Judgeschapter 10
18 verses · Samuel, by tradition · 11th century BC · History
Then the children of Ammon were gathered together, and encamped in Gilead. And the children of Israel assembled themselves together, and encamped in Mizpeh.
Introduction
Samuel, by tradition, History, Judges Overview.
Samuel, by tradition · Narrative and editorial frame · Judges, the Former Prophets · [The book of Judges](/book/judges) This chapter joins two quiet careers to the start of a new crisis. The writer is unnamed. It was written for Israelites living on both sides of the Jordan, who knew the towns and families it names. Listen for the short records of two judges who fought no recorded battles, and then for the longest list of foreign gods in the book. Notice the answer God gives when Israel cries out this time, which the book has not given before. The chapter ends with Israel waiting for a leader, and it prepares the reader for the story of Jephthah.
Context
- Who
- Israelites who had served every god within reach and were being invaded from both sides at once
- What
- The short records of the judges Tola and Jair, then Israel's widest idolatry and the Ammonite oppression that follows.
- Where
- Shamir in the hill country of Ephraim, the towns of Gilead east of the Jordan, and Mizpah where Israel camped.
- When
- About 1117 to 1090 BC for Tola and Jair on the traditional reckoning, followed by eighteen years under Ammon.
- Why
- To show that the LORD's patience had limits, and that He still grieved over Israel's misery.
Historical context
Tola son of Puah is a man of Issachar who settled at Shamir in the hill country of Ephraim, near the middle of the country, and Jair is a Gileadite from east of the Jordan. Their own names and their fathers' are the names of Issachar's clans at Genesis 46:13 and 1 Chronicles 7:1.
Show the rest of the historical context, 7 more paragraphs
Between them they hold office forty five years, about 1117 to 1090 BC on the traditional reckoning, and the record gives no enemy, no oppression and no battle for either of them.
The second half of the chapter moves to Gilead, east of the Jordan, which is the country the text calls the land of the Amorites and which had been Sihon's kingdom. Ammon then crosses the river and the pressure reaches Judah, Benjamin and Ephraim in the west.
The occasion is an oppression on two fronts at once, Philistines on the west and Ammonites on the east, and a confession that God answers by refusing.
A first hearer knew what the list at verse 6 was. In a world where each people had its own god thought to defend its own ground, taking up the gods of Aram, Sidon, Moab, Ammon and Philistia alongside the Baals and the Ashtoreths looked like ordinary prudence, a hedge on every border at once.
He knew the villages of Havvoth-jair by name, and knew that Numbers 32:41 and Deuteronomy 3:14 give that name to an earlier Jair of Manasseh who took the towns in Moses' day.
He recognised what God says at verse 14. Telling them to go and cry to the gods they had chosen is the Song of Moses turned back on them, since Deuteronomy 32:37 and 38 put those gods on trial and tell them to rise up and help.
And he knew what riding was worth. Thirty sons on thirty donkeys holding thirty towns is a count of standing, because Judges 5:10 addresses those who ride on white donkeys as the people of rank.
Significance
The chapter told them that the cycle they were used to could stop. Six times the nation had cried out and been rescued, and this time the answer was that He would rescue them no more.
Show the rest of the significance, 2 more paragraphs
What broke the deadlock was an act rather than a sentence. They put the foreign gods away first and asked afterwards, which is the one round of the pattern where that order holds.
The last clause of verse 16 was the line to carry home. He could no longer bear the misery of Israel, said of a nation that had just been told it was on its own.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
How it is read
The classical reading of this chapter rests on a count, and the count is what a Christian reader should carry away from it. Rashi, quoted here from the Metsudah Tanach series of Lakewood, New Jersey, under CC-BY, reads the list of gods at the sixth verse as seven, on the authority of tractate Beitzah. The Baals and the Ashtaroth are two, and the gods of Aram, Sidon, Moab, Ammon and the Philistines are the other five (Rashi on Judges 10:6:1). He then presses the second half of the verse. The words that Israel abandoned the LORD and did not serve Him would otherwise repeat themselves. He reads them as saying that Israel did not even keep the LORD alongside the seven (Rashi on Judges 10:6:2).
At the eleventh verse the count returns. God lists the deliverances He has already given, and Rashi observes that "there are seven salvations here, corresponding with the seven pagan gods they worshiped" (Rashi on Judges 10:11:1). The chapter is read as a ledger with two columns that balance. One name in that list he corrects, holding that Maon is a nation rather than a word for a dwelling place (Rashi on Judges 10:12:1).
