12:1 VA YITSA'EK ISH EPHRAYIM VA YA'AVOR TSAPHONAH VA YOMRU LE YIPHTACH MADU'A AVARTA LEHILACHEM BI VENEY AMON VE LANU LO KARA'TA LALECHEY IMACH BEIT'CHA NISROPH ALEYCHA BA EYSH
וַיִּצָּעֵק אִישׁ אֶפְרַיִם וַיַּעֲבֹר צָפֹונָה וַיֹּאמְרוּ לְיִפְתָּח מַדּוּעַ עָבַרְתָּ לְהִלָּחֵם בִּבְנֵי עַמֹּון וְלָנוּ לֹא קָרָאתָ לָלֶכֶת עִמָּךְ בֵּיתְךָ נִשְׂרֹף עָלֶיךָ בָּאֵשׁ
BN (BibleNet translation: And the men of Ephrayim gathered themselves together, and headed north, and said to Yiphtach: "Why did you pass through our land to fight against the Beney Amon, and not call us to go with you? We are going to set your house on fire."
ISH EPHRAYIM: Grammatically a single man, but the rest of the verse pluralises it. We have seen this construction before, throughout Judges.
TSAPHONAH: Some translations render TSAPHONAH as the name of a place, rather than a direction. And it may well be so, as there are several comparable names: Tsepho, Tsiphyon, Tsaphnat-Paneyach, Tsephan-Yah et al; but none of those are this. Generally Tsaphon means "north".
The verse anyway does not make sense. We can understand that they might be upset that he didn't call them to battle (the opportunity for blood, yes; but more than that the opportunity for rape, booty and the taking-home of young women as concubine-slaves), but not this reaction. Burning with fire is, of course, a kurban, a sacrifice; and we have seen this already at Judges 6:21. If the whole tale is mythological, burning with fire insinuates sins, comets, stars or supernovae; perhaps there will be more hints within the tale to help us deduce which.
BEIT'CHA NISROPH: Do they mean his kingdom - using the phrase as a metaphor for civil war - or just the shrine?
And didn't Ephrayim make exactly the same complaint against Gid'on, when he went off to fight Midyan in Judges 8 (see my notes at 8:1). Ephrayim was Yehoshu'a's tribe, and unofficially the ruling tribe in the years following his death - are these two stories perhaps a consequence of perceived incompetence, corruption, weakness, by the other tribes, or simply an assertion of their refusal to be "ruled" by any one tribe?
And one last question: Yiphtach was a man of Gil'ad which is east of Ephrayim, and he fought the Beney Amon, who are even further east of Ephrayim, being east of Gil'ad - so how or why would he have passed through their land anyway? The only viable answer is that, when it says Mitspeh (map at this link) at Judges 11:11, it does indeed mean the Mitspeh at which Yehoshu'a previously, Shemu-El later (1 Samuel 7:5 and 10:17), gathered the people to prepare for war - see my notes at 11:11, where I questioned it being there, because verse 29 is specific in naming it "Mitspeh of Gil'ad". But if it was that Mitspeh (background at this link), then he has come into the tribal territory of Bin-Yamin, just south of its border with Ephrayim, and would have had to cross Ephrayimite land both to get there and to march to war. And in that case - if it was a national muster, why didn't Ephrayim turn up, or get invited? And the same will happen again, ironically with Bin-Yamin, in Judges 20, even more coincidentally at a Mitspeh, and most oddly too, because the way that story is told, Mitspeh does not appear to be in the tribal territory of Bin-Yamin, but elsewhere.
ISH EPHRAYIM: Grammatically a single man, but the rest of the verse pluralises it. We have seen this construction before, throughout Judges.
TSAPHONAH: Some translations render TSAPHONAH as the name of a place, rather than a direction. And it may well be so, as there are several comparable names: Tsepho, Tsiphyon, Tsaphnat-Paneyach, Tsephan-Yah et al; but none of those are this. Generally Tsaphon means "north".
The verse anyway does not make sense. We can understand that they might be upset that he didn't call them to battle (the opportunity for blood, yes; but more than that the opportunity for rape, booty and the taking-home of young women as concubine-slaves), but not this reaction. Burning with fire is, of course, a kurban, a sacrifice; and we have seen this already at Judges 6:21. If the whole tale is mythological, burning with fire insinuates sins, comets, stars or supernovae; perhaps there will be more hints within the tale to help us deduce which.
BEIT'CHA NISROPH: Do they mean his kingdom - using the phrase as a metaphor for civil war - or just the shrine?
And didn't Ephrayim make exactly the same complaint against Gid'on, when he went off to fight Midyan in Judges 8 (see my notes at 8:1). Ephrayim was Yehoshu'a's tribe, and unofficially the ruling tribe in the years following his death - are these two stories perhaps a consequence of perceived incompetence, corruption, weakness, by the other tribes, or simply an assertion of their refusal to be "ruled" by any one tribe?
And one last question: Yiphtach was a man of Gil'ad which is east of Ephrayim, and he fought the Beney Amon, who are even further east of Ephrayim, being east of Gil'ad - so how or why would he have passed through their land anyway? The only viable answer is that, when it says Mitspeh (map at this link) at Judges 11:11, it does indeed mean the Mitspeh at which Yehoshu'a previously, Shemu-El later (1 Samuel 7:5 and 10:17), gathered the people to prepare for war - see my notes at 11:11, where I questioned it being there, because verse 29 is specific in naming it "Mitspeh of Gil'ad". But if it was that Mitspeh (background at this link), then he has come into the tribal territory of Bin-Yamin, just south of its border with Ephrayim, and would have had to cross Ephrayimite land both to get there and to march to war. And in that case - if it was a national muster, why didn't Ephrayim turn up, or get invited? And the same will happen again, ironically with Bin-Yamin, in Judges 20, even more coincidentally at a Mitspeh, and most oddly too, because the way that story is told, Mitspeh does not appear to be in the tribal territory of Bin-Yamin, but elsewhere.
12:2 VA YOMER YIPHTACH ALEYHEM ISH RIV HAYITI ANI VE AMI U VENEY AMON ME'OD VE EZ'AK ET'CHEM VE LO HOSHA'TEM OTI MI YADAM
וַיֹּאמֶר יִפְתָּח אֲלֵיהֶם אִישׁ רִיב הָיִיתִי אֲנִי וְעַמִּי וּבְנֵי עַמֹּון מְאֹד וָאֶזְעַק אֶתְכֶם וְלֹא הֹושַׁעְתֶּם אֹותִי מִיָּדָם
BN: And Yiphtach said to them: "I and my people were in deep conflict with the Beney Amon; but when I called you, you did not come to rescue me from their hands...
Which contradicts their claim; so was their claim a mere pretext to attack Gil'ad? Fear that his defeating Amon now made him powerful enough to conquer them, and the claim a pre-emptive pretext? (At what point does history separate from mythology separate from literature?)
This repeated "me" begins to bother me. A king, even a sacred-king, might use the "royal We", but this is 1st person singular, not plural...
KJ: 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?
Which contradicts their claim; so was their claim a mere pretext to attack Gil'ad? Fear that his defeating Amon now made him powerful enough to conquer them, and the claim a pre-emptive pretext? (At what point does history separate from mythology separate from literature?)
This repeated "me" begins to bother me. A king, even a sacred-king, might use the "royal We", but this is 1st person singular, not plural...
And of course all this relates back to the deal done between Mosheh and the two-and-a-half tribes in Numbers 22, to which they proved their commitment in the same chapter; proof re-endorsed by Yehoshu'a (Joshua ) at the beginning of chapter 22 of his book, and then re-re-endorsed after the misunderstanding over the memorial at what may or may not have been called Gal-Ed (see Joshua 22:34).
HOSHA'TEM: That word again, Moshi'a, the Messiah, the "Deliverer" - in every instance thus far it has been the "Liberator" role, Churchill driving out the Nazis, Joan of Arc rescuing France from the English, Simon Bolivar versus the Conquistadors.
12:3 VE ER'EH KI EYNCHA MOSHI'A VA ASIYMAH NAPHSHI VE CHAPI VA E'BERAH EL BENEY AMON VA YITNEM YHVH BE YADI VE LAMAH ALIYTEM ELAY HA YOM HA ZEH LEHILACHEM BI
וָאֶרְאֶה כִּי אֵינְךָ מֹושִׁיעַ וָאָשִׂימָה נַפְשִׁי בְכַפִּי וָאֶעְבְּרָה אֶל בְּנֵי עַמֹּון וַיִּתְּנֵם יְהוָה בְּיָדִי וְלָמָה עֲלִיתֶם אֵלַי הַיֹּום הַזֶּה לְהִלָּחֶם בִּי
BN: "And when I saw that you were not coming to my rescue, I took my life in my own hands, and set out against the Beney Amon. And YHVH delivered them into my hand. So why have you come to threaten me with war today?"
And then, what about all the other tribes - that deal with the two-and-a-half in Gil'ad was that they were committed to fighting alongside their west-bank kinsmen if ever the need arose? Did that not apply to all twelve tribes? Are they all entirely independent, and autonomous, with no tribal loyalties of the sort that Yehoshu'a insisted on with the east-of-the-Yarden tribes?
Or is it actually a very different matter altogether - Yiphtach is not Beney Yisra-El, but Gil-adi, and this is not about tribal loyalties at all, but the fear that a dominant Gil'ad will, perhaps already has, absorb the two and a half tribes, removing them from history; and then turn its attention west of the Yarden and conquer the remaining tribes as well.
And now see the next verse (but note the second occurrence of the word Moshi'a before you do so).
And then, what about all the other tribes - that deal with the two-and-a-half in Gil'ad was that they were committed to fighting alongside their west-bank kinsmen if ever the need arose? Did that not apply to all twelve tribes? Are they all entirely independent, and autonomous, with no tribal loyalties of the sort that Yehoshu'a insisted on with the east-of-the-Yarden tribes?
Or is it actually a very different matter altogether - Yiphtach is not Beney Yisra-El, but Gil-adi, and this is not about tribal loyalties at all, but the fear that a dominant Gil'ad will, perhaps already has, absorb the two and a half tribes, removing them from history; and then turn its attention west of the Yarden and conquer the remaining tribes as well.
And now see the next verse (but note the second occurrence of the word Moshi'a before you do so).
12:4 VA YIKBOTS YIPHTACH ET KOL ANSHEY GIL'AD VA YILACHEM ET EPHRAYIM VA YAKU ANSHEY GIL'AD ET EPHRAYIM KI AMRU PELIYTEY EPHRAYIM ATEM GIL'AD BETOCH EPHRAYIM BETOCH MENASHEH
וַיִּקְבֹּץ יִפְתָּח אֶת כָּל אַנְשֵׁי גִלְעָד וַיִּלָּחֶם אֶת אֶפְרָיִם וַיַּכּוּ אַנְשֵׁי גִלְעָד אֶת אֶפְרַיִם כִּי אָמְרוּ פְּלִיטֵי אֶפְרַיִם אַתֶּם גִּלְעָד בְּתֹוךְ אֶפְרַיִם בְּתֹוךְ מְנַשֶּׁה
BN: Then Yiphtach gathered together all the men of Gil'ad, and fought with Ephrayim: and the men of Gil'ad smote Ephrayim, because they said: "You Gil'adim are fugitives of Ephrayim among the Ephrayimites, and among the Menashites".
