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in the words of the author just quoted: "Sin and forgiveness are the pivots of all history,
specially of that of Israel, including in that term the spiritual Israel."
Now, indeed, was deliverance at hand. For the first time these eighteen years that
Ammon had camped in Gilead, the children of Israel also camped against them in
Mizpeh, or, as it is otherwise called (Joshua 13:26; 20:8), in Ramath-Mizpeh or
Ramoth-Gilead (the modern Salt), a city east of the Jordan, in an almost direct line from
Shiloh. The camp of Israel could not have been better chosen. Defended on three sides
by high hills, Mizpeh lay "on two sides of a narrow ravine, half way up, crowned by a
(now) ruined citadel,"^295 which probably at all times defended the city.
"Ramoth-Gilead must always have been the key of Gilead, at the head of the only easy
road from the Jordan, opening immediately on to the rich plateau of the interior, and
with this isolated cone rising close above it, fortified from very early times, by art as
well as by nature." All was thus prepared, and now the people of Gilead, through their
"princes," resolved to offer the supreme command to any one who had already begun to
fight against the children of Ammon - that is, who on his own account had waged
warfare, and proved successful against them. This notice is of great importance for the
early history of Jephthah.
Few finer or nobler characters are sketched even in Holy Scripture than Jephthah, or
rather Jiphthach ("the breaker through"). He is introduced to us as "a mighty man of
valor" -the same terms in which the angel had first addressed Gideon (6:12). But this
"hero of might" must first learn to conquer his own spirit. His history is almost a
parallel to that of Abimelech - only in the way of contrast. For, whereas Abimelech had
of his own accord left his father's house to plan treason, Jephthah was wrongfully
driven out by his brothers from his father's inheritance. Abimelech had appealed to the
citizens of Shechem to help him in his abominable ambition; Jephthah to the "elders of
Gilead" for redress in his wrong, but apparently in vain (11:7). Abimelech had
committed unprovoked and cruel murder with his hired band; Jephthah withdrew to the
land of Tob, which, from 2 Samuel 10:6, 8, we know to have been on the northern
boundary of Peraea between Syria and the land of Ammon. There he gathered around
him a number of freebooters, as David afterwards in similar circumstances (1 Samuel
22:2); not, like Abimelech, to destroy his father's house, but, like David, to war against
the common foe. This we infer from Judges 10:18, which shows that, before the war
between Gilead and Ammon, Jephthah had acquired fame as contending against
Ammon. This life of adventure would suit the brave Gileadite and his followers; for he
was a wild mountaineer, only imbued with the true spirit of Israel. And now, when war
had actually broken out, "the elders of Gilead" were not in doubt whom to choose as
their chief. They had seen and repented their sin against Jehovah, and now they saw and
confessed their wrong towards Jephthah, and appealed to his generosity. In ordinary
circumstances he would not have consented; but he came back to them, as the elders of
(^)