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An outcast warrior rallies Israel at Mizpeh, vows to sacrifice the first thing that meets him on his return — and his only daughter walks out the door.
When the Ammonites press Israel hard in Gilead, the elders go begging the rejected warrior Jephthah — the son of a prostitute, exiled by his half-brothers — to come lead them. They make him their head at Mizpeh of Gilead. Jephthah tries diplomacy with the king of Ammon, citing centuries of Israelite history, but war is unavoidable. He makes a rash vow: if God gives him victory, he'll sacrifice whatever comes out of his door to meet him. God gives him the victory — and when he returns home, the first one out the door is his only daughter, dancing with tambourines. After two months mourning that she would die childless, the vow is fulfilled. Then, when the Ephraimites complain they weren't invited to the fight, Jephthah's men kill 42,000 of them at the Jordan fords — exposing them with the password 'shibboleth,' which Ephraimites couldn't pronounce.
Jephthah was a warrior born into the wrong circumstances — rejected by his family, exiled to the margins. When the Ammonites attacked, the people who threw him out came begging for help. He argued his case, won the war, and made a reckless vow that cost him the one person he had left.
JudgesOne Word Was All It TookJephthah barely finishes one war before facing another — this time from his own people. A one-word pronunciation test at the Jordan River turns an internal conflict into a massacre, and three judges lead Israel whose entire legacies fit in a few sentences each.
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