1 Kings 15:27

Baasha ... of the house of Issachar - It is curious to find Issachar furnishing a king. Tola, its one very undistinguished Judge Judges 10:1, on obtaining office had at once settled himself in the territory of Ephraim. The tribe was as little famous as any that could be named. The “ass crouching between two burthens” was a true symbol of the patient, plodding cultivators of the plain of Esdraelon Genesis 49:14. Baasha probably owed his rise neither to his tribe nor to his social position, but simply to his audacity, and his known valor and skill as a soldier 1 Kings 16:2.