Judges 11:12-28

Jephthah's Negotiations with the King of Ammon. As generally happens, there was a war of diplomacy before the war of swords. The history of 300 years was reviewed in an attempt to settle a present question of meum and tuum. Jephthah speedily acquainted himself with the rights and wrongs of the case, and would not have it said that he made no effort to settle matters amicably. But he argued in vain. Perhaps he was not sorry when the solemn palaver was over, and the hour come for the stern arbitrament of war. He was essentially a soldier, only incidentally and reluctantly a politician.

Judges 11:14. The point of the long speech of Jephthah's messengers is that the Israelites, in their journey from Egypt, scrupulously respected the neutrality of Ammon. They failed to obtain a transit through either Edom or Moab, and rather than trespass on forbidden ground they compassed both these lands. The only territory which they seized to the east of Jordan was that of Sihon, king of the Amorites. (These facts are stated in Numbers 20:14; Numbers 21:21, only there is no reference to an embassy to Moab.) It will be observed that from Judges 11:15 onwards there is a flaw in the argument of the messengers, who reason as if they were negotiating with Moab instead of Ammon; and the error becomes most apparent in Judges 11:24, where they speak of Chemosh thy god. Chemosh was the god of Moab, Milcom of Ammon. The Israelites speak as men who have a national deity, Yahweh, to men who have a national deity, Chemosh. While they devoutly worshipped the one, they did not question the reality of the other. The truth of monotheism had not yet dawned on even the greatest minds in Israel.