Study Desk

Abimelech went back to Arumah; Zebul drove Gaal and his brothers out of Shechem.

he took his men and divided them into three units and set an ambush in the field. When he saw the people coming out of the city, he attacked and struck them down.

Abimelech and his units attacked and blocked the entrance to the city's gate. Two units then attacked all the people in the field and struck them down.

He and all his men went up on Mount Zalmon. He took an ax in his hand and cut off a tree branch. He put it on his shoulder and said to his men, "Quickly, do what you have just seen me do!"

So each of his men also cut off a branch and followed Abimelech. They put the branches against the stronghold and set fire to it. All the people of the Tower of Shechem died—about a thousand men and women.

a woman threw an upper millstone down on his head and shattered his skull.

He quickly called to the young man who carried his weapons, "Draw your sword and kill me, so they will not say, ‘A woman killed him.'" So the young man stabbed him and he died.

God repaid Abimelech for the evil he did to his father by murdering his seventy half-brothers.

Now Jephthah the Gileadite was a brave warrior. His mother was a prostitute, but Gilead was his father.

Gilead's wife also gave him sons. When his wife's sons grew up, they made Jephthah leave and said to him, "You are not going to inherit any of our father's wealth, because you are another woman's son."

So Jephthah left his half-brothers and lived in the land of Tob. Lawless men joined Jephthah's gang and traveled with him.

But Sihon did not trust Israel to pass through his territory. He assembled his whole army, camped in Jahaz, and fought with Israel.

The Lord God of Israel handed Sihon and his whole army over to Israel and they defeated them. Israel took all the land of the Amorites who lived in that land.

Since the Lord God of Israel has driven out the Amorites before his people Israel, do you think you can just take it from them?

When Jephthah came home to Mizpah, there was his daughter hurrying out to meet him, dancing to the rhythm of tambourines. She was his only child; except for her he had no son or daughter.

When he saw her, he ripped his clothes and said, "Oh no! My daughter! You have completely ruined me! You have brought me disaster! I made an oath to the Lord , and I cannot break it."

Jephthah led Israel for six years; then he died and was buried in his city in Gilead.

He had thirty sons. He arranged for thirty of his daughters to be married outside his extended family, and he arranged for thirty young women to be brought from outside as wives for his sons. Ibzan led Israel for seven years;

There was a man named Manoah from Zorah, from the Danite tribe. His wife was infertile and childless.

Look, you will conceive and have a son. You must never cut his hair, for the child will be dedicated to God from birth. He will begin to deliver Israel from the power of the Philistines."