The men of Ephraim had missed out on Jephthah’s victory over the Ammonites, and it made them angry – probably because there would have been a great deal of plunder when the Ammonites were so badly defeated, and they wanted their share (Judges 11:33). So they decided that the best thing to do was to attack Jephthah and his household (12:1).

Jephthah tried to negotiate with them, noting that he had indeed sent for them, and they had not come; so he had gone forth to battle, and the Lord had given him the victory: they had no cause to make war on him (12:3). But the Ephraimites were determined to fight. It was not a wise decision. They suffered a severe defeat (12:4). And because the men of Ephraim had crossed the Jordan River to attack Jephthah in Gilead, their survivors who had fled from the battlefield would have a real challenge getting home, since Jephthah’s men from Gilead held the fords of the Jordan.

As fugitives from Ephraim came to the river, they were caught and tested: could they pronounce the word Shibboleth (grain-head) properly? When they could not – saying “Sibboleth” instead, thus betraying an Ephraimite accent – the Gileadites slaughtered them on the spot. The text reports forty-two thousand Ephraimite deaths; possibly that is an overall figure for the battle and its aftermath, yet the placement of the enumeration suggests this was the number of Ephraimite stragglers killed at the Jordan after the battle (12:5-6).

In the present day we mostly don’t choose attacking and plundering a neighboring state as the way to build the economy (though several modern examples come to mind, where countries have tried it). Nor do we usually require a password to cross the river any more. Still, it is interesting how both in politics and in religion we often expect people to repeat an exact formula in a precise way; even a minor deviation from the party platform does not get tolerated. Probably no one will kill you for not saying it right: but the condemnation can still be quite severe.

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How do we balance the need for standards with the need for alternatives, Lord? How do we establish actual requirements and still leave room for differentiation? We pray for your mercy, both for ourselves and also for people whose opinions we don’t like: grant us courage to stand for what we believe, along with graciousness toward our opponents.