GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
JUDGES 12:13-15
13 After him, Abdon son of Hillel from Pirathon, judged Israel. 14 He had forty sons and thirty grandsons, who rode on seventy donkeys. Abdon judged Israel eight years, 15 and when he died, he was buried in Pirathon in the land of Ephraim, in the hill country of the Amalekites.
Abdon is the last of the minor judges we meet in the book. Although his time as judge came late in his life, just the last eight years, he had considerable wealth and prestige already. He had forty sons (there is no mention of how many wives he had) and already he had thirty grandsons. The King James Version’s “thirty nephews” is simply wrong; both the Hebrew and the Greek translation calls the thirty young men “his sons’ sons,” which can be nothing here except grandsons.
Abdon seems to have judged Israel in those transitional years following the death of Samson (whose story we are about to read) while Samuel was prophet and Ahitub was high priest (1 Samuel 14:3). These three judges—Ibzan, Elon and Abdon—helped to keep Israel stable in those fearsome days before Saul became king. The note that each of them died and was given an honorable burial tells us that each man in turn brought safety, stability, and at least some peace to the land. (Note that his burial was in “the hill country of the Amalekites,” a reminder that Israel had not fulfilled God’s command to wipe out the pagan nations from Canaan, and the Amalekites still held this little island outpost in the middle of the tribe of Ephraim in the very heart of Israel).
Abdon’s wealth was in donkeys, which were used as riding mounts long before horses in Israel. Donkeys were used for carrying (Genesis 42:26), for ploughing and other farm work (Isaiah 30:24), and for riding (Numbers 22:21). Donkeys were also used as payment for debts or for gifts (Genesis 32:13-15).
The donkey is mentioned specifically in both tables of the law, in the final commandment in each table, the third (Deuteronomy 5:14) and the tenth (Exodus 20:17; Deut. 5:21). In the third commandment, Sabbath rest is to be given both to any clean animal (your ox) and any unclean animal (your donkey) without prejudice. In the tenth, unclean animals are not to be coveted any more than clean animals or anything else. This prevents any misuse of animals for any reason. They are God’s creatures and are under man’s protection (Genesis 1:28). We may use animals for work and may eat them for food (Genesis 9:2-4), but we may not abuse them for entertainment, or waste their lives. The animal kingdom also “waits in eager anticipation for the Sons of God to be revealed.” The animal kingdom “was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice” but by Adam’s fall into sin and corruption, “the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay, and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God” (Romans 8:19-21).
Abdon showed his love for God in the use of donkeys for his sons and grandsons, using the animals themselves as marks of distinction and honor. His sons rode them as a faint foreshadowing of the day when the Son of God would ride a donkey himself (John 12:14), entering into Jerusalem to shouts of Hosanna and waves palm branches. It was a moment of glory that preceded a week of passion and suffering, culminating in the agony of the cross, the payment for the sins of all mankind, and finally the glorious resurrection. It is the crucified and risen Christ in whom we put all our faith and trust. We wait with the rest of creation in eager anticipation of the day of our own resurrection, when we, too, will be liberated from bondage to decay, and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.
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