Judges 11:11

“And it came to pass in process of time” ties this verse to the long trouble of the chapter before. Israel had forsaken the LORD and served Baalim, Ashtaroth and the gods of the nations around, “the gods of the children of Ammon” among them, and the LORD “sold them into the hands of the Philistines, and into the hands of the children of Ammon”, who oppressed the Israelites in Gilead beyond the Jordan for eighteen years (Judges 10:6–9). When Israel cried out and confessed its sin (Judges 10:10), the LORD rebuked them for their repeated unfaithfulness (Judges 10:11–14). They put away their foreign gods and served him, and “his soul was grieved for the misery of Israel” (Judges 10:15–16). The Ammonites then gathered for war, and Israel assembled at Mizpeh (Judges 10:17). Judges 11:4 picks up the story there.

“In process of time” is built on yôwm, the word for day, and reads literally “from days”. It marks a long span of time, in which eighteen years of oppression now come to a head in open war. The verb lâcham, “made war”, is the ordinary word for fighting a battle. Strong’s traces it to a root meaning to feed on, with “consume” as its figurative sense and “battle” as the sense that follows from that. The same verb runs through the whole passage, in “made war” again in verse 5 and in “fight” in verses 6, 8 and 9, because every exchange in it is about who will lead Gilead into this fight.

Verse 5 repeats the news of verse 4, “the children of Ammon made war against Israel”, and ties the elders’ journey to it. The elders of Gilead, ziqnei Gilʻâd, were the community’s recognized leaders. zâqên means old, and it is used of aged men and of elders, the men who led a town or tribe, so their going made this an official act of Gilead. Gilead (Gilʻâd) is the region east of the Jordan held by Gad, Reuben and half the tribe of Manasseh, the people who bore the worst of Ammon’s oppression.

They “went” (yâlak, the ordinary verb for walking or going) “to fetch” Jephthah. That verb is lâqach, also written lāqaḥ, the very common word for taking, used here of going to get someone and bring him back. To do it they had to travel to “the land (ʼerets) of Tob”. Tob (Ṭôwb) bears the word for good. It was a region outside the tribes’ land, probably to the north-east of Gilead, perhaps in what is now southern Syria or northern Jordan, though its exact place is uncertain.

The elders’ first request is short. “Come” is the same verb yâlak used for their going in verse 5, here as a summons. “Captain” is qâtsîyn, from a root meaning to decide, so it describes a magistrate or other leader, and it is rendered captain, guide, prince and ruler. The word can cover a ruler as well as a commander, yet the elders tie it at once to the battle: “that we may fight with the children of Ammon.” At this point they want a commander for the war.

The people who had cast Jephthah out now ask him to lead them, and need has overcome their pride and the shame they once attached to his birth. Throughout Judges, when Israel cries out, the LORD raises up judges to deliver them (Judges 2:16), as he did with Othniel (Judges 3:9) and Deborah (Judges 4:4). Here he works through the elders’ desperate choice of a man they had despised. “God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty” (1 Corinthians 1:27–29). Men judged Jephthah by his birth, “for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7). The elders who once looked down on him now humble themselves before him, and Jesus said that “he that humbleth himself shall be exalted” (Luke 14:11).

Jephthah answers with two questions that are really charges. The first, “Did not ye hate me, and expel me out of my father’s house?”, uses sânêʼ, the ordinary word for hating a person, and gârash, to drive someone out from a possession, the same verb that is used for divorce. “My father’s house” joins ʼâb, father, and bayith, house in its widest sense, which very often means a family. To be put out of his father’s house was to lose his place in the family and his share in its land.

Verses 1–3 say that his brothers drove him out, yet Jephthah puts the charge to the elders. That shows Gilead’s leaders had sanctioned the expulsion, or at least let it happen, giving the claims of the lawful sons more weight than justice to him.

The second question, “why are ye come unto me now when ye are in distress?”, lays bare why they came. “Come” here is bôwʼ, the common verb for coming or going in, and “distress” is tsârar, to cramp or hem in, the state of people hard pressed by an enemy. They come because they are in a strait, and Jephthah wants them to say so.

“Therefore we turn again to thee now.” “Turn again” is shûwb, to turn back or return, a verb used for every kind of turning back, and here it marks the elders’ reversal toward the man they had sent away. Their answer turns straight to the need in front of them, and they raise their offer. He is to go with them (hâlak, to walk or go), fight against Ammon, “and be our head over all the inhabitants of Gilead”. “Inhabitants” is yâshab, a verb meaning to sit down and so to dwell, here those who live in Gilead. “Head” is rôʼsh, the ordinary word for the head of the body, used for whoever is chief or first.

In verse 6 they asked for a captain to lead the fight. Now they offer headship over the whole people of Gilead, a chief’s authority that would remain his after the war. Their request grows the moment Jephthah presses them.

Jephthah sets out his terms in a single question. “If ye bring me home again” uses shûwb once more, the verb the elders had just used for turning back to him. They have turned to him, and he asks them to bring him back to the home they drove him from, restored to his place among them.

His second condition hands the outcome to God: “and the LORD deliver them before me.” “The LORD” is Yᵉhôvâh, God’s covenant name. “Deliver” is nâthan, the very broad verb to give, put or set, so the LORD is the one who gives the Ammonites over. “Before” is pânîym, face, a word plural in form and always used as a singular, so the phrase reads “give them before my face”. Jephthah is a seasoned fighter, yet he looks for the victory as the LORD’s gift. Ehud (Judges 3:28) and Gideon (Judges 6:12, Judges 7:2) knew the same, and so does every deliverer in this book.

