Two Judges, Many Gods

After the scourge of Abimelech, there arise in Israel two successive judges about whom we are told very little. Yet they are true judges. “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 honor they had to themselves, but being called of God to it,” Matthew Henry writes.

The first is Tola, a man of Issachar who judges Israel 23 years. Judges, as we have seen, are political/military leaders raised up by God to deliver the nation from oppression, and we are told that Tola arises “to save Israel.” But we are not told who the oppressor is in this case. Henry believes that Tola’s administration is one of restoration in a time of peace. “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,” he writes. “Thus he saved them from themselves.” After Tola comes Jair, who is significant as the first judge from the tribes living to the east of the Jordan. He judges Israel for 22 years, like Tola apparently in peacetime. He is greatly blessed by God with 30 sons who oversee 30 towns.

But like all the judges, Jair dies in his time. When he does, the Israelites, true to form, turn away from God once more. This time, they carry out their foray into idolatry with a vengeance. They do not stop with Baal or Ashtoreth; they also begin to worship the gods of their many pagan neighbors, including Syria, Sidon, Moab, Ammon, and even Philistia, completely forsaking the God of Israel. “They did not so much as admit the God of Israel to be one of those many deities they worshiped, but quite cast Him off,” Henry writes. God, of course, is angry about this new “harlotry,” and He raises up not one but two oppressors, the Philistines and Ammonites, who, ironically, are both among the peoples whose gods the Israelites have begun to worship. These peoples begin to harass and oppress the Israelites, with the Philistines striking northward and the Ammonites pressing in from the east, even across the Jordan and into the Israelite heartland. Thus, Israel finds itself “severely distressed,” fighting a two-front war and suffering under the chastening of God for 18 years.