THE STORY SO FAR…
After Gideon’s colorful leadership and the trauma-inducing events following his death, Tola and Jair led Israel for fifty- five years. The work of these two men over fifty-five years is covered by exactly four verses in the Bible. The fifth verse clarifies the significant social bankruptcy that followed the insignificant leadership of these two men. What made the lives and times of these two men so disregarded by the chronicler of the book of Judges? The extreme destructiveness of laziness and corruption in leadership is highlighted in Series 23.
Judges 10: 1 – 5
1. And 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.
2. And he judged Israel twenty and three years, and died, and was buried in Shamir.
3. And after him arose Jair, a Gileadite, and judged Israel twenty and two years.
And he had thirty sons that rode on thirty ass colts, and they had thirty cities, which are called Havoth-Jair unto this day, which are in the land of Gilead.
4. And Jair died and was buried in Camon
5. And 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