A disgruntled people forgotten but a faithful failure remembered.
Jephthah now met the complaining Ephraimites. Remember they had done this before in chapter 8 when they reprimanded Gideon for going into battle without them. Once more they complain about being left out. Now their criticism which was of jealousy, rashness and irritability seems to go much further in that they threaten to burn down Jephthah’s’ house. The also castigate the Gileadites with whose help Jephthah had conquered the Ammonites, as outcasts, scum and refuse of their common stock. The Ephraimites should have been rejoicing with Jephthah over the victory which had been obtained without putting them at risk, but, no, they were jealous and had in fact failed to respond to Jephthah’s call for help. He stated quite bluntly that when he called for help, they were nowhere to be found.
He gives the glory to God for their deliverance (v3) in that it was God who delivered them into his hand and seeing that it was The LORD, why complain and criticise, wouldn’t it be better to rejoice? It was apparently time for straight talking and Jephthah and his army of Gileadites fight the Ephraimites and destroyed 42,000 of them (v5) The Gileadites fought the Ephraimites because they had spoken disparagingly of them.
There are always people like the Ephraimites – when you need them, they are conspicuous by their absence but will criticise when you have had a victory, or even a defeat, and seen great blessing of The LORD and feel they have been left out. Some people spend their entire lives grumbling and criticising. They have to be handled carefully, sometimes with great tact and diplomacy but occasionally it calls for straight talking and even action.
Evidently Gideon recognized the good that was in them and praised them for it and in great humility made a note of their creditable achievements. Jephthah, on the other hand, seems to indicate that he did call for them and when he did, they were unwilling to ‘get their hands dirty’ and pitch in their lot with him. He, therefore, made no bones about their grumblings that it was totally uncalled for.
The Gileadites took possession of the fords before the Ephraimites arrived and when they did it was a case of ‘your speech betrays you’ (v5,6) which was a test of dialect to prove who they were. The Gileadites chased the Ephraimites out of their territory and then got ahead of them and intercepted and slew them at the fords of the Jordan. The dialect of the Ephraimites did not include pronunciation of ‘Sh’ and they were discovered by that and slain – they said ‘Sibboleth’ instead of ‘Shibboleth’.
I wonder sometimes if our speech betrays us. Do we talk like the world and is it apparent on whose side we are on? Some time ago I was in a store and three men ahead of me were talking loudly to each other – their language was atrocious, foul, lewd, blasphemous and disclosed their minds to be nothing less than an open sewer. I felt sorry for them as well as angry. Then I thought, ‘are we as easily engaged in conversation about the things we consider dear to our hearts. They were arrogant and rude to talk so loudly and I am not suggesting that we do the same, but we could speak of The LORD more even in a quiet voice. It is amazing what people can hear and there is no telling what can be done by someone overhearing our conversation about The LORD.
Jephthah died after judging Israel for 6 years. Whilst he thought he was a failure, he was a MAN OF FAITH – God asserts this by including his name with Barak (a scared man), Gideon (a man who thought he was nothing), Samson (who thought he was everything until his pride let him down), in the hall of faith in Hebrews 11.
I’m glad GOD LOVES FAILURES – the Bible is full of them, AND I’M ANOTHER.
Jephthah is followed by three quite inconspicuous judges. Ibzan (v8-10) judged Israel for 7 years. Very little of note except he had 30 sons and 30 daughters. He provided wives for his sons. Perhaps he was a family man! Elon (v11,12) judged for 10 years and nothing worthy of note. Abdon (v13) a Pirathonite, near to Shechem in the land of the tribe of Ephraim. I wonder if he had remembered from at least seventeen years ago when Jephthah had been criticised by the Ephraimites and what the result was. There wasn’t much he did in his eight years that was even worth criticising or grumbling about.
