-23, and are there told that he had twenty-three cities in the land of Gilead (called Havoth-jair), which were included in the territory of the sons of Machir. The same information is given in Num 32:40-42, and in Deu 3:14, Deu 3:15, in both which passages Jair is styled the son of Manasseh, and is stated to have called the cities after his own name, Havoth-jair. In the present verse we are also told that Jair the judge was a Gileadite, and that he had thirty sons who had thirty cities in Gilead called Havoth-jair. The question arises, Can these two be the same person? If they are, Deu 3:14 must be a later parenthetical insertion, as it has very much the appearance of being. The notice in Num 32:41 must also refer to later times than those of Moses, and we must understand the statement in 1Ch 2:22, that “Segub begat Jair,” as meaning that he was his lineal ancestor, just as in Mat 1:8 we read that “Joram begat Ozias,” though three generations intervened between them. If, on the other hand, they are not the same, we must suppose that Jair in our text was a descendant of the other Jair, and may compare the double explanation of the name Havoth-jair with the double explanation of Beer-sheba given Gen 21:31; Gen 26:31-33; the threefold explanation of the name Isaac, Gen 17:17; Gen 18:12; Gen 21:6; and the double explanation of the proverb, “Is Saul among the prophets?” given in 1Sa 10:11, 1Sa 10:12; 1Sa 19:23, 1Sa 19:24. The Hebrew name Jair is preserved in the New Testament under the Greek form of Jairus (Mar 5:22).
Jdg 10:4
Thirty ass colts. The number and dignity of these knightly sons of Jair shows that Jair himself, like Gideon (Jdg 8:30), assumed the state of a prince. The word in Hebrew for ass colts is identical with that for cities, as here pointed, and this play upon the words belongs to the same turn of mind as produced Jotham’s fable and Samson’s riddle (Jdg 14:14).
Jdg 10:5
Jair … was buried in Careen. A city of Gilead according to Josephus, and probability. Polybius mentions a Camoun among other trans-Jordanic places, but its site has not been verified by modern research. Eusebius and Jerome place it in the plain of Esdraelon, but without probability. The careful mention of the place of sepulture of the judges and kings is remarkable, beginning with Gideon (Jdg 8:32; Jdg 10:2, Jdg 10:5; Jdg 12:9, Jdg 12:10, Jdg 12:12, Jdg 12:15; Jdg 16:31; 1Sa 31:12; 2Sa 2:10, etc.).
HOMILETICS
Jdg 10:1-5
The lull
In the affairs of nations, as in the lives of men, there are occasional periods of uneventful quietness, when the storms and winds of stirring interests and aggressive actions are lulled, and a monotonous rest succeeds to exciting change. At such times no great characters stand out from the historic canvas, no activity of mind producing a clashing of opinion agitates the surface of society, no great measures are called for, no striking incidents of a prosperous or of an adverse kind diversify the scene. It is so likewise sometimes in the Church. Heresy is still; persecution is still; aggressive movements of parties are still; controversy is hushed; Christianity folds her wings and takes no flight into distant lands; there are no reformers at work. Fanaticism is asleep; the uniformity of slumber supersedes the diversities of energetic religious life. Such periods of stillness may have their uses in Church and State, but they have their evils likewise. And they are only temporary; often only the lull before the storm. Such were the forty-five years of the judgeships of Tola and Jair. In their days we read of no invasions of their foes. No Gideon comes to the front with the strong life of unquenchable faith and indomitable courage. The only events chronicled are the peaceful ridings of Jair’s sons upon their asses’ colts amidst their ancestral cities. But troublous times were at hand. It was the lull before the storm Would the storm find the people prepared? The sequel will show. Meanwhile the reflection arises, Be it our aim in quiet times not to fall asleep; in times of excitement not to lose the balance of a sober mind and the calmness of a deep-rooted faith.
HOMILIES BY A.F. MUIR
Jdg 10:1-5
The calm after the storm.
Partly exhaustion, partly consciousness of Divine judgment, restrains the spirit of Israel. The punishment of its unfaithfulness had come from within itself, and was the more felt. The pendulum now swings slowly back.
I. IT WAS A “PEACE OF GOD.” The hand of Jehovah was seen. The consciences even of the wicked had been touched. So in the lives of individuals and nations there are times given of God after judgments in which to repent and amend; and these are not of their own creation, but a result of a gracious Providence. But as they are each a calm after a storm, so, being unimproved, they may be but the portentous lulls before greater judgments. The enemy from without is restrained, as if to say that the real danger could only arise from within.
II. ITS CHARACTER. Undistinguished by great individual exploits; but showing a general advance in civilisation, the arts of peace, and external respect for government and religion. The solid monuments of the people’s industry and foresight (the cities of the circle of Jair, etc.) remained. A happier generation lived and throve over the ashes of the guilty past; and some steps were taken towards the more settled and permanent type of government, the monarchy.
III. ITS IMPORT. God’s punishments and judgments are intended to prepare for peace. The sinner can never say he has had “no room for repentance.” But this was only external and temporary peacea truce with an unreconciled Heaven. It is precious, therefore, only as making for and typifying the kingdom of Christ, and the peace of believers, which follow upon storm and overturning and Divine chastisements, but confer unspeakable blessings and make happy.M.
HOMILIES BY W.F. ADENEY
Jdg 10:1-5
Quiet times.
I. THE BEST MEN ARE NOT ALWAYS BEST KNOWN. We know nothing of Tola and Jair in comparison with what we know of Abimelech. Yet the very fact that little is said of them is a proof that they were good and honest men. We are too ready to mistake notoriety for fame and both for signs of greatness. They are not the greatest men who make the most noise in the world. It is something if this censorious world can say no ill of us. Aim at doing well rather than at striking attention.
II. QUIET TIMES ARE HAPPY TIMES. Israel was now experiencing the happiness of the people whose annals are dull. It is generally a miserable thing to be the subject of an interesting story; the more full of incident the story is, the more full of distress will be the person to whom it relates. Happiness generally visits private lives in their obscurity, and forsakes those which are protruded into the glare of vulgar curiosity. David’s happiest days were spent with the sheep on the hills of Bethlehem. Christ found more happiness at Capernaum than in Jerusalem.
III. QUIET TIMES ARE OFTEN HEALTHFUL TIMES. There is a quietness which betokens the stagnation of death, and there is a condition of ease which favours indolence, luxury, and vice. But there is also a quietness of healthy life (Isa 30:15). The flowers grow, not in the noisy storm, but in soft showers and in quiet sunshine. In times of quiet a nation is able to effect legislative improvements, to open up its internal resources, to develop commerce, to cultivate science, art, and literature, and to turn its attention to the promotion of the highest welfare of all within its borders. In times of quiet the Church is able to study Divine truth more deeply and to carry out missionary enterprises with more energy. In times of quiet rightly used the soul enjoys the contemplation of God and grows under the peaceful influences of his Spirit (Psa 72:6).
IV. QUIET TIMES ARE MORE FREQUENT THAN WE COMMONLY SUPPOSE. History directs inordinate attention to scenes of tumult, and necessarily so. Hence we are likely to magnify the range of these. In times of war there are vast areas of peace. The terrible seasons which attract our attention are separated by long intervals of quiet which pass unnoticed. Thus it was
(1) in the history of Israel, which is really not so dark as it appears because so many generations were spent in peaceful obscurity;
(2) in the history of our own country, of the Church, and of the world; and
(3) in our own lives, since we commonly recollect the troublesome times (which are striking partly just because they are abnormal), and ungratefully ignore the long, quiet seasons of unbroken blessings.A.
Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary
CHAP. X.
Tola judgeth Israel, and after him Jair: the Israelite, are oppressed by the Philistines and the Ammonites: they cry unto the Lord, and encamp in Mizpeh.
Before Christ 1208.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
SIXTH SECTION
Two Judges In Quiet, Peaceful Times: Tola Of Issachar And Jair The Gileadite
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The Judgeships of Tola and Jair
Jdg 10:1-5
1And after Abimelech there arose to defend [deliver] Israel, Tola the son of Puah, the son of Dodo, a man of Issachar; and he dwelt in Shamir in mount Ephraim. 2And he judged Israel twenty and three years, and died, and was buried in Shamir. 3And after him arose Jair, a [the] Gileadite, and judged Israel twenty and two years. 4And he had thirty sons [,] that rode on thirty ass colts, and they had thirty cities, [those] which are called Havoth-jair [the circles of Jair] unto this day, which are in the land of Gilead. 5And Jair died, and was buried in Camon.
EXEGETICAL AND DOCTRINAL
Jdg 10:1. And after Abimelech there arose Tola, the son of Puah, the son of Dodo. The record of this mans life contains no stirring actions, like those of Abimelech, but tells of something better. He delivered and judged Israel. This, however, always presupposes renewed consciousness of sin on the part of Israel, and return to the living God. It is probable that the horrible deeds and the terrible end of Abimelech and Shechem made such an impression upon the conscience of Israel, as to open the way for deliverance. Under this view, the words after Abimelech receive a deeper significance; and the reason why the history of that personage was so copiously narrated becomes still more evident. That which at other times was the result of terrors from without, is this time brought about by the civil catastrophe within.
The deliverers name was Tola, the son of Puah, the son of Dodo. The mention of father and grandfather both, is unusual, and occurs in the case of no other Judge. It was therefore natural, that already at an early date, and also, it would seem, by the Masora, ben Dodo was taken appellatively, as meaning Son of his Uncle or Cousin. The his in that case must refer to Abimelech; and Tola would have to be regarded as the son of a brother or a sister of Gideon. The son of Gideons brother, he cannot have been (although this is just the relation indicated by ancient expositions, cf. the of the LXX.); for he belonged not to Manasseh, but to Issachar. If a sister of Gideon had married a man of the tribe of Issachar, this person might indeed have been called an uncle (dod) of Abimelech. But if such were the relation, is it not more likely that the writer would have said, Son of the sister of Jerubbaal? The names Tola and Puah, as borne by sons of Issachar, are already found in Gen 46:13. They became established in the families of that tribe, and frequently recur. It was just so in German families, especially of the Middle Ages. Particular names were peculiar to particular families. (Instead of , Puah, we have , Puvah, in Gen 46:13 and Num 26:23, though not in all MSS. 1Ch 7:1 has , Puah.) These names indicate a certain industry, which, it may be inferred, must have been carried on in Issachar. Tola () is the Kermesworm (coccus ilicis), from which the crimson, or deep scarlet color ( ), of which we read so much in connection with the tabernacle, was derived; and Puah is Chaldee for rubia tinctorum, or madder red (cf. Buxtorff, sub voce). We shall not err, perhaps, if we conjecture that the third name also is added because of its agreement in meaning with the two preceding. For Dodo, if we derive it from , dud, instead of , dod, cousin, means pot, or vessel, a prominent utensil in the preparation of dyes.1 Names of this kind, it is well known, are not unfrequent in the East. Hammer (Namen der Araber) even adduces the name Fihr, which signifies the stone used for grinding perfumes.
He dwelt in Shamir, on Mount Ephraim. The centre of his judicial activity was permanently fixed in Ephraim. As to Shamir, this name (on its import, compare my treatise Schamir, Erf. 1856) may be identified with Shemer, name of the owner of the hill on which king Omri afterwards built Shomeron, Samaria (1Ki 16:24).
