"The renowned Gileadite general", as we know him, was a highly complex character and a tragic hero in the true sense of those words. His story can be found in chapters eleven and twelve of the Book of Judges.
    To start with, he was illegitimate. His father had other sons who were born in wedlock but Jephthah’s mother was a concubine and therefore his half-brothers refused to acknowledge him and made his life so miserable that he ran away and "lived rough" in the hills. Here he gathered a band of outlaws in Robin Hood fashion and carried on guerrilla warfare against all and sundry.
    This experience evidently taught him the principles of leadership and strategy, so when the Ammonites started planning an attack on Israel the Gileadites sought Jephthah’s help and advice.
    Geographically, Gilead, being on the east bank of the river Jordan, would be the first to bear an attack from Ammon and so a strong leader became a necessity in order to avoid disaster.
    Jephthah naturally poured scorn on their pleading: "You all turned me out and refused me a living" he said, "and now you want me to help you?" But eventually he agreed to lead their forces on one condition – that after the war he should still continue to be acknowledged as their leader and chieftain for the rest of his life. The elders of Gilead had no alternative but to consent, so the battle against the Ammonites began.
    The result was an outstanding victory for Jephthah and his army, and as the Bible says, "Thus the children of Ammon were subdued before the children of Israel".
    Then it was that the Ephraimites, a clamorous and turbulent crowd, tried to get into the act. With the excuse that Gilead was not one of the regular twelve tribes but contained families from Ephraim and Manasseh, they questioned Jephthah’s right to go to battle without their permission. Jephthah answered that he had indeed asked the Ephraimites for help and his plea had been ignored, forcing him to face the Ammonites alone. He did not therefore see that Ephraim had any claim on the honours – or the plunder – of the war.
    In return, the Ephraimites threatened to set fire to Jephthah’s house. A battle inevitably followed this threat, and those Ephraimites who had crossed the Jordan to fight Jephthah were soundly beaten and began to retreat. This meant having to go back across the Jordan at one or other of the crossing-places or fords. Jephthah, having foreseen this, had detachments of his army posted at each ford to question every man who attempted to cross the river.
    Apparently Ephraimites couldn’t – or didn’t – pronounce "sh"; so, on being told to say "shibboleth" they would say "sibboleth", thus revealing their nationality and costing them their lives. Forty-two thousand killed in this conflict seems an enormous number; someone has suggested that "forty and two thousand" should really be read as 40 and 2000 making a total of 2040, but the Bible clearly indicates the larger figure.
    The use of a test word is not unique here, and such a test will often indicate a person’s origin from his pronunciation. Suppose, for instance, you wanted to test whether a man came from the North of England or from the South: you could point to Newcastle-upon-Tyne on a map and ask him to name that place. If he pronounced it "Newcassle" he would probably be a northerner, but if he said "Newcaarsel" he very likely came from somewhere further south.
    Nothing more is heard of Jephthah after this. He judged Israel for six more years, then died and was buried in one of the cities of Gilead.
    But I called him a tragic hero, and the tragedy came into his life directly after the victory over Ammon and before the Ephraimite incident. Having made a bargain with the elders of Gilead, Jephthah went on to make a bargain with God: that if God would give him victory over the Ammonites, then the first creature to meet Jephthah on his way home would be offered as a burnt sacrifice. This rash vow he was to regret to his dying day, for after his victory over the Ammonites Jephthah was met by his only child, his darling daughter and dearest treasure.
    What could he do? God had apparently kept his side of the bargain. The noble daughter, on being informed of the situation, told Jephthah that of course he must keep his word, but she begged to be allowed a couple of months "to go up and down upon the mountains and bewail my virginity".
    At the end of the two months she returned to her father who "did with her according to his vow". Does this mean that Jephthah really killed his only child and burnt her body as a sacrifice? Scholars have argued about this down the centuries, pointing out that human sacrifice would have been against Israelite law. The comment "and she knew no man" has been interpreted as either "she died a virgin" or perhaps it implies that he father didn’t kill her but shut her up in solitary confinement instead. We shall never know for certain, but perhaps the agony of Jephthah’s rash vow could account for the shortness of his temper when dealing with the Ephraimites, and he no doubt would have considered that forty-two thousand of them could never compensate for the loss of his darling child.