1The men of Ephraim were gathered together, and passed northward; and they said to Jephthah, “Why did you pass over to fight against the children of Ammon, and didn’t call us to go with you? We will burn your house around you with fire!”
2Jephthah said to them, “I and my people were at great strife with the children of Ammon; and when I called you, you didn’t save me out of their hand.3When I saw that you didn’t save me, I put my life in my hand, and passed over against the children of Ammon, and Yahweh delivered them into my hand. Why then have you come up to me today, to fight against me?”
1 The men of Ephraim were gathered together, and passed northward; and they said to Jephthah, “Why did you pass over to fight against the children of Ammon, and didn’t call us to go with you? We will burn your house around you with fire!”
2 Jephthah said to them, “I and my people were at great strife with the children of Ammon; and when I called you, you didn’t save me out of their hand.
3 When I saw that you didn’t save me, I put my life in my hand, and passed over against the children of Ammon, and Yahweh delivered them into my hand. Why then have you come up to me today, to fight against me?”
KJVKing James Version
1 And the men of Ephraim gathered themselves together, and went northward, and said unto Jephthah, Wherefore passedst thou over to fight against the children of Ammon, and didst not call us to go with thee? we will burn thine house upon thee with fire.
2 And Jephthah said unto them, I and my people were at great strife with the children of Ammon; and when I called you, ye delivered me not out of their hands.
3 And when I saw that ye delivered me not, I put my life in my hands, and passed over against the children of Ammon, and the LORD delivered them into my hand: wherefore then are ye come up unto me this day, to fight against me?
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JPSJPS Tanakh (1917)
1 And the men of Ephraim were gathered together, and passed to Zaphon; and they said unto Jephthah: 'Wherefore didst thou pass over to fight against the children of Ammon, and didst not call us to go with thee? we will burn thy house upon thee with fire.'
2 And Jephthah said unto them: 'I and my people were at great strife with the children of Ammon; and when I called you, ye saved me not out of their hand.
3 And when I saw that ye saved me not, I put my life in my hand, and passed over against the children of Ammon, and the LORD delivered them into my hand; wherefore then are ye come up unto me this day, to fight against me?'
1 Samuel 19:5(v3)for he put his life in his hand, and struck the Philistine, and Yahweh worked a great victory for all Israel. You saw it, and rejoiced. Why…
1 Samuel 28:21(v3)The woman came to Saul, and saw that he was very troubled, and said to him, “Behold, your servant has listened to your voice, and I have…
Job 13:14(v3)Why should I take my flesh in my teeth, and put my life in my hand?
Judges 8:1(v1)The men of Ephraim said to him, “Why have you treated us this way, that you didn’t call us when you went to fight with Midian?” They…
Psalms 119:109(v3)My soul is continually in my hand, yet I won’t forget your law.
Show all 20 cross-references
John 10:32(v1)Jesus answered them, “I have shown you many good works from my Father. For which of those works do you stone me?”
James 3:16(v1)For where jealousy and selfish ambition are, there is confusion and every evil deed.
Judges 14:15(v1)On the seventh day, they said to Samson’s wife, “Entice your husband, that he may declare to us the riddle, lest we burn you and your…
James 4:1-2(v1)Where do wars and fightings among you come from? Don’t they come from your pleasures that war in your members? You lust, and don’t have.…
Judges 9:17(v3)(for my father fought for you, risked his life, and delivered you out of the hand of Midian;
Judges 11:12-33(v2)Jephthah sent messengers to the king of the children of Ammon, saying, “What do you have to do with me, that you have come to me to fight…
Judges 11:27(v3)Therefore I have not sinned against you, but you do me wrong to war against me. May Yahweh the Judge be judge today between the children of…
Judges 15:6(v1)Then the Philistines said, “Who has done this?” They said, “Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, because he has taken his wife and given…
2 Samuel 19:41-43(v1)Behold, all the men of Israel came to the king, and said to the king, “Why have our brothers the men of Judah stolen you away, and brought…
2 Chronicles 13:12(v3)Behold, God is with us at our head, and his priests with the trumpets of alarm to sound an alarm against you. Children of Israel, don’t…
Psalms 109:4(v1)In return for my love, they are my adversaries; but I am in prayer.
Proverbs 27:3-4(v1)A stone is heavy, and sand is a burden; but a fool’s provocation is heavier than both. Wrath is cruel, and anger is overwhelming; but who…
Ecclesiastes 4:4(v1)Then I saw all the labor and achievement that is the envy of a man’s neighbor. This also is vanity and a striving after wind.
Romans 16:4(v3)who risked their own necks for my life, to whom not only I give thanks, but also all the assemblies of the Gentiles.
Revelation 12:11(v3)They overcame him because of the Lamb’s blood, and because of the word of their testimony. They didn’t love their life, even to death.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this passage (23 sources)
Historical commentary, presented as a primary source — not an endorsement.
Geneva Bible translators1599 · Public DomainOn vv1, 3After they had passed Jordan.
After they had passed Jordan.
Thus ambition envieth God’s work in others as they did also against Gideon, Judg. 8:1.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp1656 · Public DomainOn vv1–3Jdg 12:1 And the men of Ephraim gathered themselves…
Jdg 12:1 And the men of Ephraim gathered themselves together, and went northward, and said unto Jephthah, Wherefore passedst thou over to fight against the children of Ammon, and didst not call us to go with thee? we will burn thine house upon thee with fire.
Ver. 1. Gathered themselves together.] Heb., Were called; sc., by Jephthah, as Jdg 12:2, but came too late. Post bellum auxilium, so some understand it. Others, that these Ephraimites desirous of vain glory, provoking their brethren and envying them, as Gal 5:26, tumultuarily met to pick a quarrel and make war upon Jephthah and his Gileadites, whom they insolently revile and threaten. "Wrath is cruel, and anger is outrageous; but who can stand before envy?" {Pro 27:4} The venom of all vices is found in that sharpfanged malignity.
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And went northward.] Toward Mizpeh of Gilead; called the wood of Ephraim, {2Sa 18:6} from the slaughter of these Ephraimites there, as it is likely, and afterwards Iturea, and Trachoniti, that is, Rough and Rocky.
Wherefore passedst thou over to fight?] See Jdg 8:1, where they quarrelled in like sort with Gideon, who pacified them with good words; but here they showed themselves implacable, as being ripe for ruin.
We will burn thy house upon thee with fire.] Here was to good Jephthah aliud ex alio malum, a succession of sorrows. He was newly returned from his expedition against the Ammonites, was brought very low, or greatly bowed downward by his only daughter’s unhappy coming forth to meet him. Qui liberis caret, pro mortuo habetur. And now he is necessitated to fight with them, who should with all thankfulness have congratulated his victory. Crosses seldom come single. Catenata piorum crux. Of Queen Elizabeth it is reported, that she provided for war when she was at most perfect peace with all men: so should we do.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole1685 · Public DomainOn vv1–3Northward; over Jordan, so northward towards Mizpeh, where Jephthah…
Northward; over Jordan, so northward towards Mizpeh, where Jephthah was, Jdg 11:34, and which was in the northern part of the land beyond Jordan.
Said unto Jephthah, through pride and envy, contending with him as they did before with Gideon, Jdg 8:1. Wherefore passedst thou over? not over Jordan, for there he was already; but over the borders of the Israelites’ land beyond Jordan, as appears by comparing this with Jdg 11:29, where the same phrase is used.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry1710 · Public DomainOn v1Here Is, I. The unreasonable displeasure of the men…
Here Is, I. The unreasonable displeasure of the men of Ephraim against Jephthah, because he had not called them in to his assistance against the Ammonites, that they might share in the triumphs and spoils, Jdg 12:1. Pride was at the bottom of the quarrel. Only by that comes contention. Proud men think all the honours lost that go beside themselves, and then who can stand before envy? The Ephraimites had the same quarrel with Gideon (Jdg 8:1), who was of Manasseh on their side Jordan, as Jephthah was of Manasseh on the other side Jordan. Ephraim and Manasseh were hearer akin than any other of the tribes, being both the sons of Joseph, and yet they were more jealous one of another than any other of the tribes. Jacob having crossed hands, and given Ephraim the preference, looking as far forward as the kingdom of the ten tribes, which Ephraim was the head of, after the revolt from the house of David, that tribe, not content with that honour in the promise, was displeased if Manasseh had any honour done it in the mean time. It is a pity that kindred or relationship, which should be an inducement to love and peace, should be ever an occasion (as it often proves) of strife and discord. A brother offended is harder to be won than a strong city, and contentions among brethren are as the bars of a castle. The anger of the Ephraimites at Jephthah was, 1. Causeless and unjust. Why didst thou not call us to go with thee? For a good reason. Because it was the men of Gilead that had made him their captain, not the men of Ephraim, so that he had no authority to call them. Had his attempt miscarried for want of their help, they might justly have blamed him for not desiring it. But when the work was done, and done effectually, the Ammonites being subdued and Israel delivered, there was no harm done, though their hands were not employed in it. 2. It was cruel and outrageous. They get together in a tumultuous manner, pass over Jordan as far as Mizpeh in Gilead, where Jephthah lived, and no less will satisfy their fury but they will burn his house and him in it. Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce. Those resentments that have the least reason for them have commonly the most rage in them. Jephthah was now a conqueror over the common enemies of Israel, and they should have come to congratulate him, and return him the thanks of their tribe for the good services he had done; but we must not think it strange if we receive ill from those from whom we deserve well. Jephthah was now a mourner for the calamity of his family upon his daughter's account, and they should have come to condole with him and comfort him; but barbarous men take a pleasure in adding affliction to the afflicted. In this world, the end of one trouble often proves the beginning of another; nor must we ever boast as though we had put off the harness.
II. Jephthah's warm vindication of himself. He did not endeavour to pacify them, as Gideon had done in the like case; the Ephraimites were now more outrageous than they were them, and Jephthah had not so much of a meek and quiet spirit as Gideon had. Whether they would be pacified or no, Jephthah takes care,
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1. To justify himself, Jdg 12:2, Jdg 12:3. He makes it out that they had no cause at all to quarrel with him, for, (1.) It was not in pursuit of glory that he had engaged in this war, but for the necessary defence of his country, with which the children of Ammon greatly strove. (2.) He had invited the Ephraimites to come and join with him, though he neither needed them nor was under any obligation to pay that respect to them, but they had declined the service: I called you, and you delivered me not out of their hands. Had that been true which they charged him with, yet it would not have been a just ground of quarrel; but it seems it was false, and, as the matter of fact now appears, he had more cause to quarrel with them for deserting the common interests of Israel in a time of need. It is no new thing for those who are themselves most culpable to be most clamorous in accusing the innocent. (3.) The enterprise was very hazardous, and they had more reason to pity him than to be angry with him: I put my life in my hands, that is, "exposed myself to the utmost peril in what I did, having so small an army," The honour they envied was bought dearly enough; they needed not to grudge it to him; few of them would have ventured so far for it. (4.) He does not take the glory of the success to himself (that would have been invidious), but gives it all to God: "The Lord delivered them into my hands. If God was pleased so far to make use of me for his glory, why should you be offended at that? Have you any reason to fight against me? Is not that in effect to fight against God, in whose hand I have been only an unworthy instrument?"
2. When this just answer (though not so soft an answer as Gideon's) did not prevail to turn away their wrath, he took care both to defend himself from their fury and to chastise their insolence with the sword, by virtue of his authority as Israel's judge. (1.) The Ephraimites had not only quarrelled with Jephthah, but, when his neighbours and friends appeared to take his part, they had abused them, and given them foul language; for I adhere to our translation, and so take it, Jdg 12:4. They said in scorn, "You Gileadites that dwell here on the other side Jordan are but fugitives of Ephraim, the scum and dregs of the tribes of Joseph, of which Ephraim is the chief, the refuse of the family, and are so accounted among the Ephraimites and among the Manassites. Who cares for you? All your neighbours know what you are, no better than fugitives and vagabonds, separated from your brethren, and driven hither into a corner." The Gileadites were as true Israelites as any other, and at this time had signalized themselves, both in the choice of Jephthah and in the war with Ammon, above all the families of Israel, and yet are most basely and unjustly called fugitives. It is an ill thing to fasten names or characters of reproach upon persons or countries, as is common, especially upon those that lie under outward disadvantages: it often occasions quarrels that prove of ill consequence, as it did here. See likewise what a mischievous thing an abusive tongue is, that calls ill names, and gives scurrilous language: it sets on fire the course of nature, and is set on fire of hell (Jam 3:6), and many a time cuts the throat of him that uses it, as it did here, Psa 64:8. If these Ephraimites could have denied themselves the poor satisfaction of calling the Gileadites fugitives, they might have prevented a great deal of bloodshed; for grievous words stir up anger, and who knows how great a matter a little of that fire may kindle? (2.) This affront raises the Gileadites' blood, and the indignity done to themselves, as well as to their captain, must be revenged. [1.] They routed them in the field, Jdg 12:4. They fought with Ephraim, and, Ephraim being but a rude unheaded rabble, smote Ephraim, and put them to flight. [2.] They cut off their retreat, and so completed their revenge, Jdg 12:5, Jdg 12:6. The Gileadites, who perhaps were better acquainted with the passages of Jordan than the Ephraimites were, secured them with strong guards, who were ordered to slay every Ephraimite that offered to pass the river. Here was, First, Cruelty enough in the destruction of them. Sufficient surely was the punishment which was inflicted by many; when they were routed in the field, there needed not this severity to cut off all that escaped. Shall the sword devour for ever? Whether Jephthah is to be praised for this I know not; perhaps he saw it to be a piece of necessary justice. Secondly, Cunning enough in the discovery of them. It seems the Ephraimites, though they spoke the same language with other Israelites, yet had got a custom in the dialect of their country to pronounce the Hebrew letter Shin like Samech, and they had so strangely used themselves to it that they could not do otherwise, no, not to save their lives. We learn to speak by imitation; those that first used s for sh, did it either because it was shorter or because it was finer, and their children learnt to speak like them, so that you might know an Ephraimite by it; as in England we know a west-country man or a north-country man, nay, perhaps a Shropshire man, and a Cheshire man, by his pronunciation. Thou art a Galilean, and thy speech betrays thee. By this the Ephraimites were discovered. If they took a man that they suspected to be an Ephraimite, but he denied it, they bade him say Shibboleth; but either he could not, as our translation reads it, or he did not heed, or frame, or direct himself, as some read, to pronounce it aright, but said Sibboleth, and so was known to be an Ephraimite, and was slain immediately. Shibboleth signifies a river or stream: "Ask leave to go over Shibboleth, the river." Those that were thus cut off made up the whole number of slaughtered Ephraimites forty-two thousand, Jdg 12:6. Thus another mutiny of that angry tribe was prevented.
3. Now let us observe the righteousness of God in the punishment of these proud and passionate Ephraimites, which in several instances answered to their sin. (1.) They were proud of the honour of their tribe, gloried in this, that they were Ephraimites; but how soon were they brought to be ashamed or afraid to own their country! Art thou an Ephraimite? No, now rather of any tribe than that. (2.) They had gone in a rage over Jordan to burn Jephthah's house with fire, but now they came back to Jordan as sneakingly as they had passed it furiously, and were cut off from ever returning to their own houses. (3.) They had upbraided the Gileadites with the infelicity of their country, lying at such a distance, and now they suffered by an infirmity peculiar to their own country, in not being able to pronounce Shibboleth. (4.) They had called the Gileadites, unjustly, fugitives, and now they really and in good earnest became fugitives themselves; and in the Hebrew the same word (Jdg 12:5) is used of the Ephraimites that escaped, or that fled, which they had used in scorn of the Gileadites, calling them fugitives. He that rolls the stone of reproach unjustly upon another, let him expect that it will justly return upon himself.
III. Here is the end of Jephthah's government. He judged Israel but six years, and then died, Jdg 12:7. Perhaps the death of his daughter sunk him so that he never looked up afterwards, but it shortened his days, and he went to his grave mourning.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill1763 · Public DomainOn vv1–3And the men of Ephraim gathered themselves together,.... Or…
And the men of Ephraim gathered themselves together,.... Or "cried" (r); got together by a cry or proclamation made: in the Hebrew text it is, "a man of Ephraim"; not a single man, but a body of men, who met together and joined as one man. It is highly probable that there were no less than 50,000 of them; for 42,000 of them were slain, Jdg 12:6.
and went northward; or, "went over northward (s)"; that is, over the river Jordan, which lay between Gilead and Ephraim; and when they had crossed the river, they turned northward; for Mizpeh, where Jephthah lived, was in the north of the land, near Hermon and Lebanon, Jos 11:3.
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and said unto Jephthah, wherefore passedst thou over to fight against the children of Ammon? not over Jordan, but over that part of the land of Israel from the plain where Jephthah dwelt, to the country of the children of Ammon:
and didst not call us to go with thee? they quarrel with him just in the same manner as they did with Gideon: these Ephraimites were a proud and turbulent people, and especially were very jealous of the tribe of Manasseh, of which both Gideon and Jephthah were; the one of the half tribe on this side Jordan, and the other of the half that was on the other side; and they were jealous of both, lest any honour and glory should accrue thereunto, and they should get any superiority in any respect over them, since Jacob their father had given the preference to Ephraim; and this seems to lie at the bottom of all their proceedings:
we will burn thine house upon thee with fire; that is, burn him and his house, burn his house and him in it; which shows that they were in great wrath and fury, and argued not only the height of pride and envy, but wretched ingratitude, and a cruel disposition; who, instead of congratulating him as Israel's deliverer, and condoling him with respect to the case of his only child, threaten him in this brutish manner.
(r) Sept. "clamatus", i.e. "clamando convocatus", Piscator. "mnellius", Pimcator. (s) "transivit", Pagninus, Montanus; "transiverunt", Junius et Tremellius, Piscator.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley1765 · Public DomainOn vv1–3Jephthah's encounter with, and slaughter of the Ephraimites, ver.…
Jephthah's encounter with, and slaughter of the Ephraimites, ver. 1-6. His death, ver. 7 A short account of three other Judges ver. 8-15.
Northward - Over Jordan, where Jephthah was, in the northern part of the land beyond Jordan. And said - Through pride and envy, contending with him as they did before with Gideon. Over - Not over Jordan, for there he was already; but over the borders of the Israelites land beyond Jordan.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke1810 · Public DomainOn vv1, 3The Ephraimites are incensed against Jephthah, because he did
CHAPTER XII
The Ephraimites are incensed against Jephthah, because he did
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not call them to war against the Ammonites; and threaten his
destruction, 1.
He vindicates himself, 2, 3;
and arms the Gileadites against the men of Ephraim; they fight
against them, and kill forty-two thousand Ephraimites at the
passages of Jordan, 4-6.
Jephthah dies, having judged Israel six years, 7.
Ibzan judge seven years, 8.
His posterity and death, 9,10.
Elon judge ten years, and dies, 11, 12.
Abdon judge eight years, 13.
His posterity and death, 14, 15.
NOTES ON CHAP. XII
Verse 1. The men of Ephraim gathered themselves together] ויצעק vaiyitstsaek, they called each other to arms; summoning all their tribe and friends to arm themselves to destroy Jephthah and the Gileadites, being jealous lest they should acquire too much power.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson1811 · Public DomainOn vv1–2Jdg 12:1. The men of Ephraim went northward —…
Jdg 12:1. The men of Ephraim went northward — Over Jordan, where Jephthah was, in the northern part of the land beyond Jordan. And said — Through pride and envy, contending with him as they did before with Gideon; over to fight — Not over Jordan, for there he was already; but over the borders of the Israelites’ land beyond Jordan.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes1834 · Public DomainOn vv1–3Compare the similar complaint of the Ephraimites to Gideon…
Compare the similar complaint of the Ephraimites to Gideon Jdg 8:1, when a civil war was only avoided by Gideon’s wise and patriotic moderation. The overhearing pride of Ephraim comes out in both occurrences (see also Jos 17:14-18).
We will burn thine house upon thee with fire - Compare the fierce threat of the Philistines to Samson’s wife Jdg 14:15, and the yet fiercer execution Jdg 15:6. Burning appears as a mode of capital punishment Gen 38:24; Jos 7:25, and as a mode of desperate warfare (Jdg 1:8; Jdg 20:48; Jos 8:8, Jos 8:19, etc.).
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary1859 · Public DomainOn vv1–3Sedition. Hebrew, "the men of Ephraim shouted together" to…
Sedition. Hebrew, "the men of Ephraim shouted together" to arms. --- North. Septuagint, "Sephena." The Hebrew may either signify north, or some city. (Montanus) --- It is probable that Ephraim went to quarrel with Jepthe at Abel, before he had returned to Maspha. (Calmet) --- House. Hebrew and Septuagint add, "with or upon thee." (Menochius)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures1864 · Public DomainOn v1Ephraim’s proud and envious conduct towards Jephthah
Ephraim’s proud and envious conduct towards Jephthah
Jdg_12:1-7
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1And the men of Ephraim gathered themselves together, and went northward [proceeded to Zaphon], and said unto Jephthah, Wherefore passedst thou over [Why didst thou pass on—proceed—] to fight against the children [sons] of Ammon, and didst not call us to go with thee? we will burn thine house upon thee with fire. 2And Jephthah said unto them, I and my people were at great strife [in a severe conflict] with the children [sons] of Ammon; and when [omit: when] I called you, [and] ye delivered me not out of their hands [hand]. 3And when I saw that ye delivered me not, I put my life in my hands [hand], and passed over [on] against the children [sons] of Ammon, and the Lord [Jehovah] delivered them into my hand: wherefore 4then are ye come up unto me this day, to fight against me? Then [And] Jephthah gathered together all the men of Gilead, and fought with Ephraim: and the men of Gilead smote Ephraim, because they [had] said, ye Gileadites are fugitives of Ephraim among the Ephraimites, and among the Manassites [fugitives of Ephraim are ye Gilead, in Ephraim and Manasseh]. 5And the Gileadites took the passages [fords] of [the] Jordan before the Ephraimites [toward Ephraim]: and it was so, that when those Ephraimites which were escaped [the fugitives of Ephraim], said, Let me go over; that the men of Gilead said unto him, Art thou an Ephraimite? If he said, Nay; 6Then said they unto him, Say now Shibboleth: and he said Sibboleth: for he could not1 frame to pronounce it right. Then they took him and slew [slaughtered] him at the passages [fords] of [the] Jordan. And there fell at that time of the Ephraimites forty and two thousand. 7And Jephthah judged Israel six years: then died Jephthah the Gileadite, and was buried in one of the cities of Gilead.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
[1 Jdg_12:6.—“Could not,” is too strong. Keil: “חֵכִין, stands elliptically for הֵכִין לֵב, to apply the mind, to give heed. Cf. 1Sa_23:22; 1Ch_28:2, with 2Ch_12:14; 2Ch_30:19.”—Tr.]
