Judges 10-12
Notes
Transcript
Life and literature are filled with the “Cinderella legend,” stories about rejected people who were eventually “discovered” and elevated to places of honor and authority. Horatio Alger wrote over 100 boys’ novels that focused on the “rags-to-riches” theme, and he became one of the most influential American writers of the last half of the nineteenth century. Whether it’s Abraham Lincoln going “from log cabin to White House” or Joseph from the prison to the throne of Egypt, the story of the successful “underdog” is one that will always be popular. We like to see losers become winners.
The account of Jephthah, the main character in these chapters, is that kind of a story, except that it doesn’t end with the hero living “happily ever after.” After Jephthah’s great victory over the Ammonites and Philistines, he experienced anything but happiness; and the narrative ends on a tragic note. The story can be divided into four scenes.
1 After Abimelech, Tola son of Puah, son of Dodo became judge and began to deliver Israel. He was from Issachar and lived in Shamir in the hill country of Ephraim.
2 Tola judged Israel twenty-three years and when he died, was buried in Shamir.
3 After him came Jair the Gileadite, who judged Israel twenty-two years.
4 He had thirty sons who rode on thirty donkeys. They had thirty towns in Gilead, which are still called Jair’s Villages today.
5 When Jair died, he was buried in Kamon.
1. A nation in decay (Jdg. 10:1–18)
There were three deficiencies in Israel that gave evidence that the nation was decaying spiritually.
Israel’s lack of gratitude to the Lord (vv. 1–5). For forty-five years, the people of Israel enjoyed peace and security, thanks to the leadership of Tola and Jair. We know little about these two judges, but the fact that they kept Israel’s enemies away for nearly half a century would suggest that they were faithful men, who served the Lord and the nation well. Tola was from the tribe of Issachar, and Jair from the Transjordan tribes, the area known as Gilead.
If Jair had thirty sons, he must have had a plurality of wives and a great deal of wealth. In that day, only wealthy people could afford to provide their children with their own personal donkeys (5:10; 12:9, 14). In addition, each son had a city under his authority. This arrangement looks to us like nepotism, but at least it helped keep the peace.
The people of Israel, however, didn’t take advantage of these years of peace to grow in their relationship to the Lord. After the death of Jair, the nation openly returned to idolatry and once again invited the chastening of the Lord. They enjoyed forty-five years of peace and prosperity but didn’t take time to thank the Lord for what He had done for them. The essence of idolatry is enjoying God’s gifts but not being grateful to the Giver, and Israel was guilty.
One of my great-uncles was a minister; and he occasionally had Sunday dinner in our home if he happened to be preaching at the church we attended. As a lad, I was impressed by him, especially the way he asked the blessing after the meal. Praying before the meal was logical and biblical, but why pray after you’ve finished dessert and coffee? Then I discovered Deuteronomy 8:10, “When you have eaten and are full, then you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land which He has given you” (NKJV). My Uncle Simon took this admonition seriously, and perhaps we should follow his example. If we did, it might keep us from ignoring the Lord while enjoying His blessings. Thanksgiving glorifies God (Ps. 69:30) and is a strong defense against selfishness and idolatry.
6 Then the Israelites again did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. They worshiped the Baals and the Ashtoreths, the gods of Aram, Sidon, and Moab, and the gods of the Ammonites and the Philistines. They abandoned the Lord and did not worship him.
7 So the Lord’s anger burned against Israel, and he sold them to the Philistines and the Ammonites.
8 They shattered and crushed the Israelites that year, and for eighteen years they did the same to all the Israelites who were on the other side of the Jordan in the land of the Amorites in Gilead.
Israel’s lack of submission to the Lord (vv. 6–16). If the people had only reviewed their own history and learned from it, they would never have turned from Jehovah God to worship the false gods of their neighbors. From the time of Othniel to the days of Gideon, the Jews endured over fifty painful years of oppression from the enemy. By now they should have known that God blessed them when they were obedient and chastened them when they were rebellious. (See 3:7, 12; 4:1; 6:1.) After all, weren’t these the terms of the covenant that God made with Israel, a covenant the nation accepted when they entered the land? (Josh. 8:30–35)
When God chastens us in love and we’re suffering because of our sins, it’s easy to cry out to Him for deliverance and make all kinds of promises. But when we’re comfortable and enjoying His blessings, we tend to forget God and assume that we can sin and get away with it. Comfortable living often produces weak character. “Happiness is not the end of life,” said Henry Ward Beecher, “character is.” But character is built when we make right decisions in life, and those decisions are made on the basis of the things that we value most. Since Israel didn’t value the things of God, she ended up destroying her own national character.
The Lord had given Israel victory over seven different nations (Jdg. 10:11–12), but now Israel was worshiping seven different varieties of pagan gods (v. 6). No wonder God’s anger “was hot against Israel” (v. 7). What foolishness to worship the gods of your defeated enemies! Israel had to be chastened again, and this time God sent the Philistines and the Ammonites to do the job. The Ammonites were distant relatives of the Jews, being descendants of Abraham’s nephew Lot (Gen. 19:38). It must have given the leaders of Ammon and Philistia great joy to subdue their old enemy Israel and oppress them. Their armies invaded the area of Gilead on the east side of the Jordan and then crossed the river and attacked Judah, Ephraim, and Benjamin. It was a devastating and humiliating conquest.
History repeated itself, and the Israelites cried out to God for deliverance (Jdg. 10:10; 2:11–19). But the Lord didn’t send help immediately. Instead, He sent a messenger to the people who rebuked them for their lack of appreciation for all that God had done for them in the past. Then God announced that He wouldn’t help them anymore. They could ask their new gods for help! (See Deut. 32:36–38.)
For the people to abandon God was one thing, but for God to abandon His people was quite something else. The greatest judgment God can send to His people is to let them have their own way and not interfere. “Wherefore God also gave them up.… God gave them up.… God gave them over” (Rom. 1:24, 26, 28). This was too much for the Jews, so they repented, put away their false gods, and told God He could do to Israel whatever He wanted to do (Jdg. 10:15–16).
Their hope wasn’t in their repenting or their praying but in the character of God. “His soul was grieved for the misery of Israel” (v. 16). “In all their affliction He was afflicted” (Isa. 63:9). “Nevertheless in Your great mercy You did not utterly consume them nor forsake them; for You are God, gracious and merciful” (Neh. 9:31, NKJV). “Yet He was merciful; He atoned for their iniquities and did not destroy them. Time after time He restrained His anger and did not stir up His full wrath” (Ps. 78:38, NIV).
15 But the Israelites said, “We have sinned. Deal with us as you see fit; only rescue us today!”
16 So they got rid of the foreign gods among them and worshiped the Lord, and he became weary of Israel’s misery.
18 The rulers of Gilead said to one another, “Which man will begin the fight against the Ammonites? He will be the leader of all the inhabitants of Gilead.”
Israel’s lack of adequate leadership (vv. 17–18). The people were prepared to act, but from all the tribes of Israel, there was nobody to take the lead. Whether in a nation or a local church, the absence of qualified leaders is often a judgment of God and evidence of the low spiritual level of the people. When the Spirit is at work among believers, He will equip and call servants to accomplish His will and bless His people (Acts 13:1–4).
In his book Profiles in Courage, John F. Kennedy wrote, “We, the people, are the boss, and we will get the kind of political leadership, be it good or bad, that we demand and deserve.” What’s true of political leadership is often true of spiritual leadership: We get what we deserve. When God’s people are submitted to Him and serving Him, He sends them gifted servants to instruct and lead them; but when their appetites turn to things of the world and the flesh, He judges them by depriving them of good and godly leaders. “The righteous perish, and no one ponders it in his heart” (Isa. 57:1, NIV).
After eighteen years of suffering, the Israelites assembled to face their oppressors (Jdg. 10:11). There are several places in Scripture named “Mizpah”; this one was in Gilead (11:29; see Josh. 13:26). Israel had an army, but they didn’t have a general. In order to get a volunteer to command their army, the leaders of Israel promised that their commander would be named head over all Gilead. Had the princes of Israel called a prayer meeting instead of a political caucus, they would have accomplished more.
When I was a young Christian, I heard an evangelist preach a powerful sermon on the text, “Where is the Lord God of Elijah?” (2 Kings 2:14) “We know where the Lord God of Elijah is,” he said; “He’s on the throne of heaven and is just as powerful today as He was in Elijah’s day.” Then he paused. “The question is not so much ‘Where is the Lord God of Elijah?’ as ‘Where are the Elijahs?’ ”
Indeed, where are the Elijahs? Where are the spiritual leaders who can rally God’s people and confront the forces of evil?
1 Jephthah the Gileadite was a valiant warrior, but he was the son of a prostitute, and Gilead was his father.
2 Gilead’s wife bore him sons, and when they grew up, they drove Jephthah out and said to him, “You will have no inheritance in our father’s family, because you are the son of another woman.”
3 So Jephthah fled from his brothers and lived in the land of Tob. Then some worthless men joined Jephthah and went on raids with him.
2. A leader in demand (Jdg. 11:1–29, 32–33)
Now we are introduced to Jephthah, the man God chose to lead Israel to victory. What kind of man was he?
The unwanted brother (vv. 1–3). Jephthah wasn’t to blame for his birth. His father Gilead had only one wife, but he consorted with a prostitute and fathered a son. At least Gilead acknowledged the boy and took him into his home, but his other sons didn’t accept this “son of a strange woman.” When Gilead died and the inheritance was to be divided, the legitimate sons drove Jephthah away. Little did they realize they were rejecting a future judge of Israel.
Jephthah left his father’s territory and went north to the land of Tob, which was near Syria; and there he became captain of a band of “adventurers” (v. 3, NIV). The Hebrew word means “to make empty” and refers to idle people looking for something to do. (See 9:4, the “vain and light persons” who followed Abimelech. Here the word means “to be reckless.”) Jephthah was already known as “a mighty man of valour” (v. 1). Thus he had no trouble forming a band of brigands.
5 When the Ammonites made war with Israel, the elders of Gilead went to get Jephthah from the land of Tob.
6 They said to him, “Come, be our commander, and let’s fight the Ammonites.”
7 Jephthah replied to the elders of Gilead, “Didn’t you hate me and drive me out of my father’s family? Why then have you come to me now when you’re in trouble?”
8 They answered Jephthah, “That’s true. But now we turn to you. Come with us, fight the Ammonites, and you will become leader of all the inhabitants of Gilead.”
The unopposed leader (vv. 4–11). Jephthah’s brothers didn’t want him, but the elders of Israel needed him and sent a deputation eighty miles to the land of Tob to ask him to take charge. Jephthah’s reply sounds a good deal like what the Lord had said to the people when they turned to Him for help (10:13–14). Apparently the Jewish leaders had cooperated with Gilead’s sons in expelling the unwanted brother from the land, but Jephthah listened to them and made sure their offer was valid. He was willing to lead them against the enemy if the elders would name him ruler of Gilead.
You can’t help but appreciate the way Jephthah emphasized the Lord in all his negotiations with the leaders of Israel. It was the Lord who would give the victory (11:9), not Jephthah; and the agreement between him and the elders must be ratified before the Lord at Mizpah (v. 11; see 1 Sam. 11:15). Jephthah didn’t see the challenge as a political opportunity for himself but as an occasion for trusting the Lord and serving Him. In addition, the writer of Hebrews makes it clear that Jephthah was a man of faith, not simply an opportunist (Heb. 11:32).