Then he asks, “shall I be your head?” He wants the elders to say plainly that the headship will be his when the fighting is done. The same reliance on the LORD giving him Ammon comes back in his vow in Judges 11:30–31, with sorrowful results.

His wish for a lasting head over Gilead belongs to a time when “every man did that which was right in his own eyes” (Judges 17:6, Judges 21:25), and it looks ahead to the day Israel asked for a king (1 Samuel 8:7).

“The LORD be witness between us, if we do not so according to thy words.” The word behind “witness” is shâmaʻ, to hear, and to hear with attention, so the elders call the LORD to be the one who hears between them and Jephthah. The rest of the sentence is a form of oath used in Israel, in which the speaker names what he will do (ʻâsâh, to do or make) and leaves the penalty unspoken. In effect they say, “Let the LORD deal with us if we fail to do as you have said.” “Words” is dâbâr, which means word or speech and also a matter or thing, and here it covers all of Jephthah’s terms.

An oath in the LORD’s name bound the one who swore it before God. The law told Israel to keep whatever it vowed (Deuteronomy 23:21–23), and the psalm describes the man who may dwell with God as one who “sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not” (Psalm 15:4). Laban and Jacob made a covenant at Mizpah with God as the watcher between them (Genesis 31:49–50), and these elders do much the same. Jesus later taught his disciples that their plain word should be enough: “But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay” (Matthew 5:33–37).

The oath shows who God is. He hears every word spoken, even in secret, and he holds people to the truth of what they say. Because he keeps his own covenants, he looks for his people to keep theirs.

Jephthah went with the elders (yâlak again), “and the people made him head and captain over them”. “People” is ʻam, a people gathered as one body, and “made” is sûwm, to put or set. The elders began the matter, and the people as a whole set him in office. Both titles from the bargaining come together here: rôʼsh, head, which the elders offered in verse 8 and Jephthah asked for in verse 9, and qâtsîyn, captain, which they asked him to be in verse 6. He receives command in war and rule over the people, just as he had asked.

“And Jephthah uttered all his words before the LORD in Mizpeh.” “Uttered” is dâbar, to speak, and “words” is dâbâr, the same noun the elders used in their oath. Jephthah speaks all his words, most likely the terms agreed with the elders and perhaps a prayer for the LORD’s help, “before” (pânîym, face) the LORD. So the agreement is made in God’s presence and placed under his eye. He is the one who will give the victory, and he has heard every promise.

Mizpeh (Mitspâh) means watchtower or lookout, and the name belonged to two places. Here it is where Israel had gathered against Ammon. Israel gathered before the LORD at a Mizpeh again in later days, in the assembly of Judges 20:1, under Samuel for repentance and prayer (1 Samuel 7:5–6), and when Saul was chosen king (1 Samuel 10:17–24). Israel had long sealed its commitments in the LORD’s presence, in the covenant with Abraham (Genesis 15:18), the covenant at Sinai (Exodus 24:7–8), and the renewals in Moab (Deuteronomy 29:10–13) and at Shechem (Joshua 24:1–28).

Words spoken before the LORD are weighty, and Jephthah will speak to the LORD again before the battle, when he makes his vow (Judges 11:30–31).

Jephthah’s story points beyond itself to Jesus Christ. Jephthah was driven out by his own and then sought in their distress. Of Christ, Isaiah says, “He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3), and John says, “He came unto his own, and his own received him not” (John 1:11). “The stone which the builders refused is become the head stone of the corner” (Psalm 118:22), and Jesus applied those words to himself (Matthew 21:42). Paul calls him the chief corner stone (Ephesians 2:20).

The titles of verse 11 belong to him in full. He is “the captain of their salvation” (Hebrews 2:10), who through death destroyed the one who had the power of death and set free those held in fear (Hebrews 2:14–15), and who triumphed over the powers of evil at the cross (Colossians 2:15). God gave him “to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body” (Ephesians 1:22–23), and “he is the head of the body, the church” (Colossians 1:18).

The differences matter as much as the likeness. Jephthah bargained to be made head. Christ “made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant”, and God highly exalted him and gave him the name above every name (Philippians 2:6–11). Jephthah held his old wrong before the men who came to him, while Christ died for us “while we were yet sinners” (Romans 5:8) and bore our sins in his own body on the tree (1 Peter 2:24). Jephthah’s deliverance lasted for a time, and his leadership was marred by his vow. Christ is “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29), who obtained eternal redemption by his own blood (Hebrews 9:11–14) and delivered us from the power of darkness into the kingdom of God’s dear Son (Colossians 1:13–14). His dominion is everlasting (Daniel 7:14).

The oath of verse 10 points to him as well. The elders needed the LORD as witness because human promises fail. God swore by himself to make his promise sure (Hebrews 6:13–18), Christ is “the faithful and true witness” (Revelation 3:14), and “all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen” (2 Corinthians 1:20).

In these verses God answers the cry of Judges 10 through the very man Gilead had cast out. The elders came with mixed motives and Jephthah with old wounds, and the LORD still worked through both to deliver his people. He had grieved over Israel’s misery, and here he begins to end it. The psalm says of people brought low, “Then they cried unto the LORD in their trouble, and he saved them out of their distresses” (Psalm 107:13).

Every promise in this passage was spoken in his hearing. The elders called him to hear between them and Jephthah, and Jephthah spoke all his words before him at Mizpeh. The same God hears what we say, and he is faithful to every word he has spoken to us. The one he has made head and captain over his people is his Son, rejected by men and now exalted, and in him every promise of God stands firm.