EXEGETICAL AND DOCTRINAL
The victory of Jephthah is followed by a repetition of what took place after Gideon’s heroic achievement. The overbearing pride of the chief tribe, Ephraim, vents itself in each instance against the victor who has risen up within the smaller tribe, and has become the saviour of the people. Now as then the presumptuous jealousy of the tribe complains that it has not been invited to take part. But this apparent eagerness for war was hypocritical. The thing really desired was a share in the booty and the results of success. Ephraim would help to reap, where it had not sown. The injustice of the tribe was even greater on this occasion than in the time of Gideon. For then it really did render some little assistance, albeit only after Gideon had first led the way. But here it had been called on for help, and had stayed at home. As soon, however, as victory had been obtained, it came with threats and war. But it was not so successful now as with Gideon. That hero, when they clamored against him, was still in pursuit of the enemy, and was obliged, for the sake of his own success, to allay their pride and presumption by gentleness. Jephthah had no reason for submitting to such arrogance. Nor did the Ephraimites come with words only; they were prepared to use force. They derided the people, and thought that with arms in their hands they could chastise Gilead and humble Jephthah. They will set his house on fire over his head. Then Jephthah shows that he is not only a hero against enemies but also the Judge in Israel. It is his authority which he tries and proves by chastising Ephraim. But here also, as in his dealings with the sons of Ammon, he first establishes the righteousness of his conduct by clear words. However, if sinful Ephraim had cared for righteousness, it would in no case have entered on this course. It relied on violence, like Ammon; and like Ammon it experienced the chastisement of violence. No Judge of whom the history tells us inflicts such chastisement and exercises such power within the nation as well as against alien enemies, as does Jephthah. But it was needed; and the humiliation of Ephraim for its sin was less severe than it might otherwise have proved, because the punishment came in the time of Israel’s freedom, and not at the expense of that freedom.
Jdg_12:1. And proceeded to Zaphon. The older Jewish expositors, whom Ewald and Keil have followed, already found in צָפוֹנָה, not direction toward the north, but the name of a city, which lay beyond the Jordan in the tribe of Gad (Jos_13:27). This interpretation rests on the requirements of the context. For in order to explain verses 4 and 5, Ephraim must have advanced across the Jordan. The remark in the Jerusalem Talmud (Shwiith, 9, 2), which identifies Zaphon with עמתו, Amathus, Aemath, cf. Amateh (cf. Ritter, xv. 1031), is therefore altogether suitable. For this city was still known in later times as a strong point on the Jordan, as Josephus repeatedly states. The Onomasticon, also (ed. Parthey, p. 26), says concerning it, that it lay beyond the Jordan, to the south of Pella; for Ritter’s oversight, who supposes that the Onomasticon identifies Amathus with another Aemath in the tribe of Reuben, is not to be concurred in. Amathus, according to its stated distance from Pella (in vigesimo primo milliario), could not lie in the tribe of Reuben—which agrees so far with the fact that Zaphon was in Gad.
Jdg_12:2. And Jephthah said unto them. It was not related above that Jephthah called on the tribe of Ephraim to assist, as he here reminds them; but that he would do so, was to be expected. But even if he had not done so, what was there to justify Ephraim in its contention and war? Jephthah’s answer is not defiant: it allows that Gilead would gladly have accepted help, if only a helper had been at hand. Jephthah would gladly have yielded the precedence in victory to Ephraim, if Ephraim had only wielded arms against the enemy as bravely as it now uses words against its brethren. But when he saw that there was no deliverer, he put his life in his hand, and God gave the victory. Did not Jephthah devote his dearest possession in order to obtain from God the victory for which he entreated Him?
The Midrash has a thought in this connection, which, when disengaged from its unhistorical wrappings, is judicious and profound. It says that for the things which befell Israel under Jephthah only the priests were to blame. Why did they not annul the vow of Jephthah! Why did they not restrain Ephraim from civil war! It is manifest that a truth is here suggested which applies to all times. It is undoubtedly the duty of persons equipped with spiritual power, to lift up their voices for peace, and especially to labor for concord between the single tribe and all Israel. If they neglect this duty, their candlestick—this also the Midrash intimates—will sooner or later be overthrown.
Jdg_12:3. Wherefore then are ye come up unto me this day to fight against me? Ephraim’s attempt is actually more culpable than Ammon’s. In itself considered, civil war between cognate tribes is a disgrace, which can only spring from ungodliness. But the sin of Ephraim, when it proposes to burn the house of Jephthah, is still further aggravated by the fact that it is directed against the restorer of the divine law and the deliverer of Israel. It is moral and national treason. The Spartans also, under all sorts of pretexts, had left Athens to face alone the advancing Persians. But when the battle at Marathon had been won, the auxiliary troops who arrived too late to be of service, praised and applauded the heroism of Athens (Herod. vi. 120). Jephthah dwells on the injustice of Ephraim, who would not indeed fight against Ammon, but now (“this day”) undertakes to make war on him (he always stands personally for his people), in order to excuse his armed resistance. Ephraim now receives the punishment which properly it had already deserved at Gideon’s hands. It is totally defeated by the hero; and its men find themselves entered on a calamitous flight.
Jdg_12:4-5. And the men of Gilead smote Ephraim. It was not Jephthah, as the fine representation gives us to remark, who prosecuted the bloody pursuit. He contented himself with chastising Ephraim according to its presumption; but the people of Gilead had been exasperated by the contempt of the Ephraimites. It is true that the sentence in which the ground of the wrath of the Gileadites over an utterance of the Ephraimites is expressed, is not easily expounded: בְּתוֹךְ מְנַשֶׁה פְּלִיטֵי אֶפְרַיִם אַתֶּם גִּלְעָד בְּתוֹךְ אִפרַיִם כִּי אָמְרוּ. For it is not at once apparent how the Gileadites could be called “fugitives of Ephraim,” seeing they were descendants of Manasseh. A closer inspection, however, makes this intelligible. Ephraim raised a claim to participate in war, only in the cases of Gideon and Jephthah. not in those of the other Judges. It is manifest, therefore, that it based its claim upon the fact that Gideon and Jephthah belonged to Manasseh, its own sister-tribe. At any rate, the House of Joseph. Ephraim and Manasseh, had from of old a consciousness of a certain unity of its own. It treated as one with Joshua (Jos_17:14 ff.). It entered together into its territory (Jdg_1:22). Under king Solomon it was under a common administrative officer (1Ki_11:28). Now, in the “House of Joseph” Ephraim had the chief voice; for Manasseh was divided, and its possessions lay scattered among other tribes. Hence, it could with some plausibility claim it as its right that no division of the House of Joseph should undertake a warlike expedition without its participation. Nor do Gideon and Jephthah deny this right. “We did call thee,” says the latter; “but thou didst not come.” Only the manner in which Ephraim raised its claim was sinful, unjust, and arrogant. For it raised it, not in the time of distress, but for the sake of the booty; and instead of applauding a great achievement, it indulged in derision, which exasperated the warriors of Gilead. For in storming at Jephthah for not calling it, it denies to Gilead every right of separate action. “How can Gilead presume to exercise tribal functions, and set a prince and judge over Israel?” “Gilead is no community at all,” but only a “set of fugitives,” who act as if they were a tribe, whereas in fact they belong elsewhere. They use the word peletim (fugitives) by way of contumely, just as among the Greeks φνγάς meant both fugitive and banished. Ye are “fugitives of Ephraim,” taunted the Ephraimites, and would set yourselves up as an independent principality. In so saying, Ephraim arrogantly put itself in the place of the House of Joseph, to which Gilead also belonged, since it was the son of Machir of Manasseh. “Gilead belongs in the midst of Ephraim and Manasseh.” This addition was intended to add point to what preceded. Gilead is nothing by itself, has no tribal rights; it belongs to the House of Joseph. This was true, indeed; and Gilead’s descendants lived on both sides of the river (Num_26:30 ff.); but “fugitives” they were not. The half-tribe of Manasseh beyond the Jordan was as independent as any other tribe; and in the war against Ammon Gilead proper was doubtless joined by men of other tribes, especially Gad. It was therefore no wonder that the men of Gilead became greatly exasperated, and did not spare the Ephraimites even in their flight. Jephthah only defeated them; but the multitude slew them like enemies, and gave no quarter. Thus, sin and contumely beget passion and cruelty. The discord of brethren inflicts the deepest wounds. Nowhere does hatred rise higher, than where concord is natural.
Jdg_12:6. Then said they to him, Say Shibboleth. Ephraim meets with remarkable experiences at the fords of the Jordan. In Gideon’s time, it gained easy victory there over the Midianites whom that hero chased into their hands; now it is itself chased thither and there put to death. In the outset, its men had taunted Gilead with the term “fugitives of Ephraim,” and now they are themselves in very truth פְּלִיטֵי אֶפְרַיִם. Before they prided themselves upon their tribe name Ephraim, which they haughtily used for the whole House of Joseph; and now, when an Ephraimite came to the stream, he is fain to deny his tribe in order to save his life. The enraged men of Gilead will not suffer one Ephraimite to cross the river; hence the requisition of every one who wished to pass over, to say Shibboleth, which no Ephraimite could do, for he could only say Sibboleth. What “Shibboleth” meant, is of minor importance; but as its enunciation was required at the river, and in order to pass it, it may be assumed that the Gileadites thought rather of the signification “stream” than “ear,” both of which the word has. Every Ephraimite in this extremity had the feeling afterwards depicted in the Psalm (Psa_69:3 [Psa_69:2]): “I am come into depths of waters, and the stream overflows me,” וְשִׁבֹּלֶת שְׁטָפתְני.—When, during the Flemish war, the insurrection against the French broke out, May 25, 1302, the gates were guarded, and no one was suffered to pass out, except such as were able to say, “Scilt ende friend,” which words no Frenchman could pronounce. (Mensel, Gesch. von Frankr. ii. 134; Schmidt, Gesch. von Frankr. i. 682).
And there fell at that time of the Ephraimites forty and two thousand. The number 42 (7 times 6) appears to be not far removed from a round number; but its occurrence is associated with severe and well-merited judgments on sin. As here 42,000 sinful Ephraimites fall, so 42 of the mockers of the prophet Elijah are killed by bears (2Ki_2:24); and when the judgment of God breaks forth over the house of Ahab, 42 brethren of Ahaziah are put to death by Jehu (2Ki_10:14).
Jdg_12:7. And he was buried in one of the cities of Gilead. Herein the mournful lot of Jephthah, resulting from the surrender of his daughter, shows itself. He had no heir, as he had had no inheritance. He was the first and the last in his house. The greatness of his deeds is proved by the fact that they were nevertheless remembered; for in what city he was buried was not known, just as to us Mizpah, the place where he had his home, is also unknown, and as the place of his birth is not mentioned, it is not known what his father’s name was; it is not known whore his own grave is. “Gilead” begat him, and Gilead received his corpse. He shares no father’s tomb, and no son shares his. He was a great hero who lived and died solitary; only faith in God was with him. Six years he ruled; when they were finished, his rest from labor and sorrow began. His name did not return; Gilead’s power rose not again: but he was not forgotten in Israel. His sorrow and victory are typical—so the older expositors suggest—of Him who said: “Not my will, but thine, be done!”
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Jephthah’s vocation was extraordinary, and equally extraordinary was his fate. He gave up everything to God for his people; and yet at last the envy of his countrymen pursues him. They threaten to burn his house, which for their sake he has made desolate. He makes no boast of this, however; yet exercises discipline with a strong hand. Six years he judged, and in the seventh rested from an office that had brought him so much grief.
1. Prior to success friends are few; but afterwards all wish to share in it. While there is danger, he who takes the lead is called valorous; after the victory, usurper. Sin regards not the offerings which the warrior brings, but only the results which he has obtained. The evil will not assist in sowing; but yet would fain participate in the harvest.
2. Life offers nothing to such as serve not God, even though one rise as high as Jephthah. If Jephthah had not rebuilt the altar of Jehovah in Israel, he had been happier in the desert and the silence of seclusion. The charm of life must be sought in the gospel. Life is short; and though prolonged, full of trouble. Every religion builds its altar for eternity. For Him who has wrought six days for his Saviour, and confessed Him, there opens on the seventh the Sabbath of eternity.
Starke: The godly are never long without a cross: they are tried at home and abroad; without is fighting, within is fear (2Co_7:5).—Sailer: The gospel without suffering belongs to heaven; suffering without the gospel, to hell; the gospel with suffering, to earth.
[Henry: It is an ill thing to fasten names or characters of reproach on persons or countries, as is common, especially on those who lie under outward disadvantages; it often occasions quarrels of ill consequences, as here. See likewise what a mischievous thing an abusive tongue is.—Wordsworth: Here we see a specimen of that evil spirit of envy and pride which has shown itself in the Church of God. They who are in high place in the Church, like Ephraim, sometimes stand aloof in the time of danger. And when others of lower estate have stepped into the gap, and have stood in the breach, and braved the danger, and have fought the battle and gained the victory, as Jephthah the Gileadite did (the man of Gilead, which was not a tribe of Israel), then they are angry and jealous, and insult them with proud words, and even proscribe and taunt them with being runaways and deserters, and yet daring to claim a place among the tribes of Israel. Has not this haughty and bitter language of scorn and disdain been the language of some in the greatest western church of Christendom against the churches of the reformation? Has it not sometimes been the language of some in the Church of England towards separatists from herself? Schism doubt less is a sin; but it is sometimes caused by the enforcement of anti-scriptural terms of communion, as it is by the Church of Rome; and the sin of the schism is hers. It is often occasioned (though not justified) by spiritual languor and lethargy in the Church of God. Zeal for God and for the truth is good wherever it be found. Let the churches of Christ stand forth in the hour of danger and fight boldly the good fight against the Ammonites of error and unbelief. Then the irregular guerrilla warfare of separatist2 Jephthahs and their Gileadites will be unnecessary, and they will fight side by side under the banner of Ephraim.—The same: The Gileadites did not slay the Ephraimites because they did not agree with them in pronunciation, but because they were Ephraimites, which was discovered by their different pronunciation. The strifes in the Church of God lie deeper than differences of expression in ritual observances or formularies of faith. They lie in the heart, which is depraved by the evil passions of envy, hatred, and malice; and slight differences in externals are often the occasions for eliciting the deep rooted prejudices of depraved will, and the malignant feelings of unsanctified hearts. Let the heart be purified by the Holy Spirit of peace, and the lips will move in harmony and love.—The same: That river which in the days of Joshua had been divided by God’s power and mercy, in order that all the tribes might pass over together into Canaan, the type of heaven, is now made the scene of carnage between Gilead and Ephraim. In the Church of God, the scenes of God’s dearest love have often been made, the scenes of men’s bitterest hate. The waters of baptism, the living waters of the Holy Scriptures, and of the holy sacrament of the Lord’s Supper—these “passages of our Jordan”—the records and pledges of God’s love to the Israel of God, have been made the scenes of the bitterest controversies, and of blood shed of brethren, by those who bear the name of Christ. The holy sepulchre itself has been made an aceldama.—Tr.].
Footnotes:
[1][Jdg_12:6.—“Could not,” is too strong. Keil: “חֵכִין, stands elliptically for הֵכִין לֵב, to apply the mind, to give heed. Cf. 1Sa_23:22; 1Ch_28:2, with 2Ch_12:14; 2Ch_30:19.”—Tr.]
[2][Dr. Wordsworth looks on Jephthah as “one who does mighty deeds in an irregular manner, at a time when those persons who are placed in authority by God, and who ought to employ God’s appointed means in a regular way, are faithless to their trust, and neglect their duty to God and his Church. His work may be compared to that of the Wesleys and Whitefields,” etc. see on Jdg_11:1. The definition of “irregularity” here given, applies to all the Judges. In a certain sense, they were all irregular; but that Jephthah was so in any special sense is abundantly refuted by Dr. Cassel’s exposition.—Tr.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown1871 · Public DomainOn vv2–3when I called you, ye delivered me not out…
when I called you, ye delivered me not out of their hands--The straightforward answer of Jephthah shows that their charge was false; their complaint of not being treated as confederates and allies entirely without foundation; and their boast of a ready contribution of their services came with an ill grace from people who had purposely delayed appearing till the crisis was past.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon1874 · Public DomainOn vv1–2EPHRAIM’S JEALOUSY AND DEFEAT, Jdg_12:1-6.
EPHRAIM’S JEALOUSY AND DEFEAT, Jdg_12:1-6.
Ephraim’s ambition and jealousy towards other tribes had burst out once before, in the days of Gideon, (Jdg_8:1-3,) but the soft answer of that heroic judge prevented then a rupture between the men of that tribe and the divinely chosen judge. But in Jephthah the men of Ephraim find a man of different mettle, and a character less placable than Gideon. His stern and resolute spirit smites the head of Ephraim’s jealousy, and thus for a long time silences that factious element in Israel. At a later period, however, Ephraim’s irrepressible pride and ambition broke out again, and led to the secession of the ten tribes and the Assyrian exile.
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1. The men of Ephraim — The warriors of that tribe.
Gathered themselves together — Were summoned by their leaders to muster for battle. The warriors gathered from this single tribe were more than forty-two thousand. Jdg_12:6. They meant to make a great demonstration in Israel, and show Jephthah and the eastern tribes how powerful they were. It was passionate ambition and jealousy taking up arms for self-gratification.
Went northward — So the ancient versions; but the better rendering is, went over to Zaphon. Zaphon was a city in the tribe of Gad. See at Jos_13:27.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges1878 · Public DomainOn vv1–31. northward] The wrong direction; so follow marg. to…
1. northward] The wrong direction; so follow marg. to Zaphon, a place on the E. of Jordan near Succoth, Jos_13:27, and not far from the river; Jos., Ant. xiii. 12, 5 (Asophon).
and didst not call us] Untrue, see Jdg_12:2. The western Ephraimites had no concern of their own with an Ammonite invasion on the E. of Jordan; their alleged grievance was a piece of pretension. For the threat cf. Jdg_9:49; Jdg_9:52, Jdg_14:15, Jdg_15:6.
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Ch. Jdg_12:1-7. Jephthah’s conflict with the men of Ephraim
A sequel of the Ammonite war. Jephthah had returned to his house (Jdg_11:34), two months at least had passed (Jdg_11:39), the Gileadite forces had dispersed (implied by Jdg_12:4), when the arrogant and jealous temper of the Ephraimites broke out, as formerly after Gideon’s victory (Jdg_8:1-3), but this time without a shadow of pretext. The narrative Jdg_11:1-6 has been regarded as a mere replica of Jdg_8:1-3, which it certainly resembles; but the situation here is different, and the marked originality of the incident in Jdg_11:5-6 forbids us to question the historical character of the present section.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers1878 · Public DomainOn vv1–3(1) Gathered themselves together.—Literally, were called. Hence the Vulg.…
(1) Gathered themselves together.—Literally, were called. Hence the Vulg. renders it “a sedition arose in Ephraim.” No doubt the phrase arose from the circulation of some warlike summons—whether watchword or token—among the tribe (Jdg_7:23-24; Jdg_10:17).
Northward.—Mizpeh in Gilead lay to the northeast of the tribe of Ephraim. The Hebrew word is Tsaphonah, rendered Sephenia in some MSS. of the LXX. (Cod. A., Kephenia). Hence some suppose that it means “towards Tsaphon,” a town in the Jordan valley not far from Succoth, which the Jews identified with Amathus (Jos_13:27).
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And didst not call us.—The tribe of Ephraim throughout the Book of Judges is represented in a most unenviable light—slothful and acquiescent in time of oppression, and turbulently arrogant when others have taken the initiative and won the victory (Jos_17:14-18; Jdg_8:1). They brought on their own heads the terrible disgrace and humiliation which Jephthah inflicted on them. They resembled Sparta in dilatoriness, and perhaps in courage; but when Athens had won Marathon, Sparta had at least the generosity to congratulate her (Herod. v. 20).
We will burn thine house upon thee with fire—i.e., we will burn thee alive in thy house. They regarded it as an unpardonable offence that Jephthah should have delivered Israel without recognising their hegemony (see Jdg_8:1). The horrible threat shows the wild manners of the times (Jdg_14:15; Jdg_15:6; Jdg_20:48); and if a whole tribe could be guilty of such conduct, it shows how little cause we have for surprise at the much less heinous aberrations of individual men like Gideon and Jephthah and Samson.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary1880 · Public DomainOn vv1–2Northward, or, otherwise rendered, to Zaphon, a city of…
Northward, or, otherwise rendered, to Zaphon, a city of the Gadites mentioned in Jos_13:27 together with Succoth, and thought to be the modern, Amateh on the Wady. It is difficult to say with certainty which rendering is right, but on the whole the latter seems most probable. Although Gilead does lie north-east of Ephraim, it hardly seems a natural description of the Ephraimite movement to say they "went northwards;" whereas if they marched to Zaphon the phrase would be precise. The previous phrase, gathered themselves together, means mustered for battle, as in Jud_1:7:23, 24. We will burn thine house, etc. the same savage threat as the Philistine youths made use of to induce Samson"s wife to discover and reveal his riddle, (Jud_1:14:15) and as the Philistines actually put in practice upon her and her father in revenge for the destruction of their corn. (Jud_1:15:6) Passedst thou over, as in Jud_1:11:29, 32 12:3.
Vers. 1-7. The envy of the small great at the great deeds of the small.
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The detection of faults of character is useful to those who wish to correct and perfect their own, and for this reason the observation of the tendency of particular positions to produce particular faults is very valuable. The particular vice of the human mind which the shameful and unpatriotic arrogance of the Ephraimites towards the deliverer of their country brings to light, is the tendency on the part of those in high places to resent and envy the great deeds and successes of those whom they look upon as very inferior to themselves. Ephraim was the largest and most powerful of the tribes of Israel. The great leader, Joshua, was of that tribe, and they seem to have thought that they had a hereditary primacy among the tribes. We have already seen this spirit breaking out fiercely in their strife with Gideon, (Jud 8:1-3) and now again in their hostile attack upon Jephthah. Nay, even in Joshua"s time something of the same arrogance drew down upon them the rebuke of their great captain. (Jos_17:14-16) They seen, to have thought that, being the chief tribe, they were entitled to be considered first in everything; that their advice was always to be sought, their wishes always to be consulted; and that the maintenance of their dignity ought to be the first consideration of all the other tribes. And yet we do not find them maintaining their claims by pre-eminent zeal for the public service, by a spirit of self-sacrifice for the public good, nor by furnishing the most eminent men to take the lead in civil or military affairs. They were not the first to risk life and limb against the Midianite hosts; they were not the first to repel the invasion of the children of Ammon. Their own dignity, and not their country"s good, was their chief concern. Hence, when an unknown Gideon, of one of the inferior houses of Manasseh, or a half-caste Jephthah on the other side Jordan, rose to the first rank as saviours of their country, the envy of Ephraim burst out into a flame. What business had such as they to do great things? It was an invasion of the prerogative of the "great people." It was presumption; it was a slight put upon Ephraim. No punishment was too bad for such insolence. "We will burn thine house upon thee with fire." This history then illustrates the pride of caste. It shows us men, having a great opinion of themselves, not influenced by that good opinion to do as much as possible for others, but only to exact as much as possible for themselves. It shows us how an overweening estimate of themselves induces men to envy others, whom they think inferior, if they distinguish themselves, and rise superior to them in public estimation. It was very much the same spirit which showed itself in the Pharisees when our Lord"s fame as a teacher drew such multitudes to hear him. They thought they had the monopoly of teaching, that no doctrine which did not emanate from their schools ought to be listened to, that knowledge could proceed from no mouth but that of a Rabbi. And so when the carpenter"s Son opened his mouth and poured forth Iris lessons of exquisite wisdom and power, and enchained the attention of the multitudes, and was acknowledged as a prophet, their envy was excited. Instead of rejoicing that God had sent them a teacher mighty in word and deed, they only plotted how they might silence the eloquent tongue. Instead of sitting at his feet and learning at his mouth the true will of God and the way of life, they were only roused to hatred, and persuaded the multitude to say, Let him be crucified. The same spirit is common in our own days in every profession. The small great envy the great deeds of the small. But God"s gifts are not confined to any caste or class; and they only are truly great who rejoice in great qualities wherever they are found, and view without envy the career of those who outstrip them in the race of doing good and advancing the glory of God.
HOMILIES BY A.F. MUIR Vers. 1-3. Ingratitude the frequent reward of benefactors.
The triumph of Jephthah is marred by another incident. Ephraim, most powerful tribe west of the Jordan, confronts him in hostile array. His experience must have been bitter and hard to comprehend. But he is not alone in the results which his good deeds brought upon him. Benefactors in every age have met with a like reception.
I THEIR GOOD DEEDS ARE THEMSELVES AN OFFENCE. This has its root and ground in the incapacity of the natural mind to perceive and appreciate spiritual motives; but it seldom takes the form of direct, simple objection to the good deed. Other forms of excuse for opposition are easily discovered.
1. The spirit in which they are wrought is misunderstood or misinterpreted. The key to our judgments of others is in ourselves. If then we are evil, our judgments will be perverted. All through the history of God"s Church this influence is apparent, from the old ill-natured query, Job serve God for nought?" to the culminating wickedness described in the gospel: "The light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not .... He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not". (Joh_1:5, Joh_1:10, Joh_1:11) "To the pure, all things are pure," and vice versa.
2. They present an unwelcome contrast to the conduct of others. Every good deed is as a light which brings to view things of like kind, and inspires similar behaviour; but also reveals the hideousness and hatefulness of the ordinary life of man. This is an offence against the amour propre of the sinner, and therefore unpardonable; it is also an exposure of hypocrisy, and sadly inconvenient. It makes the heart of good men ache to see this, and to cry, "When will goodness not be the exception, but the rule?
3. The honor they acquire for their authors is coveted. To minds not actuated by the spirit of goodness, the only thing that can be desired in good works is the outward fame and advantage they bring. The exclusion from this is keenly resented. Hundreds are eager to share the crown of the righteous who are far from breathing his spirit or emulating his example.
II HOW HARD IS IT FOR EVEN GOOD MEN TO UNDERSTAND THIS! Jephthah argues his case, and asks, "Wherefore are ye come up unto me this day, to fight against me?" The law of Moses promised temporal advantages to those who fulfilled it. Occasionally these were not enjoyed, and there was a consequent perplexity. But we are not to suppose that this wonder and mental trouble were confined to that dispensation; they are deeply human characteristics. Our Saviour himself experienced them when he asked, "Many good works have I showed you from my Father; for which of those works do ye stone me?; (Joh_10:32) and again, Are ye come out as against a thief with swords and staves for to take me? I sat daily with you teaching in the temple, and ye laid no hold on me". (Mat_26:55) The key to this mystery is furnished by the beatitude of the persecuted for righteousness" sake, (Mat_5:11, Mat_5:12) and realised in the spirit of Christ"s sacrifice. M.
Vers. 1-6. "Vaulting ambition," which "o"erleaps itself.
This was not the first time of such offence on the part of Ephraim. Gideon had to bear with their unreasonableness, and was gracious enough to permit their co-operation in securing the results of his victory. But now the "cup of their iniquity is full." Not for Ammon"s destruction alone is Jephthah raised up; he has a punishment to mete out to Ephraim. They knew it not, but this pride of theirs was on the verge of its fall. They presumed on former exemption from evil consequences, and blindly rushed upon their chastisement. We see here
I PRIDE IN ITS DEVELOPMENT AND CAREER. Past kindness and consideration only hardened and strengthened it. Past achievements and the prestige acquired through them are relied upon instead of present obedience to God, etc. Ephraim cared more for its own position and advantage than to serve the commonwealth. By its inaction in the past and its hostile attitude to Jephthah on the present occasion it plays the traitor. It despised its brethren, and refused to recognise the leader God had chosen, and now it threatened to overthrow the advantage acquired by the Ammonite victory. It became a public nuisance and a political danger.
II PRIDE IN ITS DIVINE CHASTISEMENT, In the various details of its punishment it is hard to repress a certain measure of sympathy for it. There is something always in the humiliation of a proud nature that commands our sympathy. And yet it was necessary and right that Ephraim should be taught a terrible lesson.
1. That very tribe, membership with which had been their boast, they would now fain deny.
2. The taunt of being fugitives," which they had used against the Gileadites, is now turned against themselves.
3. The martial strength upon which they had relied is now effectually and suddenly reduced. So will it be with all who set themselves against Christ and his kingdom. "Upon whomsoever this stone shall fall, it will grind him to powder." If God is against us, or, what is the same thing, we are against God, we may expect patient forbearance, and at first gentle chidings; but, if we persist, a terrible retribution. Sin is pride; it refuses to bow to God"s will, or to accept the methods of his salvation. M.
HOMILIES BY W.F. ADENEY Ver. 1. Jealousy.
The men of Ephraim are angry with Jephthah because lie has repulsed the Ammonites without their aid.
I GREAT MEN ARE COMMONLY ASSAILED BY THE JEALOUSY OF THEIR RIVALS.
1. This is no proof of any failing on the part of those who are thus attacked. While some of the noblest of men have brought trouble upon their own heads through want of consideration for the petty weaknesses of their inferiors, the best and most conciliatory of men have not been able to avoid the envy and misjudgment of meaner natures. It is impossible to please all classes in doing a work of any magnitude and value. They are not always the worthiest men who have the fewest enemies. Christ had more foes than friends.
2. This is no proof of the claims of the rivals of great men. People who cannot improve a work can criticise it.
II THEY WHO ARE BACKWARD IN ENCOUNTERING THE DANGER OF BATTLE ARE EAGER IN COVETING THE HONOUR OF VICTORY. There is no reason to believe that the men of Ephraim showed any willingness to join with Jephthah till after his great success. Weak and selfish people who will not enter into any enterprise until they see it has succeeded are plentiful enough, but they are worthless. The true men are they who will advocate the right cause when it is at a low ebb, when it is unpopular, when it seems doomed to failure, when the service of it involves risk and loss.
III THE TASK FROM WHICH MEN SHRINK BEFOREHAND LOOKS EASY AFTER IT HAS BEEN SUCCESSFULLY PERFORMED. Now that Jephthah has defeated the Ammonites, the men of Ephraim think his work was only a safe road to honour in which they would gladly have accompanied him. When we see the master of some art working with deft skill and unerring accuracy, nothing looks more easy than to do as he does. His very triumph destroys the appearance of the difficulties which lie in its way. Thus the honours of the artist and the orator, and, in religious matters, of the martyr and the missionary, inspire jealousy in men who think they are cheaply won just on account of that very excellency which conceals the necessary sacrifice, suffering, or toil by the perfect conquest of it.
IV SELFISH PEOPLE ARE MORE CONCERNED ABOUT THEIR OWN SHARE IN THE HONOUR OF A GREAT ENTERPRISE THAN ABOUT THE SUCCESS OF IT. The men of Ephraim do nothing to encourage Jephthah; they are only anxious to share his honour. We see in public life personal ambition overcoming public spirit, in Christian work the honour of the agent exalted above the success of the work. But the patriot should be supremely anxious for the welfare of his country, no matter by whom this is secured, and the Christian should be simply desirous of the triumph of Christ and the extension of Christianity, though he may not share the honours of victory. The jealousy which would hinder the good work of others because we have no share in it is treason to Christ. It is unworthy for the Christian to covet or to hold a post which he knows another will occupy better than himself A.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator1887 · Public DomainOn v1Wherefore passedst thou over to fight against the children…
Jdg_12:1-3
Wherefore passedst thou over to fight against the children of Ammon, and didst not call us to go with thee?
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Shams and frauds
Though these Ephraimites are long since dead and gone, there are many Ephraimites alive. They are men who will not share the conflict themselves, but are angry when others succeed.
I. There are people still who think nothing can be done without them. We find these people everywhere--not a few of them at home. Ask that busy, bustling housewife to take her children out into the country for a day; or ask her to attend church on a Sunday morning; or ask her to give a few hours to visiting among the sick and the poor and the sorrowful, what will she say? How can I leave my house? Who will attend to my affairs? If I were out of that house a few days it would all go to ruin. That woman has grown daughters who could and would gladly see to things if she would only let them. But she goes on in her foolish whim that nothing can be done without her. And I verily believe that not a few would rather have nothing done at all if they could not do it. In business, too, the same thing occurs. There are men who are slaves to their business. Neither their sons nor their confidential men, who would suffer any loss rather than neglect the governors interest, can be trusted. They must see to it, or it wont be done. Some day God puts such a man on his back. He is away six months with a serious illness. His sons, who have not been thought capable hitherto, have responsibility thrown upon them, and rise to the position. The man is humbled, shamed, or it may be, delighted to find that the business has done better with the infusion of the new blood than it did with the old. The Church of Christ, unfortunately, is afflicted with a large number of men who think nothing can be done without them. There are men who would rather the battle should be lost than others win it--who would almost wish that evil should remain rather than others have the honour of removing it. But what does it matter who gains the victory if it be gained? God can accomplish His purposes without any of us. Look over the pages of history, and you will find that workers fall, but the work goes on.
II. There are some who, though they cant stop the work, try to prejudice the workers. The men of the text said in effect, And who are you? You are fugitives, mongrels, not of pure blood. What business have the likes of you to think you can fight the foes of Israel? It is monstrous, and we wont have it. The same thing goes on to-day. There are men who seem to think they have said something clever and settling when they say that the popular useful man was not born in a palace. Whos he? is their cry. Why, dont you know that he was a collier, and worked in a coal pit? His father died in a cottage. His mother was the daughter of a man who drove a horse and cart, and never had five pounds in his life. And what of that? Is it not honest to get coal? Better be a collier and dig coal in the service of man, and thus the service of God, than be a loafer, an idler, a consumer, a drone. Some of the noblest of Gods servants have come from among the poor, and the obscure, and the unknown. Our Lord Himself was a toiler, and the Son of toilers, and has for ever consecrated and blessed all honest necessary human labour. So I say to you all, toil on, pray on, fight on, win victories for God. Beat back the enemies of Israel; and if the Ephraimites, lacking courage and genius themselves, despise you, let them.
III. There are some who cant or wont do much themselves, but hate, and scorn, and try to persecute those who do. We will burn thine house upon thee. Alas! This has often found expression in the bitterness of party strife and religious bigotry. Unable to silence men whose lips God had touched as with live coals from His own altar, and whose hearts had felt the power of the living God, they have erected their stakes, piled their faggots, and lit their fires, in which the saints of God, the excellent of the earth, have stood till their flesh was shrivelled and their bones cindered. We will burn thine house upon thee with fire, said these men; but they found themselves unable to do it. Some men are hard to kill, and some houses bad to burn. Many a tyrant has found this out. We will burn thine house upon thee. It does not seem to have occurred to these cowardly Ephraimites that men who burn other peoples houses sometimes burn themselves. It is dangerous to play with edged tools. It is not safe to toy with fire. It may become the instrument of your own torture, the weapon of your own destruction. They that take the sword shall perish with the sword, said Jesus Christ; and there is for us no higher authority. Some men who are fond of using fire do no harm except to themselves. Whilst it is in some sense only right and just that this should be so, there are cases in which we are sorry for the opposers. Well had it been for these Ephraimites had they shared in the universal rejoicing. Well had it been for them if they had learned wisdom, and ceased from opposition. Their wicked and senseless opposition brought ruin upon themselves. In sheer self-defence the victor turned the sword upon them. Alas for them! Forty and two thousand of them that day left their dead bodies upon the plains as victims of their folly, and in illustration of our saying that the wicked often injure themselves. And this is true with the Lord Jesus and His gospel. Some men oppose it, reject it, mutilate it, burn it. All such injure themselves. They can never hurt the truth. It will live. They cannot stop the power of Jesus Christ to save men. The waves of the ocean dash against the granite rock, but the rock does not move. But what of the waves? Broken, they roll back in spray to the ocean out of which they came. Whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder. (C. Leach, D. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible1887 · Public DomainOn v1WHILE Jephthah and his Gileadites were engaged in the…
SHIBBOLETHS
Jdg_12:1-7
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WHILE Jephthah and his Gileadites were engaged in the struggle with Ammon jealous watch was kept over all their movements by the men of Ephraim. As the head tribe of the house of Joseph occupying the centre of Palestine Ephraim was suspicious of all attempts and still more of every success that threatened its pride and preeminence. We have seen Gideon in the hour of his victory challenged by this watchful tribe, and now a quarrel is made with Jephthah who has dared to win a battle without its help. What were the Gileadites that they should presume to elect a chief and form an army? Fugitives from Ephraim who had gathered in the shaggy forests of Bashan and among the cliffs of the Argob, mere adventurers in fact, what right had they to set up as the protectors of Israel? The Ephraimites found the position intolerable. The vigour and confidence of Gilead were insulting. If a check were not put on the energy of the new leader might he not cross the Jordan and establish a tyranny over the whole land? There was a call to arms, and a large force was soon marching against Jephthahs camp to demand satisfaction and submission.
The pretext that Jepthah had fought against Ammon without asking the Ephraimites to join him was shallow enough. The invitation appears to have been given; and even without an invitation Ephraim might well have taken the field.
But the savage threat, "We will burn thine house upon thee with fire," showed the temper of the leaders in this expedition. The menace was so violent that the Gileadites were roused at once and, fresh from their victory over Ammon, they were not long in humbling the pride of the great western clan.
One may well ask, Where is Ephraims fear of God? Why has there been no consultation of the priests at Shiloh by the tribe under whose care the sanctuary is placed? The great Jewish commentary affirms that the priests were to blame, and we cannot but agree. If religious influences and arguments were not used to prevent the expedition against Gilead they should have been used. The servants of the oracle might have understood the duty of the tribes to each other and of the whole nation to God and done their utmost to avert civil war. Unhappily, however, professed interpreters of the divine will are too often forward in urging the claims of a tribe or favouring the arrogance of a class by which their own position is upheld. As on the former occasion when Ephraim interfered, so in this we scarcely go beyond what is probable in supposing that the priests declared it to be the duty of faithful Israelites to check the career of the eastern chief and so. prevent his rude and ignorant religion from gaining dangerous popularity. Bishop Wordsworth has seen a fanciful resemblance between Jephthahs campaign against Ammon and the revival under the Wesleys and Whitefield which as a movement against ungodliness put to shame the sloth of the Church of England. He has remarked on the scorn and disdain-and he might have used stronger terms-with which the established clergy assailed those who apart from them were successfully doing the work of God. This was an example of far more flagrant tribal jealousy than that of Ephraim and her priests; and have there not been cases of religious leaders urging retaliation upon enemies or calling for war in order to punish what was absurdly deemed an outrage on national honour? With facts of this kind in view we can easily believe that from Shiloh no word of peace, but on the other hand words of encouragement were heard when the chiefs of Ephraim began to hold councils of war and to gather their men for the expedition that was to make an end of Jephthah.
Let it be allowed that Ephraim, a strong tribe, the guardian of the ark of Jehovah, much better instructed than the Gileadites in the divine law, had a right to maintain its place. But the security of high position lies in high purpose and noble service; and an Ephraim ambitious of leading should have been forward on every occasion when the other tribes were in confusion and trouble. When a political party or a church claims to be first in regard for righteousness and national well being it should not think of its own credit or continuance in power but of its duty in the war against injustice and ungodliness. The favour of the great, the admiration of the multitude, should be nothing to either church or party. To rail at those who are more generous, more patriotic, more eager in the service of truth, to profess a fear of some ulterior design against the constitution or the faith, to turn all the force of influence and eloquence and even of slander and menace against the disliked neighbour instead of the real enemy, this is the nadir of baseness. There are Ephraims still, strong tribes in the land, that are too much exercised in putting down claims, too little in finding principles of unity and forms of practical brotherhood. We see in this bit of history an example of the humiliation that sooner or later falls on the jealous and the arrogant; and every age is adding instances of a like kind.
Civil war, at all times lamentable, appears peculiarly so when the cause of it lies in haughtiness and distrust. We have found however that, beneath the surface, there may have been elements of division and ill will serious enough to require this painful remedy. The campaign may have prevented a lasting rupture between the eastern and western tribes, a separation of the stream of Israels religion and nationality into rival currents. It may also have arrested a tendency to ecclesiastical narrowness, which at this early stage would have done immense harm. It is quite true that Gilead was rude and uninstructed, as Galilee had the reputation of being in the time of our Lord. But the leading tribes or classes of a nation are not entitled to overbear the less enlightened, nor by attempts at tyranny to drive them into separation. Jephthahs victory had the effect of making Ephraim and the other western tribes understand that Gilead had to be reckoned with, whether for weal or woe, as an integral and important part of the body politic. In Scottish history, the despotic attempt to thrust Episcopacy on the nation was the cause of a distressing civil war; a people who would not fall in with the forms of religion that were in favour at headquarters had to fight for liberty. Despised or esteemed they resolved to keep and use their rights, and the religion of the world owes a debt to the Covenanters. Then in our own times, lament as we may the varied forms of antagonism to settled faith and government, that enmity of which communism and anarchism are the delirium, it would be simply disastrous to suppress it by sheer force even if the thing were possible. Surely those who are certain they have right on their side need not be arrogant. The overbearing temper is always a sign of hollow principle as well as of moral infirmity. Was any Gilead ever put down by a mere assertion of superiority, even on the field of battle? Let the truth be acknowledged that only in freedom lies the hope of progress in intelligence, in constitutional order and purity of faith. The great problems of national life and development can never be settled as Ephraim tried to settle the movement beyond Jordan. The idea of life expands and room must be left for its enlargement. The many lines of thought, of personal activity, of religious and social experiment leading to better ways or else proving by and by that the old are best-all these must have place in a free state. The threats of revolution that trouble nations would die away if this were clearly understood; and we read history in vain if we think that the old autocracies or aristocracies will ever approve themselves again, unless indeed they take far wiser and more Christian forms than they had in past ages. The thought of individual liberty once firmly rooted in the minds of men, there is no going back to the restraints that were possible before it was familiar. Government finds another basis and other duties. A new kind of order arises which attempts no suppression of any idea or sincere belief and allows all possible room for experiments in living. Unquestionably this altered condition of things increases the weight of moral responsibility. In ordering our own lives as well as in regulating custom and law we need to exercise the most serious care, the most earnest thought. Life is not easier because it has greater breadth and freedom. Each is thrown back more upon conscience, has more to do for his fellow men and for God.
We pass now to the end of the campaign and the scene at the fords of Jordan, when the Gileadites, avenging themselves on Ephraim, used the notable expedient of asking a certain word to be pronounced in order to distinguish friend from foe. To begin with, the slaughter was quite unnecessary. If bloodshed there had to be, that on the field of battle was certainly enough. The wholesale murder of the "fugitives of Ephraim," so called with reference to their own taunt, was a passionate and barbarous deed. Those who began the strife could not complain; but it was the leaders of the tribe who rushed on war, and now the rank and file must suffer. Had Ephraim triumphed the defeated Gileadites would have found no quarter; victorious they gave none. We may trust, however, that the number forty-two thousand represents the total strength of the army that was dispersed and not those left dead on the field.
The expedient used at the fords turned on a defect or peculiarity of speech. Shibboleth perhaps meant stream. Of each man who came to the stream of Jordan wishing to pass to the other side it was required that he should say Shibboleth. The Ephraimites tried, but said Sibboleth instead, and so betraying their west-country birth they pronounced their own doom. The incident has become proverbial and the proverbial use of it is widely suggestive. First, however, we may note a more direct application.
Do we not at times observe how words used in common speech, phrases or turns of expression, betray a mans upbringing or character, his strain of thought and desire? It is not necessary to lay traps for men, to put it to them how they think on this point or that, in order to discover where they stand and what they are. Listen and you will hear sooner or later the Sibboleth that declares the son of Ephraim. In religious circles, for example, men are found who appear to be quite enthusiastic in the service of Christianity, eager for the success of the church, and yet on some occasion a word, an inflexion or turn of the voice will reveal to the attentive listener a constant worldliness of mind, a worship of self mingling with all they think and do. You notice that and you can prophesy what will come of it. In a few months, or even weeks, the show of interest will pass. There is not enough praise or deference to suit the egotist, he turns elsewhere to find the applause which he values above everything.
Again, there are words somewhat rude, somewhat coarse, which in carefully ordered speech a man may not use; but they fall from his lips in moments of unguarded freedom or excitement. The man does not speak "half in the language of Ashdod"; he particularly avoids it. Yet now and again a lapse into the Philistine dialect, a something muttered rather than spoken, betrays the secret of his nature. It would be harsh to condemn anyone as inherently bad on such evidence. The early habits, the sins of past years thus unveiled, may be those against which he is fighting and praying. Yet, on the other hand, the hypocrisy of a life may terribly show itself in these little things; and every one will allow that in choosing our companions and friends we ought to be keenly alive to the slightest indications of character. There are fords of Jordan to which we come unexpectedly, and without being censorious we are bound to observe those with whom we purpose to travel further.
Here, however, one of the most interesting and, for our time, most important points of application is to be found in the self-disclosure of writers-those who produce our newspapers, magazines, novels, and the like. Touching on religion and on morals certain of these writers contrive to keep on good terms with the kind of belief that is popular and pays. But now and again, despite efforts to the contrary, they come on the Shibboleth which they forget to pronounce aright. Some among them who really care nothing for Christianity, and have no belief whatever in revealed religion, would yet pass for interpreters of religion and guides of conduct. Christian morality and worship they barely endure; but they cautiously adjust every phrase and reference so as to drive away no reader and offend no devout critic; that is, they aim at doing so; now and again they forget themselves. We catch a word, a touch of flippancy, a suggestion of license, a covert sneer which goes too far by a hairsbreadth. The evil lies in this, that they are teaching multitudes to say Sibboleth along with them. What they say is so pleasant, so deftly said, with such an air of respect for moral authority that suspicion is averted, the very elect are for a time deceived. Indeed we are almost driven to think that Christians not a few are quite ready to accept the unbelieving Sibboleth from sufficiently distinguished lips. A little more of this lubricity and there will have to be a new and resolute sifting at the fords. The propaganda is villainously active, and without intelligent and vigorous opposition it will proceed to further audacity. It is not a few but scores of this sect who have the ear of the public and even in religious publications are allowed to convey hints of earthliness and atheism. A covert worship of Mammon and of Venus goes on in the temple professedly dedicated to Christ, and one cannot be sure that a seemingly pious work will not vend some doctrine of devils. It is time for a slaughter in Gods name of many a false reputation.
But there are Shibboleths of party, and we must be careful lest in trying others we use some catchword of our own Gilead by which to judge their religion or their virtue. The danger of the earnest, alike in religion, politics, and philanthropy, is to make their own favourite plans or doctrines the test of all worth and belief. Within our churches and in the ranks of social reformers distinctions are made where there should be none and old strifes are deepened. There are of course certain great principles of judgment. Christianity is founded on historical fact and revealed truth. "Every spirit which confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God." In such a saying lies a test which is no tribal Shibboleth. And on the same level are others by which we are constrained at all hazards to try ourselves and those who speak and write. Certain points of morality are vital and must be pressed. When a writer says, "In mediaeval times the recognition that every natural impulse in a healthy and mature being has a claim to gratification was a victory of unsophisticated nature over the asceticism of Christianity" - we use no Shibboleth test in condemning him. He is judged and foundwanting by principles on which the very existence of human society depends. It is in no spirit of bigotry, but in faithfulness to the essentials of life and the hope of mankind, that the sternest denunciation is hurled at such a man. In plain terms he is an enemy of the race.
Passing from cases like this, observe others in which a measure of dogmatism must be allowed to the ardent. Where there are no strong opinions strenuously held and expressed little impression will be made. The prophets in every age have spoken dogmatically; and vehemence of speech is not to be denied to the temperance reformer, the apostle of purity, the enemy of luxurious self-indulgence and cant. Moral indignation must express itself strongly; and in the dearth of moral conviction we can bear with those who would even drag us to the ford and make us utter their Shibboleth. They go too far, people say: perhaps they do; but there are so many who will not move at all except in the way of pleasure.
Now all this is clear. But we must return to the danger of making one aspect of morality the sole test of morals, one religious idea the sole test of religion and so framing a formula by which men separate themselves from their friends and pass narrow bitter judgments on their kinsfolk. Let sincere belief and strong feeling rise to the prophetic strain; let there be ardour, let there be dogmatism and vehemence. But beyond urgent words and strenuous example, beyond the effort to persuade and convert there lie arrogance and the usurpation of a judgment which belongs to God alone. In proportion as a Christian is living the life of Christ he will repel the claim of any other man, however devout, to force his opinion or his action. All attempts at terrorism betray a lack of spirituality. The Inquisition was in reality the world oppressing spiritual life. And so in less degree, with less truculence, the unspiritual element may show itself even in company with a fervent desire to serve the gospel. There need be no surprise that attempts to dictate to Christendom or any part of Christendom are warmly resented by those who know that religion and liberty cannot be separated. The true church of Christ has a firm grasp of what it believes and is aiming at, and by its resoluteness it bears on human society. It is also gracious and persuasive, reasonable and open, and so gathers men into a free and frank brotherhood, revealing to them the loftiest duty, leading them towards it in the way of liberty. Let men who understand this try each other and it will never be by limited and suspicious formulae.
Amidst pedants, critics, hot and bitter partisans, we see Christ moving in divine freedom. Fine is the subtlety of His thought in which the ideas of spiritual liberty and of duty blend to form one luminous strain. Fine are the clearness and simplicity of that daily life in which He becomes the way and the truth to men. It is the ideal life, beyond all mere rules, disclosing the law of the kingdom of heaven; it is free and powerful because upheld by the purpose that underlies all activity and development. Are we endeavouring to realise it? Scarcely at all: the bonds are multiplying, not falling away; no man is bold to claim his right, nor generous to give others their room. In this age of Christ we seem neither to behold nor desire His manhood. Shall this always be? Shall there not arise a race fit for liberty because obedient, ardent, true? Shall we not come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ?
For a little we must return to Jephthah, who after his great victory and his strange dark act of faith judged Israel but six years. He appears in striking contrast to other chiefs of his time, and even of far later times, in the purity of his home life, the more notable that his father set no example of good. Perhaps the legacy of dispeace and exile bequeathed to him with a tainted birth had taught the Gileadite, rude mountaineer as he was, the value of that order which his people too often despised. The silence of the history which is elsewhere careful to speak of wives and children sets Jephthah before us as a kind of puritan, with another and perhaps greater distinction than the desire to avoid war. The yearly lament for his daughter kept alive the memory not only of the heroine but of one judge in Israel who set a high example of family life. A sad and lonely man he went those few years of his rule in Gilead, but we may be sure that the character and will of the Holy One became more clear to him after he had passed the dreadful hill of sacrifice. The story is of the old world, terrible; yet we have found in Jephthah a sublime sincerity, and we may believe that such a man, though he never repented of his vow, would come to see that the God of Israel demanded another and a nobler sacrifice, that of life devoted to His righteousness and truth.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary1892 · Public DomainOn v1CRITICAL NOTES.— Jdg_12:1. Gathered themselves together.] Not in a…
THE ARROGANT EPHRAIMITES AND JEPHTHAH—THE JUDGES WITHOUT FAME
(Jdg_12:1-15.)
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CRITICAL NOTES.— Jdg_12:1. Gathered themselves together.] Not in a disorderly or tumultuous manner as some would take it, but assembled in force, for the purpose of fighting if necessary (ch. Jdg_7:23-24; Jdg_10:17). Passed over (Jordan) northward, or it may mean to Zaphon, for such is the Hebrew word. Zaphon was a town in the tribe of Gad, mentioned along with Succoth.
Wherefore, etc., didst thou not call us to go with thee?] This was nothing but the old haughty and jealous spirit of the most ambitious of the tribes, which was constantly reappearing when the honours seemed to be going in the direction of others. We see it in Joshua’s days at the division of the land (Jos_17:14-18), we see it in the days of Gideon (Jdg_8:1-3), and we see it now. We will burn thine house on thee with fire.] Such was the depth of their hatred. This was not uncommon in that rough age (ch. Jdg_14:15; Jdg_15:6; Jos_7:25; Gen_38:24; Jos_8:8; Jos_8:19; Jud_1:8).
Jdg_12:2. When I called you, ye delivered me not, etc.] This is not told before, probably because they met the request with a point-blank refusal. They would refuse to fight under the leadership of a man like Jephthah, who had not the pure blood of an Israelite. Though God had acknowledged him, they would not. Also they felt that the danger was very serious, and so they kept within their own borders (Psa_78:9-11). Put my life in my hands] a phrase meaning, I risked my life, and you did not assist me (1Sa_19:5; Job_13:14; Psa_119:109). This was the wolf and the lamb policy on the part of the Ephraimites, but they found Jephthah a rough lamb to deal with. His language, however, is not defiant. He would willingly have taken their help, but when they did not give it. he sought the special help of his God, and that was not refused.
Jdg_12:3. Wherefore then are ye come up to fight against me?] Since God Himself has succoured me, why do you come to fight with me? Why not rather be grateful that the whole land is rid of the dark shadow of the oppressor? There was nothing here to give just cause of offence, and if the issue was tragic, compared with the parallel case of Gideon’s dealings with them, the circumstances were very different. Thus in Gideon’s days, the Ephraimites had really done much to gain the large success of the occasion, but here they had done nothing. Gideon had good reason to thank them for the share they had in the defeat of the common enemy; Jephthah had not a word to say of any good they had done, because they really had done nothing. Gideon, though called to task for overlooking these proud people, was not threatened with anything against his personal safety, but against Jephthah they came up in force, and vowing the direst vengeance. They would indeed not wait for any explanation. The attack began on their side.
Jdg_12:4. The men of Gilead smote Ephraim, etc.] It would seem as if the feeling of resentment in this case were cherished more by “the men of Gilead,” than by Jephthah himself. For what was done is put chiefly in their name, both in Jdg_12:4 and Jdg_12:5. Jephthah led them in self-defence but did not instigate them. The supercilious contempt with which the Ephraimites looked down upon the Gileadites, and their disdaining to acknowledge Jephthah’s leadership, notwithstanding his victorious closing of the war, was keenly felt by the Gileadites. It was a sting to their tribal character, and led to a spirit of bitter retaliation. They thirsted for an opportunity of taking revenge.
Ye are fugitives of Ephraim, etc.] This statement is not very clear as it stands; but the meaning seems to be—Ye are the scum of Ephraim, and counted as such both among the common Ephraimites and Manassites—a bad lot, who have no position as good citizens, but are nondescripts. The Gileadites, in fact, were not a tribe, but the descendants of a powerful family in Manasseh. But both Manasseh and Ephraim were the children of Joseph, and so there ought to have been a family kindred feeling. Instead of this, there was nothing but jealousy and desire for superiority on the side of Ephraim, because of the greater blessing which the patriarch Jacob bestowed on his younger grandson (Gen_48:17-19). Presuming on this advantageous position, which their ancestor left them in legacy, the men of Ephraim claimed to represent the whole of the children of Joseph, that is—Ephraim proper and all Manasseh, thus including the men of Gilead as well. They regarded themselves as the people of high caste, the Manassites as a sort of plebeians, and the Gileadites as nothing better than pariahs. In the collective mass of the children of Joseph, the Gileadites were regarded by these men of pride as menials or cads, because they were properly not a community at all, but only a “set of fugitives,” and yet they presumed to hold up their heads as if they were a tribe. Hence they were goaded on to be resentful.
Jdg_12:5. Took the passages of Jordan.] They lived on both sides of the river, though chiefly on the east side (see Num_26:29-30, etc.). They seemed to be better acquainted with the crossings than the Ephraimites; and they were in no mood to give quarter, for they were high-spirited, and could not bear the taunts that were flung at them.
Jdg_12:6. Say now Shibboleth, etc.] How greatly is the pride of the Ephraimites humbled, that now they are glad to renounce the tribal connection, and to say they are not Ephraimites, to save their lives! This too was said to Gileadites! But the dissemblers were discovered. “The wicked is snared by the transgression of his lips.” The sound of sh seems to have been common among the dialects spoken to the east of Jordan, but it had not yet got a place in the spoken language of the Ephraimite. By his inability to pronounce this sound an Ephraimite was easily discovered. In the day of reckoning, what a variety of witnesses can God bring against a guilty man! They lie on all sides. Every stone, every straw, the very winds of heaven, or the clods of the dust (Job_20:27; Job_18:8-10).
In different communities among the same people, nothing is more common than to hear different dialects spoken. The guttural sound of the letters ch as known and pronounced in Scotland is impossible of pronunciation by an Englishman, as in the words Ecclefechan or Auchtermuchty. Again, the letter r, as in river cannot be pronounced by a native of Northumberland. The sound of th cannot be given by many foreigners, though quite easy of utterance to the English-speaking race. Many German Jews pronounce the Hebrew word Beth as Baiss, and Bereshith they pronounce as Beresiss or Bereshiss. Peter, as a Galilean, often brought in his broad inelegant phrases which grated on refined ears, so that bystanders knew him to be a Galilean from his tongue. “Thy speech bewrayeth thee” (Mar_14:70). So is the Arabic tongue different as spoken in Aleppo, in Cairo, and in Bagdad. The word Shibboleth itself means “a stream,” or sometimes “ear.” But the sole reference here, is to the pronunciation of the first combination of letters in the word. When, during the Flemish war, the insurrection against the French broke out (1302), the gates were guarded, and no one was suffered to pass out except those who were able to say, “Scitt ende friend.” which words no Frenchmen could pronounce.—(Cassel.)
There fell of the Ephraimites forty and two thousand.] Certain numbers had a special significance among the Israelites. Forty-two mockers of the prophet Elisha were torn to pieces by the bears (2Ki_2:24); when God’s judgments descend on Ahab’s house, 42 brethren of Ahaziah are put to death by Jehu (2Ki_10:14).
Jdg_12:7. He was buried in one of the cities of Gilead.] God takes care of His own—even “their dust is precious.” Jephthah has been harshly judged by many. But it is manifest that God makes much of him, according to His own rule. “Them that honour me I will honour.” How small a matter to be judged—rather misjudged of man! “He that judgeth us is the Lord.”
In his city.] So the Sept. reads. It uses ו for י. In that case Mizpah would be the place where he was laid, for it was the city of Jephthah.
Jdg_12:8. Ibzan of Bethlehem]. Some think this was the same with Boaz, for it seems to have been in Judah. The thought was common among the Jews, yet it rests purely on supposition. The eference is rather to a town in Zebulun.
Jdg_12:9-15. The lives of the three judges mentioned here were short and uneventful. All that is said of them is that they lived a little while, they passed across the stage, and then disappeared. two of them had large families, but no names are given, and nothing is recorded as to what they did. It is said of Abdon’s sons and nephews, or rather grandsons, that they rode on ass colts, which in those days implied wealth and high station alike (Ch. Jdg_5:10; Jdg_10:4).
COMMENTS AND SUGGESTIONS ON CHAPTER 12
I. It is impossible to satisfy the cravings of pride and envy.
They are like the daughters of the horse-leach that continually cry, Give, give. Nothing would please these Ephraimites. Jephthah offered at the outset to give them a large share of the honours of the fight, but then they kept in the background; for it was by no means certain whether they should overcome or be overcome, and now when the battle is over and won, they turn round and murmur because they were not called (comp. Mat_11:16-19). See remarks on Jdg_8:1-3.
II. Deadly results flow from a malicious use of the tongue.
Malicious words sting a man usually in his character, that is, in “the apple of his eye.” For nothing about him is so sensitive as his character. Hence the consequences are often most destructive (Jas_3:2-8). You are the refuse of Ephraim, worthless as the rubbish under our feet. Such was the taunt of the imperial tribe towards the poor Gileadites, who, however, could as keenly resent a barbed arrow thrown at them by the tongue as any other class. Their rage became a frenzy, and, those who had so thoughtlessly flung the shaft of reproach, little reflected on the terrible rebound their evil words would produce. “There fell at that time of Ephraimites 42,000 men.” Some would indeed reduce the number to 2,040 men. But the A.V. is most generally taken as correct. “Behold how great a matter a little fire kindleth!”
There is no limit to the ruinous effect of an evil tongue. “It is the instrument of all strife and contention, the inventor of law suits, and the origin of wars. It is the origin of error, of lies, of calumny, and of blasphemies.” [Æsop]. A large manufactory is burnt down to the ground, notwithstanding that many engines are employed to pour water upon it. That fire is kindled by a rushlight. A splendid farmyard, with hay ricks, corn stacks, stables, and other buildings, is reduced to blackened ruins by a destructive fire: and that is the doing of a lucifer match! “Life and death are in the power of the tongue.” What need to offer the prayer, “Set a watch, Lord, before my mouth; keep the door of my lips.”
III. Sinful passions, long-cherished, will in the end bring dire punishment.
The same pride and envy, superciliousness of manner, and arrogance of spirit, with resentfulness of feeling, which were shown on this occasion, were exhibited many years before to Gideon. During all those years such dispositions were cherished by the Ephraimites, and though the Ruler in Providence permitted them long to pass with impunity, the time came round at last for these wicked to receive the due reward of their iniquities (2Pe_2:3; Pro_29:1). The long delay to bring punishment, means that “God’s goodness would lead men to repentance.”
IV. The Redeemer cares for the bodies as well as the souls of those whom He redeems.
The very burial place of the good man is worth mentioning. His dust is precious, however great may be the humiliation of the grave. His grave is known to Him by whom he is redeemed; and, when the time comes for the gathering up of the jewels, there will be no difficulty in finding out the spot where every jewel is to be found. “This is the Father’s will, that of all which He hath given me, I should lose nothing, but raise it up again at the last day.” “—We wait for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of the body.” Every part of the man must be redeemed, for it is for the honour of Him whose the work is, that it should be done with perfection. As Moses said to Pharaoh, “not a hoof shall be left behind,” so will a greater than Moses, who is the author of a greater redemption require from Death, that he yield up all the parts and fragments of the “vile body,” so that not a limb shall be left in the grave. All now sleep under the eye of Jesus, and the moment is advancing when at His Almighty whisper, all that has been so long in the dark charnel-house held bound in the sleep of death, shall awake singing, each one rising on the wing like the lark, but with sweeter song, to meet their Lord in the air, and surround his throne with adorations and praises as their never-ceasing employment.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow1909 · Public DomainOn v1The Ephraimites Quarrel with Jephthah. His Death
The Ephraimites Quarrel with Jephthah. His Death
1-6. Jephthah and Ephraim. Once more the members of the leading tribe find themselves left out of the victory, and complain: cp. Jdg_8:1; Jephthah deals with them differently from Gideon.
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1. Northward] RM 'to Zaphon,' a town near Succoth: cp. Jos_13:27.
2. When I called you] It would seem that Jephthah had done more than simply rouse Gilead: see on Jdg_11:29.
4. Jephthah now makes use of the headship promised him in Jdg_11:11. The second part of the v. is unintelligible. As it stands, it refers to some further taunt of the Ephraimites. But 'fugitives' means, in the original, 'survivors': and the Gileadites are regarded in the genealogies as an offshoot of Manasseh, to whom, indeed, the land of Gilead was assigned.
5. The passages] RV 'fords.' Ephraim had invaded Gilead, and the Gileadites took advantage of a dialectical peculiarity to identify every Ephraimite fugitive. Some exaggeration of numbers seems indisputable.
8-15. The Minor Judges, Ibzan, Elon, Abdon.
8. Bethlehem] Probably in Zebulun, mentioned in Jos_19:15.
9. Thirty] cp. Jos_10:4
11. Elon] in Num_26:26 the name of a clan; possibly in the cases of Ibzan and Abdon also the hero and his family are confused.
15. Pirathon] Possibly the modern Ferata, SW. of Shechem. Amalekites] Probably the Amalekites had made a settlement in Mt. Ephraim.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein1922 · Public DomainOn v1CHAPTER 12 The strife--Jephthah’s Death--The Other Judges
CHAPTER 12 The strife--Jephthah’s Death--The Other Judges
1. The strife and the slaying of the Ephraimites (Jdg 12:1-6)
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2. Jephthah’s death (Jdg 12:7)
3. Ibzan, Elon and Abdon (Jdg 12:8-15)
The strife of Ephraim and their question reminds us of what happens under the judgeship of Gideon. There the soft answer turned away wrath. How different it is here. Jephthah in self exaltation shows a far different spirit. Notice the “I” in his answer. “I was at great strife”--”I and my people”--”I called you”--”I saw”--”I put my life in my hand.” A great strife follows. The Gileadites take the fords of Jordan and those who said “Sibboleth” were slain. Horrible record! Forty-two thousand Ephraimites were murdered. And this sad extermination of brethren has its sequel in Christendom. Shibboleth means “flood,” that which divides. Sectarianism is undoubtedly in view here. How God’s people have suffered under it and still suffer! It is true “every test that divides the people of God from one another, and not from their enemies, is another false ‘shibboleth.’“ May God graciously deliver His people from all sectarian strife, which is but the work and the fruit of the flesh (Gal 5:19-21).
Three judges follow after Jephthah’s death. These correspond to their typical meaning to Tola and Jair after Abimelech’s lordship had been broken. Ibzan of Bethlehem. Ibzan means “shining”--”splendour.” Then there is Elon, which means “strength”; and Abdon, the meaning of which is “service,” the son of Hillel, “praising.” These three give us a little glimpse of “Him who will come in splendor and in strength”--that is “in power and great glory,” to set things right. Then all strife and disorder will end and happy service and praise will follow.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann1924 · Public DomainOn v1The Defeat of the Ephraimites
The Defeat of the Ephraimites
v. 1. And the men of Ephraim gathered themselves together and went northward, or, marched Zaphon, a town in the tribe of Gad, on the eastern side of the Jordan Valley, and said unto Jephthah, Wherefore passedst thou over to fight against the children of Ammon, to attack them in battle, and didst not call us to go with thee? It was not zeal for fighting the Lord’s battles which prompted this outburst, but a presumptuous jealousy, because the Ephraimites had not shared in the booty and in the results of success. We will burn thine house upon thee with fire. It was the same overbearing pride which they had shown with Gideon, but tile threat which they added in this case showed that they were even more presumptuous at this time than before.