We can’t help but wonder how his brothers felt when the man they renounced returned home as the captain of the army and the leader of the land! More than one “underdog” in Scripture had the same experience. Joseph was rejected by his brothers and later became their savior. It also took King David seven years to gain the full support of the twelve tribes of Israel. For that matter, the Lord Jesus Christ was rejected by His people but will be received by them when He comes again.
12 Jephthah sent messengers to the king of the Ammonites, asking, “What do you have against me that you have come to fight me in my land?”
13 The king of the Ammonites said to Jephthah’s messengers, “When Israel came from Egypt, they seized my land from the Arnon to the Jabbok and the Jordan. Now restore it peaceably.”
The unsuccessful diplomat (vv. 12–28). Before declaring war, Jephthah tried peaceful negotiations with the Ammonites, but the negotiations failed. Nevertheless, this section does tell us two things about Jephthah: (1) He knew the Scriptures and the history of his people, and (2) he was not a hothead who was looking for a fight. Being a military man himself, Jephthah knew that a war could result in thousands of Jewish men being killed; and he wanted to avoid that if at all possible.
The King of Ammon declared that he and his men were only reclaiming land that the Jews, under the leadership of Moses, had stolen from them. If Israel would restore that land, he would call off his troops. But Jephthah presented four compelling arguments that should have convinced the Ammonites that they were wrong.
First, he presented the facts of history (vv. 14–22). Moses and his people had asked the Ammonites for safe passage through their territory, a request that the Ammonites would not grant. This led to war, and God gave the Jews the victory. Israel didn’t steal any land; they captured it from the Ammonites and the Amorites (Num. 21:21–35). Furthermore, the Amorites had originally taken the land from the Moabites (Num. 21:29); so if Israel’s claims to ownership by conquest weren’t valid, neither were the claims of the Amorites!
His second argument was that the Lord had given Israel the land (vv. 23–24). Jephthah was always careful to give the Lord the glory for any victories Israel won (vv. 9, 21, 23–24). When the other nations captured enemy territory, they claimed that it was “the will of their god” that they take the land; and they gave their idols credit for the victory. Jephthah declared that the God of Israel was the true God and that His will had been fulfilled in allowing Israel to take the land. It was Jehovah who gave Israel the victory.
Jephthah’s third argument was that Israel had lived on the land for centuries (vv. 25–26). “Three hundred years” is a round figure, but it comes close to the total number of years given in the Book of Judges for the periods of oppression and of peace. Israel had dwelt in the Transjordan area for three centuries, and that was reason enough to claim title to the land as their own. Why was the King of Ammon making his claims now? During those three centuries, the people of Ammon didn’t try to reclaim their territory. In fact, back in the days of Moses, even the King of Moab hadn’t tried to get his land back! If the Ammonites had a legitimate claim to the territory, they should have said something centuries ago!
Jephthah’s final argument was that the Ammonites were actually fighting against the Lord (vv. 27–28). Jephthah hadn’t declared war on Ammon; it was Ammon that declared war on Israel. But if God gave Israel the land, then the Ammonites were declaring war on the Lord God; and that could only mean disaster and defeat for Ammon. Jephthah had tried to reason with the King of Ammon, but he wouldn’t listen.
28 But the king of the Ammonites would not listen to Jephthah’s message that he sent him.
29 The Spirit of the Lord came on Jephthah, who traveled through Gilead and Manasseh, and then through Mizpah of Gilead. He crossed over to the Ammonites from Mizpah of Gilead.
30 Jephthah made this vow to the Lord: “If you in fact hand over the Ammonites to me,
31 whoever comes out the doors of my house to greet me when I return safely from the Ammonites will belong to the Lord, and I will offer that person as a burnt offering.”
