The Quiet Glory of a Fruitful House Text: Judges 12:13-15
Introduction: The Vice of Historical Snobbery
We live in an age that is drunk on the spectacular. Our attention is only captured by the loud, the bloody, the scandalous, and the bizarre. We are historical snobs, looking down our noses at anything that appears quiet, mundane, or normal. This is a spiritual sickness, and it is one that makes us terrible readers of Scripture. When we come to the book of Judges, we are drawn to the big stories, the left-handed assassin, the woman with the tent peg, the fleece, the jawbone of a donkey, the tragic Nazirite. And those stories are all there for a reason. But in between these jagged peaks of high drama, the Holy Spirit has inserted these brief, almost laconic, accounts of the so-called "minor judges."
We read these little biographical snapshots and our modern, thrill-addicted minds are tempted to just skim over them. We see a name, a length of service, a detail about his family, and his burial, and we think, "Alright, on to the next big thing." But in doing this, we reveal our own folly. We are like children who want to eat nothing but candy for dinner. God has not given us these accounts as filler material. There are no throwaway lines in the Word of God. These brief records are here to teach us something profound about the nature of faithfulness, the blessing of God, and the shape of a godly society. They are a rebuke to our obsession with celebrity and crisis. They are a quiet anchor in the midst of the storm that is the book of Judges, a storm that is, in many ways, a mirror of our own chaotic times.
The account of Abdon the son of Hillel is one such anchor. It is a mere three verses. There are no battles, no miracles, no grand speeches. There is simply a man, his family, his service, and his death. And in this simple record, we find a picture of covenantal stability and patriarchal blessing that stands in stark contrast to the swirling apostasy around him, and the egalitarian confusion that surrounds us.
The Text
Then Abdon the son of Hillel the Pirathonite judged Israel after him.
And he had forty sons and thirty grandsons who rode on seventy donkeys; and he judged Israel eight years.
Then Abdon the son of Hillel the Pirathonite died and was buried at Pirathon in the land of Ephraim, in the hill country of the Amalekites.
(Judges 12:13-15 LSB)
A Name and a Task (v. 13)
The account begins with the simple transfer of leadership.
"Then Abdon the son of Hillel the Pirathonite judged Israel after him." (Judges 12:13)
After the turmoil of Jephthah's judgeship, with its rash vow and the subsequent civil war with Ephraim, Abdon steps onto the stage. The name Abdon means "servile" or "service." He is the son of Hillel, which means "praise." He is from Pirathon in Ephraim. This is all the introduction we get, and it is enough. He is not a self-made man who clawed his way to the top. He is identified by his father and his hometown. He is a man rooted in his people and his place. He is not a revolutionary; he is a successor. He comes "after him," taking up the mantle of leadership in a time of relative peace.
His task is simple: he "judged Israel." This is what God raised him up to do. In a time when "everyone did what was right in his own eyes," God did not leave His people without governance. A judge was not a king, but he was a God-appointed ruler who provided stability, settled disputes, and led the people. Abdon's role was to be a placeholder for the true King who was to come. His job was to maintain order, to apply God's law, and to be a bulwark against the encroaching chaos. This is not glamorous work. It is the steady, patient, day-in-day-out work of governance. And it is a holy calling.
We must not despise such quiet faithfulness. Our culture celebrates the disruptor, the iconoclast, the revolutionary. But God commends the faithful steward. Abdon was not called to fight the Midianites or the Philistines. He was called to judge Israel for eight years, and by all appearances, he did so faithfully. He held the line.
The Substance of a Patriarch (v. 14)
Verse 14 gives us the substance of this man's life, and it is a direct affront to every modern sensibility.
"And he had forty sons and thirty grandsons who rode on seventy donkeys; and he judged Israel eight years." (Judges 12:14 LSB)
Now, our cynical age reads this and immediately thinks of indulgence, opulence, and maybe even a harem. But that is to read our own corruptions back into the text. What this verse is describing is not decadence, but profound, tangible, covenantal blessing. This is what fruitfulness looks like. This is a picture of patriarchal glory.
