Judges 10
About JudgesWritten by AI
Judges covers the unsettled years between Joshua's death and the rise of Israel's kings. The judges were mostly military leaders God raised up to rescue His people from enemies, more deliverers than courtroom judges. The author is not named. Jewish tradition points to Samuel; many scholars think it was put together over time. Its repeated line about Israel having no king suggests it was written once kings had come.
The book runs in a cycle that turns downward. Israel serves other gods, an enemy oppresses them, they cry out, God raises a deliverer, there is rest, and then it starts again, a little worse each time. The judges themselves grow more flawed, from Othniel and Deborah to Gideon, Jephthah and Samson.
The last chapters are some of the darkest in Scripture, and the book ends with its own verdict: “everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” Watch for God's patience, which keeps rescuing a people who keep forgetting Him.
Before you read Judges 10Written by AI
Two quieter judges, Tola and Jair, lead Israel for years. Then Israel serves more foreign gods than ever, and the Philistines and Ammonites crush them. When they cry out, God answers sharply: go cry to the gods you chose. Yet when they put the idols away, God could no longer bear their misery.
Tola
After the time of Abimelech, a man of Issachar, Tola son of Puah, the son of Dodo, rose up to save Israel. He lived in Shamir, in the hill country of Ephraim.
Tola judged Israel twenty-three years, and when he died, he was buried in Shamir.
Jair
Tola was followed by Jair the Gileadite, who judged Israel twenty-two years. He had thirty sons who rode on thirty donkeys. And they had thirty towns in the land of Gilead, which to this day are called Havvoth-jair.
When Jair died, he was buried in Kamon.
Oppression by the Philistines and Ammonites
And again the Israelites did evil in the sight of the LORD. They served the Baals, the Ashtoreths, the gods of Aram, Sidon, and Moab, and the gods of the Ammonites and Philistines. Thus they forsook the LORD and did not serve Him.
So the anger of the LORD burned against Israel, and He sold them into the hands of the Philistines and Ammonites, who that very year harassed and oppressed the Israelites, and they did so for eighteen years to all the Israelites on the other side of the Jordan in Gilead, the land of the Amorites.
The Ammonites also crossed the Jordan to fight against Judah, Benjamin, and the house of Ephraim, and Israel was in deep distress.
Then the Israelites cried out to the LORD, saying, “We have sinned against You, for we have indeed forsaken our God and served the Baals.”
The LORD replied, “When the Egyptians, Amorites, Ammonites, Philistines, Sidonians, Amalekites, and Maonites oppressed you and you cried out to Me, did I not save you from their hands? But you have forsaken Me and served other gods, so I will no longer save you. Go and cry out to the gods you have chosen. Let them save you in your time of trouble.”
“We have sinned,” the Israelites said to the LORD. “Deal with us as You see fit; but please deliver us today!” So they put away the foreign gods from among them and served the LORD, and He could no longer bear the misery of Israel.
Then the Ammonites were called to arms and camped in Gilead, and the Israelites assembled and camped at Mizpah. And the rulers of Gilead said to one another, “Whoever will launch the attack against the Ammonites will be the head of all who live in Gilead.”