Jdg 10:3-5. And after him arose Jair, the Gileadite. Just as Tola was a family-name in Issachar, so was Jair in Gilead. The ancestor of this Jair was the son of Manasseh, whose name was associated with the acquisition of the greatest part of the territory in possession of the eastern half-tribe of Manasseh. Machir, it is stated, Num 32:39-41, took Gilead, and Jair, son of Manasseh, the circles, which were afterwards called the circles of Jair. It has already been pointed out in connection with our explanation of the name Hivite (Chivi), that chavah, (plur. chavoth, Eng. Ver. Havoth), means circle, from the form in which those villages to which it is applied were laid out (see on Jdg 3:3). It would, therefore, involve a twofold error to explain Havoth-Jair, as modern expositors do, by making it analogous to such German names as Eisleben and Aschersleben; for, in the first place, chavah does not mean life here; and, secondly, in such names as the above, the German leben does not mean vita but mansio.
By these circles of Jair we are evidently to understand the whole of the present western Hauran, reaching as far as Jebel Hauran, for Kenath (the present Kenawath) is reckoned among the sixty cities of Jair (1Ch 2:23; 1Ki 4:13). Wetzsteins conjecture (Hauran, p. 101), that these cities are only sixty tent-villages of the nomadic order, is by no means to be accepted; for the books of Kings and Chronicles are conversant with great cities, with walls and brazen bars, in the region that pertained to Jair. The objection that if such cities had existed, the Assyrians could not have subjected the two and a half tribes so readily, is not borne out. In the first place, because the accounts of this conquest are very brief and scanty; and in the second place, because the history of all ages teaches us, that when the Spirit has left a people, neither fortresses nor steep heights avail to detain the enemy. At all events, the Assyrian successes do not prove that the architectural remains of the Hauran cannot in their elements be referred back to the time of the Amorites and Israelites. Without at present entering into any discussion of this subject, we hold the contrary to be highly probable, even though, at the places which would here come into consideration, more recent buildings bear the stamp of more recent times. Indeed, it seems to me, that just as it was possible to identify Kenath, Salcah, Golan, etc., so the name Jair also is in existence to this day. I find it in the name of the city called Aere by Burckhardt, Eera by Seetzen, and Ire by Wetzstein. It is still the seat of an influential (Druse) chieftain. Ritter (xv. 944) warns us against confounding it with the Aera which the Itinerary of Antonine puts in the place of the present Szanamein; but it were more proper to say that the repeated occurrence of the name, should be regarded as evidence that the whole region was once called Jairs circles.
The narrators remark that the cities of Jair are sailed Havoth Jair unto this day, has been supposed to conflict with the statement of the Pentateuch, wherein this name is derived from the first Jair (cf. Hengst., Pent. ii. 193). With regard to some other names of places, such an exchange of one derivation for another, may perhaps be made out; but here it is quite impossible that one should have taken place. The narrator, who keeps the Pentateuch constantly before his eyes, designs only to remind the reader of what was there stated. In themselves, his words would have been entirely insufficient to explain the origin of the designation Havoth-Jair, seeing the discourse was about cities (). Moreover, the number of these cities, at a later date, was reckoned at sixty, whereas here mention is made of only thirty. The sentence is indeed peculiar on account of the double ; for which reason a few codices read it but once. But the word does not bear the same sense in both cases. The second , introduces an explanatory clause; so that the meaning of the sentence is this: thirty cities belonged to them (), of those2() which (the relative is frequently omitted) are called Havoth-Jair unto this day. The closing words of this sentence (unto this day) are evidently a mere verbal citation from Deu 3:14; for no other occasion exists here, where the question is only of Jairs distinguished position, for their use. Jair, by his strength and virtue, had diffused his family over one half of the entire district, with which his ancient progenitor had long ago associated his own name.
And he had thirty sons, who rode on thirty asses, and had thirty cities. The paronomasia between , asses, and the rare form for cities, authorizes the conjecture that we have here a sentence from a song of praise in honor of Jair and his prosperous fortune. That which is celebrated is, not that he possessed thirty asseswhat would that be to a man who had thirty cities?but that he was the father of thirty sons, all of whom enjoyed the honor and distinction implied in the statement that they rode upon asses. They rode, that is to say, not merely as men of qualitythe usual explanation,but as chiefs, governors, and judges. It was peculiar to such persons especially that they made use of the ass, as the animal of peace. Their very appearance on this animal, was expressive of their calling to reconcile and pacify. The sons of Jairs judged their thirty cities. This is something not given to all rich fathers; it was a happiness which not even Samuel the Priest was destined to enjoy.
Jair was buried in Camon, doubtless one of the thirty cities of Hauran. The farther and more thorough investigation is carried in the country east of the Jordan, the more instructive will its results become. Perhaps we may take the Sahwed el-Kamh, on Wetzsteins map, not far from Ire (Jair), for the Camon of the text. However little may be told of many of the Judges of Israel, of their place of burial information is given. The whole land was to be, as it were, a memorial hall, by which the people are reminded of the men who brought help in distress, when they repented, and which may also teach them to know that all men, however valiant, die, and that only the one, eternal God survives in deathless existence. But how inadequate monuments and sepulchres are to preserve energy and piety among the people, that the following section once more teaches.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Two judges in times of quiet. After the terrible storm, comes a calm. For half a century Tola and Jair judge Israel, without committing frightful wrongs, or performing enviable deeds. The greatness of Gideons times, and the baseness of Abimelechs, are both exhausted. An unknown, but happy, generation lives and works in peace under pious Judges. No enemy threatens, the word of God is quick and active, the country prospers, commerce flourishes. A quiet life is rich in seeds. Amid the silence of repose, the germs of spring prepare themselves. It is a type of the Kingdom in the future, when through the eternal calm only the anthems of adoring choirs will be heard, like the voices of nightingales resounding through the night.
So, it is not given to every one to live a quiet, peaceful life, undisturbed by political and social alarms. Let him who enjoys it, not envy the fame with which publicity surrounds great names. In quietness and confidence shall be your strength says the prophet (Isa 30:15).
Starke: To govern a nation well in times of peace, is not less praiseworthy than to carry on wars and overcome enemies.Lisco: Tola saved his people, not indeed by wars and victims, but by right and justice, by the concord and peace which he restored in Israel.
[Scott: The removal of hardened sinners, by a righteous God, often makes way for reformation and public tranquillity, and proves a great mercy to those who survive.Wordsworth: The time in which they [i. e. Tola, Jair, Ibzan, Elon, and Abdon] judged Israel amounted to seventy years, but the Holy Spirit does not record a single act done by any one of them; and thus He leads us to look forward and upward to another life, and to that heavenly chronicle which is written with indelible characters in the memory of God Himself, and is ever open to his divine eye.Tr.]
Footnotes:
[1]On the vessels excavated in the sandstone, which were used in the preparation of the purple dye at Tyre, see Wilde, Voyage in the Mediterranean, Dublin, 1840, ii. 148 ff. quoted by Ritter, xvii. 372.
[2][In the text, Dr. Cassel renders by those, while here he writes of those. The first rendering may be defended, but the second is as doubtful as it is unnecessary. If the intention be to avoid all appearance of conflict with the Pentateuch, this is just as effectually reached by the unimpeachable version of De Wette: Man nennet Jairs Drfer bis auf diesen Tagthey are called Jairs Villages unto this day. is the indeterminate 3d per. plural, and (as is remarked by Bertheau and Keil) does not at all affirm that the name was now first given. is the dative of that to which the name is given, and stands first for the sake of emphasis; they had thirty cities, precisely those cities people call Havoth-Jair.Tr.]
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
CONTENTS
This chapter relates a pleasant, but short interval to the wars of Israel, under the peaceable government of two of its Judges; Tola, the son of Puah, and Jair a Gileadite. A renewal of Israel’s transgression succeeds; and, in consequence, a renewal of troubles. God’s anger and visitation: Israel’s sorrow and humiliation; these are enumerated in this chapter.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
There is somewhat significant in the name of Tola; it signifies in the original, a worm. Perhaps it was descriptive of the humility of this man’s mind, for, though he governed Israel twenty-three years, yet we hear nothing ostentatious of him. Reader! doth it not serve, in the view of this man ‘ s name, to remind thee of him, who in the unequalled humility of his soul, called himself the worm. Psa 22:6 . And was it not to him, as our great surety and representative, Jehovah spake, in that memorable scripture, Isa 41:14 . Perhaps the Reader doth not know, that Jesus was called by way of reproach, the Tolah: meaning, the hanged one, after his crucifixion; and all his followers branded with being disciples of the Tolah: the hanged one. Precious Redeemer! in humbleness as well as glory, it behoveth thee to have the preeminence.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Jdg 10:6 ; Jdg 10:10
The dark and the bright sides of the history shift with a rapidity unknown in the latter times of the story ‘The children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord,’ and ‘The children of Israel cried unto the Lord’. Never was there a better instance than in these two alternate sentences, ten times repeated, that we need not pronounce any age entirely bad or entirely good.
Stanley.
Jdg 10:15
It is possibly to this passage that Luther was alluding loosely in the following fragment of his Table-Talk : ‘As I sometimes look through my fingers, when the tutor whips my son John, so it is with God; when we are untruthful and disobedient to His word and commandments, He suffers us, through the devil, to be soundly lashed with pestilence, famine, and such-like whips; not that He is our enemy, and to destroy us, but that through such scourging He may call us to repentance and amendment, and so allure us to seek Him, run to Him, and call upon Him for help. Of this we have a fine example in the book of Judges, when the angel, in God’s person, speaks thus: I have stricken you so often, and ye are nothing the better for it. And the people of Israel said, Save Thou us but now: we have sinned and done amiss. Punish Thou us, O Lord, and do with us what Thou wilt, only save us now. Whereupon He struck not all the people to death.’
Jdg 10:16
I often went to bed with tears; and after a sleepless night arose again with tears: I required some strong support; and God would not vouchsafe it me, while I was running with the cap and bells.
Goethe in The Confessions of a Fair Saint.
Jdg 10:18
There was some juggling among the officials to avoid direct taxation; and Pepys, with a noble impulse, growing ashamed of his dishonesty, designed to charge himself with 1000; but finding none to set him an example, ‘nobody of our ablest merchants’ with their moderate liking for clean hands, he judged it ‘not decent’; he feared it would ‘be thought vain glory’; and, rather than appear singular, cheerfully remained a thief. One able merchant’s countenance, and Pepys had dared to do an honest act! Had he found one brave spirit, properly recognized by society, he might have gone far as a disciple.
R. L. Stevenson, Men and Books, p. 321.
The key to all ages is Imbecility; imbecility in the vast majority of men, at all times, and even in heroes, in all but certain eminent moments; victims of gravity, custom, and fear. This gives force to the strong, that the multitude have no habit of self-reliance or original action.
Emerson.
