GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
JUDGES 12:4-7
Quick, say “often” out loud. Now, if you said it with the “t” sound instead of with the “t” silent, that man with a sword behind you is going to run you through and drop you into the grave over there with all of your comrades. Jephthah’s test was that treacherous, and that quick. And it was based on how fleeing soldiers could pronounce a word.
4 Then Jephthah gathered together all the men of Gilead. They fought against Ephraim and defeated them, because Ephraim had said, “You Gileadites are fugitives from Ephraim and Manasseh.”
It was the Lord who had given Jephthah his victory (12:3). Yet Ephraim was indignant and came armed for battle. Remember that Jephthah had shown his abilities as an iron-willed diplomat against a foreign power (Ammon), and now he showed that he could be equally iron-willed with people who should have been his allies but who had turned on him.
5 The Gileadites captured the fords of the Jordan leading back to Ephraim. Whenever any of the fugitives from Ephraim said, “Let me cross over, the Gileadites asked him, “Are you an Ephraimite?” If he replied, “No,” 6 they told him, “Very well, say ‘Shibboleth.’” If he said, “Sibboleth” because he could not pronounce the word that way, they seized him and killed him there at the fords of the Jordan.
The tactic Jephthah chose was simple. If Ephraim wanted to be snobbish and racist towards him and his men, then he would use their own racial trait against them. The people of Ephraim had difficulty saying the “sh” sound. The word Jephthah chose to test this was the word “shibboleth,” which can mean an ear of grain as in Pharaoh’s dream (Genesis 41:5; Job 24:24; Ruth 2:2) but in this case probably means a flowing stream or river, as in Psalm 69:2 (“the floods engulf me”) or Isaiah 27:12, since they were catching these men trying to cross just such a flowing river. Just as different people in our country pronounce creek as “crick” or tomato as “tom-ah-to,” the Ephraimites betrayed their tribe just as surely as Peter giving away his Galilean roots in the courtyard of the high priest (Matthew 26:72). Every single “sibboleth” got the sword.
Forty-two thousand Ephraimites were killed at that time.
Should we doubt the number in the text?
In the second year after the Israelites came out of Egypt, the Lord commanded Moses to count the fighting men of each tribe (this count gives the book of Numbers its name). The tribe of Ephraim had 40,500 warriors over the age of twenty (Numbers 1:33). Thirty-eight years later, after the death of Aaron and before the death of Moses, the census was taken again, and Ephraim had 32,500 (Numbers 26:37). Now, around the year 1085, three hundred years had gone by. Ephraim could and did lose 42,000 warriors to Jephthah’s Gileadites. Remember that Jephthah was now the judge (prince/general) of all three Transjordan tribes. When they entered Cannan, Reuben had 43,730 warriors (Num. 26:7) and Gad had 40,500 (Num. 26:18). Manasseh was only partially represented here, but a part of their 52,700 post-exodus force (Num. 26:34) might at least be ten thousand men, and so what kind of force had the more than 90,000 Gileadite warriors become in three hundred years? Jephthah had more than enough warriors to carry out this battle, no matter how many fords over the Jordan were approached by fugitive Ephraimites. We don’t have any reason to doubt the number in the text.
Jephthah chose the place where the Ephraimites would be forced to cross in small numbers (tens of thousands of men cannot cross a river all at once, whether there is a ford or a bridge). It was a tragic waste of lives, but as Cohen says, “in the subsequent history we do not again hear of their arrogant claims” (p. 261).
7 Jephthah judged Israel for six years. When he died, he was buried in one of the cities of Gilead.*
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* 12:7 The Greek Septuagint has “in his city in Gilead.”
We hear about Jephthah’s burial, which is a mark of honor. We did not hear about Abimelech’s burial at all after his death, only that the people went home (Judges 9:55). His short time as judge does not lessen the importance or scope of his victory. The Ammonites remained subdued for many years, but the prophet Samuel tells us that just one generation later, Nahash the Ammonite would threated Israel once again, and it would be that crisis that would cause Israel to finally ask God for a king to lead them: “When you saw that Nahash king of the Ammonites was moving against you, you said to me, ‘No, we want a king to rule over us’—even though the LORD your God was your king. Now here is the king you have chosen” (1 Samul 12:12-13).
That was thirty years away (1 Samuel 13:1), which means that the thirty-year-old who would be anointed by Samuel was born at just about this time, circumcised on the eighth day, and given his name: Saul.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Archives by Wisconsin Lutheran Chapel: http://www.wlchapel.org/worship/daily-devotion/
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota