Thola rules Israel twenty-three years; and Jair twenty-two. The people fall again into idolatry, and are afflicted again by the Philistines and Ammonites. They cry to God for help, who upon their repentance has compassion on them.

¹ After Abimelech, a leader rose up in Israel, Tola, the son of Puah, the paternal uncle of Abimelech, a man of Issachar, who lived in Shamir on mount Ephraim.¹

1. 10:1Uncle of Abimelech: i. e., half brother to Gedeon, as being born of the same mother, but by a different father, and of a different tribe.(Challoner)

² And he judged Israel for twenty-three years, and he died and was buried at Shamir.

³ After him succeeded Jair, a Gileadite, who judged Israel for twenty-two years,

⁴ having thirty sons sitting upon thirty young donkeys, and who were leaders of thirty cities, which from his name were called Havvoth Jair, that is, the towns of Jair, even to the present day, in the land of Gilead.¹

1. 10:4Havoth Jair: This name was now confirmed to these towns, which they had formerly received from another Jair. Num. 32.41.(Challoner)

⁵ And Jair died, and he was buried in the place which is called Kamon.

⁶ But the sons of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, joining new sins to old, and they served idols, the Baals and Ashtaroth, and the gods of Syria and Sidon, and of Moab and the sons of Ammon, and the Philistines. And they abandoned the Lord, and they did not worship him.

⁷ And the Lord, becoming angry against them, delivered them into the hands of the Philistines and the sons of Ammon.

⁸ And they were afflicted and vehemently oppressed for eighteen years, all who were living beyond the Jordan in the land of the Amorite, which is in Gilead,

⁹ to such a great extent that the sons of Ammon, crossing over the Jordan, laid waste to Judah and Benjamin and Ephraim. And Israel was exceedingly afflicted.

¹⁰ And crying out to the Lord, they said: “We have sinned against you. For we have forsaken the Lord our God, and we have served the Baals.”

¹¹ And the Lord said to them: “Did not the Egyptians, and the Amorites, and the sons of Ammon, and the Philistines,

¹² and also the Sidonians, and Amalek, and Canaan, oppress you, and so you cried out to me, and I rescued you from their hand?

¹³ And yet you have forsaken me, and you have worshipped foreign gods. For this reason, I will not continue to free you any more.

¹⁴ Go, and call upon the gods whom you have chosen. Let them free you in the time of anguish.”

¹⁵ And the sons of Israel said to the Lord: “We have sinned. You may repay us in whatever way pleases you. Yet free us now.”

¹⁶ And saying these things, they cast out all the idols of the foreign gods from their regions, and they served the Lord God. And he was touched by their miseries.

¹⁷ And then the sons of Ammon, shouting out together, pitched their tents in Gilead. And the sons of Israel gathered together against them, and they made camp at Mizpah.

¹⁸ And the leaders of Gilead said to one another, “Whoever among us will be the first to begin to contend against the sons of Ammon, he shall be the leader of the people of Gilead.”