Judges ch 11:13

[Chris Watts]

I have no idea if it is the way that I am reading something, but I find this extract grammatically confusing. This has been taken from bible encyclopedia:

...."In answer to Jephthah's messengers (Jg 11:12), the king of Ammon charged the Israelites with having taken away that part of his territories which lay between the rivers Arnon and Jabbok, which, in Jos 13:25, is called "half the land of the children of Ammon," but was in the possession of the Amorites when the Israelites invaded it; and this fact was urged by Jephthah, in order to prove that the charge was ill- founded.....

Having gone over chapter 11 a few times - I can not see how the Ammonites do not have a case against Jephthah? Israel DID have the land, they did invade it during the Exodus, they did settle there and according to sources that I have searched, this WAS Ammonite territory before Israel moved in. So what on earth am I missing from all this? The manner in the way everything has been described baffles me.
chris watts

[ducky]

Hi Chris,

Jephthah said a few things:
1. Israel didn't too the land took the land from Amon (and Moab) at all. (Moab and Amon had a relationship, and the King of Amon talks on behalf of both).
Israel didn't even want to fight Moab and they make a turn not to confront them.
And later, when the Amorites started a war with Israel, Israel won and took the land from the Amorites, which was taken by them at that time.
So "what do you want from us?"
Not only that we didn't start a war, but when the war came to us, we took those places from someone else, and not from you.

2. More than that... Since that event, there were around 300 years that have passed, and up until now no Ammonite and not one Moabic claim these territories back and claim that they belong to them.
Not even the great kings that were before you (like Balak).
So... "Are you "bigger" than them that you come and claim what they didn't?"
Your people had 300 years to fight for that or to claim that.

3. a religious argument... Our God gave us this land, and your god didn't.
"You have what your god gives you, and we have what out God gives us.

[Chris Watts]

Two things Ducky, sorry but your reply is more confusing than the actual passage in Judges. Secondly, the passage in Judges is very confusing indeed when followed logically. It was not until I read something that it all made sense. BUT, this extra information is not really clear in the biblical text and the clue was this, that the Amorites took the land from the Ammonites BEFORE the Israelites entered the land, now Israel is taking the land from the Amorites who had stolen it from the Ammonites.

Deut 2:19 states that God forbade the Israelites from taking the Ammonites Land. But in Joshua 13 suddenly we read that Joshua gave the Ammonites land to Gad. This is mystifying unless the there were no Ammonites in the land in the time of Joshua because the Ammorites had taken it. So Jephthah's reasoning as recorded is very tricky to follow without this extra information.

chris watts

[ducky]

Hi Chris,

What I wrote is what it says in the text. I didