Study Desk

When Jephthah went to his home in Mizpah, there was his daughter, coming out to meet him with tambourines and dancing!^(l) She was his only child; he had no other son or daughter besides her.

When he saw her, he tore his clothes and said, "No! Not my daughter! You have devastated me! You have brought great misery on me.^[a] I have given my word to the Lord and cannot take it back."

Then she said to him, "My father, you have given your word to the Lord . Do to me as you have said, for the Lord brought vengeance on your enemies, the Ammonites."

She also said to her father, "Let me do this one thing: Let me wander two months through the mountains with my friends and mourn my virginity."

"Go," he said. And he sent her away two months. So she left with her friends and mourned her virginity as she wandered through the mountains.

At the end of two months, she returned to her father, and he kept the vow he had made about her. And she had never been intimate with a man. Now it became a custom in Israel

that four days each year the young women of Israel would commemorate the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite.

The men of Ephraim were called together and crossed the Jordan to Zaphon.^(a) They said to Jephthah, "Why have you crossed over to fight against the Ammonites but didn't call us to go with you? We will burn your house down with you in it!"

Then Jephthah said to them, "My people and I had a serious conflict with the Ammonites. So I called for you, but you didn't deliver me from their power.

When I saw that you weren't going to deliver me, I took my life in my own hands and crossed over to the Ammonites, and the Lord handed them over to me. Why then have you come^[a] today to fight against me?"

Then Jephthah gathered all of the men of Gilead. They fought and defeated Ephraim, because Ephraim had said, "You Gileadites are Ephraimite fugitives in the territories of Ephraim and Manasseh."

The Gileadites captured the fords of the Jordan leading to Ephraim. Whenever a fugitive from Ephraim said, "Let me cross over," the Gileadites asked him, "Are you an Ephraimite?" If he answered, "No,"

they told him, "Please say Shibboleth." If he said, "Sibboleth," because he could not pronounce it correctly, they seized him and killed him at the fords of the Jordan. At that time 42,000 from Ephraim died.

Jephthah judged Israel six years, and when he died, he was buried in one of the cities of Gilead.^[b]

Ibzan, who was from Bethlehem,^(b) judged Israel after Jephthah

and had 30 sons. He gave his 30 daughters in marriage to men outside the tribe and brought back 30 wives for his sons from outside the tribe. Ibzan judged Israel seven years,

and when he died, he was buried in Bethlehem.

Elon, who was from Zebulun, judged Israel after Ibzan. He judged Israel 10 years,

and when he died, he was buried in Aijalon in the land of Zebulun.

After Elon, Abdon son of Hillel, who was from Pirathon,^(c) judged Israel.

He had 40 sons and 30 grandsons, who rode on 70 donkeys. Abdon judged Israel eight years,

and when he died, he was buried in Pirathon in the land of Ephraim, in the hill country of the Amalekites.^(d)