Judges 11

Judges 11 tells the story of Jephthah the Gileadite ^1 2. A mighty warrior and the son of a harlot, who was driven out by his half-brothers and settled among outlaws in the land of Tob before the elders of Gilead came to fetch him back to lead them against the Ammonites ^1 2. He then sent messengers disputing the Ammonite king's territorial claims before vowing that whatever came out of his house to meet him on his safe return would be offered to the Lord ^1 2.

Keil treats Jephthah's negotiations with the Ammonite king as the main business of the middle section ³. He explains that the king's claim to land "from the Arnon to the Jabbok" has "a certain colour of justice" because part of that territory had once belonged to Moab and Ammon before the Amorite king Sihon conquered it ³. Only afterward passed to Israel ³. Keil also insists, against readings that soften the vow, that the words "he that goeth out" of the doors of his house cannot refer to an animal, since the phrase "going out of the doors of his house to meet him" is applied elsewhere only to persons, and since Jephthah would have sacrificed livestock after any victory regardless of a vow ⁴.

Lias, writing in 1882, lays out the embassy to the king of Ammon in sequence ⁵. He notes that Jephthah's message rehearses Israel's dealings with Edom and Moab in the wilderness, and that from verse 24 "Moab and Ammon appear at this time to have been one power" ⁵. Lias observes that the territory in question had been lost by Moab to the Amorites, so that when Israel later defeated the Amorites the land changed hands again before it could ever return to Ammon ⁵.

Jamieson, Fausset and Brown read Jephthah's embassy as showing "the highest credit on his character for prudence and moderation, justice and humanity" ⁶. They argue that his willingness to negotiate before fighting marked him as a true leader in Israel ⁶. They summarize his reply to the Ammonite king's claim as "clear, decisive, and unanswerable," resting it on three points: the land was taken from the Amorites, not the Ammonites; three hundred years of unchallenged possession gave Israel a prescriptive right; and the land had been granted by the Lord just as the Ammonites claimed their own territory from Chemosh ⁶.

Moore, writing in 1895, works on the geography behind the dispute, noting that the upper Jabbok seems to have formed the eastern boundary of Israelite territory bordering on Ammon ⁷. In Jephthah's speech, "the Jabbok is clearly the northern boundary of the region in dispute," a tension he leaves unresolved ⁷. Moore also treats the campaign itself, observing that Jephthah "took the aggressive" and invaded Ammonite territory as far as Minnith, striking twenty cities ⁸.

Burney, writing in 1918, takes the opening verses apart on philological grounds, deriving the word for "ruler" (kasin) from an Arabic root meaning "one who decides judicially" ⁹. Burney also judges that the Ammonite king's excuse about the land "had some amount of justification," since the territory Israel held had been captured from Sihon, who had himself taken it from Moab, a point Burney draws directly from Numbers 21:26 ⁹.