Judges 11-13

Amplified Bible

Jephthah the Ninth Judge

11 Now Jephthah the Gileadite was a brave warrior, but he was the son of a prostitute. Gilead was the father of Jephthah. ² Gilead’s wife bore him sons, and when his wife’s sons grew up, they drove Jephthah out and said to him, “You shall not have an inheritance in our father’s house, because you are the son of another woman.” ³ Then Jephthah fled from his brothers and lived in the land of Tob; and worthless and unprincipled men gathered around Jephthah, and went out [on raids] with him.

⁴ Now it happened after a while that the Ammonites fought against Israel. ⁵ When the Ammonites fought against Israel, the elders of Gilead went to get Jephthah from the land of Tob; ⁶ and they said to Jephthah, “Come and be our leader, so that we may fight against the Ammonites.” ⁷ But Jephthah said to the elders of Gilead, “Did you not hate me and drive me from the house of my father? Why have you come to me now when you are in trouble?” ⁸ The elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, “This is why we have turned to you now: that you may go with us and fight the Ammonites and become head over all the inhabitants of Gilead.” ⁹ So Jephthah said to the elders of Gilead, “If you take me back [home] to fight against the Ammonites and the Lord gives them over to me, will I [really] become your head?” ¹⁰ The elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, “The Lord is ^[a]the witness between us; be assured that we will do as you have said.” ¹¹ So Jephthah went with the elders of Gilead, and the people made him head and leader over them. And Jephthah ^[b]repeated everything that he had promised before the Lord at Mizpah.

¹² Now Jephthah sent messengers to the king of the Ammonites, saying, “What is [the problem] between you and me, that you have come against me to fight in my land?” ¹³ The Ammonites’ king replied to the messengers of Jephthah, “It is because Israel took away ^[c]my land when they came up from Egypt, from the [river] Arnon as far as the Jabbok and [east of] the Jordan; so now, return those lands peaceably.” ¹⁴ But Jephthah sent messengers again to the king of the Ammonites, ¹⁵ and they said to him, “This is what Jephthah says: ‘Israel did not take the land of Moab or the land of the Ammonites. ¹⁶ For when they came up from Egypt, Israel walked through the wilderness to the Red Sea and came to Kadesh; ¹⁷ then Israel sent messengers to the king of Edom, saying, “Please let us pass through your land,” but the king of Edom would not listen. Also they sent word to the king of Moab, but he would not consent. So Israel stayed at Kadesh. ¹⁸ Then they went through the wilderness and went around the land of Edom and the land of Moab, and came to the east side of the land of Moab, and they camped on the other side of the [river] Arnon; but they did not enter the territory of Moab, for the Arnon was the [northern] boundary of Moab. ¹⁹ Then Israel sent messengers to Sihon king of the Amorites, king of Heshbon, and Israel said to him, “Please let us pass through your land to our place.” ²⁰ But Sihon did not trust Israel to pass through his territory; so Sihon gathered together all his people and camped at Jahaz and fought against Israel. ²¹ The Lord, the God of Israel, gave Sihon and all his people into the hand of Israel, and they defeated them; so Israel took possession of all the land of the Amorites, the inhabitants of that country. ²² They took possession of all the territory of the Amorites, from the Arnon as far as the Jabbok, and from the wilderness [westward] as far as the Jordan. ^23 [d]And now the Lord God of Israel has dispossessed and driven out the Amorites from before His people Israel, so [why] should you possess it? ²⁴ Do you not possess what Chemosh your god gives you to possess? And everything that the Lord our God dispossessed before us, we will possess. ²⁵ Now are you any better than Balak the son of Zippor, king of Moab? Did he ever strive against Israel, or did he ever go to war against them? ²⁶ While Israel lived in Heshbon and its villages, and in Aroer and its villages, and in all the cities along the banks of the Arnon for three hundred years, why did you not recover your lost lands during that time? ²⁷ So I have not sinned against you, but you are doing me wrong by making war against me; may the Lord, the [righteous] Judge, judge this day between the Israelites and the Ammonites.’” ²⁸ But the king of the Ammonites disregarded the message of Jephthah, which he sent to him.

Jephthah’s Tragic Vow

²⁹ Then the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah, and he passed through Gilead and Manasseh, and Mizpah of Gilead, and from Mizpah of Gilead he passed on to the Ammonites. ³⁰ Jephthah made a vow to the Lord and said, “If You will indeed give the Ammonites into my hand, ³¹ then whatever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me when I return in peace from the Ammonites, it shall be the Lord’s, and I will offer it up as a burnt offering.” ³² Then Jephthah crossed over to the Ammonites to fight with them; and the Lord gave them into his hand. ³³ And from Aroer to the entrance of Minnith he struck them, twenty cities, and as far as Abel-keramim (brook by the vineyard), with a very great defeat. So the Ammonites were subdued and humbled before the Israelites.

³⁴ Then Jephthah came to his house at Mizpah, and this is what he saw: his daughter coming out to meet him with tambourines and with dancing. And she was his only child; except for her he had no son or daughter. ³⁵ And when he saw her, he tore his clothes [in grief] and said, “Alas, my daughter! You have brought me great disaster, and you are the cause of ruin to me; for I have ^[e]made a vow to the Lord, and I cannot take it back.” ³⁶ And she said to him, “My father, you have made a vow to the Lord; do to me as you have vowed, since the Lord has taken vengeance for you on your enemies, the Ammonites.” ³⁷ And she said to her father, “Let this one thing be done for me; let me alone for two months, so that I may go to the mountains and weep over my ^[f]virginity, I and my companions.” ³⁸ And he said, “Go.” So he sent her away for two months; and she left with her companions, and wept over her virginity on the mountains. ³⁹ At the end of two months she returned to her father, who did to her as he had vowed; and she had no relations with a man. It became a custom in Israel, ⁴⁰ that the daughters of Israel went yearly to tell the story of the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite four days in the year.

Jephthah and His Successors

12 The men of [the tribe of] Ephraim were summoned [to action], and they crossed over to Zaphon and said to Jephthah, “Why did you cross over to fight with the Ammonites without calling us to go with you? [For that] we will burn your house down upon you.” ² And Jephthah said to them, “My people and I were in a major conflict with the Ammonites, and when I called you [for help], you did not rescue me from their hand. ³ So when I saw that you were not coming to help me, I took my life in my hands and crossed over against the Ammonites, and the Lord handed them over to me. So why have you come up to me this day to fight against me?” ⁴ Then Jephthah assembled all the men of Gilead and fought with [the tribe of] Ephraim; and the men of Gilead defeated Ephraim, because they had said, “You Gileadites are fugitives of Ephraim, in the midst of [the tribes of] Ephraim and Manasseh.” ⁵ And the Gileadites took the ^[g]fords of the Jordan opposite the Ephraimites; and when any of the fugitives of Ephraim said, “Let me cross over,” the men of Gilead would say to him, “Are you an Ephraimite?” If he said, “No,” ⁶ they said to him, “Then say ‘Shibboleth.’” And he said, “Sibboleth,” for he could not ^[h]pronounce it correctly. Then they seized him and killed him at the fords of the Jordan. At that time forty-two thousand of the Ephraimites fell.

⁷ Jephthah judged Israel for six years. Then Jephthah the Gileadite died and was buried in one of the cities of Gilead.

⁸ And after him Ibzan of Bethlehem judged Israel. ⁹ He had thirty sons, and thirty daughters whom he gave in marriage outside the family, and he brought in thirty daughters [-in-law] from outside for his sons. He judged Israel for seven years. ¹⁰ Then Ibzan died and was buried at Bethlehem.

¹¹ After him Elon the Zebulunite judged Israel; and he judged Israel for ten years. ¹² Then Elon the Zebulunite died and was buried at Aijalon in the land of Zebulun.

