Judges 10:1-5 - He had thirty sons

10:1,2

The chapter begins with two minor judges, of whom very little is said. The opening line that this happened after the time of Abimelek shows that the whole account was intended to be in chronological order. Despite very little being said about Tola, he is the only one whose father and grandfather’s names are given. It may be that this was done because Tola and Puah were names of Issachar’s sons, and so referred to clans within the tribe (Evans), so the writer was stressing that he was referring to a particular individual called Tola.

Tola “rose to save Israel”. We are not told that Israel “did evil in the eyes of the Lord”, though it is a fair bet that they did, as that was their custom. Also, the time of Abimelek could be seen as a time of “doing evil”. Nor are we told who was oppressing them. Again, it could be that we are meant to see Tola delivering them from the chaos of the Abimelek years. Anyway, Tola led Israel for twenty three years, then he died. Often the period given for a judge is forty or eighty years, which may be a rounded number. In this case the figure is not rounded, and may indicate that it is a precise figure.

10:3-5

Tola was followed by Jair, and he led (or judged) for twenty two years. Jair came from the transJordan tribes, following the wide spread of the origin of the judges. We are not given any information on his parents, only that he had thirty sons who rode thirty donkeys. This is indicative of his wealth and influence. These sons controlled the thirty towns of Gilead. Jair comes straight after Tola, and again there is no mention of Israel “doing evil”, nor of their being oppressed. Nor are there any details of what Jair did. It is possible that the time of Tola and Jair were a time of relative peace and even obedience to God, or at least not outright idolatry, though given the history of the book the latter seems a little unlikely.