Judges 10King James Version
Two minor judges, Tola and Jair, pass quickly. Then the people turn to other gods and the Ammonites oppress them for eighteen years. They cry out. God tells them He is tired of delivering them. They cry out again and put away their idols, and His soul is grieved for the misery of Israel.
Tola and Jair judge Israel for forty-five years combined, small entries between larger catastrophes. Then Israel abandons God for Baal, Asherah, and the gods of seven foreign nations. Philistines and Ammonites oppress them eighteen years. Israel cries out and God, bluntly, refuses to be moved. He lists every time he has saved them and says: let your new gods save you this time. Israel puts away the foreign gods. God grieves with them and cannot hold back.
God's patience has a limit where he names it plainly, and then relents anyway, because his grief for them is stronger than his anger.
16: "And they put away the strange gods from among them, and served the LORD: and his soul was grieved for the misery of Israel." Not forgiveness because they earned it; grief because he could not watch it anymore.
Eighteen years of Ammonite and Philistine pressure across a broad stretch of tribal territory. The Ammonites have crossed the Jordan and are striking into Judah, Benjamin, and Ephraim. This is not border skirmishing; it is systematic subjugation. Into this disaster Israel throws an appeal to a God they have been publicly insulting for years.
Tola, son of Puah, who judged twenty-three years without a story; Jair the Gileadite, with thirty sons and thirty towns; Israel in aggregate, cycling down again; God, speaking in direct refusal before relenting.
The divine speech of refusal in verses 11 to 14 is unmatched in the book for its rhetorical sharpness. God does not merely warn; he catalogs the record, mocks the pattern, and withdraws. Then verse 16 turns everything. The word translated 'grieved' is the same root used when God grieves before the flood. It is not a soft emotion.
For when you have run back to the same rescuer one time too many and wonder if this time the door stays shut. The chapter shows the door does open, but it does not open easily, and the hesitation is real.
1And after Abimelech there arose to defend Israel Tola the son of Puah, the son of Dodo, a man of Issachar; and he dwelt in Shamir in mount Ephraim.
2And he judged Israel twenty and three years, and died, and was buried in Shamir.
3And after him arose Jair, a Gileadite, and judged Israel twenty and two years.
4And he had thirty sons that rode on thirty ass colts, and they had thirty cities, which are called Havothjair unto this day, which are in the land of Gilead.
5And Jair died, and was buried in Camon.
6And the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the LORD, and served Baalim, and Ashtaroth, and the gods of Syria, and the gods of Zidon, and the gods of Moab, and the gods of the children of Ammon, and the gods of the Philistines, and forsook the LORD, and served not him.
7And the anger of the LORD was hot against Israel, and he sold them into the hands of the Philistines, and into the hands of the children of Ammon.
8And that year they vexed and oppressed the children of Israel: eighteen years, all the children of Israel that were on the other side Jordan in the land of the Amorites, which is in Gilead.
9Moreover the children of Ammon passed over Jordan to fight also against Judah, and against Benjamin, and against the house of Ephraim; so that Israel was sore distressed.
10And the children of Israel cried unto the LORD, saying, We have sinned against thee, both because we have forsaken our God, and also served Baalim.
11And the LORD said unto the children of Israel, Did not I deliver you from the Egyptians, and from the Amorites, from the children of Ammon, and from the Philistines?
12The Zidonians also, and the Amalekites, and the Maonites, did oppress you; and ye cried to me, and I delivered you out of their hand.
13Yet ye have forsaken me, and served other gods: wherefore I will deliver you no more.
14Go and cry unto the gods which ye have chosen; let them deliver you in the time of your tribulation.
15And the children of Israel said unto the LORD, We have sinned: do thou unto us whatsoever seemeth good unto thee; deliver us only, we pray thee, this day.
16And they put away the strange gods from among them, and served the LORD: and his soul was grieved for the misery of Israel.
17Then the children of Ammon were gathered together, and encamped in Gilead. And the children of Israel assembled themselves together, and encamped in Mizpeh.
18And the people and princes of Gilead said one to another, What man is he that will begin to fight against the children of Ammon? he shall be head over all the inhabitants of Gilead.