Tola and Jair: forty-five years without war
Two judges in a row of whom two or three verses are said: no enemy, no war, no wonder. Forty-five years with nothing to tell—and that in itself is information.
"And after Abimelech there arose to save Israel Tola son of Puah, son of Dodo, a man of Issachar; and he dwelt in Shamir in the hill country of Ephraim. And he judged Israel twenty-three years, and died, and was buried in Shamir."
"And after him arose Jair the Gileadite, and judged Israel twenty-two years. And he had thirty sons that rode on thirty ass colts, and they had thirty cities, which are called Havvoth-jair to this day, in the land of Gilead. And Jair died, and was buried in Kamon."
That is all. The book of Judges is built on a cycle: the people forget, an enemy comes, the people cry out, a deliverer rises. Here the cycle stops: two names, two numbers and two burial places. No oppression, no deliverance. Twenty-three years and twenty-two—forty-five years with nothing to tell.
Of Jair a little more is said—the thirty sons on colts and the thirty cities. That is not a feat but a measure of means and order: the judge has something to divide among his sons, and in the land of Gilead stand towns that keep his name.
How we know
Sources
Tanakh
- Shoftim 10:1–5 — Tola's twenty-three years and Jair's twenty-two
Chazal: Mishnah, Talmud, midrash, Zohar
- Seder Olam Rabbah 12 — "subtract from them one year counted for both"
Basis: stated in the Tanakh.