Sea syria were been told that patellar tape apr home His church, too, is growing, with 24 baptized one month, while more believed. Jephthah was Old Testament like that-a leader of the society of the unacceptable. Yet God, His sovereign wisdom, chose to use and work through Him. The passage before us depicts him five distinct stages of his development. Carr Judges APPALLING REJECTION Judges 11 Jephthah's Conflict Jephthah's father also had children with his wife. When these legitimate children reached maturity, they all turned on Jephthah and forced him out of the family home. Apparently, their father is dead and they refused to share their inheritance with Jephthah. Most likely they were motivated by greed. With Jephthah out of the way, there was more money to go around. Besides, Jephthah's presence the family was a constant reminder of their father's infidelity. They had probably hated Jephthah all their lives. They have even envied him since he was a strong, able and efficient He was probably everything they were not and they turned on him. They hated him because he represented everything they could never be. Judges 11 Jephthah fled from his brothers and lived the land of Tob; and worthless fellows gathered themselves about Jephthah, and they went out with him. Bush Fled from his brethren. Heb. מפני אחיו mippenë ahauv, from the face of his brethren. the land of Tob. A region called perhaps from the name of the individual who was its first or most distinguished inhabitant. Its precise locality is not known, but from the facility of communication it was doubtless the near vicinity of Gilead. Comp. 2 10, 8. Were gathered vain men to Jephthah, and went out with him. Heb. ריקים אנשים rëkim anâshim, empty men; that is, idle, worthless, profligate men, a lawless rabble. The original רקים is a term of great reproach, being the same with ‘Raca,' the New Testament. The meaning evidently is, that Jephthah, being without any inheritance or family connexions to afford him a subsistence, and being expelled from his native place, became adventurer, and his character having brought around him a number of brave but idle men, perhaps similarly circumstanced, he made predatory incursions into the neighboring countries. This is what is meant by ‘going out with him,' a phrase frequently applied to warlike and plundering inroads upon enemy's territory. Probably they went out particularly into the land of the Ammonites, to retaliate the incursions which the latter made into and Jephthah's success or skill these free-booting expeditions acquired him much reputation, that the people would naturally be led to look to him when they wanted a military leader. The mode of life here indicated, is precisely that which was followed by when his reputation brought around him men of similar character to these followers of Jephthah. This kind of military robbery is far from being considered dishonorable the East. On the contrary, the fame thus acquired is thought as fair as any that can be obtained through any class of military operations. Arab or Tartar desires no higher or brighter distinction than that of a successful military robber; and to make that fame unsullied, it is only necessary that his expedition should not be against his own nation or tribe. NIV Study Bible on the land of Tob. The Hebrew name sounds exactly like the good land, a common way of referring to the promised land Deuteronomy. The narrator appears to call attention to the irony of this outcast from finding a refuge a land of good The men of Tob were later allied with the Ammonites against adventurers. Unlike Abimelech, Jephthah did not have the protection of his mother's family; he was forced to leave his father's territory and head north to the land of Tob, near Syria Tob Jephthah apparently gained notoriety as captain of a band of adventurers The Hebrew word means to make empty and refers to idle people looking for something to do. Are you allowing the pain your life to build you or break you? God does not waste even our failures. God was using his very pain to make him into a of God, a valiant warrior. Inrig on Jephthah: He became a kind of Hebrew Hood, a leader of a military band who functioned as unofficial police force. He skillfully brought together this refugee band, and, for a price, they protected the Hebrews and attacked the enemy. This provides another interesting parallel to the life of because he did exactly the same thing the period while he was hiding from ....Alone except for God. The of God was at work this 's life, rescuing him from apparently hopeless future. God does not submit to human prejudices, and He is not limited by the social, parental, and environmental factors that men consider determinative. A knows that God is the great Determiner, and that knowledge there is freedom. I am not a prisoner of past, no matter how desperate that past was. God delights using the unusable and making the ugly beautiful. WORTHLESS means empty, worthless, vain and indicates something that has nothing it. It pictures one whose