Judges 12:13

Abdon. Literally, “servant.”

Of Hillel. Signifying, “praising.” This is the first occurrence of a name that later became famous among the Jews. It occurs only here in the Bible. The later Hillel was the leader of one of the Jewish schools of thought shortly before the time of Christ, and is regarded as the greatest of all the Jewish rabbis.

A Pirathonite. Pirathon, according to v. 15, was in the land of Ephraim, so we may conclude that Abdon belonged to the tribe of Ephraim. In 1 Chron. 8:23 a man named Abdon is included in the tribe of Benjamin, but since the name was common, the Abdon who became judge could well have been an Ephraimite (see 1 Chron. 27:14). The town of Pirathon is generally thought to be the modern Far‘atha, 7 mi. (11.2 km.) west by south of Shechem.