Today, I am reading and commenting on Judges 11-13.

Back towards the end of the Book of Joshua when the warriors from the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and half tribe of Manasseh were sent home from fighting alongside the other tribes west of the Jordan, they built an altar to remind those tribes that those Israelites living east of the Jordan River were their brothers.  Today’s passage contains evidence that their concern was justified.  After Jephthah was successful in defeating the Ammonites who were threatening the people of Gilead (the Israelite territory east of the Jordan River), the Ephraimites mustered against them.  Similar to when Gideon was victorious over the Midianites, the Ephraimites complained that they had not been summoned to the muster for war.  Jephthah claimed that he had called upon them to join him, but they had not come in a timely fashion.  In response, the Ephraimites called the Israelites living east of the Jordan river renegades from the territory west of the Jordan, in a manner similar to what worried those who originally built that memorial altar.  Their hostility for their fellow Israelites ended badly for the Ephraimites.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.