The stories of Tola and Jair, the seventh and eighth judges of Israel, are both brief and shallow. In fact, the whole breadth of their lives is chronicled in a mere five verses (Judges 10:1-5). To be sure, the apparent absence of information about these two judges points as much to their periphery status in canon as it speaks to their insufficiency in delivering Israel from their growing inclinations to pagan worship and immorality.
In fact, the most striking thing about their narratives is the depth, or lack there of. God is not mentioned in their narratives, and the only thing that marks them as judges is that the Scripture tells us that they did judge Israel, Tola for thirty years and Jair for twenty two. The pace of the narrative rapidly moves on past these two judges to the ever-growing apostasy, corruption, and disbelief of Israel that is presented throughout the rest of chapter ten.
The apex of this section actually occurs when, as the people have already grown in their disobedient apostasy and have cried out to God for deliverance, the Lord replies: "Have I not already saved you!" Essentially, God says, "Why should I save you when all you do is turn to foreign gods?" To which the Israelites respond by putting away all the foreign gods and idols, in order to repent in faith to the Lord Almighty, thus bringing us to the story of the next judge, Jephthah.
At the final analysis, the story of Tola and Jair is, basically, inconsequential in that it is narrative "filler" to explain how, historically, Israel had been constantly descending in a downward spiral of disobedience and apostasy. Over and again, the story of Judges is one in which each generation fails to teach and train the next in the ways of the Lord, that results in growing faithlessness and sin. This is what we need to learn from this story as well as the rest of the book. But praise be to God who is always faithful to those who seek after Him!
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