Jephthah

1 definition found

From Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary [easton]:

  Jephthah
     whom God sets free, or the breaker through, a "mighty man of
     valour" who delivered Israel from the oppression of the
     Ammonites (Judg. 11:1-33), and judged Israel six years (12:7).
     He has been described as "a wild, daring, Gilead mountaineer, a
     sort of warrior Elijah." After forty-five years of comparative


     quiet Israel again apostatized, and in "process of time the
     children of Ammon made war against Israel" (11:5). In their
     distress the elders of Gilead went to fetch Jephthah out of the
     land of Tob, to which he had fled when driven out wrongfully by
     his brothers from his father's inheritance (2), and the people
     made him their head and captain. The "elders of Gilead" in their
     extremity summoned him to their aid, and he at once undertook
     the conduct of the war against Ammon. Twice he sent an embassy
     to the king of Ammon, but in vain. War was inevitable. The
     people obeyed his summons, and "the spirit of the Lord came upon
     him." Before engaging in war he vowed that if successful he
     would offer as a "burnt-offering" whatever would come out of the
     door of his house first to meet him on his return. The defeat of
     the Ammonites was complete. "He smote them from Aroer, even till
     thou come to Minnith, even twenty cities, and unto the plain of
     the vineyards [Heb. 'Abel Keramim], with a very great slaughter"
     (Judg. 11:33). The men of Ephraim regarded themselves as
     insulted in not having been called by Jephthah to go with him to
     war against Ammon. This led to a war between the men of Gilead
     and Ephraim (12:4), in which many of the Ephraimites perished.
     (See {SHIBBOLETH}.) "Then died Jephthah the Gileadite,
     and was buried in one of the cities of Gilead" (7).