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Judges 10
After Abimelech's chaos, two quiet judges pass in a few verses: Tola, who judged twenty-three years, and Jair, remembered chiefly for thirty sons riding thirty donkeys and holding thirty towns. Then the familiar spiral resumes — Israel serves a whole catalogue of foreign gods. This time the LORD's reply is startling. To their cry he answers, "I will save you no more — go and cry to the gods you have chosen." The chapter is a hinge: it sets up the Ammonite oppression and the search for a leader that opens Jephthah's story.
- 1
After Abimelech, Tola the son of Puah, the son of Dodo, a man of Issachar, arose to save Israel. He lived in Shamir in the hill country of Ephraim.
- 2
He judged Israel twenty-three years, and died, and was buried in Shamir.
- 3
After him Jair, the Gileadite, arose. He judged Israel twenty-two years.
- 4
He had thirty sons who rode on thirty donkey colts. They had thirty cities, which are called Havvoth Jair to this day, which are in the land of Gilead.
- 5
Jair died, and was buried in Kamon.
- 6
The children of Israel again did that which was evil in the LORD’s sight, and served the Baals, the Ashtaroth, the gods of Syria, the gods of Sidon, the gods of Moab, the gods of the children of Ammon, and the gods of the Philistines. They abandoned the LORD, and didn’t serve him.
- 7
The LORD’s anger burned against Israel, and he sold them into the hand of the Philistines and into the hand of the children of Ammon.
- 8
They troubled and oppressed the children of Israel that year. For eighteen years they oppressed all the children of Israel that were beyond the Jordan in the land of the Amorites, which is in Gilead.
- 9
The children of Ammon passed over the Jordan to fight also against Judah, and against Benjamin, and against the house of Ephraim, so that Israel was very distressed.
- 10
The children of Israel cried to the LORD, saying, “We have sinned against you, even because we have forsaken our God, and have served the Baals.”
- 11
The LORD said to the children of Israel, “Didn’t I save you from the Egyptians, and from the Amorites, from the children of Ammon, and from the Philistines?
- 12
The Sidonians also, and the Amalekites, and the Maonites, oppressed you; and you cried to me, and I saved you out of their hand.
- 13
Yet you have forsaken me and served other gods. Therefore I will save you no more.
- 14
Go and cry to the gods which you have chosen. Let them save you in the time of your distress!”
- 15
The children of Israel said to the LORD, “We have sinned! Do to us whatever seems good to you; only deliver us, please, today.”
- 16
They put away the foreign gods from among them and served the LORD; and his soul was grieved for the misery of Israel.
- 17
Then the children of Ammon were gathered together and encamped in Gilead. The children of Israel assembled themselves together and encamped in Mizpah.
- 18
The people, the princes of Gilead, said to one another, “Who is the man who will begin to fight against the children of Ammon? He shall be head over all the inhabitants of Gilead.”
A refusal that is not the last word
God's bitter rehearsal of past rescues (vv. 11-13) and his "I will save you no more" mark the lowest point in the book's cycle so far. The relationship has worn thin; deliverance is no longer automatic.
Yet Israel does more than cry — they put away the foreign gods and serve the LORD, and the narrator says his soul "was grieved for the misery of Israel" (v. 16). The closing scene at Mizpah, with leaderless Gilead asking who will fight Ammon, leaves the door open for chapter 11.
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