Fugitives is rendered here as Pelitey (פליטי). Some scholars have argued that Pelishtim, the word for Philistines, may have been Peliytim - there are occasional references to them as Beney Pelet in Tanach; which would make sense as they were indeed fugitives, from the island of Cheret (Crete) at the time of the fall of Knossos (cf 1 Samuel 30:14, Ezekiel 25:16 and Zephaniah 2:5). From Pelet to Pelesh is no great distance linguistically - and we have seen how Chaldean Tsade (צ) becomes Yehudit Sheen (ש) with Tammuz and Shemesh/Shimshon. And then, by odd coincidence, it is a minor variation of language - or probably dialect within language - of exactly this sort which becomes central to the tale in the very next verses.
As to the slur which is the real reason why Ephrayim is threatening war with Gil'ad, it states very clearly: the people of Gil'ad who are not members of the three tribes are not part of Yisra-El; confirming thereby the final paragraph of commentary to the previous verse, and the "foreignness" of this entire tale.
KJ: 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.
Fugitives is rendered here as Pelitey (פליטי). Some scholars have argued that Pelishtim, the word for Philistines, may have been Peliytim - there are occasional references to them as Beney Pelet in Tanach; which would make sense as they were indeed fugitives, from the island of Cheret (Crete) at the time of the fall of Knossos (cf 1 Samuel 30:14, Ezekiel 25:16 and Zephaniah 2:5). From Pelet to Pelesh is no great distance linguistically - and we have seen how Chaldean Tsade (צ) becomes Yehudit Sheen (ש) with Tammuz and Shemesh/Shimshon. And then, by odd coincidence, it is a minor variation of language - or probably dialect within language - of exactly this sort which becomes central to the tale in the very next verses.
As to the slur which is the real reason why Ephrayim is threatening war with Gil'ad, it states very clearly: the people of Gil'ad who are not members of the three tribes are not part of Yisra-El; confirming thereby the final paragraph of commentary to the previous verse, and the "foreignness" of this entire tale.
But it also provides us with a perfect example of the difficulty faced by the Redactor when compiling these books. Whose history is this telling? In the end, when you are trying to conjoin a hundred different ethnicities into a single national unity, all and none, all are One.
And with that in mind, does this battle between Yiphtach's Gil'adim and the Beney Ephrayim constitute a civil or an international war?
12:5 VA YILKOD GIL'AD ET MA'BEROT HA YARDEN LE EPHRAYIM VE HAYAH KI YOMRU PELIYTEY EPHRAYIM E'EVORAH VA YOMRU LO ANSHEY GIL'AD HA EPHRATI ATA VA YOMER LO
וַיִּלְכֹּד גִּלְעָד אֶת מַעְבְּרֹות הַיַּרְדֵּן לְאֶפְרָיִם וְהָיָה כִּי יֹאמְרוּ פְּלִיטֵי אֶפְרַיִם אֶעֱבֹרָה וַיֹּאמְרוּ לֹו אַנְשֵׁי גִלְעָד הַאֶפְרָתִי אַתָּה וַיֹּאמֶר לֹא
BN: And Gil'ad captured the crossings of the Yarden from the Ephrayimites. And it went like this: when those Ephrayimites who had managed to flee said: "Let me cross over", that the men of Gil'ad said to him: "Are you an Ephrayimite?" If he said: "No" ...
VA YILKOD GIL'AD: which takes us straight back to an earlier debate: was Gil'ad a person's name or a place? This verse provides final proof of the issue, in favour of place.
E'EVORAH: We moderns who know our Yehudit so much better than the Redactor did (his first language was Aramaic, his second either Chaldean or Pharsi (Persian), Yehudit a dead language, unspoken for a hundred and fifty years, learned for the purposes of liturgy and scholarship), we do not need the Shibolet-Sibolet test of the next verse, because we already have the Apiru-Habiru test of this verse - the Redactor would not have known Egyptian either, which is necessary to understanding this. Alongside the Peliytim, or "refugees", the Habiru (if you were Egyptian) and the Apiru (if you were Babylonian), both meaning "foreigners", in the derogatory sense that the Anglo-Saxons called the Cymry Welsh (Wal-es). Based on this, it would be possible to know a "Hebrew" who came out of Egypt, as opposed to someone indigenous to Midyan, Edom, Mo-Av or the lands of the Beney Amon, by whether they had, for this verse, pronounced it as E'EVORAH or E'EBORAH (I have done this test on Jewish friends from Yemen and Iraq, and they all read the unpointed text as E'EBORAH, just as they say Ibrahim in that part of the world, not Av-Raham).
KJ: 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.
VA YILKOD GIL'AD: which takes us straight back to an earlier debate: was Gil'ad a person's name or a place? This verse provides final proof of the issue, in favour of place.
E'EVORAH: We moderns who know our Yehudit so much better than the Redactor did (his first language was Aramaic, his second either Chaldean or Pharsi (Persian), Yehudit a dead language, unspoken for a hundred and fifty years, learned for the purposes of liturgy and scholarship), we do not need the Shibolet-Sibolet test of the next verse, because we already have the Apiru-Habiru test of this verse - the Redactor would not have known Egyptian either, which is necessary to understanding this. Alongside the Peliytim, or "refugees", the Habiru (if you were Egyptian) and the Apiru (if you were Babylonian), both meaning "foreigners", in the derogatory sense that the Anglo-Saxons called the Cymry Welsh (Wal-es). Based on this, it would be possible to know a "Hebrew" who came out of Egypt, as opposed to someone indigenous to Midyan, Edom, Mo-Av or the lands of the Beney Amon, by whether they had, for this verse, pronounced it as E'EVORAH or E'EBORAH (I have done this test on Jewish friends from Yemen and Iraq, and they all read the unpointed text as E'EBORAH, just as they say Ibrahim in that part of the world, not Av-Raham).
