Abdon sired not only a large brood of sons and grandsons, but also displayed conspicuous consumption at its best. His progeny rode around on donkeys. Like the donkeys belonging to the sons of Jair (Judges 10:4), these were not work donkeys. They were donkeys on which one road, as a sign of wealth and status. If Abdon lived in modern times, we would say that each of his sons drove a Ferrari or a Rolls-Royce. In the essentially egalitarian society of those days this was behavior guaranteed to create waves of resentment.
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14 He had forty sons and thirty grandsons, who rode on seventy donkeys, and he judged Israel eight years.