Judges 11:1-28

11:1-3 | Despite Jephthah’s background and his history of worthless companions, God turned his situation, which would destroy most people, into a learning opportunity. The rejection Jephthah experienced during times of peace prepared him to be a leader when war was threatening. Neither bad choices nor the injustices done to a person must ever keep a child of God from completing God’s calling.

11:6-11 | The Israelites first rejected God as their leader and then acted on that rejection, asking Jephthah to serve as their commander. For this reason, he is never specifically identified as one whom God appointed to deliver His people.

11:14-28 | Jephthah defended Israel’s taking of the land by saying: (1) They did not take it from the Ammonites, as the king of Ammon claimed, but from the Amorites. (2) The land had been given to Israel by Israel’s God, and Ammon should possess the land given to them by Ammon’s god. (3) No one had contested Israel’s right to this land for 300 years. Perhaps Jephthah’s diplomatic argument failed in part because he identified Chemosh as Ammon’s god when in fact, Chemosh was the god of the Moabites. Milkom (Molech) was the god of the Ammonites (1 Kgs. 11:33).