Judges 11:23

ARGUMENT NO. 2

This argument was simply that since the God of Israel, the true God and ruler of all lands, had given the land in question to Israel, the Israelites therefore had every right to keep it.

"So now Jehovah, the God of Israel, hath dispossessed the Amorites from before his people Israel, and shouldest thou possess them? Wilt not thou possess that which Chemosh thy god giveth thee to possess? So whomsoever Jehovah our God hath dispossessed from before us, then will we possess."

The argument "ad hominem" here is that since the Ammonites do not hesitate to take whatever they claim was given to them by their god Chemosh, they should also allow that whatever Jehovah, the God of Israel, has given Israel should belong to them.

"That which Chemosh thy god giveth thee" (Judges 11:24). This is by no stretch of imagination a recognition by Jephthah of any reality whatever regarding Chemosh. It was only an argument from the standpoint of what the Ammonites believed. Strahan commented that, "The truth of monotheism had not yet dawned on even the greatest minds of Israel."[12] This false view depends absolutely upon one's acceptance of the "fairy tale" mentioned above regarding the date of the Pentateuch.

"Of course, Jephthah here is not acknowledging the reality of the false god Chemosh."[13] Jephthah's familiarity with the Book of Numbers certainly indicates that he was familiar with the rest of the Pentateuch and the strict monotheism that pervades every line of the Book of Moses.