JUDGE OF ISRAEL · THE TRIBES OF ISRAEL

Jephthah. Chosen head of Gilead; broke Ammon; judged Israel six years.

LED ISRAELi

6 years No years BC in Scripture

TRIBE

Not stated (a Gileadite)

IN THE LINE

9th of 15

SCRIPTURE SAYS

“Then the Spirit of the LORD came upon Jephthah.”

PROPHETS

None named

THE TRIBES OF ISRAEL: 15 RULERS MOSES → SAMUEL

THE CYCLE

Forgetting, oppression, a cry, a deliverer, rest

  • 1 · FORGOT GOD Israel served Baalim, Ashtaroth and the gods of Syria, Zidon, Moab, Ammon and the Philistines. Judges 10:6
  • 2 · OPPRESSED: THE AMMONITES (WITH THE PHILISTINES), 18 YEARS The LORD sold Israel to the Philistines and the Ammonites; for eighteen years the Ammonites oppressed Israel in Gilead, and crossed the Jordan to fight Judah, Benjamin and Ephraim. Judges 10:7–9
  • 3 · CRIED OUT Israel cried "We have sinned"; the LORD answered "I will deliver you no more"; they put away the strange gods, and "his soul was grieved for the misery of Israel". Judges 10:10–16
  • 4 · DELIVERED Jephthah struck Ammon "from Aroer, even till thou come to Minnith, even twenty cities". Judges 11:32–33
  • 5 · REST Scripture does not say.

ACCESSION

How Jephthah came to power

  • His half-brothers drove him out; he lived in the land of Tob, where "vain men" gathered to him. Judges 11:2–3
  • When Ammon made war, the elders of Gilead came to fetch him as captain. Judges 11:4–8
  • He asked, "shall I be your head?"; the people made him "head and captain over them", and he spoke all his words before the LORD in Mizpeh. Judges 11:9–11

SUCCESSION

Before and after

WHAT SCRIPTURE SAYS

What Scripture says of him

  • "Then the Spirit of the LORD came upon Jephthah." Judges 11:29
  • He laid Israel's case before the king of Ammon: "the LORD the Judge be judge this day between the children of Israel and the children of Ammon". Judges 11:27
  • Samuel names him among the deliverers; Hebrews among those who acted by faith. 1 Samuel 12:11 Hebrews 11:32

EVENTS

Wars, works and turning points

UNDATED IN SCRIPTURE

THE LAND

The places Scripture names

The tribes of Israel · tribe of Not stated (a Gileadite). Only places Scripture names are shown, each where the Atlas puts it.

THE NATION

What the nation did

  • Israel put away the strange gods "and served the LORD". Judges 10:16
  • "It was a custom in Israel" for the daughters of Israel to lament Jephthah's daughter four days a year. Judges 11:39–40

ON THE WORLD STAGE

The powers of the day

AMMON

The king of the children of Ammon (not named)

THE PHILISTINES

DATES DIFFER

When was it?

SCRIPTURE'S OWN NUMBERS

No years given

Eighteen years of Ammonite oppression and six years of judging (Judges 10:8, 12:7). Jephthah's "three hundred years" (11:26) is Scripture's own long count; see the open question.

No, she was given to the LORD in lifelong virginity

First found in the Kimchis (late 12th century), as reported by Moore; Keil (1865)

Keil reads "she knew no man" as the way the vow was fulfilled, a "spiritual burnt-offering, in a lifelong chastity", and argues that the writer would not have described a human sacrifice without blame.[5][27]

IN SCRIPTURE

Every passage

CHAPTERS · 5

Judges 10 Judges 11 Judges 12 1 Samuel 12 Hebrews 11

PASSAGES · 3

Judges 10:6–12:7 1 Samuel 12:11 Hebrews 11:32

WHAT SCRIPTURE DOES NOT SAY

  • Scripture does not name Jephthah's daughter, and gives no verdict on the vow.
  • No prophet is named in Jephthah's story; the LORD's answer to Israel's cry in Judges 10:11-14 is given without a messenger's name.
  • Judges does not say Jephthah judged all Israel; the war and his election belong to Gilead (Judges 10:17-11:11).