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v. 2. And Jephthah, in an endeavor to make the situation clear to the arrogant meddlers, said unto them, I and my people were at great strife with the children of Ammon, literally, "A man of war was I, I and my people, and the children of Ammon [on the other side] very"; he and his fellow-citizens were engaged in a severe struggle with the invaders; and when I called you, this fact being omitted in chapter 11, because it had been unsuccessful, ye delivered me not out of their hands. The Ephraimites had probably refused to take part in the campaign because Jephthah had been chosen leader without their consent.
v. 3. And when I saw that ye delivered me not, I put my life in my hands, he staked the most precious possession which he had, and passed over against the children of Ammon, in a bold attack upon their army, and the Lord delivered them into my hand; wherefore, then, are ye come unto me this day to fight against me? Although speaking in the name of all the Gileadites, he placed his own person in the foreground, because the enmity was directed chiefly against his person.
v. 4. Then Jephthah gathered together, mobilized for immediate military duty, all the men of Gilead and fought with Ephraim, not only in self-defense, but as the judge of the nation putting down rebellion with force of arms; and the men of Gilead, of the entire country east of Jordan, smote Ephraim because they said, Ye Gileadites are fugitives of Ephraim among the Ephraimites and among the Manassites, thus heaping upon them the insult that their army was really a pack of deserters, a set of fugitives, a bunch of dissatisfied loafers from west of Jordan, a statement which deeply affected their tribal honor.
v. 5. And the Gileadites took the passages of Jordan before the Ephraimites, the fords which led to the country of Ephraim; and it was so, that when those Ephraimites which were escaped, who had not been killed in battle, said, Let me go over, that the men of Gilead said unto him, Art thou an Ephraimite? For they did not want to slay any innocent persons. If he said, Nay;
v. 6. then said they unto him, Say now shibboleth (stream, flood); and he said Sibboleth; for he could not frame (was not able) to pronounce it right. It was a difference in dialect, and the Ephraimites simply could not get the sound right; their pronunciation betrayed them. Then they took him, every Ephraimite who was thus exposed, and slew him at the passages of Jordan; and there fell at that time, in the entire campaign, of the Ephraimites forty and two thousand. Thus the rebellious arrogance of Ephraim was punished.
v. 7. And Jephthah judged Israel six years, his jurisdiction apparently extending chiefly over the country east of Jordan. Then died Jephthah, the Gileadite, and was buried in one of the cities of Gilead. Rebellions take place also in the midst of God’s. people, the Church of Christ, and in more than one case the defenders of the truth have made a certain statement of Scripture a Shibboleth. in order to make a distinction between friends. and enemies. But the weapons of our warfare are spiritual.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0On vv1, 3A call went out to the men of Ephraim
A call went out to the men of Ephraim
Here the abstract noun "call" can be expressed as a verb. AT: "The men of Ephraim were called together" or "The men ... of Ephraim called together their soldiers" (See: Abstract Nouns)
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Zaphon
This is the name of a city. (See: How to Translate Names)
passed through ... pass through
or "traveled through ... travel" or "journeyed through ... journey"
We will burn your house down over you
This idiom means to burn down a house with people inside it. AT: "We will burn your house down with you still in it" (See: Idiom)
When I called you, you
Here the word "you" is plural and refers to the people of Ephraim. (See: Forms of You)
did not rescue me
Jephthah uses the word "me" to refer to himself and all the people of Gilead. AT: "do not rescue us" (See: Synecdoche)
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1, 3 After they had passed Jordan.
After they had passed Jordan.
Thus ambition envieth God’s work in others as they did also against Gideon, Judg. 8:1.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–3 Jdg 12:1 And the men of Ephraim gathered themselves…
Jdg 12:1 And the men of Ephraim gathered themselves together, and went northward, and said unto Jephthah, Wherefore passedst thou over to fight against the children of Ammon, and didst not call us to go with thee? we will burn thine house upon thee with fire.
Ver. 1. Gathered themselves together.] Heb., Were called; sc., by Jephthah, as Jdg 12:2, but came too late. Post bellum auxilium, so some understand it. Others, that these Ephraimites desirous of vain glory, provoking their brethren and envying them, as Gal 5:26, tumultuarily met to pick a quarrel and make war upon Jephthah and his Gileadites, whom they insolently revile and threaten. "Wrath is cruel, and anger is outrageous; but who can stand before envy?" {Pro 27:4} The venom of all vices is found in that sharpfanged malignity.
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And went northward.] Toward Mizpeh of Gilead; called the wood of Ephraim, {2Sa 18:6} from the slaughter of these Ephraimites there, as it is likely, and afterwards Iturea, and Trachoniti, that is, Rough and Rocky.
Wherefore passedst thou over to fight?] See Jdg 8:1, where they quarrelled in like sort with Gideon, who pacified them with good words; but here they showed themselves implacable, as being ripe for ruin.
We will burn thy house upon thee with fire.] Here was to good Jephthah aliud ex alio malum, a succession of sorrows. He was newly returned from his expedition against the Ammonites, was brought very low, or greatly bowed downward by his only daughter’s unhappy coming forth to meet him. Qui liberis caret, pro mortuo habetur. And now he is necessitated to fight with them, who should with all thankfulness have congratulated his victory. Crosses seldom come single. Catenata piorum crux. Of Queen Elizabeth it is reported, that she provided for war when she was at most perfect peace with all men: so should we do.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1–3 Northward; over Jordan, so northward towards Mizpeh, where Jephthah…
Northward; over Jordan, so northward towards Mizpeh, where Jephthah was, Jdg 11:34, and which was in the northern part of the land beyond Jordan.
Said unto Jephthah, through pride and envy, contending with him as they did before with Gideon, Jdg 8:1. Wherefore passedst thou over? not over Jordan, for there he was already; but over the borders of the Israelites’ land beyond Jordan, as appears by comparing this with Jdg 11:29, where the same phrase is used.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v1 Here Is, I. The unreasonable displeasure of the men…
Here Is, I. The unreasonable displeasure of the men of Ephraim against Jephthah, because he had not called them in to his assistance against the Ammonites, that they might share in the triumphs and spoils, Jdg 12:1. Pride was at the bottom of the quarrel. Only by that comes contention. Proud men think all the honours lost that go beside themselves, and then who can stand before envy? The Ephraimites had the same quarrel with Gideon (Jdg 8:1), who was of Manasseh on their side Jordan, as Jephthah was of Manasseh on the other side Jordan. Ephraim and Manasseh were hearer akin than any other of the tribes, being both the sons of Joseph, and yet they were more jealous one of another than any other of the tribes. Jacob having crossed hands, and given Ephraim the preference, looking as far forward as the kingdom of the ten tribes, which Ephraim was the head of, after the revolt from the house of David, that tribe, not content with that honour in the promise, was displeased if Manasseh had any honour done it in the mean time. It is a pity that kindred or relationship, which should be an inducement to love and peace, should be ever an occasion (as it often proves) of strife and discord. A brother offended is harder to be won than a strong city, and contentions among brethren are as the bars of a castle. The anger of the Ephraimites at Jephthah was, 1. Causeless and unjust. Why didst thou not call us to go with thee? For a good reason. Because it was the men of Gilead that had made him their captain, not the men of Ephraim, so that he had no authority to call them. Had his attempt miscarried for want of their help, they might justly have blamed him for not desiring it. But when the work was done, and done effectually, the Ammonites being subdued and Israel delivered, there was no harm done, though their hands were not employed in it. 2. It was cruel and outrageous. They get together in a tumultuous manner, pass over Jordan as far as Mizpeh in Gilead, where Jephthah lived, and no less will satisfy their fury but they will burn his house and him in it. Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce. Those resentments that have the least reason for them have commonly the most rage in them. Jephthah was now a conqueror over the common enemies of Israel, and they should have come to congratulate him, and return him the thanks of their tribe for the good services he had done; but we must not think it strange if we receive ill from those from whom we deserve well. Jephthah was now a mourner for the calamity of his family upon his daughter's account, and they should have come to condole with him and comfort him; but barbarous men take a pleasure in adding affliction to the afflicted. In this world, the end of one trouble often proves the beginning of another; nor must we ever boast as though we had put off the harness.
II. Jephthah's warm vindication of himself. He did not endeavour to pacify them, as Gideon had done in the like case; the Ephraimites were now more outrageous than they were them, and Jephthah had not so much of a meek and quiet spirit as Gideon had. Whether they would be pacified or no, Jephthah takes care,
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1. To justify himself, Jdg 12:2, Jdg 12:3. He makes it out that they had no cause at all to quarrel with him, for, (1.) It was not in pursuit of glory that he had engaged in this war, but for the necessary defence of his country, with which the children of Ammon greatly strove. (2.) He had invited the Ephraimites to come and join with him, though he neither needed them nor was under any obligation to pay that respect to them, but they had declined the service: I called you, and you delivered me not out of their hands. Had that been true which they charged him with, yet it would not have been a just ground of quarrel; but it seems it was false, and, as the matter of fact now appears, he had more cause to quarrel with them for deserting the common interests of Israel in a time of need. It is no new thing for those who are themselves most culpable to be most clamorous in accusing the innocent. (3.) The enterprise was very hazardous, and they had more reason to pity him than to be angry with him: I put my life in my hands, that is, "exposed myself to the utmost peril in what I did, having so small an army," The honour they envied was bought dearly enough; they needed not to grudge it to him; few of them would have ventured so far for it. (4.) He does not take the glory of the success to himself (that would have been invidious), but gives it all to God: "The Lord delivered them into my hands. If God was pleased so far to make use of me for his glory, why should you be offended at that? Have you any reason to fight against me? Is not that in effect to fight against God, in whose hand I have been only an unworthy instrument?"
2. When this just answer (though not so soft an answer as Gideon's) did not prevail to turn away their wrath, he took care both to defend himself from their fury and to chastise their insolence with the sword, by virtue of his authority as Israel's judge. (1.) The Ephraimites had not only quarrelled with Jephthah, but, when his neighbours and friends appeared to take his part, they had abused them, and given them foul language; for I adhere to our translation, and so take it, Jdg 12:4. They said in scorn, "You Gileadites that dwell here on the other side Jordan are but fugitives of Ephraim, the scum and dregs of the tribes of Joseph, of which Ephraim is the chief, the refuse of the family, and are so accounted among the Ephraimites and among the Manassites. Who cares for you? All your neighbours know what you are, no better than fugitives and vagabonds, separated from your brethren, and driven hither into a corner." The Gileadites were as true Israelites as any other, and at this time had signalized themselves, both in the choice of Jephthah and in the war with Ammon, above all the families of Israel, and yet are most basely and unjustly called fugitives. It is an ill thing to fasten names or characters of reproach upon persons or countries, as is common, especially upon those that lie under outward disadvantages: it often occasions quarrels that prove of ill consequence, as it did here. See likewise what a mischievous thing an abusive tongue is, that calls ill names, and gives scurrilous language: it sets on fire the course of nature, and is set on fire of hell (Jam 3:6), and many a time cuts the throat of him that uses it, as it did here, Psa 64:8. If these Ephraimites could have denied themselves the poor satisfaction of calling the Gileadites fugitives, they might have prevented a great deal of bloodshed; for grievous words stir up anger, and who knows how great a matter a little of that fire may kindle? (2.) This affront raises the Gileadites' blood, and the indignity done to themselves, as well as to their captain, must be revenged. [1.] They routed them in the field, Jdg 12:4. They fought with Ephraim, and, Ephraim being but a rude unheaded rabble, smote Ephraim, and put them to flight. [2.] They cut off their retreat, and so completed their revenge, Jdg 12:5, Jdg 12:6. The Gileadites, who perhaps were better acquainted with the passages of Jordan than the Ephraimites were, secured them with strong guards, who were ordered to slay every Ephraimite that offered to pass the river. Here was, First, Cruelty enough in the destruction of them. Sufficient surely was the punishment which was inflicted by many; when they were routed in the field, there needed not this severity to cut off all that escaped. Shall the sword devour for ever? Whether Jephthah is to be praised for this I know not; perhaps he saw it to be a piece of necessary justice. Secondly, Cunning enough in the discovery of them. It seems the Ephraimites, though they spoke the same language with other Israelites, yet had got a custom in the dialect of their country to pronounce the Hebrew letter Shin like Samech, and they had so strangely used themselves to it that they could not do otherwise, no, not to save their lives. We learn to speak by imitation; those that first used s for sh, did it either because it was shorter or because it was finer, and their children learnt to speak like them, so that you might know an Ephraimite by it; as in England we know a west-country man or a north-country man, nay, perhaps a Shropshire man, and a Cheshire man, by his pronunciation. Thou art a Galilean, and thy speech betrays thee. By this the Ephraimites were discovered. If they took a man that they suspected to be an Ephraimite, but he denied it, they bade him say Shibboleth; but either he could not, as our translation reads it, or he did not heed, or frame, or direct himself, as some read, to pronounce it aright, but said Sibboleth, and so was known to be an Ephraimite, and was slain immediately. Shibboleth signifies a river or stream: "Ask leave to go over Shibboleth, the river." Those that were thus cut off made up the whole number of slaughtered Ephraimites forty-two thousand, Jdg 12:6. Thus another mutiny of that angry tribe was prevented.
3. Now let us observe the righteousness of God in the punishment of these proud and passionate Ephraimites, which in several instances answered to their sin. (1.) They were proud of the honour of their tribe, gloried in this, that they were Ephraimites; but how soon were they brought to be ashamed or afraid to own their country! Art thou an Ephraimite? No, now rather of any tribe than that. (2.) They had gone in a rage over Jordan to burn Jephthah's house with fire, but now they came back to Jordan as sneakingly as they had passed it furiously, and were cut off from ever returning to their own houses. (3.) They had upbraided the Gileadites with the infelicity of their country, lying at such a distance, and now they suffered by an infirmity peculiar to their own country, in not being able to pronounce Shibboleth. (4.) They had called the Gileadites, unjustly, fugitives, and now they really and in good earnest became fugitives themselves; and in the Hebrew the same word (Jdg 12:5) is used of the Ephraimites that escaped, or that fled, which they had used in scorn of the Gileadites, calling them fugitives. He that rolls the stone of reproach unjustly upon another, let him expect that it will justly return upon himself.
III. Here is the end of Jephthah's government. He judged Israel but six years, and then died, Jdg 12:7. Perhaps the death of his daughter sunk him so that he never looked up afterwards, but it shortened his days, and he went to his grave mourning.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–3 And the men of Ephraim gathered themselves together,.... Or…
And the men of Ephraim gathered themselves together,.... Or "cried" (r); got together by a cry or proclamation made: in the Hebrew text it is, "a man of Ephraim"; not a single man, but a body of men, who met together and joined as one man. It is highly probable that there were no less than 50,000 of them; for 42,000 of them were slain, Jdg 12:6.
and went northward; or, "went over northward (s)"; that is, over the river Jordan, which lay between Gilead and Ephraim; and when they had crossed the river, they turned northward; for Mizpeh, where Jephthah lived, was in the north of the land, near Hermon and Lebanon, Jos 11:3.
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and said unto Jephthah, wherefore passedst thou over to fight against the children of Ammon? not over Jordan, but over that part of the land of Israel from the plain where Jephthah dwelt, to the country of the children of Ammon:
and didst not call us to go with thee? they quarrel with him just in the same manner as they did with Gideon: these Ephraimites were a proud and turbulent people, and especially were very jealous of the tribe of Manasseh, of which both Gideon and Jephthah were; the one of the half tribe on this side Jordan, and the other of the half that was on the other side; and they were jealous of both, lest any honour and glory should accrue thereunto, and they should get any superiority in any respect over them, since Jacob their father had given the preference to Ephraim; and this seems to lie at the bottom of all their proceedings:
we will burn thine house upon thee with fire; that is, burn him and his house, burn his house and him in it; which shows that they were in great wrath and fury, and argued not only the height of pride and envy, but wretched ingratitude, and a cruel disposition; who, instead of congratulating him as Israel's deliverer, and condoling him with respect to the case of his only child, threaten him in this brutish manner.
(r) Sept. "clamatus", i.e. "clamando convocatus", Piscator. "mnellius", Pimcator. (s) "transivit", Pagninus, Montanus; "transiverunt", Junius et Tremellius, Piscator.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1–3 Jephthah's encounter with, and slaughter of the Ephraimites, ver.…
Jephthah's encounter with, and slaughter of the Ephraimites, ver. 1-6. His death, ver. 7 A short account of three other Judges ver. 8-15.
Northward - Over Jordan, where Jephthah was, in the northern part of the land beyond Jordan. And said - Through pride and envy, contending with him as they did before with Gideon. Over - Not over Jordan, for there he was already; but over the borders of the Israelites land beyond Jordan.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1, 3 The Ephraimites are incensed against Jephthah, because he did
CHAPTER XII
The Ephraimites are incensed against Jephthah, because he did
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not call them to war against the Ammonites; and threaten his
destruction, 1.
He vindicates himself, 2, 3;
and arms the Gileadites against the men of Ephraim; they fight
against them, and kill forty-two thousand Ephraimites at the
passages of Jordan, 4-6.
Jephthah dies, having judged Israel six years, 7.
Ibzan judge seven years, 8.
His posterity and death, 9,10.
Elon judge ten years, and dies, 11, 12.
Abdon judge eight years, 13.
His posterity and death, 14, 15.
NOTES ON CHAP. XII
Verse 1. The men of Ephraim gathered themselves together] ויצעק vaiyitstsaek, they called each other to arms; summoning all their tribe and friends to arm themselves to destroy Jephthah and the Gileadites, being jealous lest they should acquire too much power.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1–2 Jdg 12:1. The men of Ephraim went northward —…
Jdg 12:1. The men of Ephraim went northward — Over Jordan, where Jephthah was, in the northern part of the land beyond Jordan. And said — Through pride and envy, contending with him as they did before with Gideon; over to fight — Not over Jordan, for there he was already; but over the borders of the Israelites’ land beyond Jordan.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1–3 Compare the similar complaint of the Ephraimites to Gideon…
Compare the similar complaint of the Ephraimites to Gideon Jdg 8:1, when a civil war was only avoided by Gideon’s wise and patriotic moderation. The overhearing pride of Ephraim comes out in both occurrences (see also Jos 17:14-18).
We will burn thine house upon thee with fire - Compare the fierce threat of the Philistines to Samson’s wife Jdg 14:15, and the yet fiercer execution Jdg 15:6. Burning appears as a mode of capital punishment Gen 38:24; Jos 7:25, and as a mode of desperate warfare (Jdg 1:8; Jdg 20:48; Jos 8:8, Jos 8:19, etc.).
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv1–3 Sedition. Hebrew, "the men of Ephraim shouted together" to…
Sedition. Hebrew, "the men of Ephraim shouted together" to arms. --- North. Septuagint, "Sephena." The Hebrew may either signify north, or some city. (Montanus) --- It is probable that Ephraim went to quarrel with Jepthe at Abel, before he had returned to Maspha. (Calmet) --- House. Hebrew and Septuagint add, "with or upon thee." (Menochius)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v1 Ephraim’s proud and envious conduct towards Jephthah
Ephraim’s proud and envious conduct towards Jephthah
Jdg_12:1-7
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1And the men of Ephraim gathered themselves together, and went northward [proceeded to Zaphon], and said unto Jephthah, Wherefore passedst thou over [Why didst thou pass on—proceed—] to fight against the children [sons] of Ammon, and didst not call us to go with thee? we will burn thine house upon thee with fire. 2And Jephthah said unto them, I and my people were at great strife [in a severe conflict] with the children [sons] of Ammon; and when [omit: when] I called you, [and] ye delivered me not out of their hands [hand]. 3And when I saw that ye delivered me not, I put my life in my hands [hand], and passed over [on] against the children [sons] of Ammon, and the Lord [Jehovah] delivered them into my hand: wherefore 4then are ye come up unto me this day, to fight against me? Then [And] Jephthah gathered together all the men of Gilead, and fought with Ephraim: and the men of Gilead smote Ephraim, because they [had] said, ye Gileadites are fugitives of Ephraim among the Ephraimites, and among the Manassites [fugitives of Ephraim are ye Gilead, in Ephraim and Manasseh]. 5And the Gileadites took the passages [fords] of [the] Jordan before the Ephraimites [toward Ephraim]: and it was so, that when those Ephraimites which were escaped [the fugitives of Ephraim], said, Let me go over; that the men of Gilead said unto him, Art thou an Ephraimite? If he said, Nay; 6Then said they unto him, Say now Shibboleth: and he said Sibboleth: for he could not1 frame to pronounce it right. Then they took him and slew [slaughtered] him at the passages [fords] of [the] Jordan. And there fell at that time of the Ephraimites forty and two thousand. 7And Jephthah judged Israel six years: then died Jephthah the Gileadite, and was buried in one of the cities of Gilead.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
[1 Jdg_12:6.—“Could not,” is too strong. Keil: “חֵכִין, stands elliptically for הֵכִין לֵב, to apply the mind, to give heed. Cf. 1Sa_23:22; 1Ch_28:2, with 2Ch_12:14; 2Ch_30:19.”—Tr.]
EXEGETICAL AND DOCTRINAL
The victory of Jephthah is followed by a repetition of what took place after Gideon’s heroic achievement. The overbearing pride of the chief tribe, Ephraim, vents itself in each instance against the victor who has risen up within the smaller tribe, and has become the saviour of the people. Now as then the presumptuous jealousy of the tribe complains that it has not been invited to take part. But this apparent eagerness for war was hypocritical. The thing really desired was a share in the booty and the results of success. Ephraim would help to reap, where it had not sown. The injustice of the tribe was even greater on this occasion than in the time of Gideon. For then it really did render some little assistance, albeit only after Gideon had first led the way. But here it had been called on for help, and had stayed at home. As soon, however, as victory had been obtained, it came with threats and war. But it was not so successful now as with Gideon. That hero, when they clamored against him, was still in pursuit of the enemy, and was obliged, for the sake of his own success, to allay their pride and presumption by gentleness. Jephthah had no reason for submitting to such arrogance. Nor did the Ephraimites come with words only; they were prepared to use force. They derided the people, and thought that with arms in their hands they could chastise Gilead and humble Jephthah. They will set his house on fire over his head. Then Jephthah shows that he is not only a hero against enemies but also the Judge in Israel. It is his authority which he tries and proves by chastising Ephraim. But here also, as in his dealings with the sons of Ammon, he first establishes the righteousness of his conduct by clear words. However, if sinful Ephraim had cared for righteousness, it would in no case have entered on this course. It relied on violence, like Ammon; and like Ammon it experienced the chastisement of violence. No Judge of whom the history tells us inflicts such chastisement and exercises such power within the nation as well as against alien enemies, as does Jephthah. But it was needed; and the humiliation of Ephraim for its sin was less severe than it might otherwise have proved, because the punishment came in the time of Israel’s freedom, and not at the expense of that freedom.
