Lives of Scripture

Elon the Zebulunite judged Israel for ten years, one of the "minor judges" whose entries in Judges 12 record almost nothing beyond their tenure, family notices, and burial place (Judges 12:11-12). Unlike Gideon, Deborah, or Jephthah immediately before him, no oppression, deliverance, or crisis is recorded in connection with Elon's judgeship -- his account consists only of the length of his rule and the notice that he died and was buried at Aijalon in the land of Zebulun. Elon stands among a cluster of similarly brief entries (Tola, Jair, Ibzan, and later Abdon) that punctuate the book of Judges between its more extended narratives, representing intervals of relative stability within the larger cycle of Israel's apostasy, oppression, and deliverance that structures the book. His entry closes immediately before Abdon's equally brief account and the extended, turbulent narrative of Samson that follows (Judges 13-16).