Judges 11:1

Jephthah Hebr. Yiphtaḥ, probably a shortened form of Yiphtaḥ-el = God will open; cf. Pethah-iah Ezra 10:23. The full form occurs as the name of a town Joshua 19:14; Joshua 19:27.

the Gileadite See on Judges 10:3. The land of Gilead generally included the country E. of Jordan between the W. el-Menâḍire (Yarmuk), S. of the Sea of Galilee, and W. Ḥesbân near the upper end of the Dead Sea. Sometimes it included the Moabite territory as far S. as the Arnon (W. el-Môjîb).

Gilead begat Jephthah Gilead, properly the name of a region or its population, is here and in Judges 11:2, Jos 17:1 f., 1 Chronicles 7:14 ff., regarded as a person, i.e. tribal history is related as though it were the domestic history of an individual; see Driver, HDB. s.v. Gilead. These words and the verse which follows evidently come from the late editor, begatis the usual term in the genealogies of P and Chron.