Jdg_12:1. And proceeded to Zaphon. The older Jewish expositors, whom Ewald and Keil have followed, already found in צָפוֹנָה, not direction toward the north, but the name of a city, which lay beyond the Jordan in the tribe of Gad (Jos_13:27). This interpretation rests on the requirements of the context. For in order to explain verses 4 and 5, Ephraim must have advanced across the Jordan. The remark in the Jerusalem Talmud (Shwiith, 9, 2), which identifies Zaphon with עמתו, Amathus, Aemath, cf. Amateh (cf. Ritter, xv. 1031), is therefore altogether suitable. For this city was still known in later times as a strong point on the Jordan, as Josephus repeatedly states. The Onomasticon, also (ed. Parthey, p. 26), says concerning it, that it lay beyond the Jordan, to the south of Pella; for Ritter’s oversight, who supposes that the Onomasticon identifies Amathus with another Aemath in the tribe of Reuben, is not to be concurred in. Amathus, according to its stated distance from Pella (in vigesimo primo milliario), could not lie in the tribe of Reuben—which agrees so far with the fact that Zaphon was in Gad.
Jdg_12:2. And Jephthah said unto them. It was not related above that Jephthah called on the tribe of Ephraim to assist, as he here reminds them; but that he would do so, was to be expected. But even if he had not done so, what was there to justify Ephraim in its contention and war? Jephthah’s answer is not defiant: it allows that Gilead would gladly have accepted help, if only a helper had been at hand. Jephthah would gladly have yielded the precedence in victory to Ephraim, if Ephraim had only wielded arms against the enemy as bravely as it now uses words against its brethren. But when he saw that there was no deliverer, he put his life in his hand, and God gave the victory. Did not Jephthah devote his dearest possession in order to obtain from God the victory for which he entreated Him?
The Midrash has a thought in this connection, which, when disengaged from its unhistorical wrappings, is judicious and profound. It says that for the things which befell Israel under Jephthah only the priests were to blame. Why did they not annul the vow of Jephthah! Why did they not restrain Ephraim from civil war! It is manifest that a truth is here suggested which applies to all times. It is undoubtedly the duty of persons equipped with spiritual power, to lift up their voices for peace, and especially to labor for concord between the single tribe and all Israel. If they neglect this duty, their candlestick—this also the Midrash intimates—will sooner or later be overthrown.
Jdg_12:3. Wherefore then are ye come up unto me this day to fight against me? Ephraim’s attempt is actually more culpable than Ammon’s. In itself considered, civil war between cognate tribes is a disgrace, which can only spring from ungodliness. But the sin of Ephraim, when it proposes to burn the house of Jephthah, is still further aggravated by the fact that it is directed against the restorer of the divine law and the deliverer of Israel. It is moral and national treason. The Spartans also, under all sorts of pretexts, had left Athens to face alone the advancing Persians. But when the battle at Marathon had been won, the auxiliary troops who arrived too late to be of service, praised and applauded the heroism of Athens (Herod. vi. 120). Jephthah dwells on the injustice of Ephraim, who would not indeed fight against Ammon, but now (“this day”) undertakes to make war on him (he always stands personally for his people), in order to excuse his armed resistance. Ephraim now receives the punishment which properly it had already deserved at Gideon’s hands. It is totally defeated by the hero; and its men find themselves entered on a calamitous flight.
Jdg_12:4-5. And the men of Gilead smote Ephraim. It was not Jephthah, as the fine representation gives us to remark, who prosecuted the bloody pursuit. He contented himself with chastising Ephraim according to its presumption; but the people of Gilead had been exasperated by the contempt of the Ephraimites. It is true that the sentence in which the ground of the wrath of the Gileadites over an utterance of the Ephraimites is expressed, is not easily expounded: בְּתוֹךְ מְנַשֶׁה פְּלִיטֵי אֶפְרַיִם אַתֶּם גִּלְעָד בְּתוֹךְ אִפרַיִם כִּי אָמְרוּ. For it is not at once apparent how the Gileadites could be called “fugitives of Ephraim,” seeing they were descendants of Manasseh. A closer inspection, however, makes this intelligible. Ephraim raised a claim to participate in war, only in the cases of Gideon and Jephthah. not in those of the other Judges. It is manifest, therefore, that it based its claim upon the fact that Gideon and Jephthah belonged to Manasseh, its own sister-tribe. At any rate, the House of Joseph. Ephraim and Manasseh, had from of old a consciousness of a certain unity of its own. It treated as one with Joshua (Jos_17:14 ff.). It entered together into its territory (Jdg_1:22). Under king Solomon it was under a common administrative officer (1Ki_11:28). Now, in the “House of Joseph” Ephraim had the chief voice; for Manasseh was divided, and its possessions lay scattered among other tribes. Hence, it could with some plausibility claim it as its right that no division of the House of Joseph should undertake a warlike expedition without its participation. Nor do Gideon and Jephthah deny this right. “We did call thee,” says the latter; “but thou didst not come.” Only the manner in which Ephraim raised its claim was sinful, unjust, and arrogant. For it raised it, not in the time of distress, but for the sake of the booty; and instead of applauding a great achievement, it indulged in derision, which exasperated the warriors of Gilead. For in storming at Jephthah for not calling it, it denies to Gilead every right of separate action. “How can Gilead presume to exercise tribal functions, and set a prince and judge over Israel?” “Gilead is no community at all,” but only a “set of fugitives,” who act as if they were a tribe, whereas in fact they belong elsewhere. They use the word peletim (fugitives) by way of contumely, just as among the Greeks φνγάς meant both fugitive and banished. Ye are “fugitives of Ephraim,” taunted the Ephraimites, and would set yourselves up as an independent principality. In so saying, Ephraim arrogantly put itself in the place of the House of Joseph, to which Gilead also belonged, since it was the son of Machir of Manasseh. “Gilead belongs in the midst of Ephraim and Manasseh.” This addition was intended to add point to what preceded. Gilead is nothing by itself, has no tribal rights; it belongs to the House of Joseph. This was true, indeed; and Gilead’s descendants lived on both sides of the river (Num_26:30 ff.); but “fugitives” they were not. The half-tribe of Manasseh beyond the Jordan was as independent as any other tribe; and in the war against Ammon Gilead proper was doubtless joined by men of other tribes, especially Gad. It was therefore no wonder that the men of Gilead became greatly exasperated, and did not spare the Ephraimites even in their flight. Jephthah only defeated them; but the multitude slew them like enemies, and gave no quarter. Thus, sin and contumely beget passion and cruelty. The discord of brethren inflicts the deepest wounds. Nowhere does hatred rise higher, than where concord is natural.
Jdg_12:6. Then said they to him, Say Shibboleth. Ephraim meets with remarkable experiences at the fords of the Jordan. In Gideon’s time, it gained easy victory there over the Midianites whom that hero chased into their hands; now it is itself chased thither and there put to death. In the outset, its men had taunted Gilead with the term “fugitives of Ephraim,” and now they are themselves in very truth פְּלִיטֵי אֶפְרַיִם. Before they prided themselves upon their tribe name Ephraim, which they haughtily used for the whole House of Joseph; and now, when an Ephraimite came to the stream, he is fain to deny his tribe in order to save his life. The enraged men of Gilead will not suffer one Ephraimite to cross the river; hence the requisition of every one who wished to pass over, to say Shibboleth, which no Ephraimite could do, for he could only say Sibboleth. What “Shibboleth” meant, is of minor importance; but as its enunciation was required at the river, and in order to pass it, it may be assumed that the Gileadites thought rather of the signification “stream” than “ear,” both of which the word has. Every Ephraimite in this extremity had the feeling afterwards depicted in the Psalm (Psa_69:3 [Psa_69:2]): “I am come into depths of waters, and the stream overflows me,” וְשִׁבֹּלֶת שְׁטָפתְני.—When, during the Flemish war, the insurrection against the French broke out, May 25, 1302, the gates were guarded, and no one was suffered to pass out, except such as were able to say, “Scilt ende friend,” which words no Frenchman could pronounce. (Mensel, Gesch. von Frankr. ii. 134; Schmidt, Gesch. von Frankr. i. 682).
And there fell at that time of the Ephraimites forty and two thousand. The number 42 (7 times 6) appears to be not far removed from a round number; but its occurrence is associated with severe and well-merited judgments on sin. As here 42,000 sinful Ephraimites fall, so 42 of the mockers of the prophet Elijah are killed by bears (2Ki_2:24); and when the judgment of God breaks forth over the house of Ahab, 42 brethren of Ahaziah are put to death by Jehu (2Ki_10:14).
Jdg_12:7. And he was buried in one of the cities of Gilead. Herein the mournful lot of Jephthah, resulting from the surrender of his daughter, shows itself. He had no heir, as he had had no inheritance. He was the first and the last in his house. The greatness of his deeds is proved by the fact that they were nevertheless remembered; for in what city he was buried was not known, just as to us Mizpah, the place where he had his home, is also unknown, and as the place of his birth is not mentioned, it is not known what his father’s name was; it is not known whore his own grave is. “Gilead” begat him, and Gilead received his corpse. He shares no father’s tomb, and no son shares his. He was a great hero who lived and died solitary; only faith in God was with him. Six years he ruled; when they were finished, his rest from labor and sorrow began. His name did not return; Gilead’s power rose not again: but he was not forgotten in Israel. His sorrow and victory are typical—so the older expositors suggest—of Him who said: “Not my will, but thine, be done!”
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Jephthah’s vocation was extraordinary, and equally extraordinary was his fate. He gave up everything to God for his people; and yet at last the envy of his countrymen pursues him. They threaten to burn his house, which for their sake he has made desolate. He makes no boast of this, however; yet exercises discipline with a strong hand. Six years he judged, and in the seventh rested from an office that had brought him so much grief.
1. Prior to success friends are few; but afterwards all wish to share in it. While there is danger, he who takes the lead is called valorous; after the victory, usurper. Sin regards not the offerings which the warrior brings, but only the results which he has obtained. The evil will not assist in sowing; but yet would fain participate in the harvest.
2. Life offers nothing to such as serve not God, even though one rise as high as Jephthah. If Jephthah had not rebuilt the altar of Jehovah in Israel, he had been happier in the desert and the silence of seclusion. The charm of life must be sought in the gospel. Life is short; and though prolonged, full of trouble. Every religion builds its altar for eternity. For Him who has wrought six days for his Saviour, and confessed Him, there opens on the seventh the Sabbath of eternity.
Starke: The godly are never long without a cross: they are tried at home and abroad; without is fighting, within is fear (2Co_7:5).—Sailer: The gospel without suffering belongs to heaven; suffering without the gospel, to hell; the gospel with suffering, to earth.
[Henry: It is an ill thing to fasten names or characters of reproach on persons or countries, as is common, especially on those who lie under outward disadvantages; it often occasions quarrels of ill consequences, as here. See likewise what a mischievous thing an abusive tongue is.—Wordsworth: Here we see a specimen of that evil spirit of envy and pride which has shown itself in the Church of God. They who are in high place in the Church, like Ephraim, sometimes stand aloof in the time of danger. And when others of lower estate have stepped into the gap, and have stood in the breach, and braved the danger, and have fought the battle and gained the victory, as Jephthah the Gileadite did (the man of Gilead, which was not a tribe of Israel), then they are angry and jealous, and insult them with proud words, and even proscribe and taunt them with being runaways and deserters, and yet daring to claim a place among the tribes of Israel. Has not this haughty and bitter language of scorn and disdain been the language of some in the greatest western church of Christendom against the churches of the reformation? Has it not sometimes been the language of some in the Church of England towards separatists from herself? Schism doubt less is a sin; but it is sometimes caused by the enforcement of anti-scriptural terms of communion, as it is by the Church of Rome; and the sin of the schism is hers. It is often occasioned (though not justified) by spiritual languor and lethargy in the Church of God. Zeal for God and for the truth is good wherever it be found. Let the churches of Christ stand forth in the hour of danger and fight boldly the good fight against the Ammonites of error and unbelief. Then the irregular guerrilla warfare of separatist2 Jephthahs and their Gileadites will be unnecessary, and they will fight side by side under the banner of Ephraim.—The same: The Gileadites did not slay the Ephraimites because they did not agree with them in pronunciation, but because they were Ephraimites, which was discovered by their different pronunciation. The strifes in the Church of God lie deeper than differences of expression in ritual observances or formularies of faith. They lie in the heart, which is depraved by the evil passions of envy, hatred, and malice; and slight differences in externals are often the occasions for eliciting the deep rooted prejudices of depraved will, and the malignant feelings of unsanctified hearts. Let the heart be purified by the Holy Spirit of peace, and the lips will move in harmony and love.—The same: That river which in the days of Joshua had been divided by God’s power and mercy, in order that all the tribes might pass over together into Canaan, the type of heaven, is now made the scene of carnage between Gilead and Ephraim. In the Church of God, the scenes of God’s dearest love have often been made, the scenes of men’s bitterest hate. The waters of baptism, the living waters of the Holy Scriptures, and of the holy sacrament of the Lord’s Supper—these “passages of our Jordan”—the records and pledges of God’s love to the Israel of God, have been made the scenes of the bitterest controversies, and of blood shed of brethren, by those who bear the name of Christ. The holy sepulchre itself has been made an aceldama.—Tr.].
Footnotes:
[1][Jdg_12:6.—“Could not,” is too strong. Keil: “חֵכִין, stands elliptically for הֵכִין לֵב, to apply the mind, to give heed. Cf. 1Sa_23:22; 1Ch_28:2, with 2Ch_12:14; 2Ch_30:19.”—Tr.]
[2][Dr. Wordsworth looks on Jephthah as “one who does mighty deeds in an irregular manner, at a time when those persons who are placed in authority by God, and who ought to employ God’s appointed means in a regular way, are faithless to their trust, and neglect their duty to God and his Church. His work may be compared to that of the Wesleys and Whitefields,” etc. see on Jdg_11:1. The definition of “irregularity” here given, applies to all the Judges. In a certain sense, they were all irregular; but that Jephthah was so in any special sense is abundantly refuted by Dr. Cassel’s exposition.—Tr.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv2–3 when I called you, ye delivered me not out…
when I called you, ye delivered me not out of their hands--The straightforward answer of Jephthah shows that their charge was false; their complaint of not being treated as confederates and allies entirely without foundation; and their boast of a ready contribution of their services came with an ill grace from people who had purposely delayed appearing till the crisis was past.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1–2 EPHRAIM’S JEALOUSY AND DEFEAT, Jdg_12:1-6.
EPHRAIM’S JEALOUSY AND DEFEAT, Jdg_12:1-6.
Ephraim’s ambition and jealousy towards other tribes had burst out once before, in the days of Gideon, (Jdg_8:1-3,) but the soft answer of that heroic judge prevented then a rupture between the men of that tribe and the divinely chosen judge. But in Jephthah the men of Ephraim find a man of different mettle, and a character less placable than Gideon. His stern and resolute spirit smites the head of Ephraim’s jealousy, and thus for a long time silences that factious element in Israel. At a later period, however, Ephraim’s irrepressible pride and ambition broke out again, and led to the secession of the ten tribes and the Assyrian exile.
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1. The men of Ephraim — The warriors of that tribe.
Gathered themselves together — Were summoned by their leaders to muster for battle. The warriors gathered from this single tribe were more than forty-two thousand. Jdg_12:6. They meant to make a great demonstration in Israel, and show Jephthah and the eastern tribes how powerful they were. It was passionate ambition and jealousy taking up arms for self-gratification.
Went northward — So the ancient versions; but the better rendering is, went over to Zaphon. Zaphon was a city in the tribe of Gad. See at Jos_13:27.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–3 1. northward] The wrong direction; so follow marg. to…
1. northward] The wrong direction; so follow marg. to Zaphon, a place on the E. of Jordan near Succoth, Jos_13:27, and not far from the river; Jos., Ant. xiii. 12, 5 (Asophon).
and didst not call us] Untrue, see Jdg_12:2. The western Ephraimites had no concern of their own with an Ammonite invasion on the E. of Jordan; their alleged grievance was a piece of pretension. For the threat cf. Jdg_9:49; Jdg_9:52, Jdg_14:15, Jdg_15:6.
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Ch. Jdg_12:1-7. Jephthah’s conflict with the men of Ephraim
A sequel of the Ammonite war. Jephthah had returned to his house (Jdg_11:34), two months at least had passed (Jdg_11:39), the Gileadite forces had dispersed (implied by Jdg_12:4), when the arrogant and jealous temper of the Ephraimites broke out, as formerly after Gideon’s victory (Jdg_8:1-3), but this time without a shadow of pretext. The narrative Jdg_11:1-6 has been regarded as a mere replica of Jdg_8:1-3, which it certainly resembles; but the situation here is different, and the marked originality of the incident in Jdg_11:5-6 forbids us to question the historical character of the present section.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–3 (1) Gathered themselves together.—Literally, were called. Hence the Vulg.…
(1) Gathered themselves together.—Literally, were called. Hence the Vulg. renders it “a sedition arose in Ephraim.” No doubt the phrase arose from the circulation of some warlike summons—whether watchword or token—among the tribe (Jdg_7:23-24; Jdg_10:17).
Northward.—Mizpeh in Gilead lay to the northeast of the tribe of Ephraim. The Hebrew word is Tsaphonah, rendered Sephenia in some MSS. of the LXX. (Cod. A., Kephenia). Hence some suppose that it means “towards Tsaphon,” a town in the Jordan valley not far from Succoth, which the Jews identified with Amathus (Jos_13:27).
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And didst not call us.—The tribe of Ephraim throughout the Book of Judges is represented in a most unenviable light—slothful and acquiescent in time of oppression, and turbulently arrogant when others have taken the initiative and won the victory (Jos_17:14-18; Jdg_8:1). They brought on their own heads the terrible disgrace and humiliation which Jephthah inflicted on them. They resembled Sparta in dilatoriness, and perhaps in courage; but when Athens had won Marathon, Sparta had at least the generosity to congratulate her (Herod. v. 20).
We will burn thine house upon thee with fire—i.e., we will burn thee alive in thy house. They regarded it as an unpardonable offence that Jephthah should have delivered Israel without recognising their hegemony (see Jdg_8:1). The horrible threat shows the wild manners of the times (Jdg_14:15; Jdg_15:6; Jdg_20:48); and if a whole tribe could be guilty of such conduct, it shows how little cause we have for surprise at the much less heinous aberrations of individual men like Gideon and Jephthah and Samson.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1–2 Northward, or, otherwise rendered, to Zaphon, a city of…
Northward, or, otherwise rendered, to Zaphon, a city of the Gadites mentioned in Jos_13:27 together with Succoth, and thought to be the modern, Amateh on the Wady. It is difficult to say with certainty which rendering is right, but on the whole the latter seems most probable. Although Gilead does lie north-east of Ephraim, it hardly seems a natural description of the Ephraimite movement to say they "went northwards;" whereas if they marched to Zaphon the phrase would be precise. The previous phrase, gathered themselves together, means mustered for battle, as in Jud_1:7:23, 24. We will burn thine house, etc. the same savage threat as the Philistine youths made use of to induce Samson"s wife to discover and reveal his riddle, (Jud_1:14:15) and as the Philistines actually put in practice upon her and her father in revenge for the destruction of their corn. (Jud_1:15:6) Passedst thou over, as in Jud_1:11:29, 32 12:3.
Vers. 1-7. The envy of the small great at the great deeds of the small.
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The detection of faults of character is useful to those who wish to correct and perfect their own, and for this reason the observation of the tendency of particular positions to produce particular faults is very valuable. The particular vice of the human mind which the shameful and unpatriotic arrogance of the Ephraimites towards the deliverer of their country brings to light, is the tendency on the part of those in high places to resent and envy the great deeds and successes of those whom they look upon as very inferior to themselves. Ephraim was the largest and most powerful of the tribes of Israel. The great leader, Joshua, was of that tribe, and they seem to have thought that they had a hereditary primacy among the tribes. We have already seen this spirit breaking out fiercely in their strife with Gideon, (Jud 8:1-3) and now again in their hostile attack upon Jephthah. Nay, even in Joshua"s time something of the same arrogance drew down upon them the rebuke of their great captain. (Jos_17:14-16) They seen, to have thought that, being the chief tribe, they were entitled to be considered first in everything; that their advice was always to be sought, their wishes always to be consulted; and that the maintenance of their dignity ought to be the first consideration of all the other tribes. And yet we do not find them maintaining their claims by pre-eminent zeal for the public service, by a spirit of self-sacrifice for the public good, nor by furnishing the most eminent men to take the lead in civil or military affairs. They were not the first to risk life and limb against the Midianite hosts; they were not the first to repel the invasion of the children of Ammon. Their own dignity, and not their country"s good, was their chief concern. Hence, when an unknown Gideon, of one of the inferior houses of Manasseh, or a half-caste Jephthah on the other side Jordan, rose to the first rank as saviours of their country, the envy of Ephraim burst out into a flame. What business had such as they to do great things? It was an invasion of the prerogative of the "great people." It was presumption; it was a slight put upon Ephraim. No punishment was too bad for such insolence. "We will burn thine house upon thee with fire." This history then illustrates the pride of caste. It shows us men, having a great opinion of themselves, not influenced by that good opinion to do as much as possible for others, but only to exact as much as possible for themselves. It shows us how an overweening estimate of themselves induces men to envy others, whom they think inferior, if they distinguish themselves, and rise superior to them in public estimation. It was very much the same spirit which showed itself in the Pharisees when our Lord"s fame as a teacher drew such multitudes to hear him. They thought they had the monopoly of teaching, that no doctrine which did not emanate from their schools ought to be listened to, that knowledge could proceed from no mouth but that of a Rabbi. And so when the carpenter"s Son opened his mouth and poured forth Iris lessons of exquisite wisdom and power, and enchained the attention of the multitudes, and was acknowledged as a prophet, their envy was excited. Instead of rejoicing that God had sent them a teacher mighty in word and deed, they only plotted how they might silence the eloquent tongue. Instead of sitting at his feet and learning at his mouth the true will of God and the way of life, they were only roused to hatred, and persuaded the multitude to say, Let him be crucified. The same spirit is common in our own days in every profession. The small great envy the great deeds of the small. But God"s gifts are not confined to any caste or class; and they only are truly great who rejoice in great qualities wherever they are found, and view without envy the career of those who outstrip them in the race of doing good and advancing the glory of God.
HOMILIES BY A.F. MUIR Vers. 1-3. Ingratitude the frequent reward of benefactors.
The triumph of Jephthah is marred by another incident. Ephraim, most powerful tribe west of the Jordan, confronts him in hostile array. His experience must have been bitter and hard to comprehend. But he is not alone in the results which his good deeds brought upon him. Benefactors in every age have met with a like reception.