IDENTIFICATIONS THIS PAGE RELIES ON

  • "Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty man of valour, and he was the son of an harlot: and Gilead begat Jephthah." Judges 11:1

SOURCES

Where this page comes from

  • C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, tr. James Martin, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Joshua, Judges, Ruth (1872 printing of the 1865 translation) (1872), pp. 276–286 (chronology of the judges).
  • C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, tr. James Martin, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Joshua, Judges, Ruth (1872 printing of the 1865 translation) (1872), pp. 322–323 (Judges 5:25–27).
  • C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, tr. James Martin, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Joshua, Judges, Ruth (1872 printing of the 1865 translation) (1872), pp. 357–358 (Judges 8:27).
  • C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, tr. James Martin, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Joshua, Judges, Ruth (1872 printing of the 1865 translation) (1872), p. 373 (Judges 10:3–5).
  • C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, tr. James Martin, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Joshua, Judges, Ruth (1872 printing of the 1865 translation) (1872), pp. 387–394 (Judges 11:34–40).
  • C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, tr. James Martin, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Joshua, Judges, Ruth (1872 printing of the 1865 translation) (1872), p. 398 (Judges 12:8–10).
  • C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, tr. James Martin, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Joshua, Judges, Ruth (1872 printing of the 1865 translation) (1872), pp. 156–157 (Joshua 15:13–19).
  • C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, tr. James Martin, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Joshua, Judges, Ruth (1872 printing of the 1865 translation) (1872), p. 208 (Joshua 19:50).
  • C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, tr. James Martin, Biblical Commentary on the Books of Samuel (1872 printing of the 1866 translation) (1872), pp. 17–18 (1 Samuel 1:1).
  • C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, tr. James Martin, Biblical Commentary on the Books of Samuel (1872 printing of the 1866 translation) (1872), p. 39 (1 Samuel 2:27–36).
  • C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, tr. James Martin, Biblical Commentary on the Books of Samuel (1872 printing of the 1866 translation) (1872), p. 56 (1 Samuel 4:18).
  • C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, tr. James Martin, Biblical Commentary on the Books of Samuel (1872 printing of the 1866 translation) (1872), pp. 117–118 (1 Samuel 12:11).
  • C. F. Keil, tr. Andrew Harper, Biblical Commentary on the Books of the Chronicles (1872), pp. 123–124 (1 Chronicles 6:28, Hebrew 6:13).
  • C. F. Keil, tr. Andrew Harper, Biblical Commentary on the Books of the Chronicles (1872), p. 165 (1 Chronicles 9:22).
  • C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, tr. James Martin, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch, vol. 2 (1872 printing) (1872), p. 87 (Exodus 18:24–27).
  • C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, tr. James Martin, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch, vol. 3 (1871 printing) (1871), pp. 71–72 and note (Numbers 11:24–30).
  • George Buchanan Gray, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Numbers (International Critical Commentary) (1903), pp. 113–115 (Numbers 11:25–29).
  • C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, tr. James Martin, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch, vol. 3 (1871 printing) (1871), p. 499 (Deuteronomy 33:4–5).
  • George Foot Moore, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Judges (International Critical Commentary) (1895), pp. xxxvii–xlii (Introduction §7, Chronology).
  • George Foot Moore, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Judges (International Critical Commentary) (1895), pp. xxviii–xxix (Introduction, the Minor Judges).
  • George Foot Moore, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Judges (International Critical Commentary) (1895), p. 27 and notes (Judges 1:13).
  • George Foot Moore, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Judges (International Critical Commentary) (1895), pp. 66–67 (Judges 2:9).
  • George Foot Moore, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Judges (International Critical Commentary) (1895), pp. 107–108 (Judges 4, the two accounts).
  • George Foot Moore, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Judges (International Critical Commentary) (1895), pp. 113–114 (Judges 4:5).
  • George Foot Moore, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Judges (International Critical Commentary) (1895), pp. 231–232 (Judges 8:27).
  • George Foot Moore, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Judges (International Critical Commentary) (1895), pp. 274–275 (Judges 10:4).
  • George Foot Moore, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Judges (International Critical Commentary) (1895), pp. 302–305 and note (Judges 11:39).
  • George Foot Moore, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Judges (International Critical Commentary) (1895), p. 310 (Judges 12:8).
  • George Foot Moore, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Judges (International Critical Commentary) (1895), p. 311 (Judges 12:13–15, on 1 Samuel 12:11).
  • Edward Mack, in The International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia, "Chronology of the Old Testament" (1915), section VII (From the Disruption to the Exodus).
  • S. R. Driver, The Book of Exodus (Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges) (1911), p. xxx (Introduction §4).
  • James Henry Breasted, Ancient Records of Egypt, vol. III (1906), §617, p. 264 (Merneptah's Hymn of Victory).
  • Matthew Henry, An Exposition of the Old and New Testament, vol. 1 (Genesis to Deuteronomy) (1706), on Deuteronomy 33:5.
  • Julius Wellhausen, tr. J. S. Black and A. Menzies, Prolegomena to the History of Israel (1885), ch. VI (Chronicles), §III.2.

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