The undefeated warrior (vv. 29–33). Empowered by the Spirit of God (see 3:10; 6:34), Jephthah called for volunteers (12:1–2) and mustered his army. In order to be certain of victory, he foolishly made a bargain with God, a subject we shall take up later. The Lord gave him victory over the Ammonites, and he captured twenty of their strongholds as he pursued the fleeing enemy army. This would guarantee freedom and safety for the Jews as they traveled in the Gilead territory.
The writer of Hebrews wrote that Jephthah was a man of faith and his victory was a victory of faith (Heb. 11:32). The circumstances of birth or of family are not a handicap to the person who will live by faith. In his message to the King of Ammon, Jephthah revealed his knowledge of the Word of God; and this Word was the source of His faith. “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God” (Rom. 10:17, NKJV). “And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith” (1 John 5:4, NKJV). Thanks to the faith and courage of Jephthah, the Ammonites didn’t threaten the Israelites for another fifty years (1 Sam. 11:1ff).
32 Jephthah crossed over to the Ammonites to fight against them, and the Lord handed them over to him.
33 He defeated twenty of their cities with a great slaughter from Aroer all the way to the entrance of Minnith and to Abel-keramim. So the Ammonites were subdued before the Israelites.
34 When Jephthah went to his home in Mizpah, there was his daughter, coming out to meet him with tambourines and dancing! She was his only child; he had no other son or daughter besides her.
3. A father in despair (Jdg. 11:30–31, 34–40)
While going out to battle, Jephthah made a vow to the Lord. It was certainly acceptable to God for the Jews to make vows, provided they obeyed the laws that He had given through Moses to govern the use of vows (Lev. 27; Num. 30; Deut. 23:21–25). Vows were completely voluntary, but the Lord expected the people to fulfill them (Ecc. 5:1–6).
Jephthah’s vow was really a bargain with the Lord: If God would give the Israelites victory over the Ammonites, Jephthah would sacrifice to the Lord whatever came out of his house when he arrived home in Mizpah. God did give him victory, and Jephthah kept his promise. But what was his promise and how did he keep it? What actually happened to Jephthah’s daughter, his only child?
The vow. The Authorized (King James) Version reads: “If Thou shalt without fail deliver the children of Ammon into mine hands, then it shall be, that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, shall surely be the Lord’s, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering” (Jdg. 11:30–31).
The New American Standard Bible translates this verse to say, “If Thou wilt indeed give the sons of Ammon into my hand, then it shall be that whatever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me when I return in peace from the sons of Ammon, it shall be the Lord’s, and I will offer it up as a burnt offering.”
The New International Version translates it to say, “If You give the Ammonites into my hands, whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites will be the Lord’s, and I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering.”
The questions. The more you study Jephthah’s vow, the more puzzling it becomes. He simply could have said, “Lord, if You help me defeat the enemy, when I get home, I’ll offer you a generous burnt offering.” But he couched his vow in ambiguous terms. How did he know who or what would come out of the door of his house? What if the first thing to greet him happened to be an unclean animal that was unacceptable to God? Then he couldn’t fulfill his vow! The Hebrew word translated “whatsoever” (KJV) or “whatever” (NASB) is masculine and suggests that he expected to meet a person, but what if that person turned out to be a neighbor’s child or a total stranger? What right did Jephthah have to take either life and thereby offer to God a sacrifice that cost him nothing? (See 2 Sam. 24:24.)
Furthermore, surely Jephthah knew that Jehovah didn’t approve of or accept human sacrifices. Jephthah gave evidence of familiarity with the Old Testament Scriptures, and he would have known about Abraham and Isaac (Gen. 22) and the commandments in the Law (Lev. 18:21 and 20:1–5; Deut. 12:31 and 18:10). Granted, the period of the Judges was a spiritually dark era in Israel’s history, and the Jews did many things that were wrong, but it’s doubtful that Jephthah’s friends and neighbors would have permitted him to slay his own daughter in order to fulfill a foolish vow. King Saul’s soldiers didn’t let him kill his son Jonathan, who had violated his father’s foolish vow (1 Sam. 14:24–46).