Fuente: Expositor’s Dictionary of Text by Robertson
After Abimelech
Jdg 10
WE have had much excitement in many of the pages through which we have inquiringly passed. We now come to a period of extreme quietness. For five and forty years nothing occurred in Israel worth naming in detail. Tola and Jair, though judges in Israel, lived and died in the utmost quietness. They occupy about four lines each in the history of their people. Quietness has no history. Events are recorded; stories, anecdotes, incidents, these claim the attention of the historical pen; but peace, quietness, industry, patience, inoffensiveness, these have no historian: a line or two will do for them, the war must have chapter after chapter. The popular proverb is, “Blessed are the people who have no annals.” Within a narrow sense that is true; the sense is very narrow. Read Jdg 10:1-2 :
“And after Abimelech [who is not counted among the judges] there arose to defend [or save, equal to deliver] Israel Tola the son of Puah, the son of Dodo, a man of Issachar [probably the only judge furnished by this indolent tribe]; and he dwelt in Shamir in mount Ephraim. And he judged Israel twenty and three years, and died, and was buried in Shamir.”
Is that dull reading? Of what tribe was the man? “Issachar.” Has Issachar any fame? Let us bethink ourselves: who can remember anything said in the Bible about Issachar? The solution of the mystery may be in that direction. The individual man may have no great repute, but he may belong to a tribe quite renowned for some virtue. Mark these words: “The children of Issachar, which were men that had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do.” Then Tola the son of Puah, the son of Dodo, belonged to a tribe of statesmen. It was nothing to them to propound great schemes, work out great reforms, propose wholesome ameliorations: great things came naturally in their way. If a little tribe had attempted any one of the reforms proposed and executed by Issachar he would have become famous. A very short pedestal would make a giant of a dwarf. But the men of Issachar were accustomed to statesmanship; they were famed for their sagacity; they had the piercing eyes that could see through all surfaces, veilings, sophisms, that could read the necessity of the age, the temper and desire of the heart of Israel. So we must not pass by these negative characters as if they were really nothing. A touch of their hand might be equal to the stroke of a powerful instrument. One word spoken by a man of the tribe of Issachar might have in it a volume of wisdom. We must not measure men by the lines which the historian spends upon them. There is family history, household training, sagacity that makes no noise, farsightedness that disappoints the immediate ambition, but that prepares for the discipline and schooling and perfecting of a lifetime. Let those who spend their lives in the shadow think of these things: they may have a fame distinctively their own, not noisy, tempestuous, tumultuous, but profound, healthful, lasting, blessed are they who have the renown of wisdom, the fame of understanding: that will endure when many a vaporous reputation has been exhaled, forgotten. The men of Issachar were wise men, men of solid head, clear brain, comprehensive vision; men who put things together, and deduced from them inferences which amounted to philosophies; they had understanding of the times: they were not fretted and chafed by the incidents of the passing day; they saw the meaning that underlaid the event, and they knew what Israel ought to do. Bless God for good leadership in the state, in business, in the family, everywhere; the greater it is the more silent it may sometimes be.
“And after him arose Jair, a Gileadite, and judged Israel twenty and two years. And he had thirty sons [representing an ostentatious polygamy] that rode on thirty ass colts [implying the great wealth of the household], and they had thirty cities which are called Havoth-jair [Havoth, meaning villages] unto this day, which are in the land of Gilead. And Jair died, and was buried in Camon” ( Jdg 10:3-5 ).
That is the great danger of times of quietness. When there is little to excite attention and develop energy the tendency is that men may notice little things and make much of them. There was not much to do in Israel when it could be noted how many sons any man had, and whether they rode on ass colts or otherwise. That danger besets all life. In the absence of great questions, thrilling problems of an imperial or social kind, men betake themselves to little pedantries, frivolous amusements, trifling inquiries: the greater nature sleeps, and little, active, nimble fancy presides over the life, and fritters it away. We want every now and then some great heroic occasion that shall swallow up all our little fancies, whims, and oddities, and make men of us. We need visitations of a providential kind to shake us out of our littleness and frivolity, and make us mighty in prayer, almost sublime in thought, certainly heroic in self-control and patience. Thus God has educated the world. Mark how the marvellous history has gone; in what measured undulation: sometimes the mountains have been very high, and have been untouched except by the feet of the eagle, unploughed except by the lightning of God, far away, lost in the cloud; sometimes the heights have been quite accessible, so green, so velvetlike in their sward, and so rich in new and surprising flora; then we have come further down into great gardens, quiet villages, places sacred to slumber, and whilst we were revelling in the luxury of quietness a great clang tore the air and a trumpet summoned us to sudden war. So the Bible story has proceeded, and as the sun has set upon the day quiet, or the day of strife, we have felt a sense of incompleteness, which has often become quite religious, and has said to itself, This is not all; the punctuation is intermediate, not final; surely all these occurrences mean a greater incarnation than we have ever yet beheld. We need great excitements or solemn occasions in the family, or we should drivel away into the most frivolous existence. Given sound health, abundant prosperity, everything the heart could desire, what is the issue of it all? Satiety; great difficulty in being pleased; an outworn appetite or desire; taking up with trivial things; a sensitiveness that is easily offended; a pride that would be contemptible if it were not so transparent. How they talk who have much goods laid up for many years! How difficult to please with their books, which they never read, and their pictures which they only buy because others have recommended them! How difficult to please with their friends, their feasts, their entertainments! How sensitive to cold! How extremely sensitive to draughts! How altogether peculiar! The Lord could not allow this to be going on, or the people would decay, fall away from manhood, and disappoint the very purpose and decree of heaven. So affliction must come, and loss, and the whole house must rock under the wind; then the people will become themselves again; they will think, pray, ask serious questions, and look at the reality and gravity of life. So must it be with the Church and with the nation. We must not have too much quietness. Our quiet periods must be alternated by periods of great stress and difficulty. Watch how God has trained the world. We do not see the method in any one verse or incident. Herein is the peculiarity of the Bible, that it must be read consecutively, page after page in sequence, until we begin to feel we are perusing a great architectural design, or a marvellous plan of war, or a sublime philosophy of education. Men may read the Bible in fragments, and know nothing about it. The Bible must be read continuously and cumulatively, until it prove its inspiration by its unity, and arrest human confidence by manifest proofs of divine dictation. Therefore we cannot stop in the historical books. We are thankful for them: so full of life, colour, action; many chapters have been written with the sword, others with rough pens, and others are but living hints of things that cannot be expressed; yet on we must go to the end, until the time when the whole book satisfies itself and satisfies its readers by a grand Amen.
“And the children of Israel did evil again [added to do evil] in the sight of the Lord, and served Baalim, and Ashtaroth, and the gods of Syria [seeGen 35:2Gen 35:2 , Gen 35:4 ,], and the gods of Zidon [ 1Ki 11:5 ], and the gods of Moab [ 1Ki 11:7 ], and the gods of the children of Ammon [ Lev 18:21 ], and the gods of the Philistines [observe how the seven idols correspond with the seven retributive oppressions], and forsook the Lord, and served not him” ( Jdg 10:6 ).
We are sometimes afraid of religious excitement, but who ever is afraid of irreligious enthusiasm? It is supposed that all the exaggeration and sensationalism must be on one side; hence Christians are often foolishly and unjustly charged with religious fanaticism. There are revivals of godlessness; there are revivals of worldliness. What think ye of that? This sixth verse burns with unholy enthusiasm. Hear the list: Having taken to idolatry, Israel took to it earnestly, with both hands “and served Baalim, and Ashtaroth, and the gods of Syria, and the gods of Zidon, and the gods of Moab, and the gods of the children of Ammon, and the gods of the Philistines,” any number of gods. Yet if Christian people are at all warm in their subject, they become “fanatics,” and are blamed for sensationalism, by men who work seven days in the week to increase their balance at the bank! Let us keep the matter steadily in view. Which is better, a great excitement in the Church in the direction of bringing men to Jesus Christ, saving souls from death, converting the world; or a devotion to Mammon, in which the name of God is never mentioned, in which the Church is forgotten, in which every religious impulse is annihilated? One or the other of the enthusiasms we must have an enthusiasm of life (and it is hardly a contradiction in terms so to say) or an enthusiasm in death. Christians must not allow themselves to be too easily rebuked: they must rather say with the Apostle, “Whether we be beside ourselves, it is to God: or whether we be sober, it is for your cause.” Israel could hardly have gods enough. There is a marvellous licence in irreligion. Even Cicero said it was not sufficient for the majesty of Rome to have but one god; Rome must have a multitude of gods, said he, for reasons of State. There is then enthusiasm in idolatry; a keeping up of idolatry to its very highest pitch. These revivals are published, too. The idolaters were not ashamed to say to how many gods they had bowed down. Is all courage to be on the side of the opposition? and are Christians to sit down in the quietness of death, because they are afraid of the criticism of the world?
“And the anger of the Lord [compare 1Sa 12:9 ] was hot against Israel, and he sold them [or, gave them up] into the hands of the Philistines, and into the hands of the children of Ammon. And that year [imperfect, as no year is specified] they vexed and oppressed the children of Israel: eighteen years, all the children of Israel that were on the other side Jordan in the land of the Amorites [the kingdoms of Og and Sihon], which is in Gilead. Moreover the children of Ammon passed over Jordan to fight also against Judah, and against Benjamin, and against the house of Ephraim; so that Israel was sore distressed” ( Jdg 10:7-9 ).
Desperate diseases require desperate remedies. The Lord said in effect: If you will have the gods of the Philistines, you may take the Philistines also; if you will have the gods of heathen, you may have the whole yoke of heathendom to carry: you must not pick and choose, taking out the gods and leaving the customs, following the idolatry and escaping the tyranny. This is the reason why the Lord sends upon us all manner of evil, because we have forsaken him. We may not have forsaken him nominally, but there is a forsaking that is worse than a merely nominal and formal renunciation. A man may not be forsaken in any public or mechanical manner by his family, but if they neglect him, if they allow him to mourn in his loneliness, and to cry in the bitterness of an unrelieved solitude, if they hear his complaints without replying to them, he is indeed forsaken. It is impossible, therefore, to have a church, and an altar, and a merely nominal God, and a creed full of points innumerable, and yet never to turn the living, loving heart to the Father in heaven. Providence is full of chastisement in relation to evil-doers. The Lord is very pitiful and kind, but pity may be exhausted, and kindness may come to an end. So health is broken; the strong man is bowed down; those who were proud of their vigour have now to sigh their wants because they cannot express them in words. And the business is all broken up. Nobody can account for it. All the arrangements have been as usual; every appointment has been kept; attention has been paid to the whole circle; but there is no response: everything goes wrong; every figure is turned into a cipher, old books become practically blank. And bereavement is sent, the choice one is taken away, the best one dies, and the bird with the brightest wing takes flight; the sweetest singer becomes dumb. And the way is shut up; yet no man can see where the bars are: there is no gate of wood or brass or iron that can be touched, for then it might be broken through or opened; but the air is full of bars, and we cannot make any progress. We earn wages, and put them into bags with holes in them. Is God always going to allow himself to be mocked? The point of sovereignty must be found somewhere: shall it be found in the riotous mob, God-forgetting, God-insulting; or in the eternal unchangeable throne of righteousness? Blessed be God for broken health, depressed trade, graves without number, ways that are. barred up with invisible iron, if our use of these things should lead us to thought, repentance, and better life. Israel was “sore distressed.” There is a moral in agony. It is not every pain that will make a man pray. Some pain may be treated lightly, referred to as a momentary inconvenience; but the pain becomes sharper, the agony more burning, the fire more intolerable, and men who thought they could not pray are made to “cry,” for they are “sore distressed.” Do not let us suppose that we can outrun or outwit the living God. He will overtake us, and trip us, and scourge us, and it shall be found that among the multitude of the deities there has been in reality but one God.
