After the death of Gideon arose his son Abimelech, the sixth judge, "the bramble king," who reigned over a small district around Shechem. (Judges 9.) He was not one of the divinely chosen deliverers, and strictly should not be reckoned in the list of judges. He was slain ignobly at Thebez, north of Shechem. The seventh judge was Tola, who ruled from Shamir, in Mount Ephraim. (Judges 10:1, 2.) The eighth was Jair, whose home was at Camon, in Mount Gilead, east of the Jordan. (Judges 10:3-5.) 6. =The Ammonite Oppression= (Judges 10:6-18; 11:1-40) was perhaps contemporaneous with the early part of the one named after it, the Philistine. It embraced the land of the tribes on the east of the Jordan, and lasted eighteen years. The Israelites rallied at Mizpeh of Gilead (the place where Jacob and Laban made their covenant, Gen. 31:49), and called to the command Jephthah, the ninth judge, who was living as a freebooter in the land of Tob, north of Gilead. He marched against the Ammonites, and fought them at Aroer, on the border of the torrent Arnon. He drove them in flight northward, and wasted their territory as far as Minnith, near Heshbon. On his return took place the fulfillment of his vow upon his daughter (Judges 11:40); and a civil strife with the haughty tribe of Ephraim (Judges 12:1-6), which attacked Gilead, but was beaten and put to flight. At the fords of Jordan many thousand Ephraimites were slain in attempting to cross. Probably this was the same place referred to already as Beth-barah. (Judges 7:24.) After Jephthah, the tenth judge was Ibzan of Bethlehem, north of Mount Carmel; the eleventh, Elon of Aijalon, in the tribe of Zebulon; the twelfth, Abdon of Pirathon, in Ephraim. (Judges 12:8-15.) 7. =The Philistine Oppression= (Judges 13-16) began about the same time with the Ammonite, but lasted far longer. During all the judgeships of Eli, the thirteenth judge, of Samson the fourteenth, of Samuel the fifteenth and last, and the forty years of Saul's reign, Israel remained more or less under Philistine domination. In the reign of Saul we read of Philistine garrisons throughout the land, as at Bethel (1 Sam. 10:3-5) and at Geba (1 Sam. 13:3), and not until all Israel was consolidated under the strong sceptre of David, was the Philistine yoke entirely thrown off. Eli, the thirteenth judge, was also high-priest, and ruled from Shiloh, the place of the ark. The history relates only the events at the close of his judgeship, when, by the loss of the ark at Ebenezer, and the death of Eli, on the same day, the Israelites were reduced to the lowest condition of trouble.