12:6 VA YOMRU LO EMAR NA SHIBOLET VA YOMER SIBOLET VE LO YACHIN LEDABER KEN VA YO'CHAZU OTO VA YISHCHATUHU EL MA'BEROT HA YARDEN VA YIPOL BA ET HA HI ME EPHRAYIM ARBA'IM U SHENAYIM ALEPH
וַיֹּאמְרוּ לֹו אֱמָר נָא שִׁבֹּלֶת וַיֹּאמֶר סִבֹּלֶת וְלֹא יָכִין לְדַבֵּר כֵּן וַיֹּאחֲזוּ אֹותֹו וַיִּשְׁחָטוּהוּ אֶל מַעְבְּרֹות הַיַּרְדֵּן וַיִּפֹּל בָּעֵת הַהִיא מֵאֶפְרַיִם אַרְבָּעִים וּשְׁנַיִם אָלֶף
BN: ... then they said to him, "Say the word Shibolet", and he said "Sibolet", for he could not shape his mouth to pronounce it correctly. So they took him, and slew him at the crossings of the Yarden. And at that time forty-two thousand Ephrayimites fell.
At one level it is simply a very unpleasant tale - like mocking someone because they have a lisp or a stutter; or perhaps a closer equivalent would be asking a modern Japanese to say a word with an "l" in it, and killing them if it came out as an "r".
SHIBOLET/SIBOLET: First, for those who can read the Yehudit, note that SHIBOLET comes with a SHEEN (ש), but SIBOLET with a SAMECH (ס), so while the tale only differentiates the pronunication, the text also differentiates the spelling, and the significance of the spelling is both the fact that a SAMECH always denotes a foreign word, and then the different meaning in the foreign language.
Unpointed, this entire piece of the story could be read, or pronounced, very differently, because the letter that is pronounced SHEEN is also the letter that is pronounced SEEN (pointed, it depends on whether the dagesh is on the right or the left). And actually this distinction makes rather more sense: that the word is SIBOLET either way, but which way do you spell it? I can tell an American from a Canadian by the way they spell, say, odour, with or without a "u", and regardless of my inability to tell their accents apart. For an English equivalent, inside the UK, how do you pronounce that delicious little cake, eaten with strawberry jam and clotted cream: a scone. And I guess the answer to that is "either".
The word has entered the English language, though few seem to know why; and as SHIBBOLETH, in its English mispronunciation, rather than SHIBOLET, as it should be, or SIBOLET. In Yehudit a SHIBELET is a rarely used word for a branch ("Shetey shibaley ha eytsim" for two olive branches in Zechariah 4:12 is the only Biblical instance, and even that may not actually be the word in use here, because there exist both SHIBELET and SHIBOLET in Yehudit - see below). In Arabic, it is used to mean "to flow", as in a river, and this may well be the source of the cross-language part of this.
But there is also the Yehudit word SHAVAL, which is "an ear of corn" (Genesis 41:5, Isaiah 17:5, Job 24:24), while the word is used to mean "a stream" in Psalm 69:3 and Isaiah 27:12. This allows both a language joke and a spelling confusion, though it appears only to have been the spelling confusion that was in play in this tale.
As to SIBOLET, we have noted before that the letter Samech tends to infer foreign words borrowed by Yehudit, and it may be that the Yiphtachites chose this word for their test rather than any other because the root SAVAL suggests the lifting up of a burden, and was used metaphorically to describe a person laden down with sins (Isaiah 46:4 and 7, Genesis 49:15 et al). In the Hiphil form the verb described heavily pregnant cattle. We can imagine the pleasure the Yiphtachites gained from the stuttering samechs, and also the secret joke.
The significance of this tale for Bible scholars is huge; because it allows us to see the Seen-Sheen as well as the Seen-Samech differences in reality, and to relate it to other words that crossed languages in similar manner, such as Sarai/Sarah/Asherah-Osher (Osiris), Ester (Esther)/Ishtar, and Mir-Yam/Mor-Yah/Mary!
The tale seems to be unfinished.
For those English readers who find this story difficult to grasp, there are mediaeval equivalents in both English and French. Living in the Yorkshire Dales, where the Norse and Germanic languages met and merged to form the English that we speak today, you could tell a Viking from an Anglo-Saxon by their use of the letter "Y". To the Vikings it stood for "TH", as in "thee", "thou" and "thy"; to the Anglo-Saxons it stood for "Y", as in "ye", "you" and "your". Similarly in French: those from the Mediterranean south said "Oc", for "yes", from the Greek "Hoc", via the Occitanian; but those from the north preferred the Germanic "oil", which evolved into "oui". From these the Langue d'Oc and the Langue d'Oil took their names.
One last issue: the Redactor, bringing all these tales together to create a uniform and unfied national history, must have had a real problem with this tale. The cult of Yiphtach's daughter was clearly still alive and flourishing in his day, and therefore had to be included; but as we have seen it was a Gil'adi tale, and the Gil'adim were not historically Beney Yisra-El, though presumably they were a part of the new nation that was being formed. And they fought a war of slurs against the Beney Ephrayim, who most definitely were Beney Yisra-El, but vanished into oblivion two centuries already by the time of the Redaction. The complexities involved in resolving this conundrum are known as "multi-culturalism". The next verse does resolve it, at least for the Redactor and his epoch: Yiphtach is made an honorary Beney Yisra-El, his tale, his daughter's tale, assimilated. And how interesting that, in the next verse, once the assimilation has been completed, it is now okay to refer to him as Yiphtach ha Gil'adi, and to acknowledge that he was buried outside Yisra-El.
At one level it is simply a very unpleasant tale - like mocking someone because they have a lisp or a stutter; or perhaps a closer equivalent would be asking a modern Japanese to say a word with an "l" in it, and killing them if it came out as an "r".
SHIBOLET/SIBOLET: First, for those who can read the Yehudit, note that SHIBOLET comes with a SHEEN (ש), but SIBOLET with a SAMECH (ס), so while the tale only differentiates the pronunication, the text also differentiates the spelling, and the significance of the spelling is both the fact that a SAMECH always denotes a foreign word, and then the different meaning in the foreign language.
Unpointed, this entire piece of the story could be read, or pronounced, very differently, because the letter that is pronounced SHEEN is also the letter that is pronounced SEEN (pointed, it depends on whether the dagesh is on the right or the left). And actually this distinction makes rather more sense: that the word is SIBOLET either way, but which way do you spell it? I can tell an American from a Canadian by the way they spell, say, odour, with or without a "u", and regardless of my inability to tell their accents apart. For an English equivalent, inside the UK, how do you pronounce that delicious little cake, eaten with strawberry jam and clotted cream: a scone. And I guess the answer to that is "either".
The word has entered the English language, though few seem to know why; and as SHIBBOLETH, in its English mispronunciation, rather than SHIBOLET, as it should be, or SIBOLET. In Yehudit a SHIBELET is a rarely used word for a branch ("Shetey shibaley ha eytsim" for two olive branches in Zechariah 4:12 is the only Biblical instance, and even that may not actually be the word in use here, because there exist both SHIBELET and SHIBOLET in Yehudit - see below). In Arabic, it is used to mean "to flow", as in a river, and this may well be the source of the cross-language part of this.
But there is also the Yehudit word SHAVAL, which is "an ear of corn" (Genesis 41:5, Isaiah 17:5, Job 24:24), while the word is used to mean "a stream" in Psalm 69:3 and Isaiah 27:12. This allows both a language joke and a spelling confusion, though it appears only to have been the spelling confusion that was in play in this tale.
As to SIBOLET, we have noted before that the letter Samech tends to infer foreign words borrowed by Yehudit, and it may be that the Yiphtachites chose this word for their test rather than any other because the root SAVAL suggests the lifting up of a burden, and was used metaphorically to describe a person laden down with sins (Isaiah 46:4 and 7, Genesis 49:15 et al). In the Hiphil form the verb described heavily pregnant cattle. We can imagine the pleasure the Yiphtachites gained from the stuttering samechs, and also the secret joke.
The significance of this tale for Bible scholars is huge; because it allows us to see the Seen-Sheen as well as the Seen-Samech differences in reality, and to relate it to other words that crossed languages in similar manner, such as Sarai/Sarah/Asherah-Osher (Osiris), Ester (Esther)/Ishtar, and Mir-Yam/Mor-Yah/Mary!
The tale seems to be unfinished.
For those English readers who find this story difficult to grasp, there are mediaeval equivalents in both English and French. Living in the Yorkshire Dales, where the Norse and Germanic languages met and merged to form the English that we speak today, you could tell a Viking from an Anglo-Saxon by their use of the letter "Y". To the Vikings it stood for "TH", as in "thee", "thou" and "thy"; to the Anglo-Saxons it stood for "Y", as in "ye", "you" and "your". Similarly in French: those from the Mediterranean south said "Oc", for "yes", from the Greek "Hoc", via the Occitanian; but those from the north preferred the Germanic "oil", which evolved into "oui". From these the Langue d'Oc and the Langue d'Oil took their names.
One last issue: the Redactor, bringing all these tales together to create a uniform and unfied national history, must have had a real problem with this tale. The cult of Yiphtach's daughter was clearly still alive and flourishing in his day, and therefore had to be included; but as we have seen it was a Gil'adi tale, and the Gil'adim were not historically Beney Yisra-El, though presumably they were a part of the new nation that was being formed. And they fought a war of slurs against the Beney Ephrayim, who most definitely were Beney Yisra-El, but vanished into oblivion two centuries already by the time of the Redaction. The complexities involved in resolving this conundrum are known as "multi-culturalism". The next verse does resolve it, at least for the Redactor and his epoch: Yiphtach is made an honorary Beney Yisra-El, his tale, his daughter's tale, assimilated. And how interesting that, in the next verse, once the assimilation has been completed, it is now okay to refer to him as Yiphtach ha Gil'adi, and to acknowledge that he was buried outside Yisra-El.
12:7 VA YISHPOT YIPHTACH ET YISRA-EL SHESH SHANIM VA YAMAT YIPHTACH HA GIL'ADI VA YIKABER BE AREY GIL'AD
וַיִּשְׁפֹּט יִפְתָּח אֶת יִשְׂרָאֵל שֵׁשׁ שָׁנִים וַיָּמָת יִפְתָּח הַגִּלְעָדִי וַיִּקָּבֵר בְּעָרֵי גִלְעָד
BN: And Yiphtach judged Yisra-El for six years. Then Yiphtach the Gil'adi died, and was buried in one of the cities of Gil'ad.
BE AREY GIL'AD: This is plural, and a king cannot be buried in multiple cities - a god can, as with the fourteen places where Eshet (Isis) found the parts of Osher, or the fourteen locations in Yeru-Shala'im identified as Jesus' burial place, or the fourteen points in the United Kingdom where Arthur is believed to be buried (I still can't work out why it is fourteen on every occasion of the earth-god's multiple burial, but so it appears to be, and the source is definitely Egyptian - click here). And if it was a human burial, can we assume that it must have been Mitspeh, making him the shrine-hero there?
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KJ: And after him Ibzan of Bethlehem judged Israel.
