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CHAP. XI. & XII. to Ver. 8.
[World 2819] [Iephtach 1] JEPHTAH judgeth six years; subdueth the Ammonites, sacrificeth his own [Iephtach 2] daughter; and destroyeth 42000 Ephraimites. He was the son of Gilead [Iephtach 3] by a concubine; this was not that Gilead that was Machirs immediate son but [Iephtach 4] one that bare the name of that old Gilead, and so we observed of Tola and [Iephtach 5] Jair before: Jair was the chief man in one half of Gilead, and Gilead in ano∣ther. [Iephtach 6]
Jephtah being expelled out of his fathers family for bastardy, betaketh him to arms in the land of Tob in Syria, and prospereth, and thereupon his prowess being heard of, he is called home again and made commander in chief in Gilead. In his transactions with the King of Ammon, he mentioneth three hundred years of Israels dwelling in Heshbon and Aroer, &c. in which sum, five and thirty of the forty years in the wilderness are included; in which they were hovering upon those parts, although they dwelt not in them: it was now three hundred and five years since their coming out of Egypt.
His vow concerning his daughter may be scanned in these particulars: 1. That his vow in general was of persons, for 1. he voweth that whatsoever should come forth of the doors of his house. 2. Whatsoever should come to meet him; now it is not likely nor proper to understand this of Sheep and Bullock; for who can think of their coming out of his house, much less of their coming to meet him. 3. How poor a business was it to vow to sacrifice a Bullock or Sheep for such a victory? Therefore his vow relateth to persons, and so might it be translated, Whosoever cometh forth. 2. What would he do with his vow∣ed person? Make him a Nazarite? He might vow the thing, but the perfor∣mance lay upon the persons own hand. Dedicate him to the Sanctuary? Why he might not serve there as not being a Levite. Sequester him from the world? He might indeed imprison him, but otherwise the sequestring from the world lay upon the persons own hand still. Suppose one of his married maid servants or man-servants or his own wife had met him first, what would he have done with any of them? Therefore I am inforced by the weighing of these and other circumstances in the Text, to hold with them, that hold he sacrifi∣ced his daughter indeed, though I have been once of another mind. And it seemeth that this was a part of the corruption of those times, and was but mutato nomine, a sacrifice to Molech, the God of the Ammonites, against whom he was now to go to sight when he maketh this vow. The Sanhedrin un∣doubtedly was now sitting, and there was the Priest-hood attending upon the Ark at Shiloh, and yet is Israel now so little acquainted with the Law, that neither the Sanhedrin, nor the Priests can resolve Jephtah that his vow might have been redeemed, Levit. 27. But they suffer her thus to be massacred, and only salve it with making a statute for her yearly lamentation. In some time of the Judges, the High-priesthood is translated from the line of Eleazer to the line of Ithamar, as appeareth in Eli in the beginning of the Book of Samuel. Now in all the story of the Judges, we find not any one thing so likely to be the cause of rooting out of that house from the Priest-hood, as about this matter of Jephtah, they not instructing him better, but suffering such a butchery for a sacrifice.
Jephtah hath a new quarrel with the Ephraimites, and slayeth 42000 of them, discovering them by the mis-pronouncing of a letter: he might have offered many words that had Sh double in them; as Shemesh, the Sun; Shelosha, three; Shalsheleh, a chain; but the word proposed is Shiboleh, because of the present occasion: It signifieth a stream; and the Ephraimites are put to call the stream that they desired to pass over, by the right name, and they could not name it.