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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Judges 11:1 - 11:1
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Election of Jephthah as Prince and Judge of Israel. - Jdg 11:1-3. The account begins with his descent and early mode of life. “Jephthah (lxx Ἰεφθά) the Gileadite was a brave hero” (see Jdg 6:12; Jos 1:14, etc.); but he was the son of a harlot, and was begotten by Gilead, in addition to other sons who were born of his wife. Gilead is not the name of the country, as Bertheau supposes, so that the land is mythically personified as the forefather of Jephthah. Nor is it the name of the son of Machir and grandson of Manasseh (Num 26:29), so that the celebrated ancestor of the Gileadites is mentioned here instead of the unknown father of Jephthah. It is really the proper name of the father himself; and just as in the case of Tola and Puah, in Jdg 10:1, the name of the renowned ancestor was repeated in his descendant. We are forced to this conclusion by the fact that the wife of Gilead, and his other sons by that wife, are mentioned in Jdg 11:2. These sons drove their half-brother Jephthah out of the house because of his inferior birth, that he might not share with them in the paternal inheritance; just as Ishmael and the sons of Keturah were sent away by Abraham, that they might not inherit along with Isaac (Gen 21:10., Gen 25:6).