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Judges 12:8-10 (ANIV)
Ibzan
8 After him, Ibzan of Bethlehem led Israel. 9 He had thirty sons and thirty daughters. He gave his daughters away in marriage to those outside his clan, and for his sons he brought in thirty young women as wives from outside his clan. Ibzan led Israel for seven years. 10 Then Ibzan died, and was buried in Bethlehem.

DRAWING NOTES:

TIME OF DAY:
Unspecified in the Bible narrative. I have set the scene just after sunset.

LIGHTING NOTES:
The setting sun (below the horizon, behind the figure) provides a little reddish light in this picture, vague shadows are cast below the figure and objects.

CHARACTERS PRESENT:
Ibzan of Bethlehem

RESEARCH/ADDITIONAL NOTES:
The name Ibzan might mean “of tin”. Tin is a chemical element; it has the symbol Sn (from Latin stannum). A silvery-colored metal, tin is soft enough to be cut quite easily. Cassiterite (SnO2), the oxide form of tin, was most likely the original source of tin. Tin extraction and use can be dated to the beginnings of the Bronze Age around 3000 B.C.
Cassiterite can have a deep purple-blue colour, which I have echoed in the figures clothing in my picture.

Notice the foreground tree, which is Olea europaea (aka the olive tree), an evergreen tree or shrub native to Mediterranean Europe, Asia, and Africa. It is short and squat and rarely exceeds 25–50 feet (8–15 metres) in height. There are quite a few olive trees, planted on hillside terraces, in my picture.

According to the geological map, Bethlehem is built over the Menuha Formation, primarily consisting of chalk [1]. That’s why I have coloured the rocks in my picture light yellow & white.

Here’s the landscape without the figure, but including the foreground olive tree.

Background of Judges 12 – Ibzan, Israel’s ninth judge (with olive tree)

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Judges 12 – Ibzan, Israel’s ninth judge (with olive tree)

Here’s the landscape without the figure, but without the foreground olive tree, so more of the town of Bethlehem is visible.

Background of Judges 12 – Ibzan, Israel’s ninth judge (without olive tree)

Click on the colour bar below to view/buy this Background:
Judges 12 – Ibzan, Israel’s ninth judge (without olive tree)

Notice the lookout tower (in the middle of the scene), made of local stone, which can only be seen in the background (without the figure of Ibzan) in it. Men were often stationed in such towers, to keep watch for marauders, invading armies, or wild animals that might attack the towns herds and flocks.

[1]
The Menuha Formation is the name given to an Upper Cretaceous (Santonian-Early Campanian) chalk, marly chalk and conglomeratic chalk unit exposed throughout the Makhtesh Ramon region of southern Israel and parts of northern Israel (Avni, 1991).

Stratigraphy and paleoenvironment
The Menuha Formation records the earliest occurrence of tectonic activity within the Ramon anticline, forming the present erosive valley known as “Makhtesh Ramon” as an outcome of a sequence of erosive events evolving since the Late Cretaceous (Avni, 1993). It consists of white and yellow/brown chalk that is often glauconitic and sometimes conglomeratic or marly. The Menuha Formation likely represents a temperate to subtropical, open shelf environment deposited during the formation of the Ramon anticline. Reworked conglomeratic chalks in the western section represent marginal facies derived from this structural uplift.

The paleoenvironment is based on the occurrences of several shark and fish teeth, oysters, trace fossils, phosphatic peloids, and foraminiferans. The isolated teeth represent at least ten different species:

Cretalamna appendiculata
Cretoxyrhina mantelli
Squalicorax falcatus?
Squalicorax kaupi
Scapanorhynchus rapax
Scapanorhynchus raphiodon?
Carcharias samhammeri
Carcharias cf. C holmdelensis
Hadrodus priscus
Micropycnodon kansasensis?

[Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menuha_Formation]