I THEIR GOOD DEEDS ARE THEMSELVES AN OFFENCE. This has its root and ground in the incapacity of the natural mind to perceive and appreciate spiritual motives; but it seldom takes the form of direct, simple objection to the good deed. Other forms of excuse for opposition are easily discovered.
1. The spirit in which they are wrought is misunderstood or misinterpreted. The key to our judgments of others is in ourselves. If then we are evil, our judgments will be perverted. All through the history of God"s Church this influence is apparent, from the old ill-natured query, Job serve God for nought?" to the culminating wickedness described in the gospel: "The light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not .... He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not". (Joh_1:5, Joh_1:10, Joh_1:11) "To the pure, all things are pure," and vice versa.
2. They present an unwelcome contrast to the conduct of others. Every good deed is as a light which brings to view things of like kind, and inspires similar behaviour; but also reveals the hideousness and hatefulness of the ordinary life of man. This is an offence against the amour propre of the sinner, and therefore unpardonable; it is also an exposure of hypocrisy, and sadly inconvenient. It makes the heart of good men ache to see this, and to cry, "When will goodness not be the exception, but the rule?
3. The honor they acquire for their authors is coveted. To minds not actuated by the spirit of goodness, the only thing that can be desired in good works is the outward fame and advantage they bring. The exclusion from this is keenly resented. Hundreds are eager to share the crown of the righteous who are far from breathing his spirit or emulating his example.
II HOW HARD IS IT FOR EVEN GOOD MEN TO UNDERSTAND THIS! Jephthah argues his case, and asks, "Wherefore are ye come up unto me this day, to fight against me?" The law of Moses promised temporal advantages to those who fulfilled it. Occasionally these were not enjoyed, and there was a consequent perplexity. But we are not to suppose that this wonder and mental trouble were confined to that dispensation; they are deeply human characteristics. Our Saviour himself experienced them when he asked, "Many good works have I showed you from my Father; for which of those works do ye stone me?; (Joh_10:32) and again, Are ye come out as against a thief with swords and staves for to take me? I sat daily with you teaching in the temple, and ye laid no hold on me". (Mat_26:55) The key to this mystery is furnished by the beatitude of the persecuted for righteousness" sake, (Mat_5:11, Mat_5:12) and realised in the spirit of Christ"s sacrifice. M.
Vers. 1-6. "Vaulting ambition," which "o"erleaps itself.
This was not the first time of such offence on the part of Ephraim. Gideon had to bear with their unreasonableness, and was gracious enough to permit their co-operation in securing the results of his victory. But now the "cup of their iniquity is full." Not for Ammon"s destruction alone is Jephthah raised up; he has a punishment to mete out to Ephraim. They knew it not, but this pride of theirs was on the verge of its fall. They presumed on former exemption from evil consequences, and blindly rushed upon their chastisement. We see here
I PRIDE IN ITS DEVELOPMENT AND CAREER. Past kindness and consideration only hardened and strengthened it. Past achievements and the prestige acquired through them are relied upon instead of present obedience to God, etc. Ephraim cared more for its own position and advantage than to serve the commonwealth. By its inaction in the past and its hostile attitude to Jephthah on the present occasion it plays the traitor. It despised its brethren, and refused to recognise the leader God had chosen, and now it threatened to overthrow the advantage acquired by the Ammonite victory. It became a public nuisance and a political danger.
II PRIDE IN ITS DIVINE CHASTISEMENT, In the various details of its punishment it is hard to repress a certain measure of sympathy for it. There is something always in the humiliation of a proud nature that commands our sympathy. And yet it was necessary and right that Ephraim should be taught a terrible lesson.
1. That very tribe, membership with which had been their boast, they would now fain deny.
2. The taunt of being fugitives," which they had used against the Gileadites, is now turned against themselves.
3. The martial strength upon which they had relied is now effectually and suddenly reduced. So will it be with all who set themselves against Christ and his kingdom. "Upon whomsoever this stone shall fall, it will grind him to powder." If God is against us, or, what is the same thing, we are against God, we may expect patient forbearance, and at first gentle chidings; but, if we persist, a terrible retribution. Sin is pride; it refuses to bow to God"s will, or to accept the methods of his salvation. M.
HOMILIES BY W.F. ADENEY Ver. 1. Jealousy.
The men of Ephraim are angry with Jephthah because lie has repulsed the Ammonites without their aid.
I GREAT MEN ARE COMMONLY ASSAILED BY THE JEALOUSY OF THEIR RIVALS.
1. This is no proof of any failing on the part of those who are thus attacked. While some of the noblest of men have brought trouble upon their own heads through want of consideration for the petty weaknesses of their inferiors, the best and most conciliatory of men have not been able to avoid the envy and misjudgment of meaner natures. It is impossible to please all classes in doing a work of any magnitude and value. They are not always the worthiest men who have the fewest enemies. Christ had more foes than friends.
2. This is no proof of the claims of the rivals of great men. People who cannot improve a work can criticise it.
II THEY WHO ARE BACKWARD IN ENCOUNTERING THE DANGER OF BATTLE ARE EAGER IN COVETING THE HONOUR OF VICTORY. There is no reason to believe that the men of Ephraim showed any willingness to join with Jephthah till after his great success. Weak and selfish people who will not enter into any enterprise until they see it has succeeded are plentiful enough, but they are worthless. The true men are they who will advocate the right cause when it is at a low ebb, when it is unpopular, when it seems doomed to failure, when the service of it involves risk and loss.
III THE TASK FROM WHICH MEN SHRINK BEFOREHAND LOOKS EASY AFTER IT HAS BEEN SUCCESSFULLY PERFORMED. Now that Jephthah has defeated the Ammonites, the men of Ephraim think his work was only a safe road to honour in which they would gladly have accompanied him. When we see the master of some art working with deft skill and unerring accuracy, nothing looks more easy than to do as he does. His very triumph destroys the appearance of the difficulties which lie in its way. Thus the honours of the artist and the orator, and, in religious matters, of the martyr and the missionary, inspire jealousy in men who think they are cheaply won just on account of that very excellency which conceals the necessary sacrifice, suffering, or toil by the perfect conquest of it.
IV SELFISH PEOPLE ARE MORE CONCERNED ABOUT THEIR OWN SHARE IN THE HONOUR OF A GREAT ENTERPRISE THAN ABOUT THE SUCCESS OF IT. The men of Ephraim do nothing to encourage Jephthah; they are only anxious to share his honour. We see in public life personal ambition overcoming public spirit, in Christian work the honour of the agent exalted above the success of the work. But the patriot should be supremely anxious for the welfare of his country, no matter by whom this is secured, and the Christian should be simply desirous of the triumph of Christ and the extension of Christianity, though he may not share the honours of victory. The jealousy which would hinder the good work of others because we have no share in it is treason to Christ. It is unworthy for the Christian to covet or to hold a post which he knows another will occupy better than himself A.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On v1 Wherefore passedst thou over to fight against the children…
Jdg_12:1-3
Wherefore passedst thou over to fight against the children of Ammon, and didst not call us to go with thee?
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Shams and frauds
Though these Ephraimites are long since dead and gone, there are many Ephraimites alive. They are men who will not share the conflict themselves, but are angry when others succeed.
I. There are people still who think nothing can be done without them. We find these people everywhere--not a few of them at home. Ask that busy, bustling housewife to take her children out into the country for a day; or ask her to attend church on a Sunday morning; or ask her to give a few hours to visiting among the sick and the poor and the sorrowful, what will she say? How can I leave my house? Who will attend to my affairs? If I were out of that house a few days it would all go to ruin. That woman has grown daughters who could and would gladly see to things if she would only let them. But she goes on in her foolish whim that nothing can be done without her. And I verily believe that not a few would rather have nothing done at all if they could not do it. In business, too, the same thing occurs. There are men who are slaves to their business. Neither their sons nor their confidential men, who would suffer any loss rather than neglect the governors interest, can be trusted. They must see to it, or it wont be done. Some day God puts such a man on his back. He is away six months with a serious illness. His sons, who have not been thought capable hitherto, have responsibility thrown upon them, and rise to the position. The man is humbled, shamed, or it may be, delighted to find that the business has done better with the infusion of the new blood than it did with the old. The Church of Christ, unfortunately, is afflicted with a large number of men who think nothing can be done without them. There are men who would rather the battle should be lost than others win it--who would almost wish that evil should remain rather than others have the honour of removing it. But what does it matter who gains the victory if it be gained? God can accomplish His purposes without any of us. Look over the pages of history, and you will find that workers fall, but the work goes on.
II. There are some who, though they cant stop the work, try to prejudice the workers. The men of the text said in effect, And who are you? You are fugitives, mongrels, not of pure blood. What business have the likes of you to think you can fight the foes of Israel? It is monstrous, and we wont have it. The same thing goes on to-day. There are men who seem to think they have said something clever and settling when they say that the popular useful man was not born in a palace. Whos he? is their cry. Why, dont you know that he was a collier, and worked in a coal pit? His father died in a cottage. His mother was the daughter of a man who drove a horse and cart, and never had five pounds in his life. And what of that? Is it not honest to get coal? Better be a collier and dig coal in the service of man, and thus the service of God, than be a loafer, an idler, a consumer, a drone. Some of the noblest of Gods servants have come from among the poor, and the obscure, and the unknown. Our Lord Himself was a toiler, and the Son of toilers, and has for ever consecrated and blessed all honest necessary human labour. So I say to you all, toil on, pray on, fight on, win victories for God. Beat back the enemies of Israel; and if the Ephraimites, lacking courage and genius themselves, despise you, let them.
III. There are some who cant or wont do much themselves, but hate, and scorn, and try to persecute those who do. We will burn thine house upon thee. Alas! This has often found expression in the bitterness of party strife and religious bigotry. Unable to silence men whose lips God had touched as with live coals from His own altar, and whose hearts had felt the power of the living God, they have erected their stakes, piled their faggots, and lit their fires, in which the saints of God, the excellent of the earth, have stood till their flesh was shrivelled and their bones cindered. We will burn thine house upon thee with fire, said these men; but they found themselves unable to do it. Some men are hard to kill, and some houses bad to burn. Many a tyrant has found this out. We will burn thine house upon thee. It does not seem to have occurred to these cowardly Ephraimites that men who burn other peoples houses sometimes burn themselves. It is dangerous to play with edged tools. It is not safe to toy with fire. It may become the instrument of your own torture, the weapon of your own destruction. They that take the sword shall perish with the sword, said Jesus Christ; and there is for us no higher authority. Some men who are fond of using fire do no harm except to themselves. Whilst it is in some sense only right and just that this should be so, there are cases in which we are sorry for the opposers. Well had it been for these Ephraimites had they shared in the universal rejoicing. Well had it been for them if they had learned wisdom, and ceased from opposition. Their wicked and senseless opposition brought ruin upon themselves. In sheer self-defence the victor turned the sword upon them. Alas for them! Forty and two thousand of them that day left their dead bodies upon the plains as victims of their folly, and in illustration of our saying that the wicked often injure themselves. And this is true with the Lord Jesus and His gospel. Some men oppose it, reject it, mutilate it, burn it. All such injure themselves. They can never hurt the truth. It will live. They cannot stop the power of Jesus Christ to save men. The waves of the ocean dash against the granite rock, but the rock does not move. But what of the waves? Broken, they roll back in spray to the ocean out of which they came. Whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder. (C. Leach, D. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v1 WHILE Jephthah and his Gileadites were engaged in the…
SHIBBOLETHS
Jdg_12:1-7
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WHILE Jephthah and his Gileadites were engaged in the struggle with Ammon jealous watch was kept over all their movements by the men of Ephraim. As the head tribe of the house of Joseph occupying the centre of Palestine Ephraim was suspicious of all attempts and still more of every success that threatened its pride and preeminence. We have seen Gideon in the hour of his victory challenged by this watchful tribe, and now a quarrel is made with Jephthah who has dared to win a battle without its help. What were the Gileadites that they should presume to elect a chief and form an army? Fugitives from Ephraim who had gathered in the shaggy forests of Bashan and among the cliffs of the Argob, mere adventurers in fact, what right had they to set up as the protectors of Israel? The Ephraimites found the position intolerable. The vigour and confidence of Gilead were insulting. If a check were not put on the energy of the new leader might he not cross the Jordan and establish a tyranny over the whole land? There was a call to arms, and a large force was soon marching against Jephthahs camp to demand satisfaction and submission.
The pretext that Jepthah had fought against Ammon without asking the Ephraimites to join him was shallow enough. The invitation appears to have been given; and even without an invitation Ephraim might well have taken the field.
But the savage threat, "We will burn thine house upon thee with fire," showed the temper of the leaders in this expedition. The menace was so violent that the Gileadites were roused at once and, fresh from their victory over Ammon, they were not long in humbling the pride of the great western clan.
One may well ask, Where is Ephraims fear of God? Why has there been no consultation of the priests at Shiloh by the tribe under whose care the sanctuary is placed? The great Jewish commentary affirms that the priests were to blame, and we cannot but agree. If religious influences and arguments were not used to prevent the expedition against Gilead they should have been used. The servants of the oracle might have understood the duty of the tribes to each other and of the whole nation to God and done their utmost to avert civil war. Unhappily, however, professed interpreters of the divine will are too often forward in urging the claims of a tribe or favouring the arrogance of a class by which their own position is upheld. As on the former occasion when Ephraim interfered, so in this we scarcely go beyond what is probable in supposing that the priests declared it to be the duty of faithful Israelites to check the career of the eastern chief and so. prevent his rude and ignorant religion from gaining dangerous popularity. Bishop Wordsworth has seen a fanciful resemblance between Jephthahs campaign against Ammon and the revival under the Wesleys and Whitefield which as a movement against ungodliness put to shame the sloth of the Church of England. He has remarked on the scorn and disdain-and he might have used stronger terms-with which the established clergy assailed those who apart from them were successfully doing the work of God. This was an example of far more flagrant tribal jealousy than that of Ephraim and her priests; and have there not been cases of religious leaders urging retaliation upon enemies or calling for war in order to punish what was absurdly deemed an outrage on national honour? With facts of this kind in view we can easily believe that from Shiloh no word of peace, but on the other hand words of encouragement were heard when the chiefs of Ephraim began to hold councils of war and to gather their men for the expedition that was to make an end of Jephthah.
Let it be allowed that Ephraim, a strong tribe, the guardian of the ark of Jehovah, much better instructed than the Gileadites in the divine law, had a right to maintain its place. But the security of high position lies in high purpose and noble service; and an Ephraim ambitious of leading should have been forward on every occasion when the other tribes were in confusion and trouble. When a political party or a church claims to be first in regard for righteousness and national well being it should not think of its own credit or continuance in power but of its duty in the war against injustice and ungodliness. The favour of the great, the admiration of the multitude, should be nothing to either church or party. To rail at those who are more generous, more patriotic, more eager in the service of truth, to profess a fear of some ulterior design against the constitution or the faith, to turn all the force of influence and eloquence and even of slander and menace against the disliked neighbour instead of the real enemy, this is the nadir of baseness. There are Ephraims still, strong tribes in the land, that are too much exercised in putting down claims, too little in finding principles of unity and forms of practical brotherhood. We see in this bit of history an example of the humiliation that sooner or later falls on the jealous and the arrogant; and every age is adding instances of a like kind.
Civil war, at all times lamentable, appears peculiarly so when the cause of it lies in haughtiness and distrust. We have found however that, beneath the surface, there may have been elements of division and ill will serious enough to require this painful remedy. The campaign may have prevented a lasting rupture between the eastern and western tribes, a separation of the stream of Israels religion and nationality into rival currents. It may also have arrested a tendency to ecclesiastical narrowness, which at this early stage would have done immense harm. It is quite true that Gilead was rude and uninstructed, as Galilee had the reputation of being in the time of our Lord. But the leading tribes or classes of a nation are not entitled to overbear the less enlightened, nor by attempts at tyranny to drive them into separation. Jephthahs victory had the effect of making Ephraim and the other western tribes understand that Gilead had to be reckoned with, whether for weal or woe, as an integral and important part of the body politic. In Scottish history, the despotic attempt to thrust Episcopacy on the nation was the cause of a distressing civil war; a people who would not fall in with the forms of religion that were in favour at headquarters had to fight for liberty. Despised or esteemed they resolved to keep and use their rights, and the religion of the world owes a debt to the Covenanters. Then in our own times, lament as we may the varied forms of antagonism to settled faith and government, that enmity of which communism and anarchism are the delirium, it would be simply disastrous to suppress it by sheer force even if the thing were possible. Surely those who are certain they have right on their side need not be arrogant. The overbearing temper is always a sign of hollow principle as well as of moral infirmity. Was any Gilead ever put down by a mere assertion of superiority, even on the field of battle? Let the truth be acknowledged that only in freedom lies the hope of progress in intelligence, in constitutional order and purity of faith. The great problems of national life and development can never be settled as Ephraim tried to settle the movement beyond Jordan. The idea of life expands and room must be left for its enlargement. The many lines of thought, of personal activity, of religious and social experiment leading to better ways or else proving by and by that the old are best-all these must have place in a free state. The threats of revolution that trouble nations would die away if this were clearly understood; and we read history in vain if we think that the old autocracies or aristocracies will ever approve themselves again, unless indeed they take far wiser and more Christian forms than they had in past ages. The thought of individual liberty once firmly rooted in the minds of men, there is no going back to the restraints that were possible before it was familiar. Government finds another basis and other duties. A new kind of order arises which attempts no suppression of any idea or sincere belief and allows all possible room for experiments in living. Unquestionably this altered condition of things increases the weight of moral responsibility. In ordering our own lives as well as in regulating custom and law we need to exercise the most serious care, the most earnest thought. Life is not easier because it has greater breadth and freedom. Each is thrown back more upon conscience, has more to do for his fellow men and for God.
We pass now to the end of the campaign and the scene at the fords of Jordan, when the Gileadites, avenging themselves on Ephraim, used the notable expedient of asking a certain word to be pronounced in order to distinguish friend from foe. To begin with, the slaughter was quite unnecessary. If bloodshed there had to be, that on the field of battle was certainly enough. The wholesale murder of the "fugitives of Ephraim," so called with reference to their own taunt, was a passionate and barbarous deed. Those who began the strife could not complain; but it was the leaders of the tribe who rushed on war, and now the rank and file must suffer. Had Ephraim triumphed the defeated Gileadites would have found no quarter; victorious they gave none. We may trust, however, that the number forty-two thousand represents the total strength of the army that was dispersed and not those left dead on the field.
The expedient used at the fords turned on a defect or peculiarity of speech. Shibboleth perhaps meant stream. Of each man who came to the stream of Jordan wishing to pass to the other side it was required that he should say Shibboleth. The Ephraimites tried, but said Sibboleth instead, and so betraying their west-country birth they pronounced their own doom. The incident has become proverbial and the proverbial use of it is widely suggestive. First, however, we may note a more direct application.
Do we not at times observe how words used in common speech, phrases or turns of expression, betray a mans upbringing or character, his strain of thought and desire? It is not necessary to lay traps for men, to put it to them how they think on this point or that, in order to discover where they stand and what they are. Listen and you will hear sooner or later the Sibboleth that declares the son of Ephraim. In religious circles, for example, men are found who appear to be quite enthusiastic in the service of Christianity, eager for the success of the church, and yet on some occasion a word, an inflexion or turn of the voice will reveal to the attentive listener a constant worldliness of mind, a worship of self mingling with all they think and do. You notice that and you can prophesy what will come of it. In a few months, or even weeks, the show of interest will pass. There is not enough praise or deference to suit the egotist, he turns elsewhere to find the applause which he values above everything.
Again, there are words somewhat rude, somewhat coarse, which in carefully ordered speech a man may not use; but they fall from his lips in moments of unguarded freedom or excitement. The man does not speak "half in the language of Ashdod"; he particularly avoids it. Yet now and again a lapse into the Philistine dialect, a something muttered rather than spoken, betrays the secret of his nature. It would be harsh to condemn anyone as inherently bad on such evidence. The early habits, the sins of past years thus unveiled, may be those against which he is fighting and praying. Yet, on the other hand, the hypocrisy of a life may terribly show itself in these little things; and every one will allow that in choosing our companions and friends we ought to be keenly alive to the slightest indications of character. There are fords of Jordan to which we come unexpectedly, and without being censorious we are bound to observe those with whom we purpose to travel further.
Here, however, one of the most interesting and, for our time, most important points of application is to be found in the self-disclosure of writers-those who produce our newspapers, magazines, novels, and the like. Touching on religion and on morals certain of these writers contrive to keep on good terms with the kind of belief that is popular and pays. But now and again, despite efforts to the contrary, they come on the Shibboleth which they forget to pronounce aright. Some among them who really care nothing for Christianity, and have no belief whatever in revealed religion, would yet pass for interpreters of religion and guides of conduct. Christian morality and worship they barely endure; but they cautiously adjust every phrase and reference so as to drive away no reader and offend no devout critic; that is, they aim at doing so; now and again they forget themselves. We catch a word, a touch of flippancy, a suggestion of license, a covert sneer which goes too far by a hairsbreadth. The evil lies in this, that they are teaching multitudes to say Sibboleth along with them. What they say is so pleasant, so deftly said, with such an air of respect for moral authority that suspicion is averted, the very elect are for a time deceived. Indeed we are almost driven to think that Christians not a few are quite ready to accept the unbelieving Sibboleth from sufficiently distinguished lips. A little more of this lubricity and there will have to be a new and resolute sifting at the fords. The propaganda is villainously active, and without intelligent and vigorous opposition it will proceed to further audacity. It is not a few but scores of this sect who have the ear of the public and even in religious publications are allowed to convey hints of earthliness and atheism. A covert worship of Mammon and of Venus goes on in the temple professedly dedicated to Christ, and one cannot be sure that a seemingly pious work will not vend some doctrine of devils. It is time for a slaughter in Gods name of many a false reputation.
But there are Shibboleths of party, and we must be careful lest in trying others we use some catchword of our own Gilead by which to judge their religion or their virtue. The danger of the earnest, alike in religion, politics, and philanthropy, is to make their own favourite plans or doctrines the test of all worth and belief. Within our churches and in the ranks of social reformers distinctions are made where there should be none and old strifes are deepened. There are of course certain great principles of judgment. Christianity is founded on historical fact and revealed truth. "Every spirit which confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God." In such a saying lies a test which is no tribal Shibboleth. And on the same level are others by which we are constrained at all hazards to try ourselves and those who speak and write. Certain points of morality are vital and must be pressed. When a writer says, "In mediaeval times the recognition that every natural impulse in a healthy and mature being has a claim to gratification was a victory of unsophisticated nature over the asceticism of Christianity" - we use no Shibboleth test in condemning him. He is judged and foundwanting by principles on which the very existence of human society depends. It is in no spirit of bigotry, but in faithfulness to the essentials of life and the hope of mankind, that the sternest denunciation is hurled at such a man. In plain terms he is an enemy of the race.
