Jephthah
11
📚Now Jephthah the Gileadite was a brave warrior 📖, and he was the son of a prostitute. And Gilead was the father of Jephthah. 2 📚And Gilead’s wife bore him sons. And his wife’s sons grew up and drove out Jephthah and said to him, “You will not have an inheritance in our father’s house, for you are the son of another woman”. 3 📚Then Jephthah fled from his brothers and stayed in the land of Tob 📖. And worthless fellows gathered around Jephthah and went around with him. 4 📚And it so happened in process of time, that the children of Ammon made war against Israel. 5 📚And it happened that when the children of Ammon made war against Israel, the elders of Gilead went to bring Jephthah from the land of Tob, 6 and said to Jephthah, “Come and be our leader, so that we can fight with the children of Ammon”.
7 📚And Jephthah said to the elders of Gilead, “Did you not hate me and drive me from my father’s house? And why have you come to me now when you are in trouble?”
8 📚And the elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, “So we turn again to you now, so that you may go with us and fight against the children of Ammon, and be our head over all the inhabitants of Gilead”.
9 📚And Jephthah said to the elders of Gilead, “If you take me home again to fight against the children of Ammon, and the LORD delivers them up to me 📖, will I be your head?”
10 📚And the elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, “May the LORD be a witness between us, if we do not do according to your words”. 11 📚Then Jephthah went with the elders of Gilead, and the people made him head and leader over them. And Jephthah spoke all his words before the LORD in Mizpeh.
12 📚And Jephthah sent messengers to the king of the children of Ammon, saying, “What is there between you and me, that you have come against me to fight in my land?”
13 📚And the king of the children of Ammon answered the messengers of Jephthah, “Because when Israel came up from Egypt, they took away my land 📖 from the Arnon to the Jabbok and to the Jordan. Now therefore restore those regions again peaceably”.
14 📚And Jephthah again sent messengers to the king of the children of Ammon, 15 📚and they said to him, “This is what Jephthah says: ‘Israel did not take the land of Moab or the land of the children of Ammon, 16 📚but when Israel came up from Egypt and travelled through the desert to the Red Sea and came to Kadesh, 17 📚then Israel sent messengers to the king of Edom, saying, “Please let me pass through your land”. But the king of Edom would not hear of it. And in the same way they sent word to the king of Moab. But he would not consent. And Israel stayed in Kadesh.
18 📚“‘Then they went along through the desert and went around the land of Edom and the land of Moab, and travelled to the east of the land of Moab and camped on the other side of the Arnon, but did not enter the territory of Moab. For the Arnon was the border of Moab.
19 📚“‘And Israel sent messengers to Sihon, king of the Amorites, the king of Heshbon, and Israel said to him, “Please let us pass through your land to my place”. 20 📚But Sihon did not trust Israel 📖 to pass through his territory, and Sihon gathered all his people together and camped in Jahaz and fought against Israel.
21 “‘And the LORD God of Israel delivered Sihon and all his people into the hands of Israel, and they defeated them. So Israel took possession of the whole land of the Amorites, the inhabitants of that country.
11:21 Verse 9.⚜
22 📚And they took over all the territories of the Amorites, from the Arnon to the Jabbok, and from the desert to the Jordan.
23 “‘So the LORD God of Israel dispossessed the Amorites from before his people Israel, and now should you possess it? 24 📚Will you not possess that which Chemosh 📖 your god gives you to possess? So whomever the LORD our God drove out from before us, their land we will possess.
25 📚“‘And now are you any better than Balak 📖 the son of Zippor, king of Moab? Did he ever strive against Israel or did he ever fight against them? 26 📚While Israel lived in Heshbon and her towns, and in Aroer and her towns, and in all the cities that are along by the territories of the Arnon for three hundred years, why did you not recover them during that time?
11:26 Three hundred years had elapsed since Moses led Israel to the Jordan River. This places the time of this story at about 1100 B.C., almost a hundred years before David began his reign.⚜
27 📚Therefore I have not sinned against you, but you are wronging me by warring against me. May the LORD the Judge be the judge 📖 today between the children of Israel and the children of Ammon.’ ”
28 📚However the king of the children of Ammon did not listen to the words of Jephthah which he sent him.
11:28 They who are determined to pursue their own course will not be changed by reason, or by appeals to history.⚜
29 📚Then the Spirit of the LORD came on Jephthah, and he passed through Gilead and Manasseh, and passed through Mizpeh of Gilead; and from Mizpeh of Gilead he went on to the children of Ammon. 30 📚And Jephthah made a vow 📖 to the LORD and said, “If you deliver the children of Ammon into my hands without fail, 31 📚then it shall be that whatever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, shall surely be the LORD’s, and I will offer it as a burnt offering 📖”.
32 📚So Jephthah went on to the children of Ammon to fight against them; and the LORD delivered 📖 them into his hands. 33 📚And he struck them down from Aroer as far as Minnith, twenty cities, and to the plain of the vineyards, with a very great slaughter. In this way the children of Ammon were subdued before the children of Israel.
Jephthah’s daughter, his foolish vow
34 📚And Jephthah came to Mizpeh to his house, and just then his daughter came out to meet him with tambourines and with dancing. And she was his only child. Besides her he had neither son nor daughter.
35 📚And it came about, when he saw her, that he tore his clothes 📖 and said, “Alas, my daughter! You have brought me very low, and you are one of those who trouble me; for I have opened my mouth to the LORD and I cannot go back on it”. 📖
36 📚And she said to him, “My father, if you have opened your mouth to the LORD, do to me according to what came out of your mouth, since the LORD has taken vengeance for you on your enemies, on the children of Ammon”.
11:36 She too knew how serious a matter it was to break a vow to God.⚜
37 📚And she said to her father, “Let this thing be done for me: leave me alone for two months, so that I may go up and down on the mountains and lament because of my virginity 📖, I and my companions”.
38 And he said, “Go”. And he sent her away for two months; and she went with her companions and on the mountains lamented because of her virginity. 39 📚And it came about at the end of two months that she returned to her father, and he did with her in accordance with the vow 📖 which he had made. And she did not know a man. And it became a custom in Israel, 40 that the daughters of Israel went yearly to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite for four days in a year.