The turn at the end of the chapter draws the one note in these ten chapters where a commentator strains his own language about God. The text says that God's soul was shortened at the misery of Israel. Rashi renders it as being unable to contain Himself, and then says openly what such a phrase costs. It is "as if one could depict God as lacking the space to bear and encompass His pain at Yisroel's anguish" (Rashi on Judges 10:16:1). A reader watching for how Jewish commentary handles anthropomorphism has the method in one line: the phrase is kept, and it is marked as a figure at the same moment.
The rest of the kept notes are short. Ben Dodo is a name rather than a description (Rashi on Judges 10:1:1). The thirty sons of Jair rode thoroughbreds, on the Targum's rendering, and held thirty unwalled towns. That is why the text uses one word rather than the word for walled cities (Rashi on Judges 10:4:1 and 10:4:2). The eighteen years of oppression began in the year Jair died (Rashi on Judges 10:8:1). The territory that felt it first was Reuben, Gad and half of Manasseh, who were neighbours of Ammon (Rashi on Judges 10:8:2). The gathering at Mizpah was made by proclamation (Rashi on Judges 10:17:1).
Thirteen further notes stand on this chapter with no English text in the corpus and are cited here unquoted. They are Radak on Judges 10:1:1, 10:9:1 and 10:11:1, Metzudat David on Judges 10:2:1, 10:10:1, 10:12:1, 10:14:1, 10:15:1 and 10:18:1, and Malbim on Judges 10:10:1, 10:13:1, 10:14:1 and 10:15:1. Nine of those stand on the confession of Israel and on God's answer to it, the exchange the chapter turns on. The classical commentary on it is present in the corpus and waits on a fetch that carries its text.
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries twenty rabbinic locators on this chapter, nineteen Midrash and one Talmud, and the text of none, so each is cited and linked here rather than quoted. This is the lightest chapter of the ten. Tola and his twenty-three years draw Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Shoftim 1:1, Midrash Tanchuma, Shoftim 1:1 and Seder Olam Rabbah 12:2.
The list of the seven gods draws twelve of the twenty, the heaviest run on any single verse in these ten chapters. The first is Beitzah 25b:5, the tractate Rashi reads the count from. Five more are Eikhah Rabbah, Petichta 10, Ein Yaakov, Beitzah 3:2, Esther Rabbah 3:4, Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Appendix to Vaetchanan 2:2 and Midrash Tanchuma, Vaera 11:1. The last six are Otzar Midrashim, The Ten Martyrs, Midrash on the Ten Martyrs (Version 2) 9, Pesikta Rabbati 44:1, Shemot Rabbah 9:1, Shir HaShirim Rabbah 1:6:1 and 8:10:1, with Tanna DeBei Eliyahu Zuta 8:1. A reader who wants the Jewish treatment of Israel's idolatry in the period of the judges will find it gathered there.
The crushing of Israel for eighteen years draws Midrash Sekhel Tov, Shemot 15:6:3. God's own list of the deliverances He had given draws Bamidbar Rabbah 20:5 and Shir HaShirim Rabbah 1:4:4. The confession of the people draws Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, Tractate Amalek 2:24, and the assembly at Mizpah with the question of who would begin the fight draws Esther Rabbah 5:4. What each of them teaches is a saying of the rabbis, and is reported as theirs wherever this site quotes one. The quotations wait on a fetch that carries the text.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on Judges 10:1:1 to 10:17:1, eleven notes, the Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J, CC-BY; Radak, Radak on Judges 10:1:1, 10:9:1 and 10:11:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; Metzudat David, Metzudat David on Judges 10:2:1, 10:10:1, 10:12:1, 10:14:1, 10:15:1 and 10:18:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; Malbim, Malbim on Judges 10:10:1, 10:13:1, 10:14:1 and 10:15:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/judges/10.json, the 20 rabbinic locators of this chapter, 19 Midrash and 1 Talmud.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
Tola and Jair, two quiet judges
Judges 10:1-2
Tola follows Abimelech, who took a crown and is never called a judge, so the line resumes where chapter 9 broke it. The Hebrew verb behind "to save Israel" is the one used of the judges at 2:16, 3:9 and 3:15. His name and his father's are clan names of Issachar at Genesis 46:13 and 1 Chronicles 7:1, and no enemy or battle is named in his twenty-three years.
