Tola the Judge of Issachar Defends Israel from Shamir in Mount Ephraim for Twenty-three Years

Judges 10:1-2 records the quiet judgeship of Tola that gave Israel a rare interlude of peace after Abimelech's bloody reign at Shechem: "And after Abimelech there arose to defend Israel Tola the son of Puah, the son of Dodo, a man of Issachar; and he dwelt in Shamir in mount Ephraim. And he judged Israel twenty and three years, and died, and was buried in Shamir." Tola's tenure (and Jair's twenty-two-year judgeship in Gilead that followed) marked the longest stretch of stability in the chaotic judges era — about forty-five peaceful years before the Ammonite oppression that summoned Jephthah and the Philistine pressure that produced Samson.

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