He had forty sons and thirty grandsons. This is a household, a clan, a force to be reckoned with. In a world without a standing army or a centralized state, a man's strength was in his house. His sons were his defense, his workforce, his legacy. This is the fruit of obeying the first command God ever gave to mankind: "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it" (Gen. 1:28). Abdon was a man who took God at His word. While the world around us sees children as a liability, a carbon footprint, or an obstacle to self-fulfillment, the Bible sees them as a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward, like arrows in the hand of a warrior (Psalm 127:3-4). Abdon's quiver was full.
And these seventy descendants "rode on seventy donkeys." A donkey was not a poor man's ride; it was a symbol of nobility and peaceful authority. When Jesus entered Jerusalem, He rode on a donkey to signify His kingship. This tells us that Abdon's sons and grandsons were not idle layabouts. They were men of substance and position. They were magistrates, leaders, men of influence in their own right, exercising delegated authority under their father. This is a picture of a household extending its dominion, bringing godly order to the surrounding culture. The seventy donkeys for seventy men shows a well-ordered, prosperous, and influential family. This is father rule, patriarchy, not as a sterile abstraction, but as a living, breathing, donkey-riding reality.
This is the kind of legacy that builds a civilization. It is not built by bureaucrats and committees, but by faithful fathers who raise up faithful sons who in turn raise up faithful grandsons. This is how a culture is discipled, one household at a time. Abdon's eight years of judging were not separate from his fatherhood; they were an extension of it. He ruled his own house well, and so he was able to rule the house of Israel.
A Good Death in the Promised Land (v. 15)
The account concludes as it began, with a simple, dignified statement of fact.
"Then Abdon the son of Hillel the Pirathonite died and was buried at Pirathon in the land of Ephraim, in the hill country of the Amalekites." (Judges 12:15 LSB)
After a life of service and fruitfulness, Abdon died. This is the end for all men. But how and where he is buried is significant. He "was buried at Pirathon in the land of Ephraim." He died at home. He was gathered to his people. He was buried in the soil of the promised land, the inheritance that God had sworn to Abraham.
Burial in the Old Testament is a profound statement of faith. The patriarchs were insistent on being buried in Canaan because it was a tangible claim on God's promise. It was an act of hope, a testimony that they believed God would fulfill all His words. They were planting their bones in the land as a down payment on the resurrection. Abdon's burial is no different. It is the final act of a faithful life, resting in the land of promise, awaiting the day when the Lord will raise His people from the dust.
The mention that this was "in the hill country of the Amalekites" is also telling. The Amalekites were the perpetual, sworn enemies of Israel. This note reminds us that even in a time of relative peace, the people of God live in contested territory. The enemy is never far away. Abdon's peaceful and prosperous life was lived out on the frontier, in a place that had once been, and could again be, a place of conflict. His stability was not a given; it was a gift from God, maintained in the face of latent hostility. His burial there is a final act of dominion, claiming the land for Yahweh right in the enemy's old backyard.
Conclusion: Your Seventy Donkeys
So what are we to do with this brief account of a minor judge? We are to see in Abdon a pattern for our own lives. We are not all called to be deliverers like Gideon or Samson. Most of us are called to be Abdons. We are called to live quiet lives of faithfulness in our designated places. We are called to judge, to rule, our own little patches of the world, our homes, our businesses, our churches, with godly wisdom.
And we are called to be fruitful. This is not just about having many children, though it certainly includes that. It is about building a lasting, multi-generational legacy for the kingdom of God. You men are called to be patriarchs. You are called to raise up sons and grandsons, spiritual and physical, who will ride their own "donkeys" of influence and authority into the next generation. Your legacy is not your career. Your legacy is a household that fears the Lord.
We live in the hill country of the Amalekites. Our culture is hostile to everything Abdon represented: father rule, fruitfulness, and a quiet confidence in the promises of God. But we are not to despair. We are to serve our eight years, or our eighty, faithfully. We are to build our houses. And when our time is done, we are to be buried in the sure and certain hope of the resurrection, knowing that our King, the Lord Jesus, has already conquered the ultimate enemy. He is the great Judge, and because of His work, our quiet faithfulness, our seemingly minor lives, are filled with an eternal and glorious weight. Let us therefore be about the business of raising up a generation that will ride for the King.