Person
Jephthah
Also called Jephthae
Mentioned in 26 verses across 3 books, first in Judges 11:1. The verses below are the ones linked to this person (the Theographic dataset, with our sourced corrections).
In the Bible
The first 10 of 26 verses, in Bible order. Text from the Berean Standard Bible; verse numbers follow the KJV.
Judges
- Judges 11:1
Now Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty man of valor; he was the son of a prostitute, and Gilead was his father.
- Judges 11:2
And Gilead’s wife bore him sons who grew up, drove Jephthah out, and said to him, “You shall have no inheritance in our father’s house, because you are the son of another woman.”
- Judges 11:3
So Jephthah fled from his brothers and settled in the land of Tob, where worthless men gathered around him and traveled with him.
- Judges 11:5
and made war with them, the elders of Gilead went to get Jephthah from the land of Tob.
- Judges 11:6
“Come,” they said, “be our commander, so that we can fight against the Ammonites.”
- Judges 11:7
Jephthah replied to the elders of Gilead, “Did you not hate me and expel me from my father’s house? Why then have you come to me now, when you are in distress?”
- Judges 11:8
They answered Jephthah, “This is why we now turn to you, that you may go with us, fight the Ammonites, and become leader over all of us who live in Gilead.”
- Judges 11:9
But Jephthah asked them, “If you take me back to fight the Ammonites and the LORD gives them to me, will I really be your leader?”
- Judges 11:10
And the elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, “The LORD is our witness if we do not do as you say.”
- Judges 11:11
So Jephthah went with the elders of Gilead, and the people made him their leader and commander. And Jephthah repeated all his terms in the presence of the LORD at Mizpah.
Events
Events the dataset lists Jephthah as taking part in. Dates follow its Ussher–Jones reckoning (one of several traditional counts), not established history.
- c. 1152 BCDeliverance by Jephthah
Dictionary
From Easton’s Bible Dictionary (1897), as attached to this record by Theographic. The entry is for the name and can describe more than one person who bore it. Easton wrote in 1897, and some of his views are now debated.
Read Easton’s entry
Whom God sets free, or the breaker through, a “mighty man of valour” who delivered Israel from the oppression of the Ammonites (Judg. 11:1-33), and judged Israel six years (12:7). He has been described as “a wild, daring, Gilead mountaineer, a sort of warrior Elijah.” After forty-five years of comparative quiet Israel again apostatized, and in “process of time the children of Ammon made war against Israel” (11:5). In their distress the elders of Gilead went to fetch Jephthah out of the land of Tob, to which he had fled when driven out wrongfully by his brothers from his father’s inheritance (2), and the people made him their head and captain. The “elders of Gilead” in their extremity summoned him to their aid, and he at once undertook the conduct of the war against Ammon. Twice he sent an embassy to the king of Ammon, but in vain. War was inevitable. The people obeyed his summons, and “the spirit of the Lord came upon him.” Before engaging in war he vowed that if successful he would offer as a “burnt-offering” whatever would come out of the door of his house first to meet him on his return. The defeat of the Ammonites was complete. “He smote them from Aroer, even till thou come to Minnith, even twenty cities, and unto the plain of the vineyards [Heb. ‘Abel Keramim], with a very great slaughter” (Judg. 11:33). The men of Ephraim regarded themselves as insulted in not having been called by Jephthah to go with him to war against Ammon. This led to a war between the men of Gilead and Ephraim (12:4), in which many of the Ephraimites perished. “Then died Jephthah the Gileadite, and was buried in one of the cities of Gilead” (7).