Jephthah
   whom God sets free, or the breaker through, a "mighty man of
   valour" who delivered Israel from the oppression of the
   Ammonites (Judg. 11:1-33), and judged Israel six years (12:7).
   He has been described as "a wild, daring, Gilead mountaineer, a
   sort of warrior Elijah." After forty-five years of comparative
   quiet Israel again apostatized, and in "process of time the
   children of Ammon made war against Israel" (11:5). In their
   distress the elders of Gilead went to fetch Jephthah out of the
   land of Tob, to which he had fled when driven out wrongfully by
   his brothers from his father's inheritance (2), and the people
   made him their head and captain. The "elders of Gilead" in their
   extremity summoned him to their aid, and he at once undertook
   the conduct of the war against Ammon. Twice he sent an embassy
   to the king of Ammon, but in vain. War was inevitable. The
   people obeyed his summons, and "the spirit of the Lord came upon
   him." Before engaging in war he vowed that if successful he
   would offer as a "burnt-offering" whatever would come out of the
   door of his house first to meet him on his return. The defeat of
   the Ammonites was complete. "He smote them from Aroer, even till
   thou come to Minnith, even twenty cities, and unto the plain of
   the vineyards [Heb. 'Abel Keramim], with a very great slaughter"
   (Judg. 11:33). The men of Ephraim regarded themselves as
   insulted in not having been called by Jephthah to go with him to
   war against Ammon. This led to a war between the men of Gilead
   and Ephraim (12:4), in which many of the Ephraimites perished.
   (See SHIBBOLETH.) "Then died Jephthah the Gileadite,
   and was buried in one of the cities of Gilead" (7).