1And the men of Ephraim were mustered and they crossed over northward and said to Jephthah, “Why did you cross over to do battle with the Ammonites, but us you did not call to go with you? We will burn down your house upon you.” 2And Jephthah said to them, “I and my people were in strife and the Ammonites sorely afflicted me, and I summoned you, but you did not rescue me from their hand. 3And I saw that you were not about to rescue me, and I put my life at risk and crossed over to the Ammonites, and the LORD gave them into my hand. And why have you come up to me this day to do battle with me?” 4And Jephthah gathered all the men of Gilead and did battle with Ephraim, and the men of Gilead struck down Ephraim, for Ephraim’s fugitives had said, “You, Gilead, are in the midst of Ephraim, in the midst of Manasseh.” 5And Gilead took the fords of the Jordan from Ephraim, and it happened when a fugitive of Ephraim would say, “Let me cross over,” the men of Gilead would say to him, “Are you an Ephraimite?” and he would say “No.” 6And they would say to him, “Say, pray, shibboleth,” and he would say “sibboleth,” and he would not manage to pronounce it right, and they would seize him and slaughter him at the fords of the Jordan. And at that time forty-two thousand of Ephraim fell. 7And Jephthah led Israel six years, and Jephthah the Gileadite died and was buried in his town, in Gilead.
8And after him Ibzan from Bethlehem led Israel. 9And he had thirty sons, and thirty daughters he sent outside, and thirty girls he brought for his sons from outside. And he led Israel seven years. 10And Ibzan died and was buried in Bethlehem. 11And after him Elon the Zebulunite led Israel ten years. 12And Elon the Zebulunite died and was buried in Ajalon in the land of Zebulun. 13And after him Abdon son of Hillel the Pirathonite led Israel. 14And he had forty sons and thirty grandsons who rode on seventy donkeys. And he led Israel eight years. And Abdon son of Hillel the Pirathonite died and was buried in Pirathon in the land of Ephraim in the high country of the Amalekite.
CHAPTER 12 NOTES
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1. they crossed over. This verb—Hebrew ʿavar—is a key word in the episode. In their challenge to Jephthah, they will say, “Why did you cross over?” These occurrences prepare the way for the testing of the Ephraimite fugitives who seek to cross over the Jordan at the fords (the Hebrew noun for “ford” derives from this same verb, ʿavar).
We will burn down your house. Jephthah, who was driven from his father’s house and whose familial house has been destroyed in the sacrifice of his daughter, is now threatened with the destruction of his physical house.
2. I and my people were in strife and the Ammonites sorely afflicted me. The received text is syntactically distorted here, reading: “I and my people were in strife with the Ammonites very.” The translation adopts a reading attested in several versions of the Septuagint, which appear to have used a Hebrew text that had one additional word, ʿinuni, “they afflicted me” before “very” (or “very much”).
4. Ephraim’s fugitives had said, “You, Gilead, are in the midst of Ephraim, in the midst of Manasseh.” The obscure wording here has given rise to conflicting interpretations. The one followed in this translation is Rashi’s proposal: even the least important, the fugitives, of Ephraim tell the Gileadites that they are no more than a tolerated presence in the midst of Ephraim and its brother tribe, Manasseh. In the denouement of the civil war, all the Ephraimite warriors will become fugitives to be slaughtered at the fords of the Jordan.
6. shibboleth . . . sibboleth. In contrast to the English use of “shibboleth,” here it is a password. The necessary inference is that in the dialect of Hebrew spoken by the Ephraimites, sh was pronounced as s. The Hebrew word can mean either “stream” or “stalk of grain,” but, given the proximity to the Jordan, the former sense is more likely. One might note that what comes out of the mouth of the fugitives leads to death, as was the case with Jephthah’s vow.
forty-two thousand. As with numbers elsewhere, this is hardly realistic.
7. in his town, in Gilead. The Masoretic Text reads “in the towns of Gilead,” but the Septuagint shows the reading adopted here.
9. outside. The probable meaning is “outside the clan.”
14. who rode on seventy donkeys. See the comment on 10:4.