¹³ Now after him Abdon the son of Hillel the Pirathonite judged Israel. ¹⁴ He had forty sons and thirty grandsons who rode on seventy donkeys; and he judged Israel for eight years. ¹⁵ Then Abdon the son of Hillel the Pirathonite died and was buried at Pirathon in the land of Ephraim, in the hill country of the Amalekites.

Philistines Oppress Again

13 Now Israel again did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord gave them into the hands of the Philistines for forty years.

² And there was a certain man of Zorah, of the family of the Danites, whose name was Manoah; and his wife was infertile and had no children. ³ And the ^[i]Angel of the Lord appeared to the woman and said to her, “Behold, you are infertile and have no children, but you shall conceive and give birth to a son. ⁴ Therefore, be careful not to drink wine or [any other] intoxicating drink, and do not eat anything [ceremonially] unclean. ⁵ For behold, you shall conceive and give birth to a son. No razor shall come upon his head, for the boy shall be a ^[j]Nazirite [dedicated] to God from birth; and he shall begin to rescue Israel from the hands of the Philistines.” ⁶ Then the woman went and told her husband, saying, “A Man of God came to me and his appearance was like the appearance of the Angel of God, very awesome. I did not ask Him where he came from, and he did not tell me his name. ⁷ But He said to me, ‘Behold, you shall conceive and give birth to a son, and now you shall not drink wine or [any other] intoxicating drink, nor eat anything [ceremonially] unclean, for the boy shall be a Nazirite to God from birth to the day of his death.’”

⁸ Then Manoah pleaded with the Lord and said, “O Lord, please let the Man of God whom You sent come again to us and teach us what we are to do for the boy who is to be born.” ⁹ And God listened to the voice of Manoah; and the Angel of God came again to the woman as she sat in the field, but Manoah her husband was not with her. ¹⁰ So the woman ran quickly and told her husband, “Behold, the Man who came to me the other day has appeared to me.” ¹¹ Then Manoah got up and followed his wife, and came to the Man and said to him, “Are you the Man who spoke to this woman?” He said, “I am.” ¹² And Manoah said, “Now when your words come true, what shall be the boy’s manner of life, and his vocation?” ¹³ The Angel of the Lord said to Manoah, “The woman must pay attention to everything that I said to her. ¹⁴ She may not eat anything that comes from the vine nor drink wine or [any other] intoxicating drink, nor eat anything [ceremonially] unclean. She shall observe everything that I commanded her.”

¹⁵ Then Manoah said to the Angel of the Lord, “Please let us detain you and let us prepare a young goat for you [to eat].” ¹⁶ The Angel of the Lord said to Manoah, “Though you detain me, I will not eat your food, but if you prepare a burnt offering, offer it to the Lord.” For Manoah did not know that he was the Angel of the Lord. ¹⁷ Manoah said to the Angel of the Lord, “What is your name, so that when your words come true, we may honor you?” ¹⁸ But the Angel of the Lord said to him, “Why do you ask my name, seeing it is wonderful (miraculous)?”^{(A) 19} So Manoah took the young goat with the grain offering and offered it on the rock to the Lord, and He performed miracles while Manoah and his wife looked on. ²⁰ For when the flame went up toward heaven from the altar, the Angel of the Lord ascended in the altar flame. When Manoah and his wife saw this they fell on their faces to the ground.

²¹ The Angel of the Lord did not appear again to Manoah or his wife. Then Manoah knew that he was the Angel of the Lord. ²² So Manoah said to his wife, “We will certainly die, because we have seen God.” ²³ But his [sensible] wife said to him, “If the Lord had desired to kill us, He would not have received a burnt offering and a grain offering from our hands, nor would He have shown us all these things, nor would He have announced such things as these at this time.”

²⁴ So the woman [in due time] gave birth to a son and named him Samson; and the boy grew and the Lord blessed him. ²⁵ And the Spirit of the Lord began to ^[k]stir him at times in ^[l]Mahaneh-dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol.