The Pulpit Commentary — Judges — Section 114

in ver. 3, and the "father's house" in ver. and Deuteronomy, and in some instances 2, are to be taken in the wider sense of verbal quotations. Thus in this verso the fellow-tribesmen and "house of fathers," words below which are put in italics are found and that his expulsion wa.s not the private in Numb. xiii, 26; xiv. 25: Israel .. walked net of his own brothers turning him out of through the wilder'IUSS unto tlM Red Sea, the house they lived in, but a tribRl act and ea.me t,o Kadesh. (taking trwe in the sense of house offathers), Ver. 17. - Then Israel sent messengers in which the elders of Gilead had taken a ttnw the king of Edom, saying, Let me, I part. If this is so, it removes a great diffi- pray thee, pass through thy !,and ( cottntry in culty about Jephthah being Gilead's son, A. V. Numb. xx. 17). The words in italics which it is "\"ery hard to reconcile with are found in Numb. xx. 14, 17. And Israel ,chronology. abode in Xadesh. These words a.re iu Yer. 9.-Shall I be, &c. There is no Numb. xx. 1 ; see nlso Deut. i. 46. The interrogative in the Hebrew. The words may king of Edom would not hearken. This is be taken as the laying down of the condition related in substnnce in Numb. xx. 18-21. by Jephthah, to which in the following verse And in like manner they sent unto the king the elders express their assent. of Moab. There is no mention of this in Ver. 11.-Head and captain. Both civil the Mosaic narrative. The knowledge of it ruler or judge, and military chief. Uttered must have been preserved either by tradition all his words before the Lord. The ex- or in some other now lost writings; perhaps pression " before the Lord " is used in Exod. in the Book of the Wars of the Lord (Numb. x.xxiv. 34 ; Lent. i. 3 ; Judges xxi. 2 (before xxi. 14). It is in itself very probable that GoaJ, and elsewhere, to signify the special such a message should have been sent to the presence of the Lord which was to be found king of Moab, whose territ,:iries Israel wo.s in the tabernacle, or with the ark, or where forbidden to meddle with (Deut. ii. 9, 19). there was the priest with an ephod. And Ver. 18.-Then they went along, &c. this must be the meaning of the expression The narrative here follows Deut. ii. 1. For here. J ephthah was installed at the na- they compassed the land of Edom. Deut. tional plac,e of gathering and consultation for ii. 1 has, "we corn,passed Mount Seir;" but Gilead, nz., at Mizpah in Gilead, into his Numb. xxi. 4 has, "to e01npass the land oJ office as head of the State, and there, as in Edom." By the ea.at side-literally, by the the capital, he performed all his duties under sun-rising side, as in Numb. xxi. 11. They the sa,nctions of religion. Whether, how- pitched on the other side of Arnon. The ever, the ark was brought there, or the altar, identical words occur in Numb. xxi. 13. or a priest with an ephod, or whether some For Amon was the border of Moab. The substitute was devised which the unsettled identical words of Numb. xxi. 13, where it times might justify, it is impossible to say is added, "between Moab and the A1norites." from want of information_ There seems to South of the Arnon belonged to Moo.b, and be some reference in the words to Jephthah's north to the Amorites. The route taken by vow, in ver. 31, as one of such utterances. the Israelites is carefully tracetl (Numb. xxi. Ver. 12.-A.nd J'ephthah sent, &c. His 11-20). first attempt was to make an honourable Ver. 19.-And Israel, &c. The text here peace by showing that there was no just follows Numb. xxi. 21-24 almost verbatim; cause of quarrel What hast thou to do with but the expression, "the king of Heshbon," me 1 or, rather, What bttsiness, what cause of is from Deut. ii. 24, 26, 30. quarrel, is there between you and me f (he Ver. 20.-In Jahaz. Otherwise Jahazah speaks in the name of Israel, as head of the (Numb. xxi. 23 ; Deut. ii. 32; Isa. xv. 4: State) what is it all about I Jer. xlviii. 21, 84). It seems to have lain Ver. 13.-A.nd the king, &c. The Am- immediately to the north of the Arnon. monite king stated his ground of quarrel Vers. 21, 22.-These verses are an e:pitome very distinctly. He claimed the land between of Numb. xxi. 24-32. Cf. also Deut. ii. 33- the Arnon and the Jabbok as Ammonitish 86. The wilderness is the country lying or Moabitish territory, and demanded itR east of Moab up to the hill country (see eh. surrender as the only condition of peace. It x. 8, note). From the Arnon to the Jabbok appears from Josh. xiii. 25 that part of the is the measurement from south to north ; land of the tribe of Gad, that, namely, " on from the wilderness to the J orda.n from east the, western side of the upper Jabbok," had to west. once belonged to the Ammonites, but had Ver. 24. -Chemoah. The national god of been conquered by the Amorites, from whom the Moabitcs (cf. Numb. xxi. 29; 1 Kings Israel took it, together with that which had xi. 7, 33; Jer. xlviii. 7, 13, 46, &c.). Thy forruerlv belonged to the Moabites. god. The phrase indicates a very close con- Ver. ·16.-When Israel came up, &c. In nection between Moa b and Ammon a.t the this and the following verses there is a dis- present time, both possibly being under one tinct reference to the history in N um hers king. Chemosh, rathe1· than Molocb, ia OD. XI. 1- 28.J THE BOOK OF JUDGES. 121