BE AREY GIL'AD: This is plural, and a king cannot be buried in multiple cities - a god can, as with the fourteen places where Eshet (Isis) found the parts of Osher, or the fourteen locations in Yeru-Shala'im identified as Jesus' burial place, or the fourteen points in the United Kingdom where Arthur is believed to be buried (I still can't work out why it is fourteen on every occasion of the earth-god's multiple burial, but so it appears to be, and the source is definitely Egyptian - click here). And if it was a human burial, can we assume that it must have been Mitspeh, making him the shrine-hero there?
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12:8 VA YISHPOT ACHARAV ET YISRA-EL IVTSAN MI BEIT LACHEM
וַיִּשְׁפֹּט אַחֲרָיו אֶת יִשְׂרָאֵל אִבְצָן מִבֵּית לָחֶם
BN: And after him Ivtsan of Beit-Lachem judged Yisra-El.
IVTSAN: Scholars have struggled with this for a long time, because there simply doesn't appear to be a Yehudit root for this name; to which the simple reply is: perhaps that's because he wasn't Yehudi, or even Yisra-Eli. Then see my note to BEIT LACHEM below. A Babylonian shrine is likely to have had a Babylonian priest, so is there a Babylonian root for this name? Chaldean has AVTSAH, meaning "tin", which yields a different Yehudit root, AVATS, only ever used in one form, BUTS, technically "to be white", specifically "byssus", which was a white cloth made from flax (though there is also SHESH - שש - which may simply be the Egyptian name for it, or more likely sea-silk). David was dressed in it in 1 Chronicles 15:27, and the entire Levitcal choir and orchestra in 2 Chronicles 5:12, while its Phoenician-Aramaean origins are confirmed by Ezekiel 27:16.
So is Ivtsan to Beit Lechem what Lavan was to Padan Aram - the white moon god? Having emerged from the Underworld, we have been expecting to start meeting the planetary deities very soon, and we know Shimshon, the sun, is coming very soon. There needs to be a moon in this cosmology at some point.
IVTSAN: Scholars have struggled with this for a long time, because there simply doesn't appear to be a Yehudit root for this name; to which the simple reply is: perhaps that's because he wasn't Yehudi, or even Yisra-Eli. Then see my note to BEIT LACHEM below. A Babylonian shrine is likely to have had a Babylonian priest, so is there a Babylonian root for this name? Chaldean has AVTSAH, meaning "tin", which yields a different Yehudit root, AVATS, only ever used in one form, BUTS, technically "to be white", specifically "byssus", which was a white cloth made from flax (though there is also SHESH - שש - which may simply be the Egyptian name for it, or more likely sea-silk). David was dressed in it in 1 Chronicles 15:27, and the entire Levitcal choir and orchestra in 2 Chronicles 5:12, while its Phoenician-Aramaean origins are confirmed by Ezekiel 27:16.
So is Ivtsan to Beit Lechem what Lavan was to Padan Aram - the white moon god? Having emerged from the Underworld, we have been expecting to start meeting the planetary deities very soon, and we know Shimshon, the sun, is coming very soon. There needs to be a moon in this cosmology at some point.
BEIT LACHEM is Bethlehem, or in full Beit Lechem Ephratah, the House of the Corn-God of the Euphrates, an epithet for Tammuz, the Babylonian version of the Risen Lord; and it is not obvious why the Masoretes have chosen to convert it into LACHEM on this occasion. It is significant that all the Judges are connected with important shrines of the Risen Lord (or his mother, in the case of Yiphtach's daughter). It adds to the conviction that these are not the tales of the Judges of Yisra-El, but the tales of the cultic heroes of the non-Yisra-Eli tribes, absorbed into the Yisra-Eli cult as pseudo-history in order to destroy them. We can see the same process in England with the tales of Arthur, Robin Hood and Guy Fawkes, as well as the early Christian saints across Europe.
KJ: And he had thirty sons, and thirty daughters, whom he sent abroad, and took in thirty daughters from abroad for his sons. And he judged Israel seven years.
12:9 VA YEHI LO SHELOSHIM BANIM U SHELOSHIM BANOT SHILACH HACHUTSAH U SHELOSHIM BANOT HEYVI LE VANAV MIN HACHUTS VA YISHPOT ET YISRA-EL SHEV'A SHANIM
וַיְהִי לֹו שְׁלֹשִׁים בָּנִים וּשְׁלֹשִׁים בָּנֹות שִׁלַּח הַחוּצָה וּשְׁלֹשִׁים בָּנֹות הֵבִיא לְבָנָיו מִן הַחוּץ וַיִּשְׁפֹּט אֶת יִשְׂרָאֵל שֶׁבַע שָׁנִים
BN: And he had thirty sons, and thirty daughters, whom he sent abroad, and took in thirty daughters from abroad for his sons. And he judged Yisra-El for seven years.
Thirty sons and daughters, as we have seen on many previous occasions, simply denotes a shrine that had both male and female priests, and sending them "abroad" probably means evangelical missionaries, or the equivalent of Franciscan monks doing their spiritual rounds (I say probably because the Redactor has tried to hide it, pretending that he married them off, and "replaced them" with the same number of wives for his sons). At Beit Lechem we know that Tammuz was the principal shrine-hero, Inanna in one of her forms the mother goddess. The number 30 is repeated throughout Judges; it appears to be the standard "school" of priests and priestesses - one for each day of the lunar month. The seven years of service is the normal length of a sacred kingship - as with David's seven at Chevron and twenty-eight in Yeru-Shala'im, or Ya'akov's two periods of seven (and an incompleted third period of seven) with his white moon god Lavan: seven being the sun-god's sacred number.
KJ: Then died Ibzan, and was buried at Bethlehem.
Thirty sons and daughters, as we have seen on many previous occasions, simply denotes a shrine that had both male and female priests, and sending them "abroad" probably means evangelical missionaries, or the equivalent of Franciscan monks doing their spiritual rounds (I say probably because the Redactor has tried to hide it, pretending that he married them off, and "replaced them" with the same number of wives for his sons). At Beit Lechem we know that Tammuz was the principal shrine-hero, Inanna in one of her forms the mother goddess. The number 30 is repeated throughout Judges; it appears to be the standard "school" of priests and priestesses - one for each day of the lunar month. The seven years of service is the normal length of a sacred kingship - as with David's seven at Chevron and twenty-eight in Yeru-Shala'im, or Ya'akov's two periods of seven (and an incompleted third period of seven) with his white moon god Lavan: seven being the sun-god's sacred number.
12:10 VA YAMAT IVTSAN VA YIKAVER BE VEIT LACHEM
וַיָּמָת אִבְצָן וַיִּקָּבֵר בְּבֵית לָחֶם
BN: Then Ivtsan died, and was buried at Beit Lachem.
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12:11 VA YISHPOT ACHARAV ET YISRA-EL EYLON HA ZEVULONI VA YISHPOT ET YISRA-EL ESER SHANIM
KJ: And after him Elon, a Zebulonite, judged Israel; and he judged Israel ten years.
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12:11 VA YISHPOT ACHARAV ET YISRA-EL EYLON HA ZEVULONI VA YISHPOT ET YISRA-EL ESER SHANIM
וַיִּשְׁפֹּט אַחֲרָיו אֶת יִשְׂרָאֵל אֵילֹון הַזְּבוּלֹנִי וַיִּשְׁפֹּט אֶת יִשְׂרָאֵל עֶשֶׂר שָׁנִים
BN: And after him Eylon, a Zevulunite, judged Yisra-El; and he judged Yisra-El for ten years.
EYLON: Links to the oak cult. We are definitely making a tour of the shrines, as well as the heavens.
ZEVULONI: Another oddity by the Pointer - this should surely be Zevuluni?
EYLON: Links to the oak cult. We are definitely making a tour of the shrines, as well as the heavens.
ZEVULONI: Another oddity by the Pointer - this should surely be Zevuluni?
12:12 VA YAMAT EYLON HA ZEVULONI VA YIKAVER BE AYALON BE ERETS ZEVULUN
וַיָּמָת אֵלֹון הַזְּבוּלֹנִי וַיִּקָּבֵר בְּאַיָּלֹון בְּאֶרֶץ זְבוּלֻן
BN: And Eylon the Zevulunite died, and was buried in Ayalon in the tribal territory of Zevulun.
AYALON: where Yehoshu'a witnessed a lunar-solar eclipse (Joshua 10:12).
Again these are all simultaneous; we are on a tour of Yisra-Eli shrines, not a chronology of history.
Where they are buried seems to be regarded as deeply significant. These are the equivalent of Jewish saints, but they are also aetiological explanations of ancient shrines, long before Yahwism. The bones of the hero ("judge") become sacred relics, as evidenced by the significance of the cave of Machpelah at Chevron.
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KJ: And after him Abdon the son of Hillel, a Pirathonite, judged Israel.
AYALON: where Yehoshu'a witnessed a lunar-solar eclipse (Joshua 10:12).
Again these are all simultaneous; we are on a tour of Yisra-Eli shrines, not a chronology of history.
Where they are buried seems to be regarded as deeply significant. These are the equivalent of Jewish saints, but they are also aetiological explanations of ancient shrines, long before Yahwism. The bones of the hero ("judge") become sacred relics, as evidenced by the significance of the cave of Machpelah at Chevron.
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12:13 VA YISHPOT ACHARAV ET YISRA-EL AVDON BEN HILEL HA PIR'ATONI
וַיִּשְׁפֹּט אַחֲרָיו אֶת יִשְׂרָאֵל עַבְדֹּון בֶּן הִלֵּל הַפִּרְעָתֹונִי
BN: And after him Avdon ben Hilel, the Pir'atoni, judged Yisra-El.
AVDON (עבדון): "the place of the worshipper"; again not a name but a denotion of the priest or sacred-king of the shrine. The question is, which shrine?
HILEL (הלל): means "to be clear" or "bright", denoting the sun, and is used to mean "sing praise" as in the Halel (Hallel) Psalms, which are equally to the Risen Lord, his sun-father and moon-mother. So we still do not know which shrine this is, or dedicated to who.
PIR'ATONI (פרעתוני) denotes a Mitsri (Egyptian); the root word Par'ah (with an Ayin - ע - where PARAH = "calf" has an Aleph - א) is the same word that gives us both Pharaoh and Poti-Phera (Potiphar). Eshet was the Egyptian form of Yah, and Osher (Osiris) Tammuz's counterpart. There seems to be some continuity in Avdon coming after Ivtsan, as Beit Lechem was sacred to Tammuz as well.
12:14 VA YEHI LO ARBA'IM BANIM U SHELOSHIM BENEY VANIM ROCHVIM AL SHIV'IM AYARIM VA YISHPOT ET YISRA-EL SHEMONEH SHANIM
KJ: And he had forty sons and thirty nephews, that rode on threescore and ten ass colts: and he judged Israel eight years.
AVDON (עבדון): "the place of the worshipper"; again not a name but a denotion of the priest or sacred-king of the shrine. The question is, which shrine?
HILEL (הלל): means "to be clear" or "bright", denoting the sun, and is used to mean "sing praise" as in the Halel (Hallel) Psalms, which are equally to the Risen Lord, his sun-father and moon-mother. So we still do not know which shrine this is, or dedicated to who.
PIR'ATONI (פרעתוני) denotes a Mitsri (Egyptian); the root word Par'ah (with an Ayin - ע - where PARAH = "calf" has an Aleph - א) is the same word that gives us both Pharaoh and Poti-Phera (Potiphar). Eshet was the Egyptian form of Yah, and Osher (Osiris) Tammuz's counterpart. There seems to be some continuity in Avdon coming after Ivtsan, as Beit Lechem was sacred to Tammuz as well.
12:14 VA YEHI LO ARBA'IM BANIM U SHELOSHIM BENEY VANIM ROCHVIM AL SHIV'IM AYARIM VA YISHPOT ET YISRA-EL SHEMONEH SHANIM
וַיְהִי לֹו אַרְבָּעִים בָּנִים וּשְׁלֹשִׁים בְּנֵי בָנִים רֹכְבִים עַל שִׁבְעִים עֲיָרִם וַיִּשְׁפֹּט אֶת יִשְׂרָאֵל שְׁמֹנֶה שָׁנִים
BN: And he had forty sons and thirty grandsons, who rode on seventy ass-colts: and he judged Yisra-El for eight years.
BENEY VANIM: A "nephew" in Yehudit is either Ben Ach (בן אה), which means "son of the brother", or Achyan (אחין) for "son of the sister", or universally Nechdan (נכדן), which is the word used today. A "grandson" today is a Neched (נכד). Beney Vanim literally means "sons of the sons".
As noted previously, the number forty is always key to the Egyptian cosmology, where 30 and 70 appear to be Phoiniki (Phoenician), Kena'ani (Canaanite) and Bavli (Babylonian). Forty sons and thirty grandsons denotes his own shrine, and a geographical map of either the sister-shrines or the boundaries of the "priory". Forty and thirty adds up to seventy, which is the normal number, though it is possible that forty and thirty, denoting here two generations, is giving us information about the way these shrines operated that we have not received previously: a bi-generational approach, with wise old men training acolytes. What is more significant is that all the apprentices were male, none female; so now we can take the moon-goddess out, and are left wondering whether the shrine is to the father or the son (it may be, however, that the moon-goddess was honoured there too, but only as a courtesy; and that the thirty "grandsons" were serving her, one for each day of the lunar month, while the forty served the patriarchy).
ROCHVIM AL SHIV'IM AYARIM has been discussed before (Judges 10:4); most likely they were travelling priests, denoted in their profession by the ass-colts they rode - Jesus entered Yeru-Shala'im in the same capacity on a white ass (John 12:14). On the other hand, it could denote the seventy towns that came under their auspices. Or, indeed, both.
BENEY VANIM: A "nephew" in Yehudit is either Ben Ach (בן אה), which means "son of the brother", or Achyan (אחין) for "son of the sister", or universally Nechdan (נכדן), which is the word used today. A "grandson" today is a Neched (נכד). Beney Vanim literally means "sons of the sons".
As noted previously, the number forty is always key to the Egyptian cosmology, where 30 and 70 appear to be Phoiniki (Phoenician), Kena'ani (Canaanite) and Bavli (Babylonian). Forty sons and thirty grandsons denotes his own shrine, and a geographical map of either the sister-shrines or the boundaries of the "priory". Forty and thirty adds up to seventy, which is the normal number, though it is possible that forty and thirty, denoting here two generations, is giving us information about the way these shrines operated that we have not received previously: a bi-generational approach, with wise old men training acolytes. What is more significant is that all the apprentices were male, none female; so now we can take the moon-goddess out, and are left wondering whether the shrine is to the father or the son (it may be, however, that the moon-goddess was honoured there too, but only as a courtesy; and that the thirty "grandsons" were serving her, one for each day of the lunar month, while the forty served the patriarchy).
ROCHVIM AL SHIV'IM AYARIM has been discussed before (Judges 10:4); most likely they were travelling priests, denoted in their profession by the ass-colts they rode - Jesus entered Yeru-Shala'im in the same capacity on a white ass (John 12:14). On the other hand, it could denote the seventy towns that came under their auspices. Or, indeed, both.
SHEMONEH SHANIM: His 8 years of service, and others who have variant numbers from the normal seven, needs exploring. The chanukiah in Jewish tradition reflects a pantheon of 8 gods, though the shamash, the "sun-candle", suggests that it might originally have been nine, like the Egyptian Ennead. (Unless, like Ya'akov, who ran away half-way through his 3rd sacred kingship, or like Eylon the Zevulunite, above, who presumably died in the 3rd year of his second period).
12:15 VA YAMAT AVDON BEN HILLEL HA PIR'ATONI VA YIKAVER BE PIR'ATON BE ERETS EPHRAYIM BE HAR HA AMALEKI
KJ: And Abdon the son of Hillel the Pirathonite died, and was buried in Pirathon in the land of Ephraim, in the mount of the Amalekites.
12:15 VA YAMAT AVDON BEN HILLEL HA PIR'ATONI VA YIKAVER BE PIR'ATON BE ERETS EPHRAYIM BE HAR HA AMALEKI
וַיָּמָת עַבְדֹּון בֶּן הִלֵּל הַפִּרְעָתֹונִי וַיִּקָּבֵר בְּפִרְעָתֹון בְּאֶרֶץ אֶפְרַיִם בְּהַר הָעֲמָלֵקִי
BN: And Avdon ben Hilel the Pir'atoni died, and was buried in Pir'aton in the tribal territory of Ephrayim, on the mountain of the Amalekites.
The mountain of the Amalekites in the territory of Ephrayim? Given that the Beney Amalek were originally Edomites, and yet their encounter with Mosheh took place in deepest Sinai... click here for a very thorough archaeological survey of this question; but the answer is almost certainly: the very same Mount Ephrayim where Yehoshu'a was buried. With Mount Se'ir as the second-best candidate.
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The mountain of the Amalekites in the territory of Ephrayim? Given that the Beney Amalek were originally Edomites, and yet their encounter with Mosheh took place in deepest Sinai... click here for a very thorough archaeological survey of this question; but the answer is almost certainly: the very same Mount Ephrayim where Yehoshu'a was buried. With Mount Se'ir as the second-best candidate.
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