Passing from cases like this, observe others in which a measure of dogmatism must be allowed to the ardent. Where there are no strong opinions strenuously held and expressed little impression will be made. The prophets in every age have spoken dogmatically; and vehemence of speech is not to be denied to the temperance reformer, the apostle of purity, the enemy of luxurious self-indulgence and cant. Moral indignation must express itself strongly; and in the dearth of moral conviction we can bear with those who would even drag us to the ford and make us utter their Shibboleth. They go too far, people say: perhaps they do; but there are so many who will not move at all except in the way of pleasure.
Now all this is clear. But we must return to the danger of making one aspect of morality the sole test of morals, one religious idea the sole test of religion and so framing a formula by which men separate themselves from their friends and pass narrow bitter judgments on their kinsfolk. Let sincere belief and strong feeling rise to the prophetic strain; let there be ardour, let there be dogmatism and vehemence. But beyond urgent words and strenuous example, beyond the effort to persuade and convert there lie arrogance and the usurpation of a judgment which belongs to God alone. In proportion as a Christian is living the life of Christ he will repel the claim of any other man, however devout, to force his opinion or his action. All attempts at terrorism betray a lack of spirituality. The Inquisition was in reality the world oppressing spiritual life. And so in less degree, with less truculence, the unspiritual element may show itself even in company with a fervent desire to serve the gospel. There need be no surprise that attempts to dictate to Christendom or any part of Christendom are warmly resented by those who know that religion and liberty cannot be separated. The true church of Christ has a firm grasp of what it believes and is aiming at, and by its resoluteness it bears on human society. It is also gracious and persuasive, reasonable and open, and so gathers men into a free and frank brotherhood, revealing to them the loftiest duty, leading them towards it in the way of liberty. Let men who understand this try each other and it will never be by limited and suspicious formulae.
Amidst pedants, critics, hot and bitter partisans, we see Christ moving in divine freedom. Fine is the subtlety of His thought in which the ideas of spiritual liberty and of duty blend to form one luminous strain. Fine are the clearness and simplicity of that daily life in which He becomes the way and the truth to men. It is the ideal life, beyond all mere rules, disclosing the law of the kingdom of heaven; it is free and powerful because upheld by the purpose that underlies all activity and development. Are we endeavouring to realise it? Scarcely at all: the bonds are multiplying, not falling away; no man is bold to claim his right, nor generous to give others their room. In this age of Christ we seem neither to behold nor desire His manhood. Shall this always be? Shall there not arise a race fit for liberty because obedient, ardent, true? Shall we not come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ?
For a little we must return to Jephthah, who after his great victory and his strange dark act of faith judged Israel but six years. He appears in striking contrast to other chiefs of his time, and even of far later times, in the purity of his home life, the more notable that his father set no example of good. Perhaps the legacy of dispeace and exile bequeathed to him with a tainted birth had taught the Gileadite, rude mountaineer as he was, the value of that order which his people too often despised. The silence of the history which is elsewhere careful to speak of wives and children sets Jephthah before us as a kind of puritan, with another and perhaps greater distinction than the desire to avoid war. The yearly lament for his daughter kept alive the memory not only of the heroine but of one judge in Israel who set a high example of family life. A sad and lonely man he went those few years of his rule in Gilead, but we may be sure that the character and will of the Holy One became more clear to him after he had passed the dreadful hill of sacrifice. The story is of the old world, terrible; yet we have found in Jephthah a sublime sincerity, and we may believe that such a man, though he never repented of his vow, would come to see that the God of Israel demanded another and a nobler sacrifice, that of life devoted to His righteousness and truth.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v1 CRITICAL NOTES.— Jdg_12:1. Gathered themselves together.] Not in a…
THE ARROGANT EPHRAIMITES AND JEPHTHAH—THE JUDGES WITHOUT FAME
(Jdg_12:1-15.)
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CRITICAL NOTES.— Jdg_12:1. Gathered themselves together.] Not in a disorderly or tumultuous manner as some would take it, but assembled in force, for the purpose of fighting if necessary (ch. Jdg_7:23-24; Jdg_10:17). Passed over (Jordan) northward, or it may mean to Zaphon, for such is the Hebrew word. Zaphon was a town in the tribe of Gad, mentioned along with Succoth.
Wherefore, etc., didst thou not call us to go with thee?] This was nothing but the old haughty and jealous spirit of the most ambitious of the tribes, which was constantly reappearing when the honours seemed to be going in the direction of others. We see it in Joshua’s days at the division of the land (Jos_17:14-18), we see it in the days of Gideon (Jdg_8:1-3), and we see it now. We will burn thine house on thee with fire.] Such was the depth of their hatred. This was not uncommon in that rough age (ch. Jdg_14:15; Jdg_15:6; Jos_7:25; Gen_38:24; Jos_8:8; Jos_8:19; Jud_1:8).
Jdg_12:2. When I called you, ye delivered me not, etc.] This is not told before, probably because they met the request with a point-blank refusal. They would refuse to fight under the leadership of a man like Jephthah, who had not the pure blood of an Israelite. Though God had acknowledged him, they would not. Also they felt that the danger was very serious, and so they kept within their own borders (Psa_78:9-11). Put my life in my hands] a phrase meaning, I risked my life, and you did not assist me (1Sa_19:5; Job_13:14; Psa_119:109). This was the wolf and the lamb policy on the part of the Ephraimites, but they found Jephthah a rough lamb to deal with. His language, however, is not defiant. He would willingly have taken their help, but when they did not give it. he sought the special help of his God, and that was not refused.
Jdg_12:3. Wherefore then are ye come up to fight against me?] Since God Himself has succoured me, why do you come to fight with me? Why not rather be grateful that the whole land is rid of the dark shadow of the oppressor? There was nothing here to give just cause of offence, and if the issue was tragic, compared with the parallel case of Gideon’s dealings with them, the circumstances were very different. Thus in Gideon’s days, the Ephraimites had really done much to gain the large success of the occasion, but here they had done nothing. Gideon had good reason to thank them for the share they had in the defeat of the common enemy; Jephthah had not a word to say of any good they had done, because they really had done nothing. Gideon, though called to task for overlooking these proud people, was not threatened with anything against his personal safety, but against Jephthah they came up in force, and vowing the direst vengeance. They would indeed not wait for any explanation. The attack began on their side.
Jdg_12:4. The men of Gilead smote Ephraim, etc.] It would seem as if the feeling of resentment in this case were cherished more by “the men of Gilead,” than by Jephthah himself. For what was done is put chiefly in their name, both in Jdg_12:4 and Jdg_12:5. Jephthah led them in self-defence but did not instigate them. The supercilious contempt with which the Ephraimites looked down upon the Gileadites, and their disdaining to acknowledge Jephthah’s leadership, notwithstanding his victorious closing of the war, was keenly felt by the Gileadites. It was a sting to their tribal character, and led to a spirit of bitter retaliation. They thirsted for an opportunity of taking revenge.
Ye are fugitives of Ephraim, etc.] This statement is not very clear as it stands; but the meaning seems to be—Ye are the scum of Ephraim, and counted as such both among the common Ephraimites and Manassites—a bad lot, who have no position as good citizens, but are nondescripts. The Gileadites, in fact, were not a tribe, but the descendants of a powerful family in Manasseh. But both Manasseh and Ephraim were the children of Joseph, and so there ought to have been a family kindred feeling. Instead of this, there was nothing but jealousy and desire for superiority on the side of Ephraim, because of the greater blessing which the patriarch Jacob bestowed on his younger grandson (Gen_48:17-19). Presuming on this advantageous position, which their ancestor left them in legacy, the men of Ephraim claimed to represent the whole of the children of Joseph, that is—Ephraim proper and all Manasseh, thus including the men of Gilead as well. They regarded themselves as the people of high caste, the Manassites as a sort of plebeians, and the Gileadites as nothing better than pariahs. In the collective mass of the children of Joseph, the Gileadites were regarded by these men of pride as menials or cads, because they were properly not a community at all, but only a “set of fugitives,” and yet they presumed to hold up their heads as if they were a tribe. Hence they were goaded on to be resentful.
Jdg_12:5. Took the passages of Jordan.] They lived on both sides of the river, though chiefly on the east side (see Num_26:29-30, etc.). They seemed to be better acquainted with the crossings than the Ephraimites; and they were in no mood to give quarter, for they were high-spirited, and could not bear the taunts that were flung at them.
Jdg_12:6. Say now Shibboleth, etc.] How greatly is the pride of the Ephraimites humbled, that now they are glad to renounce the tribal connection, and to say they are not Ephraimites, to save their lives! This too was said to Gileadites! But the dissemblers were discovered. “The wicked is snared by the transgression of his lips.” The sound of sh seems to have been common among the dialects spoken to the east of Jordan, but it had not yet got a place in the spoken language of the Ephraimite. By his inability to pronounce this sound an Ephraimite was easily discovered. In the day of reckoning, what a variety of witnesses can God bring against a guilty man! They lie on all sides. Every stone, every straw, the very winds of heaven, or the clods of the dust (Job_20:27; Job_18:8-10).
In different communities among the same people, nothing is more common than to hear different dialects spoken. The guttural sound of the letters ch as known and pronounced in Scotland is impossible of pronunciation by an Englishman, as in the words Ecclefechan or Auchtermuchty. Again, the letter r, as in river cannot be pronounced by a native of Northumberland. The sound of th cannot be given by many foreigners, though quite easy of utterance to the English-speaking race. Many German Jews pronounce the Hebrew word Beth as Baiss, and Bereshith they pronounce as Beresiss or Bereshiss. Peter, as a Galilean, often brought in his broad inelegant phrases which grated on refined ears, so that bystanders knew him to be a Galilean from his tongue. “Thy speech bewrayeth thee” (Mar_14:70). So is the Arabic tongue different as spoken in Aleppo, in Cairo, and in Bagdad. The word Shibboleth itself means “a stream,” or sometimes “ear.” But the sole reference here, is to the pronunciation of the first combination of letters in the word. When, during the Flemish war, the insurrection against the French broke out (1302), the gates were guarded, and no one was suffered to pass out except those who were able to say, “Scitt ende friend.” which words no Frenchmen could pronounce.—(Cassel.)
There fell of the Ephraimites forty and two thousand.] Certain numbers had a special significance among the Israelites. Forty-two mockers of the prophet Elisha were torn to pieces by the bears (2Ki_2:24); when God’s judgments descend on Ahab’s house, 42 brethren of Ahaziah are put to death by Jehu (2Ki_10:14).
Jdg_12:7. He was buried in one of the cities of Gilead.] God takes care of His own—even “their dust is precious.” Jephthah has been harshly judged by many. But it is manifest that God makes much of him, according to His own rule. “Them that honour me I will honour.” How small a matter to be judged—rather misjudged of man! “He that judgeth us is the Lord.”
In his city.] So the Sept. reads. It uses ו for י. In that case Mizpah would be the place where he was laid, for it was the city of Jephthah.
Jdg_12:8. Ibzan of Bethlehem]. Some think this was the same with Boaz, for it seems to have been in Judah. The thought was common among the Jews, yet it rests purely on supposition. The eference is rather to a town in Zebulun.
Jdg_12:9-15. The lives of the three judges mentioned here were short and uneventful. All that is said of them is that they lived a little while, they passed across the stage, and then disappeared. two of them had large families, but no names are given, and nothing is recorded as to what they did. It is said of Abdon’s sons and nephews, or rather grandsons, that they rode on ass colts, which in those days implied wealth and high station alike (Ch. Jdg_5:10; Jdg_10:4).
COMMENTS AND SUGGESTIONS ON CHAPTER 12
I. It is impossible to satisfy the cravings of pride and envy.
They are like the daughters of the horse-leach that continually cry, Give, give. Nothing would please these Ephraimites. Jephthah offered at the outset to give them a large share of the honours of the fight, but then they kept in the background; for it was by no means certain whether they should overcome or be overcome, and now when the battle is over and won, they turn round and murmur because they were not called (comp. Mat_11:16-19). See remarks on Jdg_8:1-3.
II. Deadly results flow from a malicious use of the tongue.
Malicious words sting a man usually in his character, that is, in “the apple of his eye.” For nothing about him is so sensitive as his character. Hence the consequences are often most destructive (Jas_3:2-8). You are the refuse of Ephraim, worthless as the rubbish under our feet. Such was the taunt of the imperial tribe towards the poor Gileadites, who, however, could as keenly resent a barbed arrow thrown at them by the tongue as any other class. Their rage became a frenzy, and, those who had so thoughtlessly flung the shaft of reproach, little reflected on the terrible rebound their evil words would produce. “There fell at that time of Ephraimites 42,000 men.” Some would indeed reduce the number to 2,040 men. But the A.V. is most generally taken as correct. “Behold how great a matter a little fire kindleth!”
There is no limit to the ruinous effect of an evil tongue. “It is the instrument of all strife and contention, the inventor of law suits, and the origin of wars. It is the origin of error, of lies, of calumny, and of blasphemies.” [Æsop]. A large manufactory is burnt down to the ground, notwithstanding that many engines are employed to pour water upon it. That fire is kindled by a rushlight. A splendid farmyard, with hay ricks, corn stacks, stables, and other buildings, is reduced to blackened ruins by a destructive fire: and that is the doing of a lucifer match! “Life and death are in the power of the tongue.” What need to offer the prayer, “Set a watch, Lord, before my mouth; keep the door of my lips.”
III. Sinful passions, long-cherished, will in the end bring dire punishment.
The same pride and envy, superciliousness of manner, and arrogance of spirit, with resentfulness of feeling, which were shown on this occasion, were exhibited many years before to Gideon. During all those years such dispositions were cherished by the Ephraimites, and though the Ruler in Providence permitted them long to pass with impunity, the time came round at last for these wicked to receive the due reward of their iniquities (2Pe_2:3; Pro_29:1). The long delay to bring punishment, means that “God’s goodness would lead men to repentance.”
IV. The Redeemer cares for the bodies as well as the souls of those whom He redeems.
The very burial place of the good man is worth mentioning. His dust is precious, however great may be the humiliation of the grave. His grave is known to Him by whom he is redeemed; and, when the time comes for the gathering up of the jewels, there will be no difficulty in finding out the spot where every jewel is to be found. “This is the Father’s will, that of all which He hath given me, I should lose nothing, but raise it up again at the last day.” “—We wait for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of the body.” Every part of the man must be redeemed, for it is for the honour of Him whose the work is, that it should be done with perfection. As Moses said to Pharaoh, “not a hoof shall be left behind,” so will a greater than Moses, who is the author of a greater redemption require from Death, that he yield up all the parts and fragments of the “vile body,” so that not a limb shall be left in the grave. All now sleep under the eye of Jesus, and the moment is advancing when at His Almighty whisper, all that has been so long in the dark charnel-house held bound in the sleep of death, shall awake singing, each one rising on the wing like the lark, but with sweeter song, to meet their Lord in the air, and surround his throne with adorations and praises as their never-ceasing employment.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 The Ephraimites Quarrel with Jephthah. His Death
The Ephraimites Quarrel with Jephthah. His Death
1-6. Jephthah and Ephraim. Once more the members of the leading tribe find themselves left out of the victory, and complain: cp. Jdg_8:1; Jephthah deals with them differently from Gideon.
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1. Northward] RM 'to Zaphon,' a town near Succoth: cp. Jos_13:27.
2. When I called you] It would seem that Jephthah had done more than simply rouse Gilead: see on Jdg_11:29.
4. Jephthah now makes use of the headship promised him in Jdg_11:11. The second part of the v. is unintelligible. As it stands, it refers to some further taunt of the Ephraimites. But 'fugitives' means, in the original, 'survivors': and the Gileadites are regarded in the genealogies as an offshoot of Manasseh, to whom, indeed, the land of Gilead was assigned.
5. The passages] RV 'fords.' Ephraim had invaded Gilead, and the Gileadites took advantage of a dialectical peculiarity to identify every Ephraimite fugitive. Some exaggeration of numbers seems indisputable.
8-15. The Minor Judges, Ibzan, Elon, Abdon.
8. Bethlehem] Probably in Zebulun, mentioned in Jos_19:15.
9. Thirty] cp. Jos_10:4
11. Elon] in Num_26:26 the name of a clan; possibly in the cases of Ibzan and Abdon also the hero and his family are confused.
15. Pirathon] Possibly the modern Ferata, SW. of Shechem. Amalekites] Probably the Amalekites had made a settlement in Mt. Ephraim.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 CHAPTER 12 The strife--Jephthah’s Death--The Other Judges
CHAPTER 12 The strife--Jephthah’s Death--The Other Judges
1. The strife and the slaying of the Ephraimites (Jdg 12:1-6)
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2. Jephthah’s death (Jdg 12:7)
3. Ibzan, Elon and Abdon (Jdg 12:8-15)
The strife of Ephraim and their question reminds us of what happens under the judgeship of Gideon. There the soft answer turned away wrath. How different it is here. Jephthah in self exaltation shows a far different spirit. Notice the “I” in his answer. “I was at great strife”--”I and my people”--”I called you”--”I saw”--”I put my life in my hand.” A great strife follows. The Gileadites take the fords of Jordan and those who said “Sibboleth” were slain. Horrible record! Forty-two thousand Ephraimites were murdered. And this sad extermination of brethren has its sequel in Christendom. Shibboleth means “flood,” that which divides. Sectarianism is undoubtedly in view here. How God’s people have suffered under it and still suffer! It is true “every test that divides the people of God from one another, and not from their enemies, is another false ‘shibboleth.’“ May God graciously deliver His people from all sectarian strife, which is but the work and the fruit of the flesh (Gal 5:19-21).
Three judges follow after Jephthah’s death. These correspond to their typical meaning to Tola and Jair after Abimelech’s lordship had been broken. Ibzan of Bethlehem. Ibzan means “shining”--”splendour.” Then there is Elon, which means “strength”; and Abdon, the meaning of which is “service,” the son of Hillel, “praising.” These three give us a little glimpse of “Him who will come in splendor and in strength”--that is “in power and great glory,” to set things right. Then all strife and disorder will end and happy service and praise will follow.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v1 The Defeat of the Ephraimites
The Defeat of the Ephraimites
v. 1. And the men of Ephraim gathered themselves together and went northward, or, marched Zaphon, a town in the tribe of Gad, on the eastern side of the Jordan Valley, and said unto Jephthah, Wherefore passedst thou over to fight against the children of Ammon, to attack them in battle, and didst not call us to go with thee? It was not zeal for fighting the Lord’s battles which prompted this outburst, but a presumptuous jealousy, because the Ephraimites had not shared in the booty and in the results of success. We will burn thine house upon thee with fire. It was the same overbearing pride which they had shown with Gideon, but tile threat which they added in this case showed that they were even more presumptuous at this time than before.
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v. 2. And Jephthah, in an endeavor to make the situation clear to the arrogant meddlers, said unto them, I and my people were at great strife with the children of Ammon, literally, "A man of war was I, I and my people, and the children of Ammon [on the other side] very"; he and his fellow-citizens were engaged in a severe struggle with the invaders; and when I called you, this fact being omitted in chapter 11, because it had been unsuccessful, ye delivered me not out of their hands. The Ephraimites had probably refused to take part in the campaign because Jephthah had been chosen leader without their consent.
v. 3. And when I saw that ye delivered me not, I put my life in my hands, he staked the most precious possession which he had, and passed over against the children of Ammon, in a bold attack upon their army, and the Lord delivered them into my hand; wherefore, then, are ye come unto me this day to fight against me? Although speaking in the name of all the Gileadites, he placed his own person in the foreground, because the enmity was directed chiefly against his person.
v. 4. Then Jephthah gathered together, mobilized for immediate military duty, all the men of Gilead and fought with Ephraim, not only in self-defense, but as the judge of the nation putting down rebellion with force of arms; and the men of Gilead, of the entire country east of Jordan, smote Ephraim because they said, Ye Gileadites are fugitives of Ephraim among the Ephraimites and among the Manassites, thus heaping upon them the insult that their army was really a pack of deserters, a set of fugitives, a bunch of dissatisfied loafers from west of Jordan, a statement which deeply affected their tribal honor.
v. 5. And the Gileadites took the passages of Jordan before the Ephraimites, the fords which led to the country of Ephraim; and it was so, that when those Ephraimites which were escaped, who had not been killed in battle, said, Let me go over, that the men of Gilead said unto him, Art thou an Ephraimite? For they did not want to slay any innocent persons. If he said, Nay;
v. 6. then said they unto him, Say now shibboleth (stream, flood); and he said Sibboleth; for he could not frame (was not able) to pronounce it right. It was a difference in dialect, and the Ephraimites simply could not get the sound right; their pronunciation betrayed them. Then they took him, every Ephraimite who was thus exposed, and slew him at the passages of Jordan; and there fell at that time, in the entire campaign, of the Ephraimites forty and two thousand. Thus the rebellious arrogance of Ephraim was punished.
v. 7. And Jephthah judged Israel six years, his jurisdiction apparently extending chiefly over the country east of Jordan. Then died Jephthah, the Gileadite, and was buried in one of the cities of Gilead. Rebellions take place also in the midst of God’s. people, the Church of Christ, and in more than one case the defenders of the truth have made a certain statement of Scripture a Shibboleth. in order to make a distinction between friends. and enemies. But the weapons of our warfare are spiritual.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 3 A call went out to the men of Ephraim
A call went out to the men of Ephraim
Here the abstract noun "call" can be expressed as a verb. AT: "The men of Ephraim were called together" or "The men ... of Ephraim called together their soldiers" (See: Abstract Nouns)
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Zaphon
This is the name of a city. (See: How to Translate Names)
passed through ... pass through
or "traveled through ... travel" or "journeyed through ... journey"
We will burn your house down over you
This idiom means to burn down a house with people inside it. AT: "We will burn your house down with you still in it" (See: Idiom)
When I called you, you
Here the word "you" is plural and refers to the people of Ephraim. (See: Forms of You)
did not rescue me
Jephthah uses the word "me" to refer to himself and all the people of Gilead. AT: "do not rescue us" (See: Synecdoche)
translationWords
call
Ephraim
Jephthah
people group
Ammon
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.