The Fallible Study Bible

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Judges10:1–2

Tola

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Judges 10:1–2 — Tola. Each verse below carries the full apparatus: the Berean Standard Bible, the vocalized original (tap any word), and a parsed breakdown of every term transcribed from the interlinear. Synthesized commentary, canonical threads, and the reading of Christ gather at the end, over the whole unit.

1

After the time of Abimelech, a man of Issachar, Tola son of Puah, the son of Dodo, rose up to save Israel. He lived in Shamir, in the hill country of Ephraim.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Hebrew — tap a word ↓

’a·ḥă·rê ’ă·ḇî·me·leḵ ’îš yiś·śā·š·ḵār tō·w·lā‘ ben- pū·’āh ben- dō·w·ḏōw way·yā·qām lə·hō·wō·šî·a‘ ’eṯ- yiś·rā·’êl wə·hū- yō·šêḇ bə·šā·mîr bə·har ’ep̄·rā·yim

Word by word18 · parsed
אַחֲרֵ֨י’a·ḥă·rêAfter the timeH310
√ ʼachar — properly, the hind partPreposition
ʼachar — properly, the hind part A bare time-marker: what follows is simply what came behind Abimelech.
אֲבִימֶ֜לֶךְ’ă·ḇî·me·leḵof AbimelechH40
√ ʼĂbîymelek — Abimelek, the name of two Philistine kings and of two IsraelitesNounpropermasculine singular
אִ֣ישׁ’îša manH376
√ ʼîysh — a man as an individual or a male personNounmasculine singular construct
ʼîysh — a man as an individual Construct form: “man-of.” The tribe, not a title, is the first thing said about him.
יִשָּׂשכָ֑רyiś·śā·š·ḵārof IssacharH3485
√ Yissâˢkâr — Jissaskar, a son of JacobNounpropermasculine singular
תּוֹלָ֧עtō·w·lā‘TolaH8439
√ Tôwlâʻ — Tola, the name of two IsraelitesNounpropermasculine singular
Tôwlâʻ — Tola (H8439, in 5 vv) A rare name, and a loaded one: Cambridge glosses it “the crimson worm,” “cochineal,” and Ellicott “worm (perhaps the kermes-worm).” It is also, per Genesis 46:13 and 1 Chronicles 7:1, the name of Issachar’s firstborn — so the judge carries a clan name, not a fresh one. The deliverer of Israel is called after the small creature crushed for scarlet dye.
בֶּן־ben-sonH1121
√ bên — a son (as a builder of the family name), in the widest sense (of literal and figurative relationship, including grandson, subject, nation, quality or condition, etcNounmasculine singular construct
פּוּאָ֛הpū·’āhof PuahH6312
√ Pûwʼâh — Puah or Puvvah, the name of two IsraelitesNounpropermasculine singular
Pûwʼâh — Puah (H6312, in 4 vv) Equally rare, and equally a clan name of Issachar. Cambridge: Puah probably means ‘madder,’ the plant yielding a red dye, and judges the pairing with the crimson-worm name “can hardly be accidental.” Father and son together name the trade of scarlet.
בֶּן־ben-the sonH1121
√ bên — a son (as a builder of the family name), in the widest sense (of literal and figurative relationship, including grandson, subject, nation, quality or condition, etcNounmasculine singular construct
דּוֹד֖וֹdō·w·ḏōwof DodoH1734
√ Dôwdôw — Dodo, the name of three IsraelitesNounpropermasculine singular
