Shoftim 10: Dodo Bird

Judges is a unique book. Each chapter or few chapters takes place in a different era with different leaders. Some of the Judges have long backstories, but some have no stories at all. Chapter 10 falls into the latter category.Tola the son of Puah the son of Dodo comes after Abimelech with only his location listed.וַיָּקָם אַחֲרֵי אֲבִימֶלֶךְ לְהוֹשִׁיעַ אֶת־יִשְׂרָאֵל תּוֹלָע בֶּן־פּוּאָה בֶּן־דּוֹדוֹ אִישׁ יִשָּׂשכָר וְהוּא יֹשֵׁב בְּשָׁמִיר בְּהַר אֶפְרָיִם(Judges 10:1)The only interesting thing about Tola is that his lineage seems to span two generations with the addition of “ben Dodo” in his name. This is unique for Judges, which leads some commentators to explain that dodo here means “his uncle,” meaning that Tola was a relative of Abimelech’s uncle. Others disagree pointing to the fact that Abimelech’s mother was not an Israelite. These commentators believe that Dodo was just the name of his grandfather. The name Dodo appears later on in the lineage of some of David’s warriors. After him is Yair the Giladite. Yair has a little more color with thirty sons riding thirty donkeys controlling thirty cities. וְאַחֲרָיו הָיָה יָאִיר הַגִּלְעָדִי וַיִּשְׁפֹּט אֶת־יִשְׂרָאֵל עֶשְׂרִים וּשְׁתַּיִם שָׁנָה׃ וַיְהִי־לוֹ שְׁלֹשִׁים בָּנִים רֹכְבִים עַל־שְׁלֹשִׁים עֲיָרִים וּשְׁלֹשִׁים עֲיָרִים לָהֶם לָהֶם יִקְרְאוּ חַוֹּת יָאִיר עַד הַיּוֹם הַזֶּה אֲשֶׁר בְּאֶרֶץ הַגִּלְעָד (Judges 10:3–4) This description will come up again with other limited‑detail judges in chapter 12. The number 30 is most likely a way to show that Yair’s party was powerful.Why do some Judges not have back stories? The straightforward answer is that nothing important happened during this time period. Things may have stayed the status quo, and so there was nothing for the book to record—both good or bad. On a deeper level, though, the lack of any story about certain Judges is another way the text comunicates the haphazard nature of the time period. Judges is not a hereditary book. Judges come from different tribes and families. Sometimes God will “introduce” the judge, but sometimes the judges just appear. It is also unclear of the judges overlapped or were truly sequential. Each one comes from a different tribe or family without any continuity. The people are not invested in maintaining the stories of each of their leaders because they soon fall back into a malaise and then move on to someone else.