Judges 10

Judges 10:1

Augustine of Hippo: And after Abimelech arose to save Israel, Tolá, son of Puá, son of his brother’s father, a man of Issachar. The son of his paternal uncle is called son of his brother’s father, when it was said in a more orderly, usual and clear son of his father’s brother. He was, therefore, the son of his paternal uncle, as is most clearly found in the translation made on Hebrew. Therefore, the expression of the father of the brother (patris fratris) does not come from the fact that the term pater is in the nominative: “father of the brother” (pater fratris), but that frater is in the nominative: “brother of the father” (patris frater) ) and this is what is called paternal uncle. Because, whether it is put in nominative: «the father of the brother», or if it is put in genitive »« the brother of the father »(patris frater), in both cases they would be two genitive:« (son) of the father’s brother »(Patris fratris). In addition, another question arises. Abiméleq, paternal uncle, was a man from Issachar, that is, a man from the tribe of Issachar, since Abimelech had Gideon as his father, and Gideon was from the tribe of Manasseh. For that reason, how Puá and Gideon were brothers so that Puá could be paternal uncle of Abiméleq, whose son of his uncle, Tola, happened to the own Abiméleq, according to this story? Thus, Gideon and Puá could have the same mother, of whom they would have been born of different fathers, and these brothers would be children of the same mother and not of the same father. Because the women of some tribes used to marry men from other tribes. Therefore Saul, who was of the tribe of Benjamin, gave his daughter to David, a man from the tribe of Judah. And the priest Yóyada, a man of the tribe of Levi, married the daughter of King Yoram, a man of the tribe of Judah. From this it follows that Elizabeth and Mary, according to the Gospel, were relatives (Cf Lc 1,36), although Elizabeth was of the daughters of Aaron. From this it follows that some woman of the tribe of Levi and the daughters of Aaron married some man of the tribe of Judah, so that there would be kinship between them, and thus the Lord’s flesh would not only be propagated from the royal lineage, but also of the priestly lineage. — QUESTIONS ON JUDGES, Q. 47 (tr. J. Litteral, draft)