Dôwdôw — Dodo (H1734, in 5 vv) The LXX read it as a common noun, υἱὸς πατραδέλφου αὐτοῦ, “son of his uncle”; K&D and Ellicott both reject that and take it as a proper name, as at 2 Samuel 23:9, 24 and 1 Chronicles 11:12. Ellicott adds that it is “from the same root as David, ‘beloved.’”
וַיָּקָם֩way·yā·qāmrose upH6965
√ qûwm — to rise (in various applications, literal, figurative, intensive and causative)Conjunctive wawVerbQalConsecutive imperfectthird person masculine singular
qûwm — to rise (H6965) Qal consecutive imperfect: “and-he-rose-up.” It is the passive-sounding idiom of the judges cycle — no one says he was called, only that he arose. Ellicott hears a demotion in it: “the phrase implies a less direct call and a less immediate service” than the formula used of Othniel or Ehud. Benson and Poole answer that he rose “not of himself, but raised by God.”
לְהוֹשִׁ֣יעַlə·hō·wō·šî·a‘to saveH3467
√ yâshaʻ — properly, to be open, wide or free, iPreposition-lVerbHifilInfinitive construct
yâshaʻ — to be open, wide or free; to save (Hiphil) The technical verb of the whole book (Judges 2:16, 18; 3:9) and the root behind the names Joshua and Jesus. Here it stands with no enemy named. Gill: he saved them “in that he was an happy instrument of composing those differences and dissensions, which Abimelech had occasioned.” K&D agrees the deliverance was administrative, not martial.
אֶת־’eṯ-H853
√ ʼêth — properly, self (but generally used to point out more definitely the object of a verb or preposition, even or namely)Direct object marker
ʼêth — direct object marker Untranslatable; it simply points to Israel as the object saved.
יִשְׂרָאֵ֗לyiś·rā·’êlIsraelH3478
√ Yisrâʼêl — Jisrael, a symbolical name of JacobNounpropermasculine singular
וְהֽוּא־wə·hū-H1931
√ hûwʼ — he (she or it)Conjunctive wawPronounthird person masculine singular
יֹשֵׁ֥בyō·šêḇHe livedH3427
√ yâshab — properly, to sit down (specifically as judgeVerbQalParticiplemasculine singular
yâshab — properly, to sit down (specifically as judge) A Qal participle, durative: he kept sitting. The same root gives Hebrew both “dwell” and “preside,” and this verse exploits the overlap — his residence is his bench. It is the quietest possible verb for a deliverer, and it is the only thing besides his rising and his burial that the text records him doing.
בְּשָׁמִ֖ירbə·šā·mîrin ShamirH8069
√ Shâmîyr — Shamir, the name of two places in PalestinePreposition-bNounproperfeminine singular
Shâmîyr — Shamir (H8069, in 3 vv) One of the rarest place-names in the canon. Cambridge: “Site unknown; not the Shamir of Joshua 15:48, which was in Judah.” Gill hears the thorn-word behind it; K&D declines to guess. His seat of judgment cannot now be found on any map.
בְּהַ֥רbə·harin the hill countryH2022
√ har — a mountain or range of hills (sometimes used figuratively)Preposition-bNounmasculine singular construct
har — a mountain or range of hills Construct, “in-the-hill-country-of.”
אֶפְרָֽיִם׃’ep̄·rā·yimof EphraimH669
√ ʼEphrayim — Ephrajim, a son of JosephNounpropermasculine singular
ʼEphrayim — Ephraim Not his own tribal ground. Barnes and Gill both infer a deliberate move: he governed from the centre, near Shiloh, rather than from Issachar’s corner.
2