Judges 10:1
“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.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
John Gill places Tola's burial at Shamir, the town where he held his office, and reads his death as one in honour. He also reports a Jewish chronicle that set Tola's first year beside the reign of Priam in Troy. Verse 1 names Shamir as his home.
Judges 10:2
“And he judged Israel twenty three years, and died,.... He did not take upon him to be king, as Abimelech did, but acted as a judge, in which office he continued twenty three years, and faithfully discharged it, and died in honour: and was buried in Shamir; the place where he executed his office. It is said (t), that in the first year of Tola, the son of Puah, Priamus reigned in Troy. (t) Juchasin, fol. 136. 1.”
Judges 10:3-5
What is recorded of Jair is a family: "thirty sons who rode on thirty donkeys" and held thirty towns, a mark of rank, since donkeys are what rulers ride at 5:10. Numbers 32:41 and Deuteronomy 3:14 give the name Havvoth-jair to an earlier Jair of Manasseh. Barnes takes the two men for one, and Henry reads an old family name revived by the conquest.
Judges 10:3
“Jair the Gileadite was probably the same person as is named in Num 32:41; Deu 3:14, as having given the name of “Havoth-jair” to certain villages in Bashan.”
John Gill suggests the thirty sons served as judges under their father, riding circuit through the country, as Samuel later set his sons as judges at 1 Samuel 8:1. Their towns lay in Gilead. That is the ground Ammon oppresses for eighteen years in verse 8.
Judges 10:4
“And he had thirty sons that rode upon thirty ass colts,.... Which to ride on in those times was reckoned honourable, and on which judges rode in their circuit, Jdg 5:10 and such might be these sons of Jair, who were appointed under him to ride about, and do justice in the several parts of the country, as Samuel's sons were judges under him, 1Sa 8:1, and they had thirty cities, which are called Havothjair unto this day, which are in the land of Gilead; or the villages of Jair.”
John Gill follows Josephus in placing Kamon in Gilead, and sets aside Jerome's village of Cimana in the plain toward Ptolemais, as Reland advised. He prefers the Kamon that Polybius names among the cities of Peraea taken by Antiochus. Jair is buried near his own towns.
Judges 10:5
“And Jair died, and was buried in Camon. A city of Gilead, as Josephus (u) calls it; Jerom (w), under this word Camon, makes mention of a village in his times, called Cimana, in the large plain six miles from Legion to the north, as you go to Ptolemais; but, as Reland (x) observes, this seems not to be the same place, but rather this is the Camon Polybius (y) speaks of among other cities of Peraea, taken by Antiochus. (u) Antiqu. l. 5. c. 7. sect. 6. (w) De loc. Heb. fol. 90. B. (x) Palestina Illustr. tom.”
Gods enough: go cry to the ones you chose
This is the sixth of seven times Judges says Israel "did evil in the sight of the LORD", at 2:11, 3:7, 3:12, 4:1, 6:1, 10:6 and 13:1. Its seven gods are the book's longest list, and "they forsook the LORD and did not serve Him" reports the abandonment as total. The Ammonites and the Philistines are the two nations of the next verse.
Judges 10:6
“And served Baalim - They became universal idolaters, adopting every god of the surrounding nations. Baalim and Ashtaroth may signify gods and goddesses in general. These are enumerated: 1. The gods of Syria; Bel and Saturn, or Jupiter and Astarte. 2. Gods of Zidon; Ashtaroth, Astarte or Venus. 3. The gods of Moab; Chemosh. 4. Gods of the children of Ammon; Milcom. 5. Gods of the Philistines; Dagon. See 1Ki 11:33 (note), and 1Sa 5:2 (note). These are called gods because their images and places of worship were multiplied throughout the land.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Judges 10:7-9
"He sold them," the verb of 2:14, 3:8 and 4:2, and here to two buyers, the Philistines on the west and the Ammonites on the east. Ammon produces Jephthah in chapter 11, and the Philistines hold the forty years of 13:1. The land held down is "Gilead, the land of the Amorites," Sihon's old kingdom in Numbers 21:21-26, and that title is Jephthah's whole argument at 11:19-22.
Judges 10:7
“The previous mention of the Philistines as oppressors of Israel Jdg 3:31 seems to be restricted to the south of Judah, when they cooperated with Moab. They appear to have gradually increased in power until they reached their height in the time of Saul. In the present instance they were probably in alliance with the Ammonites, holding the western tribes in check, while the Ammonites subdued those on the east of Jordan.”
