JEPHTHAH (rot+, apoter ; Sept. 'Ie0Ocie), ninth judge of Israel, of the tribe of Manasseh. He was the son of a person named Gilead by a concubine. After the death of his father he was expelled from his home by the envy of his brothers, who refused him any share of the heritage, and he withdrew to the land of Tob, beyond the frontier of the Hebrew territories. It is clear that he had before this distinguished him self by his daring character and skill in arms ; for no sooner was his withdrawment known than a great number of men of desperate fortunes re paired to him, and he became their chief. His position was now very similar to that of David when he withdrew from the court of Saul. To maintain the people who had thus linked their fortunes with Ills, there was no other resource than that sort of brigandage which is accounted honour able in the East, so long as it is exercised acminst public or private enemies, and is not marked by needless cruelty and outrage. Even our diffe rent climate and manners afford some parallel in the Robin Hoods of former days ; in the border fomys, when England and Scotland were ostensibly at peace ; and—in principle, however great the formal difference—in the authorised and popular piracies of Drake, Raleigh, and the other naval heroes of the Elizabethan era. So Jephthah con fined his aggressions to the borders of the small neighbouring nations, who were in some sort re garded as the natural enemies of Israel, even when there was no actual war between them.
Jephthah led this kind of life for some years, during which his dashin,g exploits and successful enterprises procured him a higher military reputa tion than any other man of his time enjoyed. The qualities required to ensure success in such opera tions were little different from those required in actual warfare, as warfare was conducted in the East before fire-arms came into general use ; and hence the reputation which might be thus acquired was more truly military than is easily conceivable by modern and occidental readers.
After the death of Jair the Israelites gradually fell into their favourite idolatries, and were punished by subjection to the Philistines on the west of the Jordan, and to the Ammonites on the east of that river. The oppression which they sustained for eighteen years became at length so heavy that they recovered their senses and returned to the God of their fathers with humiliation and tears ; and he was appeased, and promised them deliverance from their affliction (B.c. 1143).
The tribes beyond the Jordan having resolved to oppose the Ammonites, Jephthali seems to occur to every one as the most fitting leader. A deputation was accordingly sent to invite him to take the command. After some demur, on ac count of the treatment he had formerly received, he consented. The rude bero commenced his operations with a degree of diplomatic considera tion and dignity for v,thich we are not prepared. The Ammonites being assembled in force for one of those ravaging incursions by which they had re peatedly desolated the land, he sent to their camp a formal complaint of the invasion, and a demand of the ground of their proceeding. Tbis is highly interesting, because it shows that even in that age a cause for war was judged necessary—no one being supposed to war without provocation ; and in this c7cse Jephthah demanded what cause the Ammonites alleged to justify their aggressive . operations. Their answti was, that the land oi the Israelites beyond th, Jordan was theirs. It had originally belonged to them, from whom it had been taken by ihe Amorites, who had been dispossessed by the Israelites : and on this ground they claimed the restitution of these lands. Jephthala's reply laid down the just principle which has been followed out in the practice of civilized nations, and is maintained by all the great writers on the law of nations. The land belonged to the Israelites by right of conquest from the actual possessors ; and they could not be expected to recognise any antecedent claim of former possessors, for whom they had not acted, who had rendered them no assistance, and who had themselves displayed hostility against the Israel ites. It was not to be expected that they would conquer the country from the powerful kings who had it in possession, for the mere purpose of re storing it to the ancient occupants, of whom they had no favourable knowledge, and of whose pre vious claims they were scarcely cognizant. But the Ammonites re-asserted their former views, and on this issue they took the field.