Tola judged Israel twenty-three years, and when he died, he was buried in Shamir.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Hebrew — tap a word ↓

way·yiš·pōṭ ’eṯ- yiś·rā·’êl ‘eś·rîm wə·šā·lōš šā·nāh way·yā·māṯ way·yiq·qā·ḇêr bə·šā·mîr

Word by word9 · parsed
וַיִּשְׁפֹּט֙way·yiš·pōṭTola judgedH8199
√ shâphaṭ — to judge, iConjunctive wawVerbQalConsecutive imperfectthird person masculine singular
shâphaṭ — to judge Qal consecutive imperfect, and the book’s title-verb. Against Abimelech, who reigned (Judges 9:22), Tola only judges. Ellicott reads the verb as a deliberate verdict on the preceding chapter; Gill puts it plainly — “he did not take upon him to be king, as Abimelech did.”
אֶת־’eṯ-H853
√ ʼêth — properly, self (but generally used to point out more definitely the object of a verb or preposition, even or namely)Direct object marker
יִשְׂרָאֵ֔לyiś·rā·’êlIsraelH3478
√ Yisrâʼêl — Jisrael, a symbolical name of JacobNounpropermasculine singular
עֶשְׂרִ֥ים‘eś·rîmtwenty-threeH6242
√ ʻesrîym — twentyNumbercommon plural
ʻesrîym — twenty With the following numeral, twenty-three years — longer than Abimelech’s three (Judges 9:22), and without one recorded incident.
וְשָׁלֹ֖שׁwə·šā·lōš. . .H7969
√ shâlôwsh — threeConjunctive wawNumberfeminine singular
שָׁנָ֑הšā·nāhyearsH8141
√ shâneh — a year (as a revolution of time)Nounfeminine singular
shâneh — a year, as a revolution of time Singular after the numeral, Hebrew’s normal counting idiom. Henry’s comment on the whole notice is the honest one: quiet reigns “yield least variety of matter to be spoken of.” The chronology is all the record there is.
וַיָּ֖מָתway·yā·māṯand when he diedH4191
√ mûwth — to die (literally or figuratively)Conjunctive wawVerbQalConsecutive imperfectthird person masculine singular
mûwth — to die The formula that closes each minor judge’s notice. No cause, no age, no lament — the Deuteronomic editor’s fuller closings (Judges 3:30; 5:31; 8:28) are absent here, which Cambridge takes as a sign that these notices are older material.
וַיִּקָּבֵ֥רway·yiq·qā·ḇêrhe was buriedH6912
√ qâbar — to interConjunctive wawVerbNifalConsecutive imperfectthird person masculine singular
qâbar — to inter (Nifal) Passive, agentless. In a book where burial is often the last word on a man’s vindication (Gideon in his father’s tomb, Judges 8:32; Samson carried home, Judges 16:31), Tola’s unremarked interment in the town where he sat is itself the testimony: he ended where he served.
בְּשָׁמִֽיר׃פbə·šā·mîrin ShamirH8069
√ Shâmîyr — Shamir, the name of two places in PalestinePreposition-bNounproperfeminine singular
Shâmîyr — Shamir The same rare name as v. 1, forming an inclusio: he sat there, and he was buried there.

The verse-by-verse work is done. What follows gathers the whole unit. All three layers below are machine-generated (⚙). Weigh them; they have no authority.

⚙

Grand Commentary — the unit, read whole

synthesis · verify

AI synthesis — woven from the public-domain voices above and the original text; generated and fallible.

i. After Abimelech — a date, not a reign — 10:1

The unit opens with a preposition and a name: אַחֲרֵי אֲבִימֶלֶךְ, “after Abimelech.” Ellicott states the grammar and the verdict together — “his is merely a note of time. Abimelech is not counted among the judges” — and Gill presses the same point harder, that Abimelech “was no judge of God’s raising up, or the people’s choosing, but usurped a kingly power over them.” Ellicott is nonetheless willing to concede that, evil as the episode was, he “may have kept foreign enemies in check,” and JFB reads the following verb in that light: “deliverance was necessary as well from intestine usurpation as from foreign aggression.” ⚙ What the Hebrew does here is refuse Abimelech a formula. Every real judge in this book gets qûwm (H6965) with a purpose-infinitive; Abimelech got a coronation under an oak (Judges 9:6) and a millstone. He survives in chapter 10 only as a date-stamp.

ii. The deliverer with no battle — 10:1

וַיָּקָם֩ לְהוֹשִׁ֣יעַ — “and-he-rose-up to-save” — puts the book’s technical vocabulary (Barnes: yâshaʻ “is the technical word applied to the judges,” as at Judges 2:16, 18; 3:9, 15, 31) over a career in which no enemy is ever named. The commentators divide honestly over the gap. Ellicott hears a downgrade in the idiom itself: “the phrase implies a less direct call and a less immediate service than that used of other judges.” Benson and Poole insist the opposite, that he arose “not of himself, but raised by God, as the other judges were,” and that he saved “not by fighting against and overthrowing their enemies, but by a prudent and pious government of them.” The Pulpit Commentary reconstructs a plausible middle — “probably no great invasion or grievous servitude, but perhaps frequent border wars.” K&D expressly declines Rosenmüller’s conjecture of constant harassment and settles instead on preventive government: Tola “succeeded by his efforts in preventing the nation from falling back into idolatry.” ⚙ The Hiphil infinitive supports the modest reading. It states a purpose, not an outcome; the text tells us what he rose for, then tells us where he sat.