John Wesley counts the eighteen years from the fourth year of Jair, so that most of his rule overlapped the oppression. Matthew Henry dates them from Jair's death, reasoning that Gilead was Jair's own country and would have been protected while he lived. The towns of verse 4 lay in Gilead.
Judges 10:8
“That year - Perhaps the closing year of the oppression, when the Ammonites passed over the Jordan. For it was this crowning oppression which brought the Israelites to repentance Jdg 10:10, Jdg 10:15-16, and so prepared the way for the deliverance. Possibly in the original narrative from which this portion of the Book of Judges is compiled, “that year” was defined. The land of the Amorites - Namely, of Sihon king of the Amorites, Num 21:21; Deu 1:4; Jos 13:10; Psa 135:11.”
2 more voices on this verse
Judges 10:8
“And these eighteen years are not to be reckoned from Jair's death, because that would enlarge the time of the Judges beyond the just bounds; but from the fourth year of Jair's reign: so that the greatest part of Jair's reign was contemporary with this affliction.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Judges 10:8
“Others make them to commence at the death of Jair, which seems the more probable because that part of Israel which was most infested by the Ammonites was Gilead, Jair's own country, which we cannot suppose to have suffered so much while he was living, but that part at least would be reformed and protected.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
The distress of this verse is what brings the cry of verse 10. Ephraim, named here among the tribes attacked, is the tribe that quarrelled with Gideon at 8:1. Ammon now fights on both sides of the Jordan.
This is the last of six times Judges records Israel crying out to the LORD, after 3:9, 3:15, 4:3, 6:6 and 6:7, and the Philistine oppression of 13:1 opens with no cry. It is the only one that gives the words. They confess the sin twice, "we have indeed forsaken our God and served the Baals," the charge of verse 6 said back to him.
Judges 10:10
“The children of Israel cried unto the Lord, saying, We have sinned against thee--The first step of repentance is confession of sin, and the best proof of its sincerity is given by the transgressor, when he mourns not only over the painful consequences which have resulted from his offenses to himself, but over the heinous evil committed against God.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Judges 10:11-12
The answer sets seven rescues against the seven gods of verse 6, and Barnes matches four to the record: the Exodus, Sihon and Og, Ehud against Moab and Ammon, and Shamgar against the Philistines. The Maonites are named nowhere else in Judges. Barnes takes them for one of the eastern peoples who came with Midian in Gideon's day, and others read the name as the Meunites of 2 Chronicles 26:7.
Judges 10:11
“The Lord said - Either by some prophet whom he raised and sent for this purpose: or by the high-priest, who was consulted in the case. From the Amorites - Both Sihon and Og, and their people, and other kings of the Amorites within Jordan.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
John Wesley places the Maonites either in the wilderness of Maon south of Judah, as at 1 Samuel 23:25, or among the Mehunim, noting that the Hebrew letters of the two names are the same. Albert Barnes ties the Amalekites to the time of Gideon. Each name recalls a rescue.
Judges 10:12
“The Zidonians - An allusion to the time of Barak, when the Zidonians doubtless formed part of the great confederacy of Canaanites under Jabin king of Hazor. See Jos 11:8. The Amalekites - In the time of Gideon (marginal reference). The Maonites - Probably one of the tribes of the “children of the East,” who came with the Midianites and Amalekites in the time of Gideon, and may have been conspicuous for their hostility to Israel, and for the greatness of their discomfiture, though the record has not been preserved. The name is “Mehununs” in 2Ch 26:7.”
1 more voice on this verse
Judges 10:12
“The Maonites - Either first, those who lived in, or near the wilderness of Maon, in the south of Judah, 1 Sam. xxiii, 25; xxv, 2, whether Edomites or others. Or, secondly, the Mehunims, a people living near the Arabians, of whom, 2 Chron. xxvi, 7. For in the Hebrew, the letters of both names are the same, only the one is the singular, the other the plural number.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Judges 10:13-14
"I will no longer save you" stands against every earlier round, where rescue follows the cry. Gill reads it as conditional, since rescue comes, and Henry as what would stand if they kept their idols. "Go and cry out to the gods you have chosen" turns the Song of Moses back on them, where at Deuteronomy 32:38 the LORD says of such gods, "Let them rise up and help you".
Judges 10:13
“Ye have forsaken me, and served other gods,.... Since they had been so remarkably saved, time after time, and delivered from so many powerful enemies, which was dreadful ingratitude: wherefore I will deliver you no more; which is not to be understood absolutely, since after this he did deliver them, but conditionally, unless they repented of their idolatries, and forsook them. This is said to bring them to a sense of their sin and danger.”
