Matthew Henry on Judges 11:12-28
We have here the treaty between Jephthah, now judge of Israel, and the king of the Ammonites (who is not named), that the controversy between the two nations might, if possible, be accommodated without the effusion of blood.
I. Jephthah, as one having authority, sent to the king of Ammon, who in this war was the aggressor, to demand his reasons for invading the land of Israel: "Why hast thou come to fight against me in my land? Jdg 11:12. Had I come first into thy land to disturb thee in thy possession, this would have been reason enough for fighting against me, for how must force be repelled but by force? but what hast thou to do to come thus in a hostile manner into my land?" so he calls i…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on Judges 11:13
the king of Ammon . . ., Because Israel took away my land--(See on Deu 2:19). The subject of quarrel was a claim of right advanced by the Ammonite monarch to the lands which the Israelites were occupying. Jephthah's reply was clear, decisive, and unanswerable;--first, those lands were not in the possession of the Ammonites when his countrymen got them, and that they had been acquired by right of conquest from the Amorites [Jdg 11:21]; secondly, the Israelites had now, by a lapse of three hundred years of undisputed possession, established a prescriptive right to the occupation [Jdg 11:22-23]; and thirdly, having received a grant of them from the Lord, his people were entitled to maintain the…
Read the whole note in the consoleJohn Gill on Judges 11:14
And Jephthah sent messengers again unto the king of the children of Ammon. Being willing to give him all the satisfaction he could, and if possible live peaceably with him, and prevent the effusion of blood.
Keil & Delitzsch on Judges 11:12-28
Jephthah's Negotiations with the King of the Ammonites. - Jdg 11:12. Before Jephthah took the sword, he sent messengers to the king of the Ammonites, to make complaints to him of his invasion of the land of the Israelites. "What have we to do with one another ('what to me and thee?' see Jos 22:24; Sa2 16:10), that thou hast come to me to fight against my land?" Jephthah's ambassadors speak in the name of the nation; hence the singulars "me" and "my land."
Jdg 11:13
The king of the Ammonites replied, that when Israel came up out of Egypt, they had taken away his land from the Arnon to the Jabbok (on the north), and to the Jordan (on the west), and demanded that they should now restore these l…