iii. A name of crimson from an indolent tribe — 10:1

Three names and a tribe carry more weight than the deeds. Cambridge: “Tola means ‘the crimson worm,’ ‘cochineal,’ and Puah probably ‘madder,’ a plant from which a red dye was obtained… the coincidence can hardly be accidental,” and it points to Deuteronomy 33:19 for Issachar’s trade. Ellicott, working independently, glosses Tola as “worm (perhaps the kermes-worm)” and adds that Issachar furnished no other judge. On the grandfather the ancient versions split: the LXX read υἱὸς πατραδέλφου αὐτοῦ, “son of his uncle,” which JFB extends into a claim that Puah was “uncle to Abimelech by the father’s side, and consequently brother of Gideon.” ⚙ That reconstruction should be treated with suspicion, and Ellicott, Gill and K&D all say why: Gideon was Manassite, Puah Issacharite, and Ellicott notes flatly that “since Tola was of Issachar, he could not be nephew of Abimelech a Manassite.” JFB rescues it only by supposing them “uterine brothers,” which the text nowhere says. Take Dodo as a proper name with K&D and Ellicott — and note, with Ellicott, that it is “from the same root as David, ‘beloved.’”

iv. Twenty-three years, and a grave where he sat — 10:2

The second verse is three consecutive imperfects: he-judged · he-died · he-was-buried. Ellicott finds the whole argument in the first of them — “the recurrence of the normal verb (to judge) shows that Tola was an honourable ‘Suffes,’ not a despot, like Abimelech” — and Gill says the same in narrative form: “he did not take upon him to be king, as Abimelech did, but acted as a judge… and died in honour.” Cambridge, quoting Moore, suspects the burial notice preserves a local memory: the clan ancestor’s tomb “was in later times shewn at Shamir.” Henry’s concise line frames the whole unit without excusing it: quiet and peaceable reigns “yield least variety of matter to be spoken of.” ⚙ The Nifal וַיִּקָּבֵר names no buriers and no mourners, and the place-name closes the ring opened in v. 1. He sat in Shamir; he lies in Shamir. That is the complete record of twenty-three years in which Israel was not destroyed.

Read under Sola Scriptura — this tool’s own fallible reading (⚙)

⚙ Offered to be tested. Chapter 9 ended with a skull broken by a woman’s millstone and a kingship that consumed its own makers. Chapter 10 opens with a man whose name means worm, from a tribe that produced no other judge, sitting in a town nobody can now locate. Scripture gives him no battle, no oracle, no angel, no fleece — three verbs and a number. And the narrator, who has just spent a chapter describing what it costs Israel when a man grasps at rule, calls this man a saviour: he rose up lĕhôšîaʻ, by the same root that names Joshua and, in Greek, Jesus.

The temptation is to read Tola as filler between the Gideon cycle and the Jephthah cycle. I think the placement is the argument. Judges measures deliverance by what it prevents as much as by what it overthrows — K&D’s reading, that Tola guarded Israel by keeping it from idolatry, is exactly the kind of salvation the next paragraph proves was needed, since the moment he and Jair are gone “the Israelites again did evil in the sight of the LORD” (Judges 10:6). Twenty-three uneventful years are not a gap in the record of God’s saving; they are a specimen of it. The verb of his whole tenure is yâshab — to sit. A man who sits, judges, and is buried where he sat may be doing the most durable work in the book, and the book honours him precisely by having nothing to report.

Under-claim where the text is silent: we do not know who his enemies were, where Shamir stood, or whether the crimson-worm etymology of his name was ever heard as anything but a family name. Say only what is written — that he rose to save, and that for twenty-three years Israel had a judge instead of a king.

The only deeds recorded of this saviour are that he stood up, sat down, and was buried — and that is the point. (This line is ⚙ synthesis, not a verse of Scripture.)

⚙

Canonical Threads — out to the whole of Scripture

cross-refs · verify

AI-generated connections. Each carries a verification badge with a recorded basis; contested links are flagged.

