UST JDG Chapter 11

◄ JDG 11 ► ║ ═ ©

11 There was a man from the region of Gilead whose name was Jephthah. He was a great soldier. But his mother was a prostitute. His father was a man whose name was Gilead. 2 Gilead also had a legal wife who gave birth to several sons. When they became adults, they forced Jephthah to leave. They told him, “You are not the son of our father’s legal wife, so you have no right to inherit any of his property.” 3 So Jephthah ran away from his brothers. He settled in the region of Tob. He attracted a group of lawless men, and they went out raiding together.

4 Some time later, the soldiers of the Ammon people group attacked the people of Israel. 5 The Israelites needed someone to lead their soldiers to fight against the Ammonites. So the leaders of the region of Gilead went to the land of Tob. They wanted to bring Jephthah back to be their commander. 6 They said to him, “Come back with us and lead our army. That way we will be able to defeat the Ammonite army.”

7 But Jephthah told the leaders of Gilead, “You rejected me! You let my brothers force me to leave home without any inheritance! So you should not come and expect me to help you now that you are in trouble.”

8 The leaders of Gilead said to Jephthah, “That is exactly why we are coming to you now, because we are in trouble. Come back with us and lead our soldiers against the Ammonite army. If you do, we will make you the leader over everyone who lives in Gilead.”

9 Jephthah answered them, “So if I go back to Gilead with you to fight against the army of Ammon, and if Yahweh helps us to defeat them, then I will be your leader.”

10 The leaders of Gilead told Jephthah, “We swear that we will do what you have just described. Yahweh is a witness of the promises we are making to you. May he punish us if we do not keep those promises!” 11 So Jephthah went with the leaders back to Gilead. In a religious gathering at Mizpah, Jephthah repeated to Yahweh the terms of the agreement they had made. Then the people appointed him to be their leader and the commander of their army.

12 Jephthah sent messengers to the king of the Ammon people group. They asked the king, “What have we done to make you angry, so that your army has invaded our land to fight against us?”

13 The Ammonite king replied to Jephthah’s messengers, “I am invading because you Israelites took our land when you came here from Egypt. You took all of our land east of the Jordan River, from the Arnon River in the south to the Jabbok River in the north. So now give it back to us without a fight.”

14 But Jephthah sent his messengers back to the Ammonite king. 15 They said to him, “Jephthah told us to tell you: ‘Israel did not take any land that belonged to the Moabites or the Ammonites. 16 Here is what actually happened. When the Israelite people came out of Egypt, they walked through the desert to the Red Sea. From there they traveled to the town of Kadesh at the border of the region of Edom. 17 From there the Israelites sent messengers to the king of the Edom people group. They asked him, “Please allow us to walk across your land.” But the king of the Edomites refused. When they sent the same message to the king of the Moabites, he also refused to allow them to go through his land. So the Israelites stayed at Kadesh for a long time. 18 Then the Israelites went into the desert and walked outside the borders of Edom and Moab. They stayed to the east of Moab, and they did not set up their camp until they were north of the Arnon River. That means that they never went into the territory of Moab, since the Arnon River is the northern border of Moab.

19 Then the leaders of Israel sent a message to the king of the Amorite people group. His name was Sihon. He ruled in the city of Heshbon. They asked him, “Please allow us Israelite people to cross through your land so we may go into the land that is ours.” 20 But Sihon thought that if he allowed the Israelites to come into his land, they would try to conquer it. So he gathered his whole army. His soldiers set up their tents at the town of Jahaz. From there, they attacked the Israelite people. 21 But Yahweh, the God of Israel, made the Israelite army stronger than the army of Sihon. So the Israelites destroyed that enemy army. Then they took possession of all the land where those Amorites had lived. 22 Yes, the Israelites took all the land that belonged to those Amorites. It extended from the Arnon River in the south to the Jabbok River in the north, and from the desert in the east to the Jordan River in the west.

23 So it was Yahweh, the God of Israel, who forced the Amorites to leave the land in which they were living. Yahweh allowed the Israelites to live there instead. So you cannot claim that land as if it belonged to you. 24 You have the right to live in any land that your god Chemosh may give to you. But Yahweh our God forced others to leave this entire land so that we could live in it. And we are going to keep living in it! 25 You are not greater than Balak son of Zippor, the king of Moab. He never disputed that this land now belonged to the Israelites. He never fought against the Israelites to try to take the land from them, even though it once belonged to the Moabites and Ammonites. 26 The Israelites have been living for the past 300 years in the city of Heshbon and the town of Aroer and in the villages around them. They have also been living in settlements along the Arnon River. But during all of that time, you Ammonites have not tried to capture those areas for yourselves. 27 So we Israelites have not harmed you by taking any land from you. But you Ammonites are doing something bad to us by attacking us to try to conquer our land. Yahweh our God makes sure that people treat each other properly. If we fight, he will enable our Israelite army to defeat your Ammonite army, because we have done what is right and you are doing what is wrong.’ ”

28 But even though Jephthah sent him this message, the king of Ammon did not command his army to stop fighting against the Israelites.

29 Then the Spirit of Yahweh gave Jephthah special strength and courage. He went through the region of Gilead and through the area east of the Jordan River where the tribe of Manasseh lived to enlist men for his army. He brought all those soldiers to the city of Mizpah in Gilead, where some of the Israelites had already gathered. From there, they would go to fight against the Ammonites. 30 There Jephthah made a solemn promise to Yahweh. He said, “If you will enable my army to defeat the Ammonites, 31 when I return safely from defeating the Ammonites, then I will devote to you the first person who comes out of my house to greet me. I will sacrifice that person by burning him up completely on an altar.”

32 Then Jephthah and his soldiers went from Mizpah to attack the Ammonites. Yahweh enabled his army to defeat them. 33 Jephthah and his men defeated the Ammonites at the town of Aroer. Then they pursued them all the way to the area around the city of Minnith. They destroyed 20 settlements, as far as the city of Abel Keramim. The Israelites killed a very great number of Ammonites. After that the Ammonites could no longer oppose the Israelites.

34 When Jephthah returned to his home in Mizpah, his daughter was the first one to come out of the house to meet him. She was joyfully playing a tambourine and dancing. Since he had no other sons or daughters, she was his only child. 35 When Jephthah saw his daughter, he tore his clothes to show that he was very sad about what he thought he had to do. He said to her, “Oh, no! My daughter, you have made me terribly distressed by being the first one to greet me. You are troubling me just as the Ammonites did. I made a solemn promise to Yahweh to sacrifice the first person who came out of my house, and I have to do what I promised.”

36 His daughter said, “Father, you made a solemn promise to Yahweh. So you must do to me what you promised, because you said that you would do that if Yahweh helped you to defeat your enemies, the Ammonites.” 37 But then she asked him, “Please do something for me first. Do not offer me as a sacrifice right away. Let me go into the hills and wander around with my friends for two months. Let me grieve with them the fact that I will never get married and have children.”

38 Jephthah told her, “You may go.” And he let her leave for two months. So she and her friends wandered in the hills, and they all cried for her because she would never get married and have children. 39 After two months, she returned to her father Jephthah, and he did to her what he had solemnly promised. So his daughter never married.

Because of that, the Israelites now have a custom. 40 The young Israelite women go into the hills for four days each year. There they sadly remember what happened to the daughter of Jephthah from the region of Gilead.

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