GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
JUDGES 12:11-12
11 After him, Elon of Zebulun judged Israel for ten years, 12 and when he died, he was buried in Aijalon in the land of Zebulun.
There was another Aijalon in the territory assigned to Dan (Joshua 19:42) but which was taken under the protection of Judah (2 Chron 11:10; 28:18). This Aijalon in Zebulun is thought to be in the Plain of Asochis between Nazareth and Cana (once the home of the historian Josephus, Cana was on the northern end of the Plain of Asochis).
Is there any judge in the book of Judges about whom we know less than Elon? Shamgar, perhaps, but we know about his victory over 600 Philistines. For Elon, we only know that he was a judge for ten years, and that he was given an honorable burial.
I want to say something about the death of Elon and the other three judges in this chapter (Jephthah, Ibzan and Abdon), but that will wait until we’ve read about Abdon and his sons-on-saddles. For now, let’s consider that in the first half of the book of Judges, there were more major judges than minor judges. Now, the reverse is happening. After the story of Abdon that takes us through the next three verses, there is only Samson left in the book (and a couple of appendices). We have more of these minor judges than we know what to do with; more than we can shake an oxgoad at. Perhaps the pattern is significant: As everyone continued to do “as he saw fit,” the success of the judges was dwindling. We no longer have indications that the land had rest—only that the successive judges died after shorter and shorter terms. Perhaps this tells us that the people were no longer turning back to the Lord in repentance, but that he was preserving them anyway, flinging judge after judge into the breaches between his people and the pagan nations surrounding them. If this was the case, then God was biding his time during the long ministry of Eli, who already now was serving as High Priest at Shiloh (1 Samuel 1:3-9) until the time came for a new kind of leader to serve his people, one more like Moses than any other since Moses; a leader who would not be a judge, nor a priest, nor a king. The Lord God was waiting to raise up a prophet. You see, Elon died in about the year 1065 B.C., and that was almost exactly the moment when the Lord answered the prayer of a barren wife named Hannah, who had been praying in Eli’s hearing at Shiloh, and who now gave birth to a son.
And his name was Samuel.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Archives by Wisconsin Lutheran Chapel: http://www.wlchapel.org/worship/daily-devotion/
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota