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).
Verse 3
Jephthah departed from his brothers into the land of Tob, i.e., according to 2Sa 10:6, 2Sa 10:8, a district in the north-east of Perea, on the border of Syria, or between Syria and Ammonitis, called Τώβιον in 1 Macc. 5:13, or more correctly Τουβίν, according to 2 Macc. 12:17, where loose men gathered round him (cf. Jdg 9:4), and “went out with him,” viz., upon warlike and predatory expeditions like the Bedouins.
Verses 4-6
But when the Ammonites made war upon Israel some time afterwards, the elders of Gilead (= “the princes of Gilead,” Jdg 10:18) went to fetch Jephthah out of the land of Tob, to make this brave warrior their leader. In Jdg 11:4 the account of the war between the Ammonites and Israel, which is mentioned in Jdg 10:17, is resumed, and its progress under Jephthah is then more fully described. “In process of time” (מיּמים, a diebus, i.e., after the lapse of a long period, which cannot be more precisely defined), sc., after the expulsion of Jephthah from his home (see Jdg 14:8; Jdg 15:1; Jos 23:1). קצין signifies a leader in war (Jos 10:24), and is therefore distinguished in Jdg 11:11 from ראשׁ, a chief in peace and war.
Verse 7
Jephthah expressed to the elders his astonishment that they had formerly hated and expelled him, and now came to him in their distress, sc., to make him their leader in time of war. Thus he lays his expulsion upon the shoulders of the elders of Gilead, although it was only by his brethren that he had been driven away from his father's house, inasmuch as they had either approved of it, or at all events had not interfered as magistrates to prevent it. We cannot indeed infer from this reproach, that the expulsion and disinheriting of Jephthah was a legal wrong; but so much at all events is implied, namely, that Jephthah looked upon the thing as a wrong that had been done to him, and found the reason in the hatred of his brethren. The Mosaic law contained no regulation upon this matter, since the rule laid down in Deu 21:15-17 simply applied to the sons of different wives, and not to a son by a harlot.
Verse 8
The elders replied, “Therefore (לכן, because we have formerly done thee wrong) we have now come to thee again to make thee our head, if thou comest with us and fightest against the Ammonites.” The clauses והלכתּ, ונלהמתּ, and והיית, which are formally co-ordinate, are logically to be subordinated to one another, the first two expressing the condition, the third the
