Judges 12:1-15. \u00a0Today we come to the end of \u00a0Jephthah’s story. \u00a0Yesterday we saw him lead his troops to victory over the Ammonites. \u00a0But before the battle he had made a stupid vow to God in an attempt to manipulate God. \u00a0If \u00a0God would give him the victory then he would give the first thing from his house that \u00a0came to meet him to God as a burnt offering. \u00a0Unfortunately it was his only child, a daughter. \u00a0And she had never had children. \u00a0That would be the end of his family. \u00a0His troubles were not over though.<\/p>\n
In the story of Gideon we saw that one of the tribes, the Ephraimites, felt cheated because Gideon had not invited them to the battle from the beginning (Judges 6:34-35; 7:23-8:3). \u00a0The funny thing is that Gideon did eventually invite them when the battle got near their territory. \u00a0Gideon was able to calm their anger and went on to finish the battle with the Midianites. \u00a0Now Jephthah is being called out by Ephraim for the same thing, not inviting them to the battle. \u00a0In his case though the fight is already over.<\/p>\n
Remember that Jephthah was a Gileadite. \u00a0He was from a part of the tribe of Manasseh. When the Israelites approached the land promised to them by God the tribes they had some battles with surrounding people (It was one of those battles that the Ammonite king talked about yesterday as he picked the fight with Jephthah).
\nThe twelve tribes stood on the east side of the Jordan River looking to the land west of the river which God had promised them. \u00a0According to Number 32 the tribes of Gad and Reuben had a lot of livestock. \u00a0Maybe they were \u00a0in charge of the herds for the traveling Israelites. \u00a0As they all stood on the east side of the river those two tribes asked to be given the land they were standing on, the hill country on the east of the Jordan that would eventually be known as Gilead. \u00a0It was good pasture land. \u00a0At first Moses was angry that they did not want to go into the promised land and fight for it. \u00a0The same thing had happened forty years before (Numbers 13-14) and the people had been banished to the wilderness for 40 years. \u00a0The Gadites and Reubenites assured Moses that they would only leave their wives, children, and livestock on the east side of the river, they would go and fight with the rest of the Israelites as they took over the promised land. \u00a0 Part of the tribe of Manasseh, the sons of Machir (Gilead’s father), \u00a0also got in on the deal. \u00a0They had fought and taken over some cities in the area. \u00a0So when Moses gave orders to give the land to Gad and Reuben he also gave orders for some of it to be given to Machir’s part of Manasseah. \u00a0The orders were given to Joshua who was the leader of Israel after Moses. \u00a0he led the people into the land, started the conquest, and divided the land among the tribes. \u00a0He also was the leader of Israel leading up to the times we are reading about in the book of Judges. \u00a0So the Gileadite’s territory was on the east side of the Jordan River. \u00a0Remember also that Jephthah was thrown out of the family by his half-brothers and went to live in the land of Tob. \u00a0The exact location of Tob is unknown but from different historical evidence we know it was also east of the Jordan River neat Succoth and Penuel (the towns that would not help Gideon). \u00a0 Jephthah probably lived his whole life east of the Jordan River and that is where he fought his battle with the Ammonites. \u00a0Ephraim on the other hand was one of the tribes that lived west of the Jordan River.<\/p>\n
The battle that Gideon fought started on the west side of the Jordan. \u00a0When he called the Ephraimites into the battle he wanted them to block the Midianites from crossing the river and escaping to the east. \u00a0They were only partially successful and Gideon eventually had to chase the Midianites east through Gilead. \u00a0But for the most part Gidoen’s fight was on the west side of the Jordan. \u00a0So it makes sense that the Ephraimites wanted a part of that fight. \u00a0Now though, they are all over Jephthah for not inviting them to a battle that stayed totally on the east side of the river. \u00a0Gideon was able to calm the Ephraimites down by bragging about what a great job they had done in capturing two of the invading kings. \u00a0He compared himself to left over grapes in the field and them to the best wine. \u00a0Jephthah is a different story though. \u00a0The Ephraimite actually cross over the river and get all over Jephthah. \u00a0His response is that he called them and they didn’t come so it’s their fault that they weren’t part of the fight. \u00a0No where in the story do we see Jephthah calling the Eprriamites to help and it is not very likely that he did. \u00a0He is probably lying and trying to manipulate the situation, like he did when he promised a burnt offering to God if God would give him the victory. \u00a0The outcome with the Ephraimites is as much a disaster at the one with his daughter. \u00a0Jephthah has to future family \u00a0he not about to lose his reputation as well, he’s a valiant warrior. \u00a0So he goes to battle against the Ephraimites and statrs to win. \u00a0Jephthah has his troops block the river crossings so Ephraim is trapped as they try to retreat and he kills 42,000 Ephraimites. \u00a0The last verses of Jephthah’s story tell us that he judged Israel for six years. \u00a0The man from Gilead then dies and is burried in Gilead. \u00a0Once again the cycle is changed, no mention of peace, of the land being undisturbed. \u00a0The last mention of that is with Gideon.<\/p>\n
