Judges 10:4

he had thirty sons Cf. Judges 12:9; Judges 12:14. The -sons" are expressly connected with the thirty settlements of the clan. Numerous descendants indicated power and wealth.

that rode on thirty ass colts A mark of rank; cf. Judges 12:14; 2 Kings 4:22; Zechariah 9:9; see on Judges 5:10.

Havvoth-jair i.e. tent-villages(LXX ἐπαύλεις) of Jair; cf. Arab. ḥiwâ= -a group of tents near together." Long after the tents of nomads had given place to permanent dwellings or -cities" the old name still survived. The Havvoth-jair are frequently mentioned, but the accounts of them are not all consistent. Here and in Numbers 32:41 they are said to have been situated in Gilead; 1 Kings 4:13 (prob. borrowed from Num. l.c.) and 1 Chronicles 2:22 agree with this. But according to Deuteronomy 3:14, followed by Joshua 13:30, they lay in Bashan; the statement, however, seems to be due to an attempt to harmonize Deuteronomy 3:13 f. with Numbers 32:39; Numbers 32:41 (Driver, Deut., p. 55). Again, the capture and naming of these towns is dated in different periods, in the time of Moses according to Num. l.c., and in the time of the Judges here. But the inconsistency lies only on the surface. Numbers 32:39-42 is an ancient fragment incorporated into a later account (JE and P) of the conquest of E. Jordan, apparently for the purpose of bringing Manasseh's occupation of this district within the Mosaic period; the fragment closely resembles the brief traditions preserved in Judges 1 and may be taken to refer to the same period, viz. that of the Judges, to which the present verse assigns the episode. Later on the Havvoth-jair seem to have passed into the hands of another race, cf. 1 Chronicles 2:23 (RV.), which probably reflects the conditions of a subsequent age. The difference in the numbers of the villages, thirty, thirty-two (LXX here), twenty-three (1 Chronicles 2:22), is not important.