Judges 12:11

Jephthah’s story ends with his death and burial in one of the cities of Gilead (Judges 12:7). Just before that, the men of Gilead fought the men of Ephraim, and forty and two thousand Ephraimites fell at the fords of the Jordan (Judges 12:1–6). Then come these quiet verses, and after them the long story of Samson (Judges 13–16).

Ibzan, Elon and Abdon belong with Tola (Judges 10:1–2) and Jair (Judges 10:3–5), the judges often called “minor” because so little is written about them. The word describes the length of their record. Each account gives the same things in the same order: “after him”, the judge’s name and where he came from, “judged Israel”, the number of years, and then his death and the place of his burial. The words “after him” open verses 8, 11 and 13. The Hebrew ʼachar properly means the hind part, and here it marks what follows in time. Each judge takes up the work when the one before him dies.

That steady succession is the LORD’s doing. Judges tells us that the LORD raised up judges who delivered his people, and that whenever a judge died the people turned back to their old ways (Judges 2:16–19). The book also repeats the condition of the whole age: “In those days there was no king in Israel” (Judges 18:1), and “every man did that which was right in his own eyes” (Judges 17:6, Judges 21:25). Into that unsettled time the LORD kept giving leaders, one after another, and so held his people together.

The three came from different parts of the land. Ibzan’s home was Bethlehem, Elon was of Zebulun in the north, and Abdon came from Pirathon in Ephraim. Each most likely led his own region and its neighbours more than all twelve tribes at once, as many of the judges did in an age when the tribes were loosely joined and each looked to its own leaders.

“Judged Israel” is said of all three men, and twice of Elon in a single verse. The verb shâphaṭ means to judge, to decide and to govern. At its heart is pronouncing sentence for or against someone, and by implication it means to vindicate or to punish. So a judge in Israel heard cases, and he also led his people, governed them, kept order and gave justice, and some judges also delivered Israel in battle. For these three, whose years are told in peace, the weight falls on the work of government and justice.

The law of Moses had already told Israel to appoint judges and officers in all their gates and to judge the people with just judgment (Deuteronomy 16:18–20). Scripture prizes that kind of justice throughout. Proverbs says that a king establishes the land by judgment (Proverbs 29:4), Amos calls for judgment to run down as waters (Amos 5:24), and Paul teaches that governing authority comes from God (Romans 13:1). Seven, ten and eight years of steady judging gave Israel a measure of the order that God’s law asked for.

Later, Israel asked Samuel for a king like the nations around them (1 Samuel 8:5), one who would go out before them and fight their battles (1 Samuel 8:20), and the LORD told Samuel that in asking they had rejected him as their king (1 Samuel 8:7). The judges stand in the years before that request. Their rule was short and local, and it left Israel needing a leadership that would last, as the book’s refrain about the missing king makes plain. That need is met at last in God’s own King.

Ibzan’s name, ʼIbtsân, means splendid, and his town, Bêyth Lechem, means house of bread. Of all he did in seven years, Scripture records his family: “he had thirty sons, and thirty daughters, whom he sent abroad, and took in thirty daughters from abroad for his sons.” The word “thirty” stands three times in verse 9, and the balance is exact: thirty daughters sent out, thirty brides brought in for thirty sons.

Sixty children were a sign of great blessing and standing. Scripture calls children an heritage of the LORD and counts happy the man whose quiver is full of them (Psalm 127:3–5). A household that large also meant labour, security and a wide network of family ties. Proverbs honours a well-ordered home (Proverbs 31:10–31), and Paul asks that a leader rule his own house well (1 Timothy 3:4–5).

“Sent” is shâlach, the common verb for sending, used here of sending his daughters out of his house in marriage. “Took in” is bôwʼ, the ordinary verb for coming and going, used here of bringing brides in. “Abroad” means outside, beyond his own household or clan, and the verse leaves unsaid how far. Marriages arranged across clans like this were a common way to forge ties, keep peace and widen a family’s influence, and sixty marriages would have bound Ibzan’s house to many others. In a land so recently torn by war between tribes, that web of family bonds served the peace of his region.

People ask whether Ibzan, with no battles to his name, was a good judge. Scripture records his household and his years and leaves the verdict with God. His seven years, marked by family alliances and settled life, show that judging Israel could mean keeping the peace as much as winning a war.

Elon’s name, ʼÊylôwn, means oak-grove. He is called a Zebulonite, Zᵉbûwlônîy, a descendant of Zebulun the son of Jacob, and his tribe’s inheritance lay in the north of the land, near the Sea of Galilee (Joshua 19:10–16). He judged Israel ten years, the longest of the three, and verse 11 says “judged Israel” twice, once to name his office and once with its length.

His record is the shortest of all: his tribe, his years, his death and his grave. He was buried in Aijalon, a name meaning deer-field that belonged to several places, and this Aijalon lay in the country of Zebulun. Tribe and inherited land mattered deeply in Israel, because the land had been divided among the tribes in the days of Joshua, and to be buried in one’s own country was to rest among one’s own people in the inheritance God had given. Elon’s ten quiet years came after the turmoil of Jephthah’s day and gave his people a long stretch of steady government.

Abdon’s name, ʻAbdôwn, means servitude or service, from a root meaning to serve. His father’s name, Hillêl, means praising, that is, praising God. Abdon was a Pirathonite, from Pirathon, a town in the land of Ephraim whose name means chieftaincy. Benaiah the Pirathonite, one of David’s mighty men, came from the same town (2 Samuel 23:30). Abdon judged Israel eight years.

Verse 14 says he “had forty sons and thirty nephews, that rode on threescore and ten ass colts”. The Hebrew word for son, bên, is used in the widest sense of family relationship, and “nephews” here stands for “sons of sons”, so these thirty are Abdon’s grandsons. Forty sons and thirty grandsons make seventy riders, one for each of the threescore and ten colts. The colt, ʻayir, is a young male ass, one just broken to carry a load.

Donkeys were valued beasts for travel, farming and trade, and a family that could mount seventy riders was wealthy and prominent. Wealth in Israel was counted in land, livestock and children, and Abdon had them in abundance. His family and his animals together describe a man of means and standing, whose household could travel widely and whose word carried weight. His prosperity in years of peace was a mark of the LORD’s blessing on that time.

Each of the three records closes with two plain verbs. The verb mûwth means to die, and here it is the simple statement of a man’s death. The verb qâbar means to bury, the laying of a body in its place. Ibzan was buried at Bethlehem, Elon at Aijalon and Abdon at Pirathon, each in his own town or tribe. The judges were raised up by God and served him, and they died as all men die.

Scripture speaks plainly of this. Moses numbers the days of our years at threescore years and ten (Psalm 90:10), the Preacher says there is a time to be born and a time to die (Ecclesiastes 3:1–2), and Hebrews says that it is appointed unto men once to die (Hebrews 9:27). The death of each judge left Israel needing another, and Judges shows how often the people fell away once their judge was gone. God’s purpose for his people outlived every one of them, and he raised up the next.

These judges were temporary leaders, limited by time, by region and by death, and their passing one after another makes us long for a Judge who lives and reigns for ever. God gives him in Jesus Christ. Nathanael confessed him as the King of Israel (John 1:49). The Father has committed all judgment to the Son (John 5:22), and he is the righteous Judge (2 Timothy 4:8), the Judge of all the earth who does right (Genesis 18:25), the rider who in righteousness judges and makes war (Revelation 19:11), whose name is King of kings and Lord of lords (Revelation 19:16). His throne is for ever and ever (Hebrews 1:8). Isaiah foretold a child called the Prince of Peace, whose government and peace would increase for ever (Isaiah 9:6–7), the angel told Mary that he would reign over the house of Jacob for ever (Luke 1:33), and his kingdom is an everlasting kingdom (Psalm 145:13).

The judges kept order for a few years in a corner of the land. Christ delivers his people from sin and death themselves. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29) and the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep (John 10:11), and through the blood of his cross God has made peace (Colossians 1:19–20). Ibzan, Elon and Abdon went to their graves and stayed there, while Christ, being raised from the dead, dies no more (Romans 6:9). He has obtained eternal redemption for us (Hebrews 9:12) and sits at the right hand of God (Hebrews 10:12).

The quiet service of these judges finds its fulfilment in the Son of man, who came to minister and to give his life a ransom for many (Mark 10:45). Abdon’s riches were his for a lifetime, while Christ, though he was rich, became poor for our sakes so that we through his poverty might be rich (2 Corinthians 8:9). And if Ibzan’s Bethlehem is the town of Judah, then the house of bread where a judge was buried is the town where Jesus, the bread of life (John 6:35), was born.

These eight verses give us three names and twenty-five years of Israel’s history, and in them the faithfulness of the LORD. His people in those days were unsettled and often unfaithful, and still he gave them judges, one after another, to keep order, give justice and hold their tribes together. He saw the seven years of a man of Bethlehem, the ten years of a Zebulonite whose deeds are lost to us, and the eight years of a father of seventy riders, and he had their names written in his word.

The passage also shows God’s blessing reaching into ordinary life: children and marriages, households and herds, and quiet years of peace. Every record ends at a grave, as every human leader’s life does. The God who kept giving Israel a judge has given his people a King who reigns for ever, and in him the long line of judges comes to its rest.