Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Judges 11:12 - 11:12

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Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Judges 11:12 - 11:12


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Jephthah's Negotiations with the King of the Ammonites. - Jdg 11:12. Before Jephthah took the sword, he sent messengers to the king of the Ammonites, to make complaints to him of his invasion of the land of the Israelites. “What have we to do with one another ('what to me and thee?' see Jos 22:24; 2Sa 16:10), that thou hast come to me to fight against my land?” Jephthah's ambassadors speak in the name of the nation; hence the singulars “me” and “my land.”

Jdg 11:13

The king of the Ammonites replied, that when Israel came up out of Egypt, they had taken away his land from the Arnon to the Jabbok (on the north), and to the Jordan (on the west), and demanded that they should now restore these lands in peace. The plural אָתְהֶן (them) refers ad sensum to the cities and places in the land in question. The claim raised by the king of the Ammonites has one feature in it, which appears to have a certain colour of justice. The Israelites, it is true, had only made war upon the two kings of the Amorites, Sihon and Og, and defeated them, and taken possession of their kingdoms and occupied them, without attacking the Ammonites and Moabites and Edomites, because God had forbidden their attacking these nations (Deu 2:5, Deu 2:9,Deu 2:19); but one portion of the territory of Sihon had formerly been Moabitish and Ammonitish property, and had been conquered by the Amorites and occupied by them. According to Num 21:26, Sihon had made war upon the previous king of Moab, and taken away all his land as far as the Arnon (see the comm. on this passage). And although it is not expressly stated in the Pentateuch that Sihon had extended his conquests beyond Moabitis into the land of the Ammonites, which was situated to the east of Moab, and had taken a portion of it from them, this is pretty clearly indicated in Jos 13:25, since, according to that passage, the tribe of Gad received in addition to Jaezer and all the towns of Gilead, half the land of the children of Ammon, namely, the land to the east of Gilead, on the western side of the upper Jabbok (Nahr Ammân: see at Jos 13:26).

(Note: The explanation which Masius gives of this passage (Eatenus moao sursum in Galaaditidem exporrectam jacuisse Gaditarum haereditatem, quatenus dimidia Ammonitarum ditio Galaaditidem ab oriente ambiebat) is not sufficiently in keeping with the words, and too unnatural, to be regarded as correct, as it is by Reland (Pal. ill. p. 105) and Hengstenberg (Dissertations on the Pentateuch, ii. p. 29); and the reasons assigned by Masius, viz., “that the Israelites were prohibited from occupying the land of the Ammonites,” and “the Ammonites are not mentioned in Num 21:26,” are too weak to establish anything. The latter is an argumentum e silentio, which loses all significance when we bear in mind, that even the allusion to the land of the Moabites in Num 21:26 is only occasioned by the prominence given to Heshbon, and the poetical saying founded upon its fall. But the prohibition against taking the land of the Ammonites from them had just as much force in relation to the land of the Moabites, and simply referred to such land as these tribes still possessed in the time of Moses, and not to that which the Amorites had taken from them.)

Jdg 11:14-15

Jephthah then sent ambassadors again to explain to him the true state of the case, namely, that Israel had neither taken away the land of Moab nor the land of the Ammonites. As a proof of this, Jephthah adduced the leading facts connected with the journey of the Israelites through the desert of Arabia to Canaan, by which this assertion was confirmed, in exact agreement with the accounts of the Pentateuch respecting the matter in dispute.

Jdg 11:16-18

On leaving Egypt, Israel passed through the desert to the Red Sea, and came to Kadesh (Num 20:1). They then sent messengers to the king of Edom, to obtain permission to pass through his land; and this the king of Edom refused (Num 20:14-21). They also sent to the king of Moab, who sent back a similar refusal. The embassy to the king of Moab is not mentioned in the Pentateuch, as it had no direct bearing upon the further course of the Israelites (see Pentateuch, p. 741, note 1). “And Israel abode in Kadesh” (word for word, as in Num 20:1), and “then passed through the desert,” namely to Mount Hor, then down the Arabah to the Red Sea, and still farther past Oboth to Ijje-abarim in the desert (Num 20:22-21:11). In this way they went round the land of Edom and the land of Moab (יָסֹב, like סְבֹב in Num 21:4); and came from the east to the land of Moab (i.e., along the eastern boundary, for Ijje-abarim was situated there, according to Num 21:11); and encamped on the other side of the Arnon (Num 21:13), i.e., on the upper course of the Arnon where it still flows through the desert (see Pent. p. 749). On this march, therefore, they did not enter the territory of Moab, as the Arnon formed the boundary of Moab, i.e., the boundary between Moab and the territory of the Amorites (Num 21:13).

