CHAP. X. from Vers. 6. to the end.
JEphtah a Gileadite ariseth a Judge after Jair; but there is some scruple first to be resolved and removed concerning his time, and the oppression that he was raised to remove. It is said, vers. 6, 7, 8. that Jair died and the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the Lord, and he sold them into the hands of the Philistims, and that year they oppressed the children of Israel eighteen years. Now the question is when these eighteen years began, and whether they are to be taken for a sum of years apart from the years of the Judges, or to be reckon∣ed with them; and what is meant by that expression, and that year they vexed Israel. Answer, These eighteen years are to be reckoned together with the last eighteen years of Jair; and they began with his fifth year: for though he be said to have judged two and twenty years, yet it is not to be so understood, as if no enemy peeped up in all that time, for we shall see the contrary cleared by the Judgeship of Samson: but the meaning is, that the Lord at the first stirred him up for a deliverer, and wrought some great deliverance by him in the beginning of his time; and afterward he continued a Judge, and one that sought the reformation of his people, but he could neither work that to keep them from Idolatry, nor work their total deliverance to keep their enemies under: but in his fifth year Idolatry broke out in Israel, and continued to a horrid increase; so in that very year that this Idolatry broke out, their oppres∣sours broke in upon them, and kept them under for eighteen years, and Jair could not help it, but it continued so till his death: so that the beginning of Vers. 6. is thus to be rendered in Chronical construction. Now the children of Israel had done evil again, &c. This long oppression at last forceth Israel to seek the Lord, and to forsake their Idolatry, and the Lord findeth out Jephtah for a deliverer.