Judges 12:11

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

After him Elon the Zebulunite judged Israel; and he judged Israel ten years.

World English Bible · Public Domain

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Word by word

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הַזְּבֽוּלֹנִ֑י

Zᵉbûwlônîy

H2075

“the · Zebulonite”

Particle, Definite Article + Noun, Gentilic, Masculine, Singular, Absolute

Appears 3× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Numbers 26:27

Full BDB Definition

Origin: patronymically from H2074

TWOT: None

Zebulonite = see Zebulun - a descendant of Zebulun and member of the tribe of Zebulun

About this verse

These counts appear in no published source. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged text and Lemma’s own curated glosses. What Lemma adds →

11: words
8: distinct lemmas
Historical: section

Notable vocabulary

The rarest word here is הַזְּבֽוּלֹנִ֑י Zebulonite H2075 — appearing just 3 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.

Shared distinctive vocabulary

הַזְּבֽוּלֹנִ֑י Zebulonite H2075 occurs in 3 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

2 verbs
5 nouns
1 adjective
1 preposition
2 particles

Verb forms

וַיִּשְׁפֹּ֤ט Qal · Sequential Imperfect
וַיִּשְׁפֹּ֥ט Qal · Sequential Imperfect

Repetition

Words recur within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:

וַיִּשְׁפֹּ֤ט to judge H8199 ×2
יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל Israel H3478 ×2

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 13 words from the Hebrew and 10 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — closely comparable.

A rough comparison of the two English renderings, which tokenize alike — not a word-level alignment.

Word counts can differ between the Hebrew and the Greek without any difference in meaning — e.g. the Hebrew direct-object marker אֵת has no separate Greek word, and Greek often adds the article ὁ.

In the original languages it is 11 Hebrew tokens and 11 Greek tokens — but the two are counted differently (Hebrew bundles its prefixes and suffixes into one token; the Greek is in lemma form), so that isn’t a like-for-like length.

Hebrew and Greek witnesses Masoretic Hebrew ↔ Greek Septuagint

The same verse in the two great witnesses to the Old Testament, shown verse-for-verse.

These are two independent witnesses, not word-aligned to each other, and the Septuagint is shown in lemma (dictionary) form.

Hebrew Judges 12:11 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וַיִּשְׁפֹּ֤ט אַֽחֲרָיו֙ אֶת יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל אֵיל֖וֹן הַזְּבֽוּלֹנִ֑י וַיִּשְׁפֹּ֥ט אֶת יִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל עֶ֥שֶׂר שָׁנִֽים

After him Elon the Zebulunite judged Israel; and he judged Israel ten years.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Judges 12:11 Septuagint · lemma form

καί κρίνω μετά αὐτός ὁ ἰσραήλ αιλωμ ὁ ζαβουλωνίτης δέκα ἔτος

And after him Aelom of Zabulon judged Israel ten years.

LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) · Public Domain

On this verse, Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary discusses the Septuagint’s reading. Read the note in Commentary ↓

Hebrew: Westminster Leningrad Codex (CC BY 4.0). Greek: Septuagint (public domain); English from LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) (Public Domain). How the Septuagint differs from the Hebrew →

Targum (Aramaic paraphrase)

The Targum is the ancient Jewish Aramaic paraphrase of the Hebrew Scriptures — an interpretive translation, not the Hebrew text itself. Onkelos (literal) and Pseudo-Jonathan (expansive) render the Torah, and Jonathan the Prophets. Coverage is partial: where no permissively-licensed English translation exists for a verse, only the Aramaic is shown. This is verse-level text, not a word-by-word alignment to the Hebrew.

Targum Jonathan Prophets (Joshua–Malachi)

וְדָן בַּתְרוֹהִי יַת יִשְׂרָאֵל אֵילוֹן דְמִבֵּית זְבוּלֻן וְדָן יַת יִשְׂרָאֵל עֲסַר שְׁנִין:

(no public-domain English translation for this verse)

Targum Jonathan — Aramaic: “Mikraot Gedolot” (public domain). English: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “London "Chaldee Paraphrase," 1871” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.

Commentary

Notes on Judges 12:11 from classic Christian and Jewish commentators (each source and its license shown beneath its notes). The classic Christian expositions comment on the surrounding passage and are grouped to its opening verse, so a note may address several verses; the Jewish commentaries on the Tanakh (Rashi and others) are per-verse, so they appear only where the commentator wrote on this verse.

Lemma curates 59 commentaries, every one of them public domain or Creative Commons licensed, each selected and text-cleaned for this edition rather than reprinted as found. About our sources →

Trapp's Complete Commentary

John Trapp

Jdg 12:11 And after him Elon, a Zebulonite, judged Israel; and he judged Israel ten years.

Ver. 11. Judged Israel ten years.] Maintaining the purity of God’s true worship, and administering justice to the people. Not to "do good among a man’s people," is to "die in his iniquity." {Eze 18:18}

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(11) Elon.—The name means “a terebinth.” Orientals to this day are often named from trees. (One of the author’s muleteers in Palestine was named Ab Zeitûn, “father of olives.”)

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

John Gill's Exposition

And Elon the Zebulonite died,.... At the end of his ten years of government:

and was buried in Aijalon in the country of Zebulun; which is added to distinguish it from another Aijalon in the tribe of Dan Jdg 1:35.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible

A Zebulonite - The tribe of Zebulon had shown its bravery, patriotism, and prowess in the time of Barak Jdg 4:10; Jdg 5:18.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary

Ahialon. Eusebius calls him Adon, and his successor Labdon. (Calmet) --- Salien says that he entirely omits the 10 years of Ahialon’s administration, though his name occurs in the body of the Chronicle, as being in the Hebrew and not in the Septuagint. (Haydock)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Matthew Poole's English Annotations

This is added to distinguish it from other Aijalons, of which see Jdg 1:35; 1Ch 6:69; 8:13.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Whedon's Commentary on the Bible

Daniel D. Whedon

11. Elon… judged Israel ten years — But we have no record of his particular acts. See note on Jdg_10:1.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Lesson kit

Teaching starters — assembled from the data on this page, not authored interpretation. Every prompt links to the verse data it draws on. Edit before teaching.

Judges, in the Historical, opens this verse with 11 words (8 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is Zᵉbûwlônîy (“Zebulonite”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

What does “Zebulonite” (Zᵉbûwlônîy) contribute to the verse as a whole?
How does Numbers 26:27, which shares the word «Zebulonite», read alongside this verse?
What does the repetition of “to judge” (2× in this one verse) do in this verse?
The translations on this page render this verse differently — a whole-verse word diff, not a word-by-word alignment. What might account for the different wordings?
«וַיִּשְׁפֹּ֤ט» is a Qal Sequential Imperfect verb. How does that grammatical form shape the action described?
Compare how Trapp's Complete Commentary and Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers read this verse. Where do they agree or differ?

Things to notice

This verse counts 11 Hebrew ↔ 11 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 2 words in this verse.
“to judge” occurs 2× in this single verse.
8 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 11 words in this verse.