Jephthah
 以色列的士師


 Jephthah
    whom God sets free, or the breaker through, a "mighty man of
    valour" who delivered Israel from the oppression of the
    Ammonites (Judg. 11:1-33), and judged Israel six years (12:7).
    He has been described as "a wild, daring, Gilead mountaineer, a
    sort of warrior Elijah." After forty-five years of comparative
    quiet Israel again apostatized, and in "process of time the
    children of Ammon made war against Israel" (11:5). In their
    distress the elders of Gilead went to fetch Jephthah out of the
    land of Tob, to which he had fled when driven out wrongfully by
    his brothers from his father's inheritance (2), and the people
    made him their head and captain. The "elders of Gilead" in their
    extremity summoned him to their aid, and he at once undertook
    the conduct of the war against Ammon. Twice he sent an embassy
    to the king of Ammon, but in vain. War was inevitable. The
    people obeyed his summons, and "the spirit of the Lord came upon
    him." Before engaging in war he vowed that if successful he
    would offer as a "burnt-offering" whatever would come out of the
    door of his house first to meet him on his return. The defeat of
    the Ammonites was complete. "He smote them from Aroer, even till
    thou come to Minnith, even twenty cities, and unto the plain of
    the vineyards [Heb. 'Abel Keramim], with a very great slaughter"
    (Judg. 11:33). The men of Ephraim regarded themselves as
    insulted in not having been called by Jephthah to go with him to
    war against Ammon. This led to a war between the men of Gilead
    and Ephraim (12:4), in which many of the Ephraimites perished.
    (See SHIBBOLETH.) "Then died Jephthah the Gileadite,
    and was buried in one of the cities of Gilead" (7).