Tola and Puah — the judge wears his clan’s names verbal / quotation — confirmed

The two rare names in v. 1 are already fixed in the census lists. Genesis 46:13 and Numbers 26:23 give Tola and Puah as sons — that is, clans — of Issachar, and 1 Chronicles 7:1 repeats the list; 1 Chronicles 7:2 then counts Tola’s house. Cambridge: “According to Genesis 46:13, Numbers 26:23 (P), 1 Chronicles 7:1, Tola and Puah were brothers, ‘sons,’ i.e. clans of Issachar.” K&D says the names “were afterwards repeated in the different households of these families,” which is why a man of the twelfth century can bear them. ⚙ The link is name-identity across a genealogical tradition, not a citation: Judges is not quoting the census, and Cambridge itself warns “it would be rash to conclude that these names were never borne by individuals.”

Genesis 46:13 · Numbers 26:23 · 1 Chronicles 7:1 · 1 Chronicles 7:2

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H8439 Tôwlâʻ (in 5 vv) and H6312 Pûwʼâh (in 4 vv), both rare, plus H3485 Yissâˢkâr (in 40 vv); 1 Chronicles 7:2 shares H8439 (in 5 vv). A rare-lexeme verbal link of proper names — identity of vocabulary, not a quotation of one text by another

Two Shamirs — the same rare word, and the commentators all pull them apart verbal / quotation — confirmed

שָׁמִיר occurs in only three verses, and one of the other two is Joshua 15:48, a town in the hill country of Judah. The Verifier scores it the strongest lexical match in the unit — and every voice in the brief uses the match to deny an identification. Barnes: “not the same as that mentioned in Joshua 15:48, which was in the hill country of Judah.” Gill says the qualifier “in Mount Ephraim” exists precisely “to distinguish it from another of the same name in the mountain of Judah.” K&D and Cambridge concur, Cambridge adding that “LXX. A and Luc. read Samaria, replacing a strange name by a familiar one,” an ancient substitution Ellicott also rejects. ⚙ So this is a real verbal link that functions as a disambiguation: the word is shared, the place is not, and both sites remain unlocated.

Joshua 15:48

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexeme H8069 Shâmîyr (in 3 vv) — among the rarest place-names in the canon, so the lexical link is certain; the geographical identification is denied by Barnes, Gill, Cambridge and K&D alike

Dodo — a name that belongs to David’s mighty men verbal / quotation — confirmed

Tola’s grandfather bears a name found in only five verses, four of them in the rosters of David’s heroes: Eleazar son of Dodo (2 Samuel 23:9; 1 Chronicles 11:12) and Elhanan son of Dodo of Bethlehem (2 Samuel 23:24; 1 Chronicles 11:26). K&D appeals to exactly these to refuse the LXX’s common-noun reading: “Dodo is not an appellative, as the Sept. translators supposed (υἱὸς πατραδέλφου αὐτοῦ), but a proper name, as in 2 Samuel 23:9 (Keri), 24, and 1 Chronicles 11:12.” Cambridge tracks the root further — “Dod = lit. ‘loved one,’ then ‘kinsman,’ ‘uncle’” — and lists Dodavahu and Eldad as variants, while Ellicott notes it is “from the same root as David, ‘beloved.’” ⚙ The connection is lexical and onomastic, not narrative: nothing suggests the families are related.

2 Samuel 23:9 · 2 Samuel 23:24 · 1 Chronicles 11:12 · 1 Chronicles 11:26

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexeme H1734 Dôwdôw (in 5 vv) — a rare proper name; the derivation from dôd, “beloved,” and the tie to the name David is a lexicographical claim made by Cambridge and Ellicott, not a Verifier computation

Issachar’s seat moved south structural / thematic — confirmed

Issachar’s allotment lies north-east of the Plain of Jezreel (Joshua 17:10–11 places it beside Manasseh and Ephraim), yet the judge of Issachar sits in the hill country of Ephraim. Cambridge draws the historical inference: “from this verse we learn that at least one clan of the tribe had its seat further south,” and speculates on a link between Shamir and Shimron. Barnes reads the same datum the other direction — “Issachar would seem from this to have extended into the northern part of mount Ephraim” — while Gill, Benson, Poole and JFB all explain the residence by function rather than territory: Shamir was central, near the tabernacle at Shiloh, “fit for a judge to reside in, to whom the people might apply from all parts.” ⚙ The two explanations are not reconcilable from this verse alone; the tribal-geography link is thematic, and the shared lexemes are too common to carry a verbal claim.

