Judgeschapter 12
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Key verse
Then the men of Ephraim assembled and crossed the Jordan to Zaphon. They said to Jephthah, “Why have you crossed over to fight the Ammonites without calling us to go with you? We will burn your house down with you inside!”
It stands in scene A of the chapter, verses 1 to 7.
The chapter
Chapter summary
Ephraim arrives after the battle again, this time with threats to burn Jephthah's house over him. He answers that he called and they did not save, and Gilead fights Ephraim. The fords of Jordan become a checkpoint with a password no Ephraimite dialect could manage: say now Shibboleth, and he said Sibboleth, for he could not frame to pronounce it right, forty and two thousand fall. Three minor judges close the chapter, remembered mostly by their households: Ibzan of Bethlehem with thirty sons and thirty daughters married abroad, Elon the Zebulunite, and Abdon with forty sons and thirty grandsons riding on seventy ass colts.
Context
History · Samuel · Judges overview
Where the chapter sits
Judges 12 falls in The twelve judges (chapters 3–16). Othniel, Ehud, Shamgar, Deborah, Gideon, Tola, Jair, Jephthah, Ibzan, Elon, Abdon, Samson (and Abimelech as anti-judge). Seven oppression-deliverance cycles.
Before it: Incomplete conquest; programmatic cycle, chapters 1–2. After it: Appendix: diagnosis of Israel, chapters 17–21.
The whole shape of Judges→The world behind this chapter
Judges 12The history
Ephraim's complaint is the same one they made to Gideon: you fought without inviting us. Ephraim was the largest and proudest of the northern tribes, holding the central hills and the sanctuary at Shiloh, and it expected to lead any national action. Gideon soothed them with flattery. Jephthah, a frontier warlord, does not.
The rest of the history, and what it meant to them
Seizing the fords is the same tactic Ehud used, and for the same reason. There were only a handful of places to cross the Jordan, and a force holding them turns a retreat into a sorting line where every man must pass one at a time.
The test word is a real linguistic detail. Hebrew as spoken in Gilead and Hebrew as spoken in Ephraim had drifted apart enough that the sh sound at the start of the word for a flowing stream came out as a plain s on an Ephraimite tongue. Regional pronunciation had become a password no one could fake, and the text puts the death toll at forty-two thousand.
The three judges who follow are peacetime figures, and their notices are about families and wealth: Ibzan marrying thirty sons and thirty daughters outside his clan, which is diplomacy by marriage alliance; Elon of Zebulun; Abdon with forty sons and thirty grandsons riding seventy donkeys. Donkey-riding sons are a status report, this family could afford mounts for everyone.
What it meant to them
Israel had just been rescued from Ammon, and within a chapter Israelites are killing Israelites by the tens of thousands over wounded pride. The first hearers, living in a confederation held together by nothing but shared covenant, were being shown its weakest joint.
The quiet judges that follow make the same point from the other side. When nobody is fighting, the record is families, marriages, and donkeys, which is what the whole book says life was supposed to look like.
Sources cited
- Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Joshua, Judges, Ruth
- John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews, and Mark W. Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament
A. Shibboleth at the fords of Jordan
1. (vv. 1-3)
a.Ephraim brought the same complaint to Gideon at 8:1, after Midian was already beaten, and a soft answer turned it away; here the same tribe crosses the Jordan and threatens to burn a man's house over his head. Joshua 17:14-18 has Ephraim asking for a larger lot while the Canaanite chariots still hold the valley, so the tribe's record is a claim laid on other men's fighting. Jephthah answers with a fact the narrative never reported, that he called them and they did not come, and Albert Barnes places that call at his election by the Gileadites in chapter 11. The phrase at verse 3, I put my life in my hands, returns at 1 Samuel 19:5 and 28:21 for a risk knowingly taken.
Judges 12:1, 3 voicesWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
Judges 12:1
“And the men of Ephraim gathered themselves together,.... Or "cried" (r); got together by a cry or proclamation made: in the Hebrew text it is, "a man of Ephraim"; not a single man, but a body of men, who met together and joined as one man.”
Judges 12:1
“Compare the similar complaint of the Ephraimites to Gideon Jdg 8:1, when a civil war was only avoided by Gideon’s wise and patriotic moderation. The overhearing pride of Ephraim comes out in both occurrences (see also Jos 17:14-18). We will burn thine house upon thee with fire - Compare the fierce threat of the Philistines to Samson’s wife Jdg 14:15, and the yet fiercer execution Jdg 15:6. Burning appears as a mode of capital punishment Gen 38:24; Jos 7:25, and as a mode of desperate warfare (Jdg 1:8; Jdg 20:48; Jos 8:8, Jos 8:19, etc.).”
Judges 12:1
“Northward - Over Jordan, where Jephthah was, in the northern part of the land beyond Jordan. And said - Through pride and envy, contending with him as they did before with Gideon. Over - Not over Jordan, for there he was already; but over the borders of the Israelites land beyond Jordan.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Judges 12:2, 1 voice
Judges 12:2
“When I called you ... - This circumstance is not related in the main narrative. It is likely to have occurred when Jephthah was first chosen leader by the Gileadites, and when Ephraim would probably ignore his pretensions.”
Judges 12:3, 1 voice
Judges 12:3
“I put my life in my hands - Compare 1Sa 19:5; 1Sa 28:21. The phrase expresses the utmost possible risk, knowingly incurred.”
2. (vv. 4-7)
a.The war turns on an insult rather than on the original grievance, since verse 4 gives the reason as the taunt that Gilead were fugitives of Ephraim, and Adam Clarke says the point of that reproach can no longer be recovered. The test at the ford rests on one consonant, samech where Gilead said shin, and Clarke argues the difference was plain to a Hebrew ear though it looks slight on the page; the word itself has come into English for any test that sorts one group from another. Forty and two thousand is the heaviest loss of a single tribe recorded in the book, above the twenty and five thousand and an hundred of Benjamin at 20:35, and every man of it died at a river crossing at the hands of Israel. Jephthah's six years is the shortest term given to any judge here, and the land is not said to have rest, a formula the book last used at 5:31.
Judges 12:4, 2 voices
Judges 12:4
“And fought with Ephraim - Some commentators suppose that there were two battles in which the Ephraimites were defeated: the first mentioned in the above clause; and the second occasioned by the taunting language mentioned in the conclusion of the verse, Ye Gileadites are fugitives of Ephraim. Where the point of this reproach lies, or what is the reason of it, cannot be easily ascertained.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Judges 12:4
“Ye Gileadites - These words are a contemptuous expression of the Ephraimites concerning the Gileadites, whom they call fugitives of Ephraim; the word Ephraim being here taken largely, as it comprehends the other neighbouring tribes, of which Ephraim was the chief; and especially their brethren of Manasseh, who lived next to them, and were descended from the same father, Joseph.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Judges 12:6, 3 voices
Judges 12:6
“Say now Shibboleth; and he said Sibboleth - The original differs only in the first letter ס samech, instead of ש sheen; אמר נא שבלת ויאמר סבלת emar na Shibboleth, vaiyomer Sibboleth. The difference between ש seen, without a point, which when pointed is pronounced sheen, and ס samech, is supposed by many to be imperceptible. But there can be no doubt there was, to the ears of a Hebrew, a most sensible distinction.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Judges 12:6
“Then rushing to the fords of the Jordan, they intercepted and slew every fugitive. The method adopted for discovering an Ephraimite was by the pronunciation of a word naturally suggested by the place where they stood. Shibboleth, means "a stream";”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Judges 12:6
“Could not frame - Or rather, he did not frame to speak right; so as he was required to do it. The Hebrew text doth not say, that he could not do it, but that he did it not, because suspecting not the design he uttered it speedily according to his manner of expression.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Judges 12:7, 1 voice
Judges 12:7
“And Jephthah judged Israel six years,.... After the affair of the Ephraimites, he was acknowledged by all Israel as their judge and supreme governor, but did not live long; being perhaps depressed and worn away with grief, on account of his daughter, and other troubles that attended him: then died Jephthah the Gileadite, and was buried in one of the cities of Gilead: it is not said in what city he was buried, but very probably it was in his own city Mizpeh, where he dwelt.”
B. Ibzan, Elon, and Abdon
1. (vv. 8-15)
a.Three judges close the chapter and what is recorded of them is households and graves rather than an enemy, which is how the book marks its quiet stretches; Adam Clarke counts twenty-five years of peace across the three. Abdon's forty sons and thirty nephews, which in this English means grandsons, ride seventy ass colts, and Jair's thirty sons rode thirty at 10:4, so standing is counted here in mounts and in marriages. Ibzan sent thirty daughters out and took thirty in, and which Bethlehem he came from is unsettled, since Joshua 19:15 puts one in Zebulun while Josephus places him in Judah, and the rabbis quoted by John Gill identify him with Boaz on the strength of the town. Abdon is buried in the mount of the Amalekites inside Ephraim at verse 15, an Amalekite name left standing in Israel's hill country, and Deborah's song at 5:14 already set Ephraim's name against Amalek.
Judges 12:8, 2 voices
Judges 12:8
“And after him Ibzan of Bethlehem judged Israel. There were two Bethlehems, one in the tribe of Zebulun, Jos 19:15 of which some think this man was; and another in the tribe of Judah, the city of Jesse and David, and of the Messiah; and Josephus says (x), Ibzan was of the tribe of Judah, of the city of Bethlehem; and because Boaz was of the same place, and lived in the times of the judges, the Jewish Rabbins (y) are of opinion that he is the same with Ibzan; so Jarchi and Ben Gersom. (x) Antiqu. l. 5. c.”
Judges 12:8
“And after him Ibzan - It appears that during the administration of Jephthah, six years - Ibzan, seven years - Elon, ten years - and Abdon, eight years, (in the whole thirty-one years), the Israelites had peace in all their borders; and we shall find by the following chapter that in this time of rest they corrupted themselves, and were afterwards delivered into the power of the Philistines.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Judges 12:11, 1 voice
Judges 12:11
“A Zebulonite - The tribe of Zebulon had shown its bravery, patriotism, and prowess in the time of Barak Jdg 4:10; Jdg 5:18.”
Judges 12:12, 1 voice
Judges 12:12
“And Elon the Zebulonite died,.... At the end of his ten years of government: and was buried in Aijalon in the country of Zebulun; which is added to distinguish it from another Aijalon in the tribe of Dan Jdg 1:35.”
Judges 12:13, 1 voice
Judges 12:13
“A Pirathonite - He was, therefore, an Ephraimite 1Ch 27:14. Its name still lingers in “Feratah,” 6 miles west of Shechem. The 25 years, apparently consecutive, occupied by the judgeship of Ibzan, Elon, and Abdon, seem to have been very uneventful and prosperous, since the only record of them, preserved in the annals of their country, relates to the flourishing families and peaceful magnificence of two of the number.”
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Judges 12. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
This page draws on Adam Clarke; Albert Barnes; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871); John Gill; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765); Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Joshua, Judges, Ruth and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.
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