(The view expressed in this blog are my own and should not be taken as inspired in any way.)
Judges 12:1–7, “And the men of Ephraim gathered themselves together, and went northward, and said unto Jephthah, Wherefore passedst thou over to fight against the children of Ammon, and didst not call us to go with thee? we will burn thine house upon thee with fire. And Jephthah said unto them, I and my people were at great strife with the children of Ammon; and when I called you, ye delivered me not out of their hands. And when I saw that ye delivered me not, I put my life in my hands, and passed over against the children of Ammon, and the LORD delivered them into my hand: wherefore then are ye come up unto me this day, to fight against me? Then Jephthah gathered together all the men of Gilead, and fought with Ephraim: and the men of Gilead smote Ephraim, because they said, Ye Gileadites are fugitives of Ephraim among the Ephraimites, and among the Manassites. And the Gileadites took the passages of Jordan before the Ephraimites: and it was so, that when those Ephraimites which were escaped said, Let me go over; that the men of Gilead said unto him, Art thou an Ephraimite? If he said, Nay; Then said they unto him, Say now Shibboleth: and he said Sibboleth: for he could not frame to pronounce it right. Then they took him, and slew him at the passages of Jordan: and there fell at that time of the Ephraimites forty and two thousand. And Jephthah judged Israel six years. Then died Jephthah the Gileadite, and was buried in one of the cities of Gilead.”
At that time, Israel had not been united under one leader. There were often times when one tribe or group of tribes acted alone to defend themselves against invaders. In this case the men from the tribe of Ephraim were upset that they weren’t given the chance to take spoil from the Ammonites. They saw that Jephthah had won a great victory and were jealous of spoil that he had taken. They told Jephthah that he was in the wrong in this case but he asked them why they didn’t come before the Ammonites were defeated. This led to an argument between Gilead and the Ephraimites. The complainers were soundly defeated and tried to return over the River Jordan to their own homes. Jephthah’s men guarded the ford over the river. When people came to cross the river they all said that they belonged to Jephthah’s men so these men devised a test. We know that people from different ethnic groups make different sounds and pronounce things in different ways. For example, people who grew up in Indochina find it hard to “P” at the beginning of a word. They would naturally say “Fressure” rather than “Pressure” for example. The people who live on the west bank of the river said, “Sibboleth” instead of “Shibboleth” like the people from the east bank. when they said the wrong word they were killed. Jephthah was the judge for six years after his great victory over the Ammonites.
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