Judges 11:1-11
Driven out, then sent for
The brothers expel him over his mother. Years later the same elders arrive in Tob. He asks them the obvious question, gets terms, and has them spoken before the LORD at Mizpah.
People of the Bible
Jephthah
Was thrown out for his mother, called back when they needed him, and made a vow he should never have made.
Jephthah is the son of a prostitute, driven out by his half brothers so he would not share the inheritance, and he ends up in the land of Tob at the head of a band of worthless men. When Ammon attacks, the elders who expelled him come and ask him to be their commander. He negotiates first, gets it in writing before the LORD at Mizpah, and then sends Ammon a long and careful history lesson about who has held what land for three hundred years. Then he vows that whatever comes out of his door to meet him will be the LORD’s.
Scroll down to the story
The movements, in the order the text gives them.
The story of Jephthah
- 01
- 02
Judges 11:12-28
Three hundred years of argument
Before fighting he sends messengers with the whole history: what Israel did not take, who was asked for passage, and why nobody raised this claim for three centuries.
- 03
Judges 11:29-33
The vow at Mizpah
The Spirit comes on him and he vows anyway, promising whatever comes out of the doors of his house. The victory is total, twenty cities, and then he goes home.
- 04
Judges 11:34-40
His daughter, with timbrels
She is his only child. He tears his clothes and tells her he cannot go back. She asks for two months in the mountains, and afterwards the young women of Israel go out four days a year.
- 05
Judges 12:1-6
Shibboleth at the fords
Ephraim arrives after the battle to complain and threaten. Forty-two thousand die at the Jordan crossings over the pronunciation of a single word.
Why it matters
Jephthah is the book at its darkest and the text does not comment. He is listed in Hebrews among the faithful, and his daughter comes out with tambourines, and the writer gives her the only voice in the scene worth having: she asks for two months, and the daughters of Israel keep a four day commemoration every year. Judges does not tell us what to think. It tells us what was vowed, what came out of the door, and what was done.
1 song
The music
Every song in the catalogue whose passage falls inside these chapters.
