Judges 12:1 ¶ And the men of Ephraim gathered themselves together, and went northward, and said unto Jephthah, Wherefore passedst thou over to fight against the children of Ammon, and didst not call us to go with thee? we will burn thine house upon thee with fire. 2 And Jephthah said unto them, I and my people were at great strife with the children of Ammon; and when I called you, ye delivered me not out of their hands. 3 And when I saw that ye delivered me not, I put my life in my hands, and passed over against the children of Ammon, and the LORD delivered them into my hand: wherefore then are ye come up unto me this day, to fight against me? 4 Then Jephthah gathered together all the men of Gilead, and fought with Ephraim: and the men of Gilead smote Ephraim, because they said, Ye Gileadites are fugitives of Ephraim among the Ephraimites, and among the Manassites. 5 And the Gileadites took the passages of Jordan before the Ephraimites: and it was so, that when those Ephraimites which were escaped said, Let me go over; that the men of Gilead said unto him, Art thou an Ephraimite? If he said, Nay; 6 Then said they unto him, Say now Shibboleth: and he said Sibboleth: for he could not frame to pronounce it right. Then they took him, and slew him at the passages of Jordan: and there fell at that time of the Ephraimites forty and two thousand. 7 And Jephthah judged Israel six years. Then died Jephthah the Gileadite, and was buried in one of the cities of Gilead.
The men of Ephraim are angry again as they were in chapter 8. Let’s
review what happened then;
Judges 8:1 ¶ And the men of
Ephraim said unto him, Why hast thou served us thus, that thou calledst us not,
when thou wentest to fight with the Midianites? And they did chide with him
sharply. 2 And he said unto them, What
have I done now in comparison of you? Is not the gleaning of the grapes of
Ephraim better than the vintage of Abiezer? 3
God hath delivered into your hands the princes of Midian, Oreb and Zeeb:
and what was I able to do in comparison
of you? Then their anger was abated toward him, when he had said that.
Remember this from Proverbs;
Proverbs 18:19 ¶ A brother
offended is harder to be won than a strong city: and their contentions are like
the bars of a castle.
Jephthah responds revealing something we weren’t shown before. He
asked Ephraim for help and they declined. They have no basis for their grievance
against him now, obviously. They are envious because they were denied a share
of the glory in this great victory.
The Civil War against Ephraim resulted in great loss for that
tribe. It also gave us a common idiom in English where Shibboleth means;
a word or saying used by adherents of a party,
sect, or belief and usually regarded by others as empty of real meaning.[1]
This also reveals that the tribes had developed individual dialects of Hebrew
that had clear distinctions like Northern Americans saying “youse” and
Southerners saying “you’all” or different ways of pronouncing W-H-A-L-E-S as
either “wales” or “w (poof of wind)-ales”. Strong’s says Shibboleth is a
flowing stream or an ear of corn based on the context.
Judges 12:8 ¶ And after him
Ibzan of Bethlehem judged Israel. 9 And
he had thirty sons, and thirty daughters, whom he sent abroad, and took
in thirty daughters from abroad for his sons. And he judged Israel seven years.
10 Then died Ibzan, and was buried at
Bethlehem. 11 And after him Elon, a
Zebulonite, judged Israel; and he judged Israel ten years. 12 And Elon the Zebulonite died, and was buried
in Aijalon in the country of Zebulun. 13
And after him Abdon the son of Hillel, a Pirathonite, judged Israel.
14 And he had forty sons and thirty
nephews, that rode on threescore and ten ass colts: and he judged Israel eight
years. 15 And Abdon the son of Hillel
the Pirathonite died, and was buried in Pirathon in the land of Ephraim, in the
mount of the Amalekites.
We have here mention of Ibzan and Elon, and of Abdon. These judges
represented, along with Jephthah a period of security for Israel of 31 years.
The priesthood seems to have been rather obscure and not influential in this
period.
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