Todays reading ends with the mention of three more minor judges (kind of like the mention of two between Gideon’s son and Jehpthah). \u00a0The first one is Ibzan of Bethlehem (a town near Jerusalem on the west of the Jordan River in the territory of Judah). \u00a0All we know about Ibzan is that he has his children marry with non Israelites, the law of Moses forbid such marriages, and that he ruled for 7 years. \u00a0Then Ibzan dies and is burried in Bethlehem. \u00a0The second minor judge is Elon from Zebulun. \u00a0He ruled for 10 years then dies and is burried in his home territory. \u00a0The third minor judge is Abdon. \u00a0He is listed according to his home town, Pirathon. \u00a0His father’s name is added but not his tribe. We are told that Pirathon is in Ephraim but it looks like Ephraim is being used as a name for more than just tribal land, like Gilead east of the Jordan River which overlapped Gad’s territory. \u00a0We are never told Abdon is an Ephraimite. We are also told that Abdon had seventy descendants who rode on donkeys. \u00a0Like Judges 5:10 and Judges 10:4 this is probably a reference to richness and royalty.<\/p>\n
The story of Judges has moved from a united nation to one of petty rivalries. \u00a0From the twelve tribe fighting together against foreign invaders to the twelve tribe fighting against themselves. It has even come to the point where the leader are identified by their cities rather than their tribes. \u00a0One time Jesus caused a powerful demon to leave a person. \u00a0The religious leaders were scared, this was a threat to their personal power so they accused him of using power from Satan. \u00a0Jesus told them that a kingdom divided against itself cannot last for very long (Luke 11:14-17). \u00a0Israel was quickly becoming a kingdom divided against it’s self. \u00a0We see though God in the background. \u00a0Even when the different tribal or city leaders were ruling the author of Judges talks about them “judging Israel”. \u00a0Abimelech wanted to be ruler over Shechem. \u00a0Jephthah wanted to be ruler over Gilead. \u00a0But they all “judged Israel”. \u00a0I think our history is like that too. \u00a0We plan our way but God is in the backgorund moving history forward according to his plan. \u00a0We plan and move but he gets what he wants done done (See Proverbs 16:9). \u00a0Romans 8:28 says that God causes all things to work together for good in the lives of those who love Him and are trying to follow his plan. \u00a0Notice that it does not say all things are good, God uses them though to get His plan done. \u00a0Notice, too, that it’s not good for everyone. \u00a0It all only winds up being good for those who who love Him and are living for Him. \u00a0Again this doesn’t mean no trouble in your life if you love God. \u00a0In fact the Bible is very clear that if you love God you will have more trouble in your life. \u00a0The journey will be tough but the destination will be very good. \u00a0Yes God is working in history. \u00a0But there are consequences if you are not on God’s side. \u00a0There were consequences in the lives of the Israelites. \u00a0Jephthah’s name was lost, his family line was ended. \u00a0His daughter paid the ultimate price because her father was proud and self willed. \u00a0The Ephraimites lost too, 42,000, because they were mad about not being invited to the party. \u00a0God is in contrly and His plan will be done. \u00a0Are you on His team? \u00a0Is it God’s way or your way that matters? \u00a0Ar youmore worried about what people think of you or what God thinks of you? \u00a0Is it about you, your family, your town, your country or about God? \u00a0Lord help my life be first and only about you. \u00a0All the parts of my life are part you have put in place, they are from you so they can be about you too. \u00a0Help me keep my life that way, about you. \u00a0Be honored in my life. \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Judges 12:1-15. \u00a0Today we come to the end of \u00a0Jephthah’s story. \u00a0Yesterday we saw him lead his troops to victory over the Ammonites. \u00a0But before the battle he had made a stupid vow to God in an attempt to manipulate God. \u00a0If \u00a0God would give him the victory then he would give the first thing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=281"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":304,"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281\/revisions\/304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}