And where would Jephthah offer his daughter as a sacrifice? Surely he knew that the Lord accepted sacrifices only at the tabernacle altar (Lev. 17:1–9), and that they had to be offered by the levitical priests. He would have to travel to Shiloh to fulfill his vow (Deut. 16:2, 6, 11, 16), and it’s doubtful that even the most unspiritual priest would offer a human sacrifice on God’s sanctified altar, victory or no victory. In fact, if people knew that Jephthah was going to Shiloh to slay his daughter, they probably would have stopped him along the way and kidnapped the girl! A national hero like Jephthah couldn’t easily hide what he was doing, and surely the story would have spread quickly among the people during the two-month waiting period (Jdg. 11:37–39).
But even if he made it safely to Shiloh, Jephthah could have learned from any priest that paying the proper amount of money could have redeemed his daughter (Lev. 27:1–8). As a successful soldier who had just returned from looting the enemy, Jephthah could easily have paid the redemption price.
Other pertinent questions arise. In spite of Numbers 30:1–2, would God take seriously a vow that violated both human rights and divine law? Would a Spirit-empowered man (Jdg. 11:29), committed to the Lord (11:11), even make such a vow? The more I ponder these questions, the more perplexing his vow becomes and the more convinced I am that Jephthah didn’t promise to offer any human sacrifice to the Lord and did not kill his own daughter.
Solutions. More than one expositor has pointed out that the little word “and” in the phrase “and I will offer it up” (11:31) can be translated “or.” (In the Hebrew, it’s the letter waw which usually means “and.” See the beginning of Ps. 119:41 for an example of what the Hebrew waw looks like.) If we take this approach, then the vow was twofold: Whatever met him when he returned home would be dedicated to the Lord (if a person) or sacrificed to the Lord (if an animal).
Since he was met by his daughter, Jephthah gave her to the Lord to serve Him at the tabernacle (Ex. 38:8; 1 Sam. 2:22). She remained a virgin, which meant that she would not know the joys of motherhood and perpetuate her father’s inheritance in Israel. This would be reason enough for her and her friends to spend two months grieving, for every daughter wanted a family and every father wanted grandchildren to maintain the family inheritance.
Nowhere in the text are we told that Jephthah actually killed his daughter, nor do we find anybody bewailing the girl’s death. The emphasis in Judges 11:37–40 is the fact that she remained a virgin. It’s difficult to believe that “the daughters of Israel” would establish a custom to celebrate (not “lament” as in KJV) the awful sacrifice of a human being, but we can well understand that they would commemorate the devotion and obedience of Jephthah’s daughter in helping her father fulfill his vow. She deserves to stand with Isaac as a faithful child, who was willing to obey both father and God, no matter what the cost.
35 When he saw her, he tore his clothes and said, “No! Not my daughter! You have devastated me! You have brought great misery on me. I have given my word to the Lord and cannot take it back.”
36 Then she said to him, “My father, you have given your word to the Lord. Do to me as you have said, for the Lord brought vengeance on your enemies, the Ammonites.”
37 She also said to her father, “Let me do this one thing: Let me wander two months through the mountains with my friends and mourn my virginity.”
38 “Go,” he said. And he sent her away two months. So she left with her friends and mourned her virginity as she wandered through the mountains.
39 At the end of two months, she returned to her father, and he kept the vow he had made about her. And she had never been intimate with a man. Now it became a custom in Israel
40 that four days each year the young women of Israel would commemorate the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite.
1 The men of Ephraim were called together and crossed the Jordan to Zaphon. They said to Jephthah, “Why have you crossed over to fight against the Ammonites but didn’t call us to go with you? We will burn your house with you in it!”
2 Then Jephthah said to them, “My people and I had a bitter conflict with the Ammonites. So I called for you, but you didn’t deliver me from their power.
