Judges 12:1-6

EPHRAIM’S JEALOUSY AND DEFEAT, Judges 12:1-6.

Ephraim’s ambition and jealousy towards other tribes had burst out once before, in the days of Gideon, (Judges 8:1-3,) but the soft answer of that heroic judge prevented then a rupture between the men of that tribe and the divinely chosen judge. But in Jephthah the men of Ephraim find a man of different mettle, and a character less placable than Gideon. His stern and resolute spirit smites the head of Ephraim’s jealousy, and thus for a long time silences that factious element in Israel. At a later period, however, Ephraim’s irrepressible pride and ambition broke out again, and led to the secession of the ten tribes and the Assyrian exile.