Judges 11:4

JEPHTHAH TO LEAD IN THE WAR (Judges 11:4-11)

"And it came to pass after awhile, that the children of Ammon made war against Israel. And it was so, that, when the children of Ammon made war against Israel, the elders of Gilead went to fetch Jephthah out of the land of Tob; and they said unto Jephthah, Come and be our chief, that we may fight with the children of Ammon. And Jephthah said unto the elders of Gilead, Did ye not hate me, and drive me out of my father's house? and why are ye come unto me now when ye are in distress? And the elders of Gilead said unto Jephthah, Therefore are we turned again to thee now, that thou mayest go with us, and fight with the children of Ammon; and thou shalt be our head over all the inhabitants of Gilead. And Jephthah said unto the elders of Gilead, If ye bring me home again to fight with the children of Ammon, and Jehovah deliver them before me; shall I be your head? And the elders of Gilead said unto Jephthah, Jehovah shall be witness between us; surely according to thy word so will we do. Then Jephthah went with the elders of Gilead, and the people made him head and chief over them: and Jephthah spake all his words before Jehovah in Mizpah"

"The elders ... went to fetch Jephthah" (Judges 11:4). There must have been excellent reasons behind such a request as this. It was certainly a great humiliation on the part of the elders of Gilead that they would consent to plead with a man whom they had formerly expelled from their clan.

What is not related here is the reputation which Jephthah had earned by his association with that band of freebooters that surrounded him. His exploits, whatever they might have been, had indicated his ability as a military leader and strategist, and the Gileadites swallowed their pride and eagerly sought Jephthah's help in the impending war with the Ammonites.

Jephthah made it a condition of his helping them that he would be the ruler of the Gileadites after the military campaign was over. It is a measure of the Gileadites' distress that they readily consented to do this, making a solemn covenant with Jephthah to that effect "before Jehovah" in Mizpah. Strahan may have been correct when he wrote that, "Jephthah did not think that the word of the elders was as good as their bond; and he would not budge an inch without their adjuration, `Yahweh be witness between us.'"[8] Some have appeared to be a little critical of Jephthah for making, "his own aggrandizement the condition of delivering his country,"[9] but the sad circumstances of his birth, the enmity of his brothers, and his being excluded from his country were not at all favorable for the development in Jephthah of any other attitude than that which he manifested here. We feel a great admiration of him, because, in spite of the unwholesome environment in which he was forced to live, his name nevertheless appears in the roster of God's faithful servants (Hebrews 11:31).

"Shall I be your head?" (Judges 11:9). "There is no interrogative in the Hebrew; and the words here may be taken as Jephthah's laying down of the conditions under which he would aid Gilead, a condition to which they assented in the next verse."[10]

"Before Jehovah" (Judges 11:11). Several writers have supposed that there must have been some kind of a sanctuary at Mizpah, but Keil assures us that, "These words imply no more than that Jephthah confirmed all his words with an oath."[11]

What happened at Mizpah was the confirmation by the Gileadites of the agreement establishing Jephthah as the and military ruler of the Trans-Jordanic territory where the Gileadites lived.

The very first thing that Jephthah did was to attempt to procure a negotiated cessation of hostilities, his first maneuver being an inquiry of the Ammonite king, asking him to state the reason for his declaration of war.