consequence, in this sense, “If thou go with us and fight, ... thou shalt be head to us, namely, to all the inhabitants of Gilead,” i.e., to the two tribes and a half on the east of the Jordan.
Verse 9
Jephthah assented to this: “If ye will take me back to make war upon the Ammonites, and Jehovah shall give them up to me (lit. 'before me,' as in Jos 10:12; Deu 2:31, etc.), I will be your head.” “I” is emphatic as distinguished from he; and there is no necessity to regard the sentence as a question, with which the expression in Jdg 11:10, “according to thy words,” which presuppose an affirmative statement on the part of Jephthah, and not a question, would be altogether irreconcilable.
Verse 10
The elders promised this on oath. “Jehovah be hearing between us,” i.e., be hearer and judge of the things concerning which we are negotiating; “truly according to thy word so will we do” (לא אם, a particle used in connection with an oath).
Verse 11
Then Jephthah went with the elders of Gilead, “and the people (i.e., the inhabitants of Gilead) made him head and captain, and Jephthah spoke all his words before Jehovah at Mizpeh:” i.e., he repeated in a solemn assembly of the people, before God at Mizpeh, the conditions and obligations under which he would accept the honour conferred upon him. “Before Jehovah” does not necessarily presuppose the presence of the ark at Mizpeh; nor can we possibly assume this, since the war was resolved upon primarily by the eastern tribes alone, and they had no ark at all. It merely affirms that Jephthah performed this act, looking up to God, the omnipresent head of Israel. Still less do the words warrant the assumption that there was an altar in Mizpeh, and that sacrifices were offered to confirm the treaty, of which there is not the slightest indication in the text. “'Before Jehovah' implies nothing more than that Jephthah confirmed all his words by an oath” (Hengstenberg, Diss. ii. pp. 35, 36).
Verses 12-28
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.”
Verse 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
