(The view expressed in this blog are my own and should not be taken as inspired in any way.)
Judges 11:1–3, “Now Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty man of valour, and he was the son of an harlot: and Gilead begat Jephthah. And Gilead’s wife bare him sons; and his wife’s sons grew up, and they thrust out Jephthah, and said unto him, Thou shalt not inherit in our father’s house; for thou art the son of a strange woman. Then Jephthah fled from his brethren, and dwelt in the land of Tob: and there were gathered vain men to Jephthah, and went out with him.”
This section shows what happens when people have multiple sexual partners. The Lord God designed one man to be married to one woman and that they would be joined together. Their souls become united but they is damaged when there are many partners. When that happens the parent who had not been involved in multiple relationships feels a strong bond with their own child and seek to exclude the children of the other partners from the advantages of belonging to the original family. This is what happened to Jephthah. His father had a relationship with a harlot. In that time many men would have relationships with harlots as part of the worship of one or other of the fertility gods. There is no evidence that this was actually the case but it is likely that this was so. A man would come to the shrine of the god and pay money so that he could spend time with the temple prostitute and, hence, make sure that his harvests were good and his crops were successful. The children were considered as belonging to the father of the child and invited into his home. However, when the father died the rest of the family chased the son of the prostitute away. This happened to Jephthah and he went away and lived in a strange land. Jephthah was, obviously, a man with considerable leadership skills and the local people in his new place joined with him and followed his leadership.
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