John Gill stresses the word chosen, since Israel served these gods freely, under no compulsion from an oppressor, while the LORD was theirs already. He reads the command to cry to them as irony, because the gods had no power to help. They were served in prosperity and fail in trouble.
Judges 10:14
“Go and cry unto the gods which ye have chosen,.... For they were their choice, and not what they were obliged to serve through persecution, and by compulsion of others, and whom they needed not, having the Lord Jehovah to be their God; and they are bid not seriously, but in an ironical or sarcastic way, to call upon them for help in this their time of distress, in whose power it was not to relieve them: let them deliver you in the time of your tribulation; if they can, whom you have served in your prosperity.”
Judges 10:15-16
This is the one round of the cycle where the people themselves put the foreign gods away. The Hebrew behind "He could no longer bear the misery of Israel" is the shortening of soul used of the people at Numbers 21:4 and of Samson at 16:16. Clarke reads compassion like that which gives the Son for the world, and Keil and Delitzsch read God growing impatient of the suffering.
Judges 10:15
“Note, True penitents dare and will refer themselves to God to correct them as he thinks fit, knowing that their sin is highly malignant in its deserts, and that God is not rigorous or extreme in his demands. They supplicate for God's mercy: Deliver us only, we pray thee, this day, from this enemy.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
The BSB uses the words no longer twice: in verse 13 the LORD will no longer save, and here He can no longer bear Israel's misery. Adam Clarke adds that God grieves over miseries his creatures bring on themselves by their own sins. The chapter leaves the two sentences side by side.
Judges 10:16
“And his soul was grieved for the misery of Israel - What a proof of the philanthropy of God! Here his compassions moved on a small scale; but it was the same principle that led him to give his Son Jesus Christ to be a sacrifice for the sins of the Whole world. God grieves for the miseries to which his creatures are reduced by their own sins. Be astonished, ye heavens, at this; and shout for joy, all ye inhabitants of the earth! for, through the love whence this compassion flowed, God has visited and redeemed a lost world!”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Judges 10:17-18
The muster is at Mizpah in Gilead, the Mizpah of Genesis 31:49 where Jacob and Laban raised their heap, a different town from the Mizpah of Benjamin in chapter 20. No verse here says the LORD raised up a deliverer, as 2:16 and 3:9 do. The rulers offer headship to "Whoever will launch the attack against the Ammonites," and Jephthah answers by setting his terms at 11:9-11.
Judges 10:17
“The historian, having related the preliminary incidents, now comes to the final issue which forms the subject matter of his narrative. On a certain occasion, as on many previous ones, the Ammonites were encamped in Gilead, with the intention of dispossessing the Israelites of the whole country, or at least as far as the river Jabbok Jdg 11:13, and of invading the West-Jordanic tribes. The children of Israel on the East of Jordan assembled together to resist them, and pitched their camp in Mizpeh. The narrative proceeds to detail what happened.”
1 more voice on this verse
Judges 10:17
“Their settled aim was to wrest the whole of the trans-jordanic territory from its actual occupiers. In this great crisis, a general meeting of the Israelitish tribes was held at Mizpeh. This Mizpeh was in eastern Manasseh (Jos 11:3).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Adam Clarke reads the offer as the cry of an army with no general, and holds that God, having accepted the repentance of verse 16, raised up Jephthah to lead it. The rulers make the offer among themselves.
Judges 10:18
“What man is he that will begin to fight - It appears that, although the spirit of patriotism had excited the people at large to come forward against their enemies, yet they had no general, none to lead them forth to battle. God, however, who had accepted their sincere repentance, raised them up an able captain in the person of Jephthah; and in him the suffrages of the people were concentrated, as we shall see in the following chapter.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
How this psalm is built
The form: Narrative prose joining two short judge notices to the opening of a cycle, with a spoken exchange between God and Israel at its centre, as Barnes classes it.
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| Seven gods answered by seven rescues | Verse 6 names seven objects of worship in one sentence: the Baals, the Ashtoreths, and the gods of Aram, Sidon, Moab, the Ammonites and the Philistines. Verses 11 and 12 answer with seven oppressors God had already saved them from: the Egyptians, Amorites, Ammonites, Philistines, Sidonians, Amalekites and Maonites. The lists are the same length and two names stand in both.Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament, 1834 to 1885, on Judges 10:11 to 12. | Judges 10:6, Judges 10:11, Judges 10:12 |
| The last time Israel cries out | The Berean text has the Israelites cry out to the LORD at 3:9, 3:15, 4:3, 6:6, 6:7 and 10:10, and this verse is the sixth and last of them. The one later use of the phrase, at 15:18, is Samson asking for water rather than the nation asking for rescue. The Philistine oppression of 13:1 opens with no cry recorded. The counts were made over the store's own Berean text for this lane and are printed in its report.Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871, on Judges 10:10. | Judges 10:10, Judges 13:1, Judges 15:18 |
| The sin named twice and answered in its own words | Verse 6 charges Israel with forsaking the LORD and serving other gods. Verse 10 has Israel say the same two things back as a confession, and verse 13 has God repeat them again as the reason for the refusal. One accusation is passed between the narrator, the nation and God without changing its wording.John Gill, Exposition of the Old and New Testament, 1748 to 1763, on Judges 10:13 to 14. | Judges 10:6, Judges 10:10, Judges 10:13 |
| The judges recorded by their households | Tola is given twenty three years and Jair twenty two, and what is recorded of Jair is thirty sons riding thirty donkeys and holding thirty towns. Judges 12:8 to 15 repeats the shape with Ibzan's thirty sons and thirty daughters and Abdon's forty sons and thirty grandsons on seventy donkeys. Riding is a mark of rank in this book, since Judges 5:10 addresses those who ride on white donkeys.Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament, 1834 to 1885, on Judges 10:3 to 5. | Judges 10:1, Judges 10:2, Judges 10:3, Judges 10:4, Judges 12:8, Judges 12:14 |
The structure
15 more paragraphs on the patterns
The chapter is built so that the cycle's machinery is stated and then held back. Israel does evil at verse 6, God sells them at verse 7, Israel cries at verse 10, and where the pattern calls for a deliverer the text gives a refusal instead.
What breaks the deadlock is an act rather than a word. Verse 16 is the one round of the cycle in which the nation itself puts away the foreign gods, which is what Jacob commands his house at Genesis 35:2, what Joshua calls for at Joshua 24:23, and what Samuel demands at 1 Samuel 7:3.
The apostasy of verse 6 is the widest in the book. Seven objects of worship are named, and the closing clause reports the abandonment as complete rather than partial.
The formula this chapter carries
The Berean text says the Israelites did evil in the sight of the LORD at 2:11, 3:7, 3:12, 4:1, 6:1, 10:6 and 13:1. Verse 6 is the sixth of the seven, and 13:1 is the last. The count was made over the store's own Berean text for this lane and is printed in its report.
Across the canon
The command at verse 14 to go and cry out to the gods they have chosen is the Song of Moses turned back on them. Deuteronomy 32:37 and 38 put the gods on trial and tell them to rise up and help, and Jeremiah 2:28 puts the same sentence almost word for word.
Israel's answer at verse 15, that God may deal with them as He sees fit, is where Eli stands at 1 Samuel 3:18 and David at 2 Samuel 24:14.
The ground held down at verse 8 is named as Gilead, the land of the Amorites, which is Sihon's old kingdom of Numbers 21:21 to 26. That title is the whole of Jephthah's argument to the Ammonite king at Judges 11:19 to 22.
Both oppressions of verse 7 run on past this chapter. Ammon produces Jephthah in chapter 11, and the Philistine hand is the forty years of Judges 13:1 that Samson is born into.
The divine connection
Verse 16 closes on God being unable to bear the misery of Israel any longer.
Adam Clarke reads the line as compassion of the same kind that gives the Son for the world. Keil and Delitzsch read it as God growing impatient of the suffering itself. The Hebrew idiom behind the clause is used of the people's own shortness of soul at Numbers 21:4 and of Samson at Judges 16:16, so the same expression describes God's response to suffering and a man's response to pressure. The site's Evidence Standard holds the sentence at what it says, which is that the misery moved Him, and takes the reading of its depth as the commentators' rather than the text's.
In the New Testament
No New Testament writer quotes this chapter. Neither Tola nor Jair is named in the New Testament.
Keep studying
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Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The form and classifications
Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament, 1834 to 1885, on Judges 10:1 to 5 and 10:11 to 14; Barry G. Webb, The Book of Judges, New International Commentary on the Old Testament, 2012 and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1708 to 1710, on Judges 10:10 to 16.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Joshua, Judges, Ruth and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.