Battle of the Kingless – Ch. 25 – Final Episode | KT OLLA

 JEPHTHAH addressed the men of Ephraim.

‘Yes, we fought the Ammonites and routed them. The God of our fathers gave us the strength to do so.

‘But we did send to you in Ephraim for assistance when we were resisting Ammon’s invasion at the border. You are our closest neighbor to the east, so we summoned you several times – and you know we did!

 ‘Yet you didn’t respond to our call for help, did you? But then we assumed your hands were full dealing with the Philistines on your own side.

‘So we simply carried our burdens alone, without hating anyone or grumbling. And the God of Jacob gave us a celebrated triumph.

‘But now that everything is done, why are you bothering my people and I? Why?’

Those words pricked Jephthah’s listeners. It was right on open wounds. Yet the pain in their sores leaned towards irritation.

 For those words were like fuel added to their fires. And they boiled with temper some more.

‘We’ll burn down your house!’ cried the mob. ‘We’ll raze down your city! You betrayer!’

And so, like a firestorm they leapt against Jephthah. But they were met by his century, the men once called Macot’s.

Yes, those jaguars stopped the vanguard throng with the force of a hundred beasts. But the call wasn’t theirs alone.

For now, the Gileadite soldiers weren’t ready to lose their hero. Not anymore.

So then, an endless pride of lions poured out in a daunting attack. And a civil war broke out.

It was the Battle of Brothers.

Gilead fought the militia hard from dawn to dusk. Then when Ephraim couldn’t resist any longer, they lashed them back with words.

‘You Gileadites are deserters… deserters of Ephraim! What gives you the gut to fight Ephraim? What?!’

Yet those words wouldn’t deter Jephthah’s men. So they kept clashing sword with sword till the men of Ephraim bolted.

It was night and the Ephraimites fled, scattering across the valleys of Gilead in a bid to find secret routes of escape. Yet Jephthah’s army wouldn’t leave them to run back home.

So the Gileadite soldiers hastened to the Jordan River. There they captured the bridge their enemy would take to cross to the other side.

And when the Ephraimites came crossing Jordan on those bridges, the soldiers of Gilead would ask if they were Ephraimites, and they would deny being one.

So Jephthah’s men took their strategy a step further. They decided to ask every crosser of that bridge if he was an Ephraimite.

Then if he denied being from Ephraim, they’d ask him to say the Hebrew word, Shibboleth—meaning “Brook.”

But the people from Ephraim typically weren’t able to pronounce that word correctly. So they’d simply say, Sibboleth (or, Book).

So when a suspected Ephraim-born denied being from that region, and instead of pronouncing Shibboleth, he couldn’t help himself from saying it as Sibboleth… then that man simply met his waterloo.

For he’d be taken aside and killed with a knife.

It was the tragedy of the Battle of Brothers. The fatal end of hate and envy.

It was the end nobody foresaw.

Now, when Elar heard how many were slain for his cause, he felt sorrowful and left Ephraim.

Then he left all of Israel… banishing himself from his nation until the day he’d breath his last.

Thus a wave of peace poured through the land – from the east region in Gilead where it was earned, on to the west and the north and the south.

For in those days when no law or king ruled the Land of Promise, a lord of war rose from dung and dirt, and reigned.

They called his name Jephthah.