John Gill Commentary Judges 12

And the men of Ephraim gathered themselves together
Or "cried" ^F18 ; got together by a cry or proclamation made: in the Hebrew text it is, "a man of Ephraim"; not a single man, but a body of men, who met together and joined as one man. It is highly probable that there were no less than 50,000 of them; for 42,000 of them were slain, (Judges 12:6)

and went northward ;
or, "went over northward ^F19 "; that is, over the river Jordan, which lay between Gilead and Ephraim; and when they had crossed the river, they turned northward; for Mizpeh, where Jephthah lived, was in the north of the land, near Hermon and Lebanon, (Joshua 11:3)

and said unto Jephthah, why did you pass over to fight against
the children of Ammon ?
not over Jordan, but over that part of the land of Israel from the plain where Jephthah dwelt, to the country of the children of Ammon:

and did not call us to go with you ?
they quarrel with him just in the same manner as they did with Gideon: these Ephraimites were a proud and turbulent people, and especially were very jealous of the tribe of Manasseh, of which both Gideon and Jephthah were; the one of the half tribe on this side Jordan, and the other of the half that was on the other side; and they were jealous of both, lest any honour and glory should accrue thereunto, and they should get any superiority in any respect over them, since Jacob their father had given the preference to Ephraim; and this seems to lie at the bottom of all their proceedings:

we will burn your house upon you with fire ;
that is, burn him and his house, burn his house and him in it; which shows that they were in great wrath and fury, and argued not only the height of pride and envy, but wretched ingratitude, and a cruel disposition; who, instead of congratulating him as Israel's deliverer, and condoling him with respect to the case of his only child, threaten him in this brutish manner.

FOOTNOTES:

• F18: (qeuy) (ebohsen) , Sept. "clamatus", i.e. "clamando convocatus", Piscator. "mnellius", Pimcator.
• F19: (rbey) "transivit", Pagninus, Montanus; "transiverunt", Junius et Tremellius, Piscator.

And Jephthah said unto them, I and my people were at a great
strife with the children of Ammon
The cause of the war, or the reason he went to fight the children of Ammon, was a strife or contention between the Gileadites and them concerning their country. The children of Ammon claimed it as theirs, while the Gileadites insisted they had a just right to it. This showed it was not a personal contention between Jephthah and them, so the Ephraimites had no reason to attack him so furiously in particular. It was a contention that chiefly concerned the two and a half tribes, not the rest, so they could not be blamed for defending themselves alone if they could, without involving others in the quarrel. But this is not all he says; he adds,

and when I called you, you delivered me not out of their hands ;
It seems he had called them to assist in driving the enemy out of their borders when they were there, but they refused to help him. Though this is not said elsewhere, and they did not deny it, making their allegation false.

However, since they declined giving him any assistance when the children of Ammon were in his country, he could not expect them to join him in an expedition into theirs.

And when I saw that you delivered me not
Gave him no assistance against their common enemy, did not attempt to save him and his people out of their hands, but left them to defend themselves:

I put my life in my hands ;
ready to deliver it up in the defence of his country; the meaning is, that he exposed himself to the utmost danger, hazarded his life in going with a few troops into an enemy's country to fight him, and so liable to lose his life; which was in as much danger, as some observe, as any brittle thing contained in the hand is in danger of falling, or of being snatched out of it:

and passed over against the children of Ammon :
took a long and fatiguing march over the land of Gilead into that of the children of Ammon, to fight with them:

and the Lord delivered them into my hand ;
gave him victory over them, which showed that his cause was just, and his call to engage in it clear:

wherefore then are you come up unto me this day to fight against me ?
who rather should have come with thanks to him for the service he had done, not only for the Gileadites, but for all Israel; for had he not fought against the children of Ammon, and conquered them, they would have soon not only overrun and oppressed Gilead, but would have come over Jordan, and dispossessed the other tribes, and particularly Ephraim, as they had done already, (Judges 10:9) so that it was base ingratitude in these people to come to fight against Jephthah, who had fought for them, and wrought salvation for them.

Then Jephthah gathered together all the men of Gilead, and
fought with Ephraim
The Ephraimites not being pacified with the account Jephthah gave of the war between him and the children ofAmmon, but continuing in their tumultuous outrage; he, being a man of spirit and courage, got as many of theGileadites together as he could, and gave them battle:

and the men of Gilead smote Ephraim ;
had the advantage of them, worsted them, killed many of them, and put the rest to flight:

because they said, ye Gileadites are fugitives of Ephraim among the
Ephraimites, and among the Manassites ;
what provoked them to fall upon them with the greater fury, and use them the more severely when, they had thebetter of them, was their reproachful language to them, insulting the Gileadites, who perhaps were chiefly,if not all, of the half tribe of Manasseh beyond Jordan, of which Jephthah was, that they were the scum ofthe house of Joseph, that they had run away from their brethren, and dwelt in a corner of the land bythemselves; and were of no account at all among Ephraim and Manasseh, and disclaimed by them both, and notesteemed by either.

The Targum is, ``the fugitives of Ephraim said, what are ye Gileadites accounted ofamong the Ephraimites, and among the Manassites?'' on which Kimchi remarks, that those Ephraimites that camein this tumultuous manner, and insulted Jephthah, were a most abject company of men, the refuse of the tribeof Ephraim, shepherds who through necessity were obliged to come over Jordan with their flocks and herds forpasture:

but the words may be rendered, "for they said, fugitives of Ephraim are ye, even the Gileadites, who were, or being between the Ephraimites and the Manassites"; that is, the Gileadites called the Ephraimites so, when they fled before them, and when they got at the fords of Jordan, which lay between Ephraim and the half tribe of Manasseh on the other side Jordan; and they are in the next verse expressly so called.

And the Gileadites took the passages of Jordan before the Ephraimites Being either swifter of foot, or going a nearer and shorter way, being better acquainted with their own country:

and it was so, that when those Ephraimites which were escaped said, let me go over ; the fugitives of Ephraim, as before called, who ran away from the battle, made their escape, and the best of their way to the passages of Jordan, to get over there to their own country:

that the men of Gilead said unto him ; to everyone of them, as they came up,

art thou an Ephraimite ? or an Ephrathite; for so it seems those of the tribe of Ephraim were called, as Jeroboam, (1 Kings 11:26)

if he said, nay; that he was not an Ephraimite ;