Israel Finkelstein, «The Old Jephthah Tale in Judges: Geographical and Historical Considerations.», Vol. 97 (2016) 1-15
In this article I intend to reveal the old, orally-transmitted heroic tale that lies behind the Jephthah story in the Book of Judges, which is obscured by massive Deuteronomistic and post-Deuteronomistic additions and redactions. The old story deals with a conflict on the settlement boundary between Israelites and Ammonites in Transjordan, around the towns of Gilead and Mizpah. It probably reflects realities before, or in the early days of the Northern kingdom.
The OlD JePhThAh TAle IN JuDGeS 9
III. commentary
1. General Observations
Very little of the old tale has remained. Missing are:
▪ The beginning of the story, probably masked behind the
Deuteronomistic and post-deuteronomistic material in 10,6-16.
It is reconstructed here as “and the Ammonites pressed the in-
habitants of Gilead”.
▪ The name/s of the leader/s of the Ammonites.
▪ The name of Jephthah’s father; a post-Deuteronomistic author,
who no longer knew that Gilead was a town, “added” Jephthah
to the sons of Gilead in the genealogy of Manasseh (for the latter,
see, e.g., Num 26,30).
▪ The location of the confrontation with the Ammonites; the early
8th century Bce North Israelite author entered “from Aroer
to the neighborhood of Minnith, twenty cities, and as far as
Abel-keramim” (v. 33) — depicting the reality of his own days
(above) — either because he did not know the place of
confrontation, or in order to advance the territorial ideology of
his time.
The ambiance of the story is typically that of an Apiru gang: A son
of a harlot runs away from his half brothers to a remote town in the
unruly steppe (below), where he gathers a band of “worthless fellows”
that comes to the rescue of the town of Gilead. This is comparable
to the story of David’s band at keilah in 1 Samuel 23, and, in certain
aspects, to that of Abimelech in Judges 9 30.
The old tale includes three toponyms which are essential for un-
derstanding its geographical and historical background.
2. Gilead
Gilead no doubt refers to a town — not to the geographical unit in
Transjordan, north and south of the Jabbok River 31. The existence of
30
N. NA’AMAN, “David’s Sojourn in keilah in light of the Amarna letters”,
VT 60 (2010) 87-97. ID., “A hidden Anti-Samaritan Polemic in the Story of
Abimelech and Shechem (Judges 9)”, BZ 55 (2011) 1-20.
31
See a thorough discussion of both, with bibliography, in I. FINkelSTeIN –
I. kOch – O. lIPSchITS, “The Biblical Gilead: Observations on Identifications,
Geographic Divisions and Territorial history”, UF 43 (2012) 131-159.
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