3 When I saw that you weren’t going to deliver me, I took my life in my own hands and crossed over to the Ammonites, and the Lord handed them over to me. Why then have you come today to fight against me?”
4 Then Jephthah gathered all of the men of Gilead. They fought and defeated Ephraim, because Ephraim had said, “You Gileadites are Ephraimite fugitives in the territories of Ephraim and Manasseh.”
5 The Gileadites captured the fords of the Jordan leading to Ephraim. Whenever a fugitive from Ephraim said, “Let me cross over,” the Gileadites asked him, “Are you an Ephraimite?” If he answered, “No,”
6 they told him, “Please say Shibboleth.” If he said, “Sibboleth,” because he could not pronounce it correctly, they seized him and executed him at the fords of the Jordan. At that time forty-two thousand from Ephraim died.
7 Jephthah judged Israel six years, and when he died, he was buried in one of the cities of Gilead.
4. A ruler in defense (Jdg. 12:1–15)
Accusation (v. 1). The leaders of the tribe of Ephraim expressed to Jephthah the same pride and anger they had shown to Gideon (8:1). As before, they wanted to share the glory of the victory, but they hadn’t been too eager to risk their lives in the battle. The men of Ephraim were so angry that they threatened to burn Jephthah’s house down. They had absolutely no respect for the new ruler of the Trans-jordanic tribes.
Explanation (vv. 2–3). Gideon had pacified the Ephraimites with flattery, but Jephthah took a more direct approach. To begin with, he reminded them that his first concern was to defeat the Ammonites, not to please his neighbors. Second, during the eighteen years Ammon had oppressed the people of Gilead, nobody from Ephraim had offered to come to their rescue. Third, Jephthah had issued a call for the tribes to assist him in his attack on the enemy, but Ephraim hadn’t responded. Without their help, the Lord gave Jephthah and his army victory; so the proud Ephraimites (who didn’t like being left out) had nothing to complain about.
Confrontation (vv. 4–7). Perhaps Jephthah should have practiced Proverbs 15:1 and 17:14 and avoided a war; but then, maybe it was time somebody called Ephraim’s bluff and taught them a lesson. The men of Ephraim resorted to name-calling and taunted the Gileadites by calling them “renegades from Ephraim and Manasseh” (Jdg. 12:4, NIV). Actually, the tribes east of the Jordan River—Reuben, Gad, and half of the tribe of Manasseh—had been granted their land by Moses and Joshua (Num. 32; Josh. 22). Thus the words of the Ephraimites were an insult to the Lord and His servants.
When people are wrong and refuse to accept logical reasoning and confess their faults, they often turn to violence in order to protect their reputation. This is the cause of most family disagreements, church fights, and international conflicts (James 4:1–12). But Jephthah got the best of the boastful men of Ephraim and killed 42,000 of their soldiers. The men of Ephraim themselves became “renegades,” for the word “escaped” in Judges 12:5 is the same as the word “fugitives [renegades]” in verse 4. They had to eat their words and lose their lives!
The people of Ephraim had their own regional pronunciation for the word shibboleth, which means “stream” or “floods.” They said “sibboleth,” and this gave them away (Matt. 26:73). It was a simple test, but it worked. Because of this story, the word shibboleth has become a part of our English vocabulary and is now found in our dictionaries. It stands for any kind of test that a group gives to outsiders to see whether they really belong. Usually the shibboleth is an old worn-out idea or doctrine that is really unimportant. In Ephraim’s case, however, it cost 42,000 people their lives.
After the defeat of Ammon and the trouncing of Ephraim, the Jews had thirty-one years of peace and security under the leadership of Jephthah and his three successors. How paradoxical that Jephthah the champion should have no family while Ibzan had thirty sons and thirty daughters and Abdon had forty sons and thirty grandsons.
Next Week Judges 13-14
Next Week Judges 13-14