Jdg 11:19-22

Jdg 11:19-22 are almost verbatim the same as Num 21:21-25. Israel then sent messengers to Sihon the king of the Amorites at Heshbon, to ask permission to pass through his land. “Into my place,” i.e., into the land of Canaan, that Jehovah has appointed for me. But Sihon “trusted not Israel to pass through his land,” i.e., he did not trust to the assurance of Israel that they only wanted to pass peaceably through his land, but supposed the petition to cover an intention to take forcible possession of it. (In Num 21:23 we have נָתַן לֹא instead of הֶאֱמִין לֹא.) He did not confine himself, therefore, to a refusal of the permission they asked for, but collected his men of war, and marched against the Israelites to the desert as far as Jahza, on the east of Medeba and Dibon (see at Num 21:23), and fought with them. But he was defeated, and lost all his land, from the Arnon (Mojeb) on the south to the Jabbok (Zerka) on the north, and from the desert on the east to the Jordan on the west, of which the Israelites took possession.

Jdg 11:23-24

From these facts Jephthah drew this simple but indisputable conclusion: “Jehovah the God of Israel has rooted out the Amorites before His people Israel, and thou wilt take possession of it (viz., the land of the Amorites).” The suffix to תִּירָשֶׁנּוּ refers to הָאֱמֹרִי, the Amorites, i.e., their land. The construction of יָרַשׁ with the accusative of the people (as in Deu 2:12, Deu 2:21-22; Deu 9:1) may be explained on the simple ground, that in order to take possession of a country, it is necessary first of all to get the holders of it into your power. Jephthah then proved still further how unwarrantable the claim of the king of the Ammonites was, and said to him (Jdg 11:24), “Is it not the fact (הֲלֹא, nonne), that what thy god Chemosh gives thee for a possession, of that thou takest possession; and all that Jehovah makes ownerless before us, of that we take possession?” - an appeal the validity of which could not be disputed. For Chemosh, see at Num 21:29. The verb הֹורִישׁ combines the three meanings: to drive out of a possession, to deprive of a possessor, and to give for a possession; inasmuch as it is impossible to give a land for a possession without driving away or exterminating its former possessor.

Jdg 11:25-26

But not contenting himself with this conclusive deduction, Jephthah endeavoured to remove the lost appearance of right from the king's claim by a second and equally conclusive argument. “And now art thou better than Balak son of Zippor, the king of Moab? Did he strive (רֹוב, inf. abs. of רִיב or רוּב) with Israel, or did he fight against them?” By the repetition of וְעַתָּה (Jdg 11:25, cf. Jdg 11:23), the new argument is attached to the previous one, as a second deduction from the facts already described. Balak, the king of the Moabites, had indeed bribed Balaam to destroy Israel by his curses; but he did so not so much with the intention of depriving them of the territory of the Amorites which they had conquered, as from the fear that the powerful Israelites might also conquer his still remaining kingdom. Balak had neither made war upon Israel on account of the territory which they had conquered from the Amorites, nor had he put forward any claim to it as his own property, which he certainly might have done with some appearance of justice, as a large portion of it had formerly belonged to the Moabites (see Num 21:26 and the comm. on this passage). If therefore Balak the king of the Moabites never thought of looking upon this land as being still his property, or of asking it back from the Israelites, the king of the Ammonites had no right whatever to lay claim to the land of Gilead as belonging to him, or to take it away from the Israelites by force, especially after the lapse of 300 years. “As Israel dwells in Heshbon, ... and in all the cities by the side of the Arnon for three hundred years, why have ye not taken away (these towns and lands) within that time” (i.e., during these 300 years)? If the Ammonites had had any right to it, they ought to have asserted their claim in Moses' time. It was much too late now, after the expiration of 300 years. For “if no prescriptive right is to be admitted, on account of length of time, and if long possession gives no title, nothing would ever be held in safety by any people, and there would be no end to wars and dissension” (Clericus). On Heshbon and its daughters, see at Num 21:25. Aroër (עַרְעֹור, another form for עֲרֹעֵר, or possibly only a copyist's error) is Aroër of Gad, before Rabbah (Jos 13:25), and is to be sought for in the Wady Nahr Ammân, on the north-east of Ammân (see at Josh. l. c.), not Aroër of Reuben, on the border of the valley of Arnon (Num 32:34; Deu 2:36; Deu 4:48; Jos 12:2; Jos 13:9). This is evident from the fact, that it is distinguished from “all the cities on the side (יְדֵי עַל, see at Num 34:3) of the Arnon,” which included Aroër of Reuben. Aroër of Gad, with its daughter towns, was probably Ammonitish territory before the time of Sihon. On the 300 years, a round number that comes very near the reality, see the Chronol. p. 285.

Jdg 11:27

After Jephthah had adduced all that could be said, to prove that the Israelites were the rightful possessors of the land of Gilead,

(Note: “Jephthah urged everything that could be pleaded in support of their prescriptive right: possession, length of time, the right of conquest, and undisputed occupation.” - Rosenmüller.)

he closed with these words: “I (i.e., Israel, whose cause Jephthah was pleading) have not sinned against thee, but thou doest me wrong in that thou makest war against me. Let Jehovah the Judge be judge this day (now) between the children of Israel and the children of Ammon.” God should decide between the two nations, by giving the victory in war to the side whose cause was the just one.

Jdg 11:28

But the king of the Ammonites did not hearken to the words of Jephthah “which he had sent to him,” i.e., had instructed his messengers to address to him; so that it was necessary that Jehovah should decide for Israel in battle.