Joshua 17:10 · Joshua 17:11

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H3485 Yissâˢkâr (in 40 vv) and H669 ʼEphrayim (in 164 vv) — both too frequent to support a verbal tier; the link is the shared subject of Issachar’s border with Ephraim, and Cambridge’s and Barnes’s inferences from it point in opposite directions

The crimson worm — a name, not yet a text flagged — verify source

If Ellicott and Cambridge are right that Tôwlâʻ is the crimson worm, the name touches a small vocabulary of humiliation and dye: the sufferer of Psalm 22:6 who says “I am a worm and not a man,” and the “worm Jacob” of Isaiah 41:14 whom the LORD addresses as Redeemer. ⚙ This must be stated carefully. The Verifier returned no link here, and it could not: the judge’s name is H8439, a proper noun, while Psalm 22:6 and Isaiah 41:14 use the common noun tôlaʻath — a different Strong’s entry, however close the sense. So there is no confirmed verbal basis, only the meaning of the name as two commentators reconstruct it, and a shared image of the lowest creature standing for a rescued or rescuing figure. Held loosely, it is suggestive; asserted as a word-link, it would be false.

Psalm 22:6 · Isaiah 41:14

basis: No Verifier basis: H8439 (proper name) and the tôlaʻath of Psalm 22:6 / Isaiah 41:14 are distinct Strong's entries. The whole link rests on the etymology proposed by Ellicott (“worm, perhaps the kermes-worm”) and Cambridge (“the crimson worm, cochineal”) — a philological reconstruction, not a textual datum

⚙Christ in the Unittypology · verify

AI-generated reading; weigh it against the text.

He rose up to save — the verb that becomes a name ancient/widely-held

The purpose-clause of v. 1 is לְהוֹשִׁיעַ, the Hiphil of yâshaʻ (H3467), the root that gives Israel the names Hoshea, Joshua and — through its Greek form — Jesus. Barnes marks it as “the technical word applied to the judges” and sends the reader to Nehemiah 9:27, where the confession recalls that God “gavest them saviours who saved them,” the same root turned into a noun. ⚙ Judges is thereby building a series that the book itself keeps declaring insufficient: every saviour it raises dies, and the very next paragraph reports that “the Israelites again did evil” (Judges 10:6). Tola’s notice is a clean specimen of the pattern — a man raised to save, twenty-three years, a grave. The apostolic reading of that pattern is that the series is a shape waiting on a term: the angel’s word to Joseph, “you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21), names a saviour of the same root who does not die and leave the people to relapse. The judges as provisional deliverers pointing beyond themselves is the widely-held Christian reading of the book; the specific Hebrew-to-Greek name link is etymological, not a quotation, and should be held as such.

Judges 2:16 · Nehemiah 9:27 · Matthew 1:21 · Hebrews 7:25

The saviour who sits, and is buried where he served novel

⚙ Two verbs frame Tola’s whole tenure: he sat (yâshab, H3427 — “properly, to sit down, specifically as judge”) and he was buried (qâbar, H6912, Nifal, agentless). Ellicott insists the point of the notice is that he was “an honourable ‘Suffes,’ not a despot,” and Gill that “he did not take upon him to be king, as Abimelech did.” Chapter 9 has just shown what the grasped crown costs. ⚙ The reading I offer is that Judges here sets out, in miniature, the two things a true saviour of Israel does not do: he does not seize the throne, and he does not escape the grave. Christ, in the Gospels’ telling, refuses the crown offered by force (John 6:15) and goes to a borrowed tomb. The difference is the whole gospel — Tola’s burial closes his notice, while the burial of Christ opens the next chapter of his. Hebrews states the contrast in the terms Judges keeps supplying: the former ministers “were many in number, because they were prevented by death from continuing in office,” while He holds His permanently. Where Tola sits in Shamir, the Son sits “at the right hand of the Majesty on high.”

