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Context No. 1261 of 4322 · Judges

Context · Reflection

Judges 10:1-5: in context

1After 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. 2He judged Israel twenty-three years, and died, and was buried in Shamir. 3After him Jair, the Gileadite, arose. He judged Israel twenty-two years. 4He 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. 5Jair died, and was buried in Kamon.

Between the more famous judges, the book pauses on two men who get only a few verses each. Tola of Issachar arose to save Israel, judged for twenty-three years, and died. After him Jair the Gileadite judged for twenty-two years; he had thirty sons who rode thirty donkeys and held thirty towns. Then Jair died and was buried. That is nearly all we are told; no dramatic exploits, no recorded battles, just that they arose, judged, and died.

These are the quiet judges, and their brevity is worth noticing. Tola and Jair together governed Israel for forty-five years, nearly half a century of leadership, and scripture records almost nothing about them beyond the fact that they did it. No great deliverance is described, no famous victory, no memorable saying; they simply arose to save Israel and judged faithfully for decades. And yet those decades were, presumably, years of peace and stability, which the dramatic judges' stories rarely provided. There is honor in that kind of unremarkable faithfulness. Not every servant of God gets a story worth retelling; most of the good that is done in the world is done by people like Tola and Jair, who quietly hold things together for years and are barely remembered. The Bible does not despise them; it names them and records their years, because the long, undramatic faithfulness that keeps a people steady matters to God even when it generates no headlines. Most lives are more like Tola's than like Samson's, faithful, ordinary, un-storied, and God counts those years as service to his people just the same.

Do I need a dramatic story to feel my life has mattered, or can I be content, like the quiet judges, to serve faithfully for years in ways no one will remember, trusting that God counts the un-storied faithfulness too?

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