Judges 10 Study Guide
After the reign of the anti-judge Abimelek, a judge named Tola rises to lead Israel back into alignment with God. It is safe to say that Israel was already skidding to a halt with God in the reign of Gideon. Through Gideon’s ill-conceived idea to create an ephod from the gifts of his fellow Israelites, Israel fell into apostasy by worshipping it. Gideon, a man who did not call himself king but acted like one, spawned Abimelek, meaning “My Father, a King”, who terrorized Israel for 3+ years. We don’t know much about Tola, but he was a man who descended from Issachar (Genesis 46:13, Numbers 26:23) and was able to bring Israel into a fairly long stretch of peace (23 years). It is also interesting to note that Tola lived in Ephraim. Gideon always had trouble with Ephraim and it is poetic justice that a judge from Ephraim would be able to end the Gideon-Abimelek cycle.