Judges 9:22 · John 6:15 · Hebrews 7:23-24 · Hebrews 1:3

A worm, and no man novel

⚙ Flagged as a figural reading, and dependent on a disputed etymology. If Tola’s name is the crimson worm (Ellicott: “worm, perhaps the kermes-worm”; Cambridge: “the crimson worm, cochineal,” paired with Puah, “madder”), then the deliverer God raised after Abimelech bore the name of the creature crushed to yield scarlet. Psalm 22:6 puts that word in the mouth of the righteous sufferer — “I am a worm and not a man” — and Christian readers from the Fathers onward have read Psalm 22 of Christ crucified, which is ancient and widely held. What is not ancient, and is offered here only to be tested, is reading the judge Tola in that light: that Israel’s quietest saviour carried, as a family name, the word its Messiah would use of Himself in death, and the word for the dye of the tabernacle curtains and of the scarlet that Isaiah 1:18 promises to make white. The Hebrew words are not identical (see the thread badge), no commentator in this unit makes the connection, and it should be held as a resonance, not a proof.

Psalm 22:6 · Isaiah 1:18

Apparatus & Provenance

The biblical text is the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain (CC0). Hebrew/Greek text, transliteration, morphology and Strong’s are transcribed from the Berean interlinear (CC0) + Strong’s lexicons (PD); the literal renderings, divergence notes, word notes and all synthesis are this tool’s own work (⚙) — fallible; verify them.

Named voices, quoted verbatim from public-domain works:

  • Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges, — (1880s)
  • Charles Ellicott, Commentary for English Readers (1878)
  • John Gill, Exposition of the Entire Bible (1746–63)
  • Keil & Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament (1860s)
  • Matthew Henry, Concise Commentary on the Whole Bible (1706)
  • The Pulpit Commentary, Spence & Exell, eds. (1880s)

Text. The Hebrew of both verses is straightforward and undisputed in the sources used here; the only variant of substance is ancient and versional. At v. 1 the LXX read דּוֹדוֹ as a common noun, υἱὸς πατραδέλφου αὐτοῦ, “son of his uncle,” a reading the Syriac shares (Cambridge) and some Targum copies and the Vulgate follow (Gill). K&D, Ellicott and Gill all reject it in favour of a proper name, on the strength of 2 Samuel 23:9, 24 and 1 Chronicles 11:12. Also at v. 1, Cambridge reports that “LXX. A and Luc. read Samaria” for Shamir, “replacing a strange name by a familiar one”; Ellicott rejects any connection with Samaria. The final פ on v. 2 is a Masoretic paragraph marker, not a word.

What is uncertain. The site of Shamir is unknown — K&D, Cambridge and the Pulpit all say so outright. The enemies from whom Tola “rose up to save” are never named; the Pulpit’s “frequent border wars” and K&D’s preventive-government reading are both reconstructions of a silence, and K&D explicitly declines Rosenmüller’s alternative. The meanings “crimson worm” and “madder” for Tola and Puah are a nineteenth-century philological proposal (Ellicott, Cambridge), not a statement of the text, and every use made of them in this unit is marked accordingly. JFB’s claim that Puah was Abimelech’s uncle and Gideon’s brother is contradicted by the tribal data in the same verse and by Ellicott, Gill and K&D; it is reported above as an opinion under challenge, not adopted. Cambridge’s source-critical account of the Minor Judges notices (that they predate the Deuteronomic editor) is a scholarly hypothesis of its period.

Sources. Scripture text BSB (CC0); interlinear surface forms, transliterations, glosses, Strong’s numbers and parses from the Berean interlinear; all ✦ excerpts are verbatim contiguous substrings of public-domain commentary (Ellicott 1878, Benson 1810s, Henry 1706, Barnes 1834, JFB 1871, Gill 1746–63, Geneva 1599, Cambridge 1880s, Pulpit 1880s, K&D 1860s, Poole 1685), resolved by anchor rather than retyped. Poole has no note on v. 2, and the Geneva entries for both verses reproduce the verse text without gloss, so neither is quoted. Thread bases are Verifier-computed shared Strong’s lexemes with frequencies, except where a badge states plainly that no Verifier basis exists. Everything marked ⚙ is machine synthesis and fallible.

✦ = human, public-domain source, quoted and named. ⚙ = machine synthesis, to be verified. Flagged cross-references are left visible on purpose — the verifier working in the open. “Search the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” (Acts 17:11)