m. Jephthah and the jealous Ephraimites (12:1–7)
m. Jephthah and the jealous Ephraimites (12:1–7)
The character which the Ephraimites displayed in this episode accorded with their earlier reaction to Gideon in a similar situation (8:1, 2). But the similarity between the incidents ends at that point; Jephthah, the ex-bandit chief, was not a man to be trifled with and his words and actions contrast vividly with the ‘soft answer which turns away wrath’ of Gideon, the man to whom we were introduced when he was beating out wheat in a winepress for fear of the Midianites. The Ephraimites, undoubtedly armed, expressed their resentment to Jephthah in no uncertain terms. They, the leading tribe in central and northern Israel, had been slighted by him in not being called to the battle; now they purposed taking a summary vengeance upon this upstart. The fact that a victory had been gained over their common enemy appears to have been overlooked. Accusation and counter accusation followed in bewildering succession; the claim that they had been passed over was met by the charge that an appeal had been made to them to which they had not responded. The situation is all too common in disputes and it is likely that they both shared a measure of justification. Gilead, in the eighteen-year Ammonite oppression before Jephthah assumed the leadership, would almost certainly have appealed to the neighbouring tribes for help, which was not forthcoming (cf. 1 Sam. 11:3). Jephthah, aware of this background, had not thought it worthwhile to invite the Ephraimites on this particular occasion, which affected Gilead alone, and had effected the deliverance with the local forces only. His words (3) point to the incongruity of the Ephraimites’ attitude when it was the Lord who was the architect of victory. How typically human it was for Ephraim to show such indignation after the battle was over! The location of the verbal encounter between the Ephraimites and Jephthah is obscured in the AV and RV: northward should be read as a place-name, Zaphon (RSV), a small town in the Jordan valley, probably about 5 miles north of Succoth. The course of the battle makes it clear that the Ephraimites had already crossed the Jordan, so in fact their route was to the east, not the north.
It was not long before the situation worsened, fanned into a flame by the sneering aspersions of the Ephraimites (4) in which they accused the Gileadites of being renegade Ephraimites. The army of Jephthah, demobilized after the crushing of the Ammonite menace, was hastily recalled and gained as complete a victory over their fellow-countrymen as they had over the foreign invader. In Gideon’s campaign with the Midianites it was the Ephraimites who had secured the fords against a defeated enemy. Now the Jordan fords were seized to cut off the retreat of their own shattered forces. Jephthah’s qualities of decisive leadership are apparent throughout and the choice of the elders of Gilead (11:6) was vindicated by events. A devastatingly simple test was devised to ascertain the identity of those who sought passage over the Jordan. Those who confessed to being Ephraimites were presumably killed at once; those who denied were commanded to say a word, Shibboleth (meaning ‘ear of corn’), which the Ephraimites were constitutionally unable to pronounce. The Ephraimite dialect appears to have been similar to that of the Amorites and Arabs, with s taking the place of sh, so their approximation of Sibboleth immediately revealed their identity and led to their execution. Any other word with sh would have sufficed, but it was the word shibboleth which has come into common usage to denote the watchword or catchphrase of a particular sect or group. The Ephraimites were betrayed by their speech; so was Peter many years afterward (Matt. 26:73). The number of Ephraimites slain (42,000) appears abnormally high for this period of Israel’s history. The use of large numbers in the Old Testament is one of its unsolved problems; possibly an answer lies in the various meanings of the word ‘thousand’ (Heb. ’elep; cf. the commentary on 20:2).
7. The length of Jephthah’s judgeship is noted. This was probably exercised east of the Jordan, since he would be persona non grata west of the Jordan after the slaughter of the Ephraimites! His burial place is not clearly indicated in the Hebrew text, which simply notes ‘the cities of Gilead’. Some manuscripts of the LXX support a reading ‘in his city, Mizpeh of Gilead’. The decimation of the tribe of Ephraim was decisive, for this tribe, which aspired to a position of leadership, never regained its pre-eminence. This was not without importance in the adoption of a monarchical system, for up to this point Ephraim was too strong to accept a king from another tribe. On the other hand intertribal jealousy would make it difficult for the other tribes to accept an Ephraimite king. When a king was eventually chosen it is significant that a man of Benjamin, a weak tribe (especially after the events of chapter 20), was selected. He was succeeded by David, of the powerful tribe of Judah, and it was not long before the intertribal rivalries revived.
It may be observed that there is no mention of the amphictyonic league, or of any mediation or intervention by the other tribes to prevent this act of fratricide. The decay of the intertribal structure is apparent in this period, but the lack of intervention may also be explained in part by the remoteness of the Transjordan region from the central sanctuary, and by the speed with which the crisis developed.