Judges 11:1-17

Jephthah's Youth. Jephthah (God opens the womb) is the Othello of Israelitish history, a splendid barbarian, little blessed with the soft phrase of peace, familiar with moving accidents by flood and field, who by his valour delivers his country, and by a mysterious fate sacrifices a life dearer to him than his own. A great warrior, he was handicapped in the race of life, and persecuted by his own flesh and blood, because he came into the world with the cruel stain of illegitimacy. All the greater honour will be his if he can burst his birth's invidious bar. Tradition did not preserve the real name of the hero's father, who is simply called Gilead, which was properly the name of a district or its people (see Judges 10:3). Like Ishmael, another unwanted son, Jephthah was driven from his home and cast upon a cold world. But he found his way to the land of Tob (good), which proved a good land to him, a land where a brave youth could carve his way to fortune. (It is mentioned again in 2 Samuel 10:6; district unknown.) For a time he was, like young David, a free-booter; he and his comrades went out a well-understood term, meaning went out on raids. In this way he got himself ready to be the deliverer of his country from raiders! He had the chance of his lifetime in his country's day of peril. The elders (sheikhs) of Gilead some of his own brothers perhaps among them came to Tob to beg him to come home. Gilead was in need of a military leader to break the power of the enemy. The hour was come, and Jephthah was the man. Desiring to be sure of his position, he put to the elders some awkward questions, which they evaded. Note their solemnly in consequent therefore, a touch of comedy on the writer's part. Jephthah did not think the word of the elders as good as their bond, and would not budge an inch without their adjuration, Yahweh be witness between us.

Judges 11:11 b scarcely makes sense here, and many scholars think its right place is after Judges 11:31. Such errors frequently occurred in the copying of MSS.