“And the children of Israel cried unto the Lord [“cried they had before, as very brutes will do when they are hurt, but not with their whole heart; their cries were the fruits of the flesh for ease, not of faith for God’s favour “] saying, We have sinned against thee, both because we have forsaken our God, and also served Baalim” ( Jdg 10:10 ).
That is a true conception of the case. Both the points are put effectively. Not only was there a forsaking of God, but there was a taking up with Baalim. Men cannot throw off their church robe without putting on some other garment. It is impossible simply to “leave the church.” Yet there are men who deceive themselves with the idea that they have simply given up attendance upon religious duties and observance have merely withdrawn from church appointment and action: nothing else has occurred. That is a profound mistake. No man leaves the true Church, wherever and whatever it may be, no man abandons its ceremonies and observances and duties without exposing himself to a thousand assaults and temptations: he is more easily trifled with; he listens more eagerly to temptations which appeal to his ambition or his cupidity. He who goes down in veneration goes down in every faculty of his nature that pointed towards heaven or aspired after nobler life. Israel proved this. Having forsaken God, Israel took up with Baalim, with all the gods of the heathen; with many gods yea, countless in number absolutely forgetting the true God. There are losses which never can be made up. Loss of character is never made up by gain of wealth: there is no correspondence between the two quantities. Loss of the true God cannot be amended by the multiplication of false gods. The many do not total into the one.
Now comes a sad word. The Lord said in the course of his reply,
“Go and cry unto the gods which ye have chosen; let them deliver you in the time of your tribulation” ( Jdg 10:14 ). [Compare very carefully Deu 32:37-38 ; 2Ki 3:13 ; Jer 2:28 .]
We do not wonder at the “cry.” The wonder is in heaven, not in man: the wonder is that we have anything, not that we are left with a solitary staff; the surprise is that we have a coal in the grate, or a loaf in the cupboard, not that we die of cold and perish with hunger. The taunting word we must all approve, if it comes to a question of bare justice, fair and honourable revenge. But when God laughs the universe grieves. “I also will laugh at your calamity.” Who can bear it? There is a laughter which we can return with disdain equal to its own contempt. But there is another laughter, the laughter of mocked love, the laughter of avenging affection, the laughter of dishonoured holiness: who can abide its scorn? “I also will laugh at your calamity,” I will refer you to the gods you have served; I will say, “Cry aloud: for he is a god; either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awakened.” Cry aloud! “Acquaint now thyself with him, and be at peace.” The day of “sore distress” overtakes every life. Is the Lord Jesus Christ only to be sought after when everything gets darkened, and when the pathways round about the house are so treated as to prevent any noise reaching the dying life? Is he never to be invited to the wedding, where he would make the water wine? Is he never to come to the evening feast, where all the children would grow in his presence like flowers opening in the sun? Is he never to go out with us into the fields, golden with vernal and summer flowers? Is he never to be invited into the best rooms of the house, but always to be kept outside until he is asked into the chamber darkened because light means pain, and only to be spoken to when we need something from him? The question is a solemn one, and the answer is with ourselves. The voice of warning we have heard; the voice of redemption we have also listened to. “Choose you this day whom ye will serve.” Keep to your god! If Baalim be god, keep to him, serve him; if the Lord be God, cleave unto him with full purpose of heart. That the Lord is God we know we know in our heart, in our best feeling, in our least-perverted instincts; that there is a throne in the universe we know by the history of humanity upon the face of the earth, a living Bible, a moving apocalypse, and obvious inspiration. Many deliverers have arisen, many redeemers have appeared in time of stress and sorrow, but each of them has said in mysterious language, “I am not he: there cometh one after me.” We pass through a whole array of deliverers, emancipators, soldiers, ardent in patriotism, the meaning of them all being that there is one coming whose name is Jesus Christ. He must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet. In heavenly vision I see him, and on his vesture and on his thigh is written, “KING OF KINGS, LORD OF LORDS.” On his head are many crowns, and all heaven is filled with the thunder of his praise. Be Christ our captain. Be the Son of God our infinite deliverer.
Selected Note
” The children of Ammon passed over Jordan ” ( Jdg 10:9 ). These were the descendants of the younger son of Lot ( Gen 19:38 ). They originally occupied a tract of country east of the Amorites, and separated from the Moabites by the river Arnon. It was previously in the possession of a gigantic race called Zamzummims ( Deu 2:20 ), “but the Lord destroyed them before the Ammonites, and they succeeded them and dwelt in their stead.” The first mention of their active hostility against Israel occurs in Jdg 3:13 : “The king of Moab gathered unto him the children of Ammon and Amalek, and went and smote Israel.” About one hundred and forty years later we are informed that the children of Israel forsook Jehovah and served the gods of various nations, including those of the children of Ammon, “and the anger of Jehovah was hot against them, and he sold them into the hands of the Philistines and of the children of Ammon” ( Jdg 10:7 ). The Ammonites crossed over the Jordan, and fought with Judah, Benjamin, and Ephraim, so that “Israel was sore distressed.” In answer to Jephthah’s messengers ( Jdg 11:12 ), the king of Ammon charged the Israelites with having taken away that part of his territories which lay between the rivers Arnon and Jabbok, which, in Jos 13:25 , is called “half the land of the children of Ammon,” but was in the possession of the Amorites when the Israelites invaded it; and this fact was urged by Jephthah in order to prove that the charge was ill-founded. Jephthah “smote them from Aroer to Minnith, even twenty cities, with a very great slaughter” ( Jdg 11:33 ). In the writings of the prophets terrible denunciations are uttered against the Ammonites on account of their rancorous hostility to the people of Israel; and the destruction of their metropolis, Rabbah, is distinctly foretold (Zep 2:8 ; Jer 49:1-6 ; Eze 25:1-5 , Eze 25:10 ; Amo 1:13-15 ).
Prayer
Almighty God, it is our joy to know that thou art on the throne, and that thy judgment is true and righteous altogether. We trust our all to thee, for thou didst give us all. The mystery of our being we cannot understand; but when it is most painful, we see how truly great is thy meaning towards us. Surely thou didst not make man in vain; thou didst purpose concerning him great glory and honour, because great service, in the spheres which thou thyself wilt appoint. Some come into the world under infinite disadvantages; still, they are thy children; thou knowest their whole story; thou wilt not leave them without a friend; the burden is very heavy, the cloud is very threatening, but the Lord reigneth, and his name is Love. They wonder why they are here; they dare not escape from the little prison; they would gladly do so, but thou hast wrought within them the mystery of patience, which most sweetly says, Not my will, but thine, be done. And others are crowned with advantages which they cannot use: they are filled with pride and haughtiness, and the self-trust which they boast is only idolatry; they cannot tell the meaning of all the riches with which thou hast crowded their life: behold, their wealth is multitudinous, and they listen not to the cry of the poor, nor understand the pain of necessity. Others thou hast gifted until their gifts become temptations and snares, and seem to lie close to the dread region of madness; thou dost give them dreams they cannot realise, and flash upon their eyes visions which dazzle them; they seem to be able to pluck what they want, and yet they just fall short of the tempting fruit. So life is very hard to some men, most difficult, full of pleasure, full of pain a great distress; the joy seems to be occasional, the sorrow permanent; the delight is but for a moment, and then the bright heavens close again in great thunder-clouds. Yet still thou hast so made us that we cling to life. Herein is a great mystery. We cannot give it up. We still hope that to-morrow will redeem today, and that in the coming gladness we shall forget the sorrow that is gone. So we stand in a great mystery. Come to us with the light of Christianity, the glory of the Cross, the revelation of thy love in Christ Jesus thy Son. May he bring life and immortality to light, and show us that in the by-and-bye, which we hope for under the name of Heaven, we shall see thy purpose, and glorify thy goodness, and say thou hast done all things well. Amen.
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
XXIX
THE STORY OF ABIMELECH, THE USURPER, AND OF JEPHTHAH
Judges 9-12
1. Who was Abimelech, and was he one of Israel’s judges sent out by the Lord?
Ans. Abimelech was the natural son of Gideon, not the legal son, and evidently a godless case. He was not sent of the Lord to be a judge. Whatever rule he obtained he obtained by murder, unsurpation, and conspiracy. So we don’t count him at all in the list of the judges, but his history only as an episode in the period of the judges.
2. How was his usurpation effected?
Ans. By conspiracy with the city of Shechem, and by the murder and assassination of all his father’s legal children except one, the youngest, Jotham, who escaped.
3. Analyze the sin of Abimelech and Shechem.
Ans. (1) The sin consisted in the attempt to establish a monarchy while God was the ruler of the theocracy. (2) It consisted of murder in order that no competition might arise between the real, legal children of their great leader, Gideon.
4. Through whom and how came a protest against the sin?
Ans. The protest came from Jotham, the youngest son of Gideon. He took his position on top of Mount Gerizirn, and from the top of that mountain all the valley could hear him and all on the highest mountains, so he occupied a high pulpit. He stated his case in the form of a parable, or in the strictest sense of fable. He said that the trees of the field called upon the fig tree to be their king, and it had better things to attend to than to be king; they called on the olive tree, and the olive tree had better things to do than to be king; so finally they applied to the bramble, and it agreed that it would be king if they would rest under its shadow. Now the briar doesn’t make much of a shadow, but they agreed to it.
5. Was Jotham’s illustration a fable or a parable, and what the distinction between them?
Ans. Parable is a broader word and includes fable. A fable is a parable of this kind: It attributes intelligent action to either inanimate creation or brute creation. Numerous cases you have of them in Aesop’s Fables. But a parable supposes real people and presents them acting as one would naturally do under the circumstances. But inasmuch as a parable etymologically means, according to the strict Greek word parabola, the putting of one thing down against another for the purpose of contrast, therefore a fable may come within the definition of a parable.
6. What fable of Aesop’s somewhat similar?
Ans. The fable of the frogs who implored Jupiter to send them a king. He dropped a log into the pond and it made a great splash and ripples but later when they found that they could jump upon that log they had no regard for their king and implored Jupiter to send another. Whereupon Jupiter sent a long-necked stork, or crane. And he gobbled up quite a number of his subjects every morning and they much regretted swapping King Log for King Stork.
7. What are the great lessons of Jotham’s fable?
(1) The best and most ambitious men are not ambitious to rule over people. See our Lord’s lesson in the Gospel: “The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; it shall not be so with you.” There is something greater than to be king and whoever ministers to others is greater than any king that ever sat on the throne.
(2) The second lesson of the fable is that when the ambitious in their selfishness seek to rule and the people are gullible enough to give them rule, then it means mutual destruction both to the self-seeking ambitious one and the gullible people who put him in power.
8. How did Jotham apply his fable?
Ans. In this way: “Now if you have done the right thing to Gideon in the murder of his children and in the election of this self-seeking assassin, then have joy in him and let him have joy in you; but if you are wrong in that may the fire come out of him that will burn you up and may a fire come out of you that will burn him up.”
9. Cite proof that the fable was inspired.
Ans. The proof is found at the close of this lesson where it is said, “according to the word of Jotham,” and that is exactly what happened. The first time a row came up between him and the people he wiped them off the face of the map, and soon after a remnant in fighting against him killed him; a woman dropped a millstone down on his bead. What an inglorious death! So he perished and they perished, and the record says that it was done according to the word of Jotham.
10. What use does Dr. Broadus make of Jotham in his History of Preaching?
Ans. In citing cases of real pulpit eloquence he mentions Jotham and his high pulpit he stood on, his use of illustrations and his sensational sermon, and then that having created a sensation, he ran away from it. That is about the substance, but you had better read what Dr. Broadus says in his History of Preaching.
11. What Old Testament parables precede Jotham’s fable?
Ans. None; for another fable, see 2Ki 14:9-14 .
12. Cite the names and tribes of the next two judges after Gideon and their respective periods of judging.
Ans. Tolar of the tribe of Issachar, who judged twenty-three years, and Jair of the tribe of Manasseh, who judged twenty-two years.
13. After Tolar and Jair how did Israel increase its idolatries and what the deities?
Ans. Read 10:6. Here is what he says: “And the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the Lord, and served Baalim, and Ashtaroth [both of these are plural], and the gods of Syria, and the gods of Sidon [Sidon is a part of Phoenicia], and the gods of Moab, and the gods of the children of Ammon, and the gods of the Philistines.” They took in more gods this time than ever before.
14. Find the names of the gods of the Philistines, of Ammon, of Moab, and of Sidon in addition to Baalim and Ashtaroth.
Ans. One god of the Philistines was Dagon; another was Baal-zebub; Milcom, or Moloch of Ammon; Chemosh of Moab; Gerakles and Melkar of Phoenicia.
15. What evidence of their repentance when trouble came?
Ans. (1) The confession of sin Jdg 10:10-15 . (2) Putting themselves in God’s hands to be punished at his will, Jdg 10:15 . (3) Putting away the strange gods. That is good proof of repentance.
We now come to consider the case of JEPHTHAH
16. Cite the story of Jephthah up to the call of the people to make him leader. Where is Tob, what his life there and what the similarity with the case of Abimelech?
Ans. Jephthah, as I have stated, was the son of Gilead, by a harlot, and his brethren or his half-brothers, the legal children of Gilead, denied him the right to any part of the inheritance, and the city of Shechem coincided with them. So he had to leave, and he retired to a great rich country in Syria. The name of the place was Tob, and there, being a valorous man, he gathered about him a company of men, pretty lawless fellows; some of them, regular free-lances. The similarity of his case and Abimelech’s is that he and Abimelech were both natural sons.
17. Considering Gen 21:10 , the case of Hagar; the case of Tamar, Gen 38:12-26 ; and Deu 21:15-17 , was it lawful to deny Jephthah a part of his father’s inheritance, and if so wherein does this case differ from others cited?
Ans. Hagar was really the wife under the law and Tamar’s action was strictly within the law, though Judah did not suppose it at the time. And in the case cited in Deuteronomy there were the children of two wives but they were both wives. So none of them applies to this case. Jephthah was the son of a harlot born utterly out of wedlock, and therefore, it was lawful to deprive him of any inheritance, but it was a mean thing to do.
18. What condition did Jephthah exact of Gilead before he would accept their appeal and how did he certify it?
Ans. He made them enter into a claim covenant at Mizpah that if he came in their extremity and delivered them from this bondage that had come upon them, then he was to be their prince, and he had the word spoken before the Lord at Mizpah. The student of history will remember how Rome pleaded with Coriolanus, whom she expelled, not to destroy Rome, and sent his mother to beg him not to do it. He said, “Mother, you have saved Rome but you have lost your son.”
19. State Jephthah’s negotiation with Ammon, and its results.
Ans. He sent a very able statement to the king of Ammon, who was leading this invasion of Israel, and he put the case this way: “We obtained this territory 300 years ago under Moses; God put it into our hands. Why have you been silent 300 years? We will not surrender what God has put into our hands and which we have held for that long.” They disregarded his negotiation.
20. What the first proof that Jehovah had any part in the leadership of Jephthah?
Ans. Now, heretofore everything that is said in the record shows that it was the plan of the people to go and stand for Jephthah as leader, and the first sign is in Jdg 11:29 , showing that after he took the position of leader the Spirit of the Lord came upon him.
21. What the vow of Jephthah and wherein its rashness?
Ans. When they refused to negotiate, he vowed if God would give him the victory over them that whoever was the first to come out of his house to meet him on his return from battle) he would offer as a burnt offering to Jehovah. The rashness of it was, as all the context goes to show, that he meant persons and Jehovah’s law was against offering people as burnt offerings.
22. State two theories of what became of Jephthah’s daughter, which the older, which best supported by the context and history, and if you say the first, how, then, did the second originate?
Ans. The first theory is that Jephthah said he would offer the one meeting him as a burnt offering and the text shows that just what he vowed, that he did unequivocally. That theory held the fort until 1,200 years after Christ, i.e., from Jephthah’s time until 1,200 years after Christ; all commentaries, Jewish and Christian, stated that Jephthah did sacrifice his daughter as a burnt offering to Jehovah, but about 1,200 years after Christ a Jewish rabbi questioned it and then a few of the sentimental Christians, among them Grotius, the distinguished theologian of Holland, followed by Hengstenberg, a German, and a few English people, Adam Clarke for one, and their theory was that Jephthah vowed to the Lord that if something that could be offered as a burnt offering met him it should be burned, but if it were not it was still to be consecrated to God, and what took place was not the death on the altar of sacrifice, but the daughter was shut up to perpetual virginity. The overwhelming majority of the commentaries, and men who have respect for what the Word says, hold to the first theory, but if you want to see both theories stated and your question demands that, you look in Appendix 4 to the “Cambridge Bible,” Book of Judges. Now, that second theory being more and more in fashion was originated by early nunneries, women taking the vow of perpetual virginity for Christian service, and yet the majority of the Catholics do not believe that. They believe that she was put up as a burnt offering.
23. Why, in your judgment, did not Jephthah appeal to Lev 27:2-8 , for commutation of his vow? That is, if one made a vow, a scale of compensation was provided and by paying that compensation in money he could be released from the vow. The question now is why did not Jephthah appeal to the Levitical law?
Ans. A great many people say that Jephthah was ignorant of this law, but that history took place at Mizpah where the high priest lived, and the high priest knew of that law if Jephthah didn’t. He did not appeal to that because the Levitical law did not apply as it does to other kinds of vows.
24. From the context was the vow inspired?
Ans. Jdg 11:29-30 , shows that the Spirit of the Lord rested on him, and inasmuch as in Heb 11:32 , Jephthah is commended as one of the heroes of faith, my answer is that the vow was not inspired and an entirely new subject on the vow question was introduced after the statement that the Spirit of the Lord came on Jephthah. Heb 11:32 has nothing to do with it from the fact that a man may have faith and do many mean things and wrong things, as David did.
25. Is it better to break a vow that involves sin than to keep it?
Ans. Before you answer, compare Psa 15:4 , Ecc 5:4 , with Mat 14:6-11 , where Herod vowed with an oath that he would give the dancing girl anything she asked for, and she asked for the head of John the Baptist. Take the three passages and make out your answer. Let those first two cases refer to cases that are not sin. I heard a man once swear that he would eat the devil in flames and I have always excused him from eating the devil particularly as hot as that.
26. What proverb of English classics applies to Jephthah’s vow?
Ans. This proverb, “This promise is better in the breach than in the observance of it.”
27. Cite the case of Jephthah’s contention with Ephraim, and what use has been made of “Shibboleth”?
Ans. Ephraim as usual (you know, I quoted the prophet who said that Ephraim is a cake not turned), when Jephthah gained that victory, drew out his army and demanded why he did not call on him. Jephthah did not give him a soft answer. He said, “I did call on you and you refused to come and when you refused I wrought the deliverance, and now if you want to fight let us fight.” And he gave him a good beating. In other words, when he got through the cake was cooked on both sides. Now, this “Shibboleth,” that was the word that the enemy had to pronounce. They could not pronounce the sh; they said Sibboleth, and as they were running away and Jephthah’s men found them, they were asked to say “Shibboleth,” and if they said “Sibboleth,” they were known to be the enemy and were killed right there. It has become since that day popular with those who think that others are requiring too hard doctrines. They say, “Well, I don’t pretend to be able to pronounce ‘Shibboleth,’ but you need not want to kill me just because I can’t sound every letter just like you.”
28. What three judges succeeded Jephthah, from what tribes, and the notes of time?
Ans. That is expressed in two or three verses, as follows: Ibzan of the tribe of Zebulon, judged seven years; Elon of the tribe of Zebulon, judged ten years; Abdon of the tribe of Ephraim, judged eight years.
Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible
Jdg 10:1 And after Abimelech there arose to defend Israel Tola the son of Puah, the son of Dodo, a man of Issachar; and he dwelt in Shamir in mount Ephraim.
Ver. 1. There arose, to defend Israel. ] Heb., To save. He thrust not himself into the office, as Abimelech, that usurper, had done; but was raised up by God, and accordingly qualified.
A man of Issachar.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
defend = save or deliver.
mount = hill country.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Chapter 10
Now in chapter ten we go through a series of judges quite rapidly.
After Abimelech there rose to defend Israel Tola, a man of Issachar; [from the tribe of Issachar] he dwelt in Shamir in mount Ephraim. He judged Israel for twenty-three years, he was buried in Shamir. And after him there arose Jair, a Gileadite, and he judged Israel for twenty-two years. Now he had thirty sons that rode on thirty ass colts, and they had thirty cities, which are called Havothjair unto this day, which are in the land of Gilead. And Jair died, and was buried in Camon. And the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the LORD, and they served Baalim, and Ashtaroth, the gods of Syria, the gods of Zidon, the gods of Moab, the gods of the children of Ammon, the gods of the Philistines, and they forsook the LORD, and did not serve him ( Jdg 10:1-6 ).
So, here we go again. Another apostasy where the children of Israel turn against God and they begin to worship every god that is around.
Now, here was the hardest thing to comprehend. God, at the time of Jeremiah when the people again were in an apostasy, God said to Jeremiah, “Has it ever been in any nation, in any land, where people have forsaken their god? And yet Israel has forsaken me, the true and the living God and they worshiped these other gods. They have forsaken me, the fountain of living water and have hewn out for themselves cisterns, cisterns that can hold no water.” God was appalled by the thing, “Hey this doesn’t happen. People don’t forsake their gods even that are not gods.” And yet the children of Israel, it seems, were perennially forsaking God and turning to idolatry. Unthinkable and yet they did. So this is just another one of the apostasies. Actually, it is the sixth time that it has been recorded that they forsook God and began to worship and serve these other gods.
And the anger of the LORD was hot against Israel, he sold them this time into the hands of the Philistines, and the hands of the children of Ammon. And that year they vexed and oppressed the children of Israel: for eighteen years, and all the children of Israel that were on the other side of Jordan in the land of the Amorites, which is in Gilead. Moreover the children of Ammon passed over Jordan to fight against Judah, and against Benjamin, and against the house of Ephraim; so that Israel was sore distressed ( Jdg 10:7-9 ).
Now Rueben, Gad, and half the tribe of Manasseh that was on the other side of Jordan, they were now being oppressed by the Amorites that were over on that area that actually were in the territory before they had come. But then the children of Ammon pass on over Jordan and began to fight in the land of Judah and Benjamin and all, Ephraim.
And the children of Israel cried unto the LORD, saying, We have sinned against thee, both because we have forsaken our God, and also because we have served Baalim ( Jdg 10:10 ).
Double sins; forsaking God, one. Serving Baalim, two.
And the LORD said unto the children of Israel, Did not I deliver you from the Egyptians, from the Amorites, from the children of Ammon, from the Philistines? From the Zidonians, and from the Amalekites, and the Maonites, who did oppress you; and you cried to me, and I delivered you out of their hands. Yet you have forsaken me, and served other gods: wherefore I will deliver you no more. Go and cry unto the gods which you have chosen; let them deliver you in the time of your tribulation ( Jdg 10:11-14 ).
So Israel at this point had come to a very sad point in their history for God said, “Hey, I delivered you from the Egyptians, from the Amorites, from all of these people; the Philistines and now you’ve forsaken me. I’m not gonna deliver you anymore. You go and call upon the gods that you have chosen to serve. Let them deliver you.” It is possible for a person to sin against the grace of God to the point where God turns that person over to a reprobate mind. God is through with us; that’s it.
God said to Jeremiah concerning Ephraim he said, “Hey, Jeremiah don’t pray anymore for Ephraim, for her good. For if you do I’m not gonna even listen to your prayers.” To, what was it? Hosea, he said, “Ephraim has given over to her idols, let her alone.” I’m through. I’m not gonna deal with them anymore. I’ve had it. Tragic, when God says of a person, “Hey that’s it. I’m not gonna deliver you anymore. You’ve chosen to serve these other gods, you made your choice. All right, call on them. Let them deliver you from your tribulation.”
People oftentimes say it really doesn’t make any difference which god you serve, you know, all roads lead to heaven. False. It makes a big difference the god that you serve, but it really makes the big difference when you’re in trouble. That’s when the difference really shows up, when you’re really needing help. And God says, “Cry unto the gods that you have chosen to serve.” But they can’t help me.
So, the children of Israel said unto the LORD, we have sinned: [they began confessing] do thou unto us whatsoever seems good to you; deliver us only, we pray thee, today. And thy put away the strange gods from among them, they served the LORD: and his soul was grieved for the misery of Israel ( Jdg 10:15-16 ).
So God has a soft touch I guess and the people did the right thing and God went ahead to deliver them once more. And the person that God chose at this time was Jephthah the Gileadite, chapter eleven. He became the ninth judge. “
Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary
Following the death of Abimelech there seems to have been a period of forty years’ quietness under the dictatorship of Tola and Jair.
After this there appears to have broken out a period characterized by an almost utter abandonment of the people to idolatry. The list of the forms which this idolatry took is appalling.
Judgment came this time through the Philistines and the men of Ammon and continued for eighteen years.
At last, sore distressed, they cried to God, and for the first time in the history it is recorded that God refused to hear them, reminding them of how repeatedly He had delivered them and they had returned to evil courses.
In the message of His anger, however, there was, as is always the case, clearly evident a purpose of deliverance. He recalled them to a recognition of His power by bidding them seek deliverance from the gods whom they had worshiped. They knew full well the helplessness of these gods in such an hour of distress. The very heart of Jehovah flames out in this connection in a remarkable statement. “His soul was grieved for the misery of Israel.”
Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible
Inveterate Idolatry
Jdg 10:1-16
The scene is now removed to the tribes across the Jordan, especially those settled, in Gilead and its vicinity. The children of Ammon were the aggressors, and acquired such boldness as even to cross the Jordan and fight against Judah and Ephraim. Israel was sore distressed. Almost spontaneously we say, Surely it served them right. It seems incredible that, after all they had suffered on account of their idolatry, they should again relapse to Baal, and add further the gods of Zidon, of Moab, of Ammon and of Philistia. If Jehovah had finally cast them off, could they have complained? But as the psalmist puts it in his touching words, God regarded their distress and heard their cry. See Psa 106:3, etc.
All these things were written for our example and instruction. Israel did not forsake God more often than we have done. Life has been full of fits and starts, of backsliding and recommencement, of sin and repentance. We have nothing to say against Israel; let us look at home, and search our hearts, and thank the Lord that His mercy endureth forever, Psa 136:1-26.
Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary
Jdg 10:6-Jdg 12:7
I. As is frequently the case, the chief interest and instructiveness of Jephthah’s career gather round that event in his life which, to himself and his contemporaries, might seem to mar its symmetry and destroy its usefulness. It is the great blunder of his life, his unfortunate vow, which unceasingly draws back men’s attention to him. Through all his nature he was moved in prospect of the approaching battle. It made him thoughtful, concentrated, grave. He felt more than usually thrown back upon God’s help and so, according to his light, he vowed a vow. As we have no distinct evidence regarding Jephthah’s state of mind in making his vow, it is the part of charity to believe that though he was incomprehensibly rash in the terms of his vow, yet he was justified in vowing to make some offering to God should He deliver the Ammonites into his hand.
II. Supposing him to have been right in making the vow, was he right in keeping it? There is an obvious distinction between a promise made to God and a promise made to man. God can never wish a man to fulfil a contract which involves sin. By the very discovery of the sinfulness of a vow the maker of it is absolved from performing it. God shrinks much more than we can do from the perpetration of sin. Both parties fall from the agreement.
III. It has often been urged that Jephthah did not keep his vow, but compromised the matter by causing his daughter to take a vow of virginity, to become a nun, in fact. This seems to sacrifice the plain and obvious interpretation of the narrative. In Jdg 11:39 we are plainly informed that her father did with her according to the vow which he had vowed. Why did she ask for the one favour of two months to bewail her virginity if she was to have thirty or forty years with leisure for that purpose? And lastly, if the mere fact of her remaining unmarried fulfilled even that part of the vow which specified that she was to be the Lord’s, a stronger foundation need not be sought for the establishment of nunneries.
IV. We can scarcely help thinking that while the sacrifice itself was horrible, her spirit, the spirit of the sacrifice, was acceptable to God, and what she did through reverence and dutiful submission to her father, was accepted by Him.
M. Dods, Israel’s Iron Age, p. 91.
References: Jdg 10:16.-Parker, vol. vi., p. 167. 10-12:7-Homiletic Quarterly, vol. iv., p. 453. 10-J. Reid Howatt, The Churchette, p. 235. 10-Parker, vol. vi., p. 61. 10-12.-Parker, Pulpit Notes, p. 273. Jdg 11:7.-Parker, vol. vi., p. 167. Jdg 11:30, Jdg 11:31.-M. Nicholson, Communion with Heaven, p. 132. Jdg 11:34-36.-M. Dods, Israel’s Iron Age, p. 90. Jdg 11:35.-J. Keble, Sermons for the Christian Year: Lent to Passiontide, p. 328; Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxiii., No. 1341. 11-Parker, vol. vi., p. 71. Jdg 12:6.-G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 269. 12-Parker, vol. vi., p. 85.
Fuente: The Sermon Bible
CHAPTER 10:1-5 Tola and Jair
1. Tola judging twenty-three years (Jdg 10:1-2)
2. Jair judging twenty-two years (Jdg 10:3-5)
These are but brief records but not without meaning. Tola means, translated, a worm. What a contrast with the proud, wicked, domineering Abimelech! Here is one, who takes the place in self-abasement. It reminds us of Him, whose voice we hear in the great Atonement Psalm I am a worm and no man. Tola, no doubt, typifies our Lord in His humiliation. When Abimelechs awful rule is ended, He who was obedient unto death, the death of the cross, will come to reign in righteousness.
And this seems to be more fully brought to our attention in Jair, the judge, who followed Tola. His name means, enlightener. He is a type of our Lord in His coming as the Sun of Righteousness. The thirty sons, who rode on thirty ass-colts and had thirty cities, must mean the rule of that kingdom to come in which His sons, His co-heirs, will have a part, as Jairs sons had authority over these cities.
Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)
am 2772, bc 1232, An, Ex, Is, 259
arose: Jdg 2:16, Jdg 3:9
defend: or, deliver, Heb. save
Shamir: Jos 15:48
Reciprocal: Gen 49:14 – General Gen 49:19 – General Jdg 17:1 – mount
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Next, Tola judged Israel for twenty-three years and lived in Shamir, which is in the mountains of Ephraim. Jair next ruled over Israel for twenty-two years.
Fuente: Gary Hampton Commentary on Selected Books
Jdg 10:1. There arose Not of himself, but raised by God, as the other judges were. To defend Or, to save, which he did, not by fighting against and overthrowing their enemies, but by a prudent and pious government of them, whereby he kept them from sedition, oppression, and idolatry. He dwelt in Shamir Which was in the very midst of the land.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Jdg 10:1. Tola, son of Puah; therefore he was the grandson of Othniels brother. God called him from the treasures of his providence, to nourish his people for twenty three years after evil times.
Jdg 10:3. Jair; that is, illuminating. Another president, who probably had this name as a title because of the peace, the knowledge, and righteousness, which he diffused throughout the country. But, like Gideon, he, on finding wealth and presents, yielded to the strong temptation of polygamy, and established his thirty sons in Havoth-Jair, or the villages of Jair.
Jdg 10:6. Served Baalim and Ashtaroth; gods and goddesses; both these words are plural in the Hebrew. Our learned Selden has written a Latin book on the gods of Syria, which does not give us more light than what we find in Biblical Critics. Every nation had its titular god, but other gods they worshipped, and almost without number.
The gods of Syria are Bel, Jupiter, Saturn, Venus, called Astarte. The gods of Zidon were Jupiter, and Astarte. 1Ki 11:5. The gods of Moab were Chemosh, the Priapus of Horace. 1Ki 11:5; 1Ki 11:33. Num 20:21. Jer 48:46.
The gods of Ammon were Saturn, Moloch, or Milcolm, the devourer of children. Jeremiah 49. Amos 1.
The gods of the Philistines were Dagon, the titular god, and Zeus or Jupiter, whom all worshipped. 1Sa 1:2. 1Ki 11:33.
Jdg 10:11. The Lord said by a prophet, who, like a man of God, thundered eloquent reproaches in the ears of a guilty people.
Jdg 10:12. The Maonites. The Septuagint reads, the Midianites. But there was a city called Maon on the south of Judah, inhabited by the Canaanites. 1Sa 23:25; 1Sa 25:2.
Jdg 10:17. Encamped in Mizpeh. This Mizpeh was at the foot of mount Hermon, in the land of Gilead, where the senators often assembled.
REFLECTIONS.
Providentially the reign of Abimelech was short, and the mischiefs, it would seem, became instructive to Israel; for God, under the presidency of Tola, and of Jair, granted them a period of long repose. These princes understood the arts of peace; arts essential to the happiness of the people, and the prosperity of empire. They did more: they administered justice, reformed abuses, suppressed idolatry, and protected religion, which is the best bond of society, and the surest pledge of immortal good. Agriculture and commerce were improved, and every menace of foreign invasion was warded off by prudence and courage. There is no estimating the blessings derived from an auspicious reign, and an able administration.
Prosperity however has its snares. The Israelites having intercourse with all the neighbouring nations, imbibed their manners, and were corrupted by their superstitions. The charms of idolatrous festivals had attracted their carnal hearts: and on the death of Jair they were bold enough to introduce the morals and the gods of all the surrounding nations. This apostasy was more general than any of the former: and therefore it received a greater punishment. God, in appearance, having forsaken his people, the Philistines in the west, and the Ammonites in the south, consumed and oppressed the country. What a proof of the depravity of human nature, and of the outbreakings of original sin. Surely no man can doubt of this birth-fault of the human heart, unless his head be weak, or his mind embittered against the truth. He cannot want evidence of what he affects to doubt, he may want humility and repentance to acknowledge the fact. Let us therefore endeavour to preserve religion pure, and discipline vigorous, that every rising age may have the means of grace to counteract the wicked propensities of nature, and to obtain regenerating grace by the Holy Spirit.
The Israelites having by these crimes forfeited the divine protection, and the blessing of a worthy Judge to preside in their country, found themselves subjugated by two weak and inconsiderable states. Oppression made them cry to the Lord: but they cried under the rod, not for their sins: and the Lord refusing to hear, sent them back to their gods for salvation. So it is when afflictions shall surprise the man who has indulged in licentiousness, and despises the power of religion. He cries to be relieved of his load, before he fairly mentions the sins which have occasioned the scourge: but God will laugh at his calamities, and mock when his fear cometh. The Israelites finding their prayers rejected, (for what can prayers or fastings avail while a nation retain its sins) proceeded to destroy their idols before they dared to pray again. Then the Lord had compassion on his people, and repented of his threatenings to forsake them. So, if the wicked would find mercy in the day of visitation, let him heartily renounce his sins; let him make restitution for his crimes, and then let him call on the name of the Lord, if peradventure he will have compassion upon him.
Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Jdg 10:1-5. Tola and Jair.These are the first of five minor Judges, the other three being named in Jdg 12:8-15. Of the exploits of these Judges we know nothing. Only a few bare facts regarding their parentage, place of abode, years of rule, number of sons, and place of burial, are set down. Three of the five are elsewhere spoken of not as individuals but as clans, and the other two are naturally to be regarded in the same light. Probably they were not introduced by D, but by a later editor.
Jdg 10:1. Tola is here the son of Puah. Elsewhere these are brothers, sons of Issachar, i.e. brother clans (Gen 46:13, Num 26:23, 1Ch 7:1). The site of Shemir is unknown.
Jdg 10:3. Jair was a son, i.e. a clan, of Manasseh (Num 32:14, Deu 3:14.). Gilead was a mountainous region on the eastern side of the Jordan, well watered and wooded, providing rich pasturage. Havvoth-Jair means tent dwellings of Jair, a reminiscence of nomadic days, though encampments had now given place to cities. Jairs thirty sons are thirty settlements of the clan, just as our Colonies are the daughters of Britannia. Kamon may be the Kamun of Polybius (v. 70, 12).
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
4. The judgeships of Tola and Jair 10:1-5
No great military feats marked the judgeships of these two men. Their ministries appear to have consisted primarily in administering civil duties.
"The passages on the ’minor judges’ do not conform to the editorial plan of the stories of the ’great judges’, or to that of Jg. as a whole. Hence it would seem that they have been included, perhaps selectively, simply to supplement the number of the judges to the conventional number of twelve, thus possibly to make the judges as representative of all Israel." [Note: J. Gray, p. 310.]
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
Tola’s judgeship 10:1-2
Tola (meaning "worm" in Hebrew) "arose to save Israel" from the tribe of Issachar sometime after Abimelech died. One of the patriarch Issachar’s sons was also named Tola (Gen 46:13; Num 26:23; 1Ch 7:1-2). The writer did not record how the judge Tola rose to power or exactly when. Specifically, no mention of Yahweh raising him up appears, as was true also of Abimelech. Nevertheless this brief notation of his contribution to Israel’s national life pictures him as a worthy individual who enjoyed an orderly and stable tenure. He judged Israel 23 years.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
GILEAD AND ITS CHIEF
Jdg 10:1-18; Jdg 11:1-11
THE scene of the history shifts now to the east of Jordan, and we learn first of the influence which the region called Gilead was coming to have in Hebrew development from the brief notice of a chief named Jair, who held the position of judge for twenty-two years. Tola, a man of Issachar, succeeded Abimelech, and Jair followed Tola. In the Book of Numbers we are informed that the children of Machir son of Manasseh went to Gilead and took it and dispossessed the Amorites which were therein; and Moses gave Gilead unto Machir the son of Manasseh. It is added that Jair, the son or descendant of Manasseh, went and took the towns of Gilead and called them Havvoth-jair; and in this statement the Book of Numbers anticipates the history of the judges.
Gilead is described by modern travellers as one of the most varied districts of Palestine. The region is mountainous and its peaks rise to three and even four thousand feet above the trough of the Jordan. The southern part is beautiful and fertile, watered by the Jabbok and other streams that flow westward from the hills. “The valleys green Kith corn, the streams fringed with oleander, the magnificent screens of yellow-green and russet foliage which cover the steep slopes present a scene of quiet beauty, of chequered light and shade of uneastern aspect which makes Mount Gilead a veritable land of promise.” “No one,” says another writer, “can fairly judge of Israels heritage who has not seen the exuberance of Gilead as well as the hard rocks of Judaea, which only yield their abundance to reward constant toil and care.” In Gilead the rivers flow in summer as well as in winter, and they are filled with fishes and fresh-water shells. While in Western Palestine the soil is insufficient now to support a large population, beyond Jordan improved cultivation alone is needed to make the whole district a garden.
To the north and east of Gilead lie Bashan and that extraordinary volcanic region called the Argob or the Lejah, where the Havvoth-jair or towns of Jair were situated. The traveller who approaches this singular district from the north sees it rising abruptly from the plain, the edge of it like a rampart about twenty feet high. It is of a rude oval shape, some twenty miles long from north to south, and fifteen in breadth, and is simply a mass of dark jagged rocks, with clefts between in which were built not a few cities and villages. The whole of this Argob or Stony Land, Jephthahs land of Tob, is a natural fortification, a sanctuary open only to those who have the secret of the perilous paths that wind along savage cliff and deep defile. One who established himself here might soon acquire the fame and authority of a chief, and Jair, acknowledged by the Manassites as their judge, extended his power and influence among the Gadites and Reubenites farther south.
But plenty of corn and wine and oil and the advantage of a natural fortress which might have been held against any foe did not avail the Hebrews when they were corrupted by idolatry. In the land of Gilead and Bashan they became a hardy and vigorous race, and yet when they gave themselves up to the influence of the Syrians, Sidonians, Ammonites, and Moabites, forsaking the Lord and serving the gods of these peoples, disaster overtook them. The Ammonites were ever on the watch, and now, stronger than for centuries in consequence of the defeat of Midian and Amalek by Gideon, they fell on the Hebrews of the east, subdued them and even crossed Jordan and fought with the southern tribes, so that Israel was sore distressed.
We have found reason to suppose that during the many turmoils of the north the tribes of Judah and Simeon and to some extent Ephraim were pleased to dwell secure in their own domains, giving little help to their kinsfolk. Deborah and Barak got no troops from the south, and it was with a grudge Ephraim joined in the pursuit of Midian. Now the time has come for the harvest of selfish content. Supposing the people of Judah to have been specially engaged with religion and the arranging of worship that did not justify their neglect of the political troubles of the north. It was a poor religion then, as it is a poor religion now, that could exist apart from national well being and patriotic duty. Brotherhood must be realised in the nation as well as in the church, and piety must fulfil itself through patriotism as well as in other ways.
No doubt the duties we owe to each other and to the nation of which we form a part are imposed by natural conditions which have arisen in the course of history, and some may think that the natural should give way to the spiritual. They may see the interests of a kingdom of this world as actually opposed to the interests of the kingdom of God. The apostles of Christ, however, did not set the human and divine in contrast, as if God in His providence had nothing to do with the making of a nation. “The powers that be are ordained of God,” says St. Paul in writing to the Romans; and again in his First Epistle to Timothy, “I exhort that supplications, prayers, intercessions, thanksgivings be made for all men: for kings and all that are in high place, that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and gravity.” To the same effect St. Peter says, “Be subject to every ordinance of man for the Lords sake.” Natural and secular enough were the authorities to which submission was thus enjoined. The policy of Rome was of the earth earthy. The wars it waged, the intrigues that went on for power savoured of the most carnal ambition. Yet as members of the commonwealth Christians were to submit to the Roman magistrates and intercede with God on their behalf, observing closely and intelligently all that went on, taking due part in affairs. No room was to be given for the notion that the Christian society meant a new political centre. In our own times there is a duty which many never understand, or which they easily imagine is being fulfilled for them. Let religious people be assured that generous and intelligent patriotism is demanded of them and attention to the political business of the time. Those who are careless will find, as did the people of Judah, that in neglecting the purity of government and turning a deaf ear to cries for justice, they are exposing their country to disaster and their religion to reproach.
We are told that the Israelites of Gilead worshipped the gods of the Phoenicians and Syrians, of the Moabites and of the Ammonites. Whatever religious rites took their fancy they were ready to adopt. This will be to their credit in some quarters as a mark of openness of mind, intelligence, and taste. They were not bigoted; other mens ways in religion and civilisation were not rejected as beneath their regard. The argument is too familiar to be traced more fully. Briefly it may be said that if catholicity could save a race Israel should rarely have been in trouble, and certainly not at this time. One name by which the Hebrews knew God was El or Elohim. When they found among the gods of the Sidonians one called El, the careless minded supposed that there could be no harm in joining in his worship. Then came the notion that the other divinities of the Phoenician Pantheon, such as Melcarth, Dagon, Derketo, might be adored as well. Very likely they found zeal and excitement in the alien religious gatherings which their own had lost. So they slipped into practical heathenism.
And the process goes on among ourselves. Through the principles that culture means artistic freedom and that worship is a form of art we arrive at taste or liking as the chief test. Intensity of feeling is craved and religion must satisfy that or be despised. It is the very error that led Hebrews to the feasts of Astarte and Adonis, and whither it tends we can see in the old history. Turning from the strong earnest gospel which grasps intellect and will to shows and ceremonies that please the eye, or even to music refined and devotional that stirs and thrills the feelings, we decline from the reality of religion. Moreover a serious danger threatens us in the far too common teaching which makes little of truth, everything of charity. Christ was most charitable, but it is through the knowledge and practice of truth He offers freedom. He is our King by His witness bearing not to charity but to truth. Those who are anxious to keep us from bigotry and tell us that meekness, gentleness, and love are more than doctrine mislead the mind of the ago. Truth in regard to God and His covenant is the only foundation on which life can be securely built, and without right thinking there cannot be right living. A man may be amiable, humble, patient, and kind though he has no doctrinal belief and his religion is of the purely emotional sort; but it is the truth believed by previous generations, fought and suffered for by stronger men, not his own gratification of taste, that keeps him in the right way. And when the influence of that truth decays there will remain no anchorage, neither compass nor chart for the voyage. He will be like a wave of the sea driven of the wind and tossed.
Again, the religious so far as they have wisdom and strength are required to be pioneers, which they can never be in following fancy or taste, Here nothing but strenuous thought, patient faithful obedience can avail. Hebrew history is the story of a pioneer people and every lapse from fidelity was serious, the future of humanity being at stake. Each Christian society and believer has work of the same kind not less important, and failures due to intellectual sloth and moral levity are as dishonourable as they are hurtful to the human race. Some of our heretics now are more serious than Christians, and they give thought and will more earnestly to the opinions they try to propagate. While the professed servants of Christ, who should be marching in the van, are amusing themselves with the accessories of religion, the resolute socialist or nihilist, reasoning and speaking with the heat of conviction, leads the masses where he will.
The Ammonite oppression made the Hebrews feel keenly the uselessness of heathenism. Baal and Melcarth had been thought of as real divinities, exercising power in some region or other of earth or heaven, and Israels had been an easy backsliding. Idolatry did not appear as darkness to people who had never been fully in the light. But when trouble came and help was sorely needed they began to see that the Baalim were nothing. What could these idols do for men oppressed and at their wits end? Religion was of no avail unless it brought an assurance of One Whose strong hand could reach from land to land, Whose grace and favour could revive sad and troubled souls. Heathenism was found utterly barren, and Israel turned to Jehovah the God of its fathers. “We have sinned against Thee even because we have forsaken our God and have served the Baalim.”
Those who now fall away from faith are in worse case by far than Israel. They have no thought of a real power that can befriend them. It is to mere abstractions they have given the Divine name. In sin and sorrow alike they remain with ideas only, with bare terms of speculation in which there is no life, no strength, no hope for the moral nature. They are men and have to live; but with the living God they have entirely broken. In trouble they can only call on the Abyss or the Immensities, and there is no way of repentance though they seek it carefully with tears. At heart therefore they are pessimists without resource. Sadness deep and deadly ever waits upon such unbelief, and our religion today suffers from gloom because it is infected by the uncertainties and denials of an agnosticism at once positive and confused.
Another paganism, that of gathering and doing in the world sphere, is constantly beside us, drawing multitudes from fidelity to Christ as Baal worship drew Israel from Jehovah, and it is equally barren in the sharp experiences of humanity. Earthly things venerated in the ardour of business and the pursuit of social distinction appear as impressive realities only while the soul sleeps. Let it be aroused by some overturn of the usual, one of those floods that sweep suddenly down on the cities which fill the valley of life, and there is a quick pathetic confession of the truth. The soul needs help now, and its help must come from the Eternal Spirit. We must have done with mere saying of prayers and begin to pray. We must find access, if access is to be had, to the secret place of the Most High on Whose mercy we depend to redeem us from bondage and fear. Sad therefore is it for those who having never learned to seek the throne of divine succour are swept by the wild deluge from their temples and their gods. It is a cry of despair they raise amid the swelling torrent. You who now by the sacred oracles and the mediation of Christ can come into the fellowship of eternal life, be earnest and eager in the cultivation of your faith. The true religion of God which avails the soul in its extremity is not to be had in a moment, when suddenly its help is needed. That confidence which has been established in the mind by serious thought, by the habit of prayer and reliance on divine wisdom can alone bring help when the foundations of the earthly are destroyed.
To Israel troubled and contrite came as on previous occasions a prophetic message; and it was spoken by one of those incisive ironic preachers who were born from time to time among this strangely heathen, strangely believing people. It is in terms of earnest remonstrance he speaks, at first almost going the length of declaring that there is no hope for the rebellious and ungrateful tribes. They found it an easy thing to turn from their Divine King to the gods they chose to worship. Now they perhaps expect as easy a recovery of His favour. But healing must begin with deeper wounding, and salvation with much keener anxiety. This prophet knows the need for utter seriousness of soul. As he loves and yearns over his country folk he must so deal with them; it is Gods way, the only way to save. Most irrationally, against all sound principles of judgment they had abandoned the Living One, the Eternal to worship hideous idols like Moloch and Dagon. It was wicked because it was wilfully stupid and perverse. And Jehovah says, “I will save you no more, Go and cry unto the gods which ye have chosen; let them save you in the day of your distress.” The rebuke is stinging. The preacher makes the people feel the wretched insufficiency of their hope in the false, and the great strong pressure upon them of the Almighty, Whom, even in neglect, they cannot escape. We are pointed forward to the terrible pathos of Jeremiah:-“Who shall have pity upon thee, O Jerusalem? or who shall bemoan thee? or who shall turn aside to ask of thy welfare? Thou hast rejected me, saith the Lord, thou art gone backward: therefore have I stretched out my hand against thee, and destroyed thee: I am weary with repenting.”
And notice to what state of mind the Hebrews were brought. Renewing their confession they said, “Do thou unto us whatsoever seemeth good unto Thee.” They would be content to suffer now at the hand of God whatever He chose to inflict on them. They themselves would have exacted heavy tribute of a subject people that had rebelled and came suing for pardon. Perhaps they would have slain every tenth man. Jehovah might appoint retribution of the same kind; He might afflict them with pestilence; He might require them to offer a multitude of sacrifices. Men who traffic with idolatry and adopt gross notions of revengeful gods are certain to carry back with them when they return to the better faith many of the false ideas they have gathered. And it is just possible that a demand for human sacrifices was at this time attributed to God, the general feeling that they might be necessary connecting itself with Jephthahs vow.
It is idle to suppose that Israelites who persistently lapsed into paganism could at any time, because they repented, find the spiritual thoughts they had lost. True those thoughts were at the heart of the national life, there always even when least felt. But thousands of Hebrews even in a generation of reviving faith died with but a faint and shadowy personal understanding of Jehovah. Everything in the Book of Judges goes to show that the mass of the people were nearer the level of their neighbours the Moabites and Ammonites than the piety of the Psalms. A remarkable ebb and flow are observable in the history of the race. Look at some facts and there seems to be decline. Samson is below Gideon, and Gideon below Deborah; no man of leading until Isaiah can be named with Moses. Yet ever and anon there are prophetic calls and voices out of a spiritual region into which the people as a whole do not enter, voices to which they listen only when distressed and overborne. Worldliness increases, for the world opens to the Hebrew; but it often disappoints, and still there are some to whom the heavenly secret is told. The race as a whole is not becoming more devout and holy, but the few are gaining a clearer vision as one experience after another is recorded. The antithesis is the same we see in the Christian centuries. Is the multitude more pious now than in the ago when a king had to do penance for rash words spoken against an ecclesiastic? Are the churches less worldly than they were a hundred years ago? Scarcely may we affirm it. Yet there never was an age so rich as ours in the finest spirituality, the noblest Christian thought. Our van presses up to the Simplon height and is in constant touch with those who follow; but the rear is still chaffering and idling in the streets of Milan. It is in truth always by the fidelity of the remnant that humanity is saved for God.
We cannot say that when Israel repented it was in the love of holiness so much as in the desire for liberty. The ways of the heathen were followed readily, but the supremacy of the heathen was ever abominable to the vigorous Israelite. By this national spirit however God could find the tribes, and a special feature of the deliverance from Ammon is marked where we read: “The people, the princes of Gilead said one to the other, What man is he that will begin to fight against the children of Ammon? he shall be head over all the inhabitants of Gilead.” Looking around for the fit leader they found Jephthah and agreed to invite him.
Now this shows distinct progress in the growth of the nation. There is, if nothing more, a growth in practical power. Abimelech had thrust himself upon the men of Shechem. Jephthah is chosen apart from any ambition of his own. The movement which made him judge arose out of the consciousness of the Gileadites that they could act for themselves and were bound to act for themselves. Providence indicated the chief, but they had to be instruments of providence in making him chief. The vigour and robust intelligence of the men of Eastern Palestine come out here. They lead in the direction of true national life. While on the west of Jordan there is a fatalistic disposition, these men move. Gilead, the separated country, with the still ruder Bashan behind it and the Argob a resort of outlaws, is beneath some other regions in manners and in thought, but ahead of them in point of energy. We need not look for refinement, but we shall see power; and the chosen leader, while he is something of the barbarian, will be a man to leave his mark on history.
At the start we are not prepossessed in favour of Jephthah. There is some confusion in the narrative which has led to the supposition that he was a foundling of the clan. But taking Gilead as the actual name of his father, he appears as the son of a harlot, brought up in the paternal home and banished from it when there were legitimate sons able to contend with him. We get thus a brief glance at a certain rough standard of morals and see that even polygamy made sharp exclusions. Jephthah, cast out, betakes himself to the land of Tob and getting about him a band of vain fellows or freebooter, becomes the Robin Hood or Rob Roy of his time. There are natural suspicions of a man who takes to a life of this kind, and yet the progress of events shows that though Jephthah was a sort of outlaw his character as well as his courage must have commended him. He and his men might occasionally seize for their own use the cattle and corn of Israelites when they were hard pressed for food. But it was generally against the Ammonites and other enemies their raids were directed, and the modern instances already cited show that no little magnanimity and even patriotism may go along with a life of lawless adventure. If this robber chief, as some might call him, now and again levied contributions from a wealthy flock master, the poorer Hebrews were no doubt indebted to him for timely help when bands of Ammonites swept through the land. Something of this we must read into the narrative, otherwise the elders of Gilead would not so unanimously and urgently have invited him to become their head.
Jephthah was not at first disposed to believe in the good faith of those who gave him the invitation. Among the heads of households who came he saw his own brothers who had driven him to the hills. He must have more than suspected that they only wished to make use of him in their emergency and, the fighting over, would set him aside. He therefore required an oath of the men that they would really accept him as chief and obey him. That given, he assumed the command.
And here the religious character of the man begins to appear. At Mizpah on the verge of the wilderness where the Israelites, driven northward by the victories of Ammon, had their camp there stood an ancient cairn or heap of stones which preserved the tradition of a sacred covenant and still retained the savour of sanctity. There it was that Jacob, fleeing from Padanaram on his way back to Canaan, was overtaken by Laban, and there raising the Cairn of Witness they swore in the sight of Jehovah to be faithful to each other. The belief still lingered that the old monument was a place of meeting between man and God. To it Jephthah repaired at this new point in his life. No more an adventurer, no more an outlaw, but the chosen leader of eastern Israel, “he spake all his words before Jehovah in Mizpah.” He had his life. to review there, and that could not be done without serious thought. He had a new and strenuous future opened to him. Jephthah the outcast, the unnamed, was to be leader in a tremendous national struggle. The bold Gileadite feels the burden of the task. He has to question himself, to think of Jehovah. Hitherto he has been doing his own business and to that he has felt quite equal; now with large responsibility comes a sense of need. For a fight with society he has been strong enough; but can he be sure of himself as God’s man, fighting against Ammon? Not a few words but many would he have to utter as on the hilltop in the silence he lifted up his soul to God and girt himself in holy resolution, as a father and a Hebrew, to do his duty in the day of battle. Thus we pass from doubt of Jephthah to the hope that the banished man, the freebooter, will yet prove to be an Israelite indeed, of sterling character, whose religion, very rude perhaps, has a deep strain of reality and power. Jephthah at the cairn of Mizpah lifting up his hands in solemn invocation of the God of Jacob reminds us that there are great traditions of the past of our nation and of our most holy faith to which we are bound to be true, that there is a God, our witness and our judge, in Whose strength alone we can live and do nobly. For the service of humanity and the maintenance of faith we need to be in close touch with the brave and good of other days and in the story of their lives find quickening, for our own. Along the same line and succession we are to bear our testimony, and no link of connection with the Divine Power is to be missed which the history of the men of faith supplies. Yet as our personal Helper especially we must know God. Hearing His call to ourselves we must lift the standard and go forth to the battle of life. Who can serve his family and friends, who can advance the well being of the world, unless he has entered into that covenant with the Living God which raises mortal insufficiency to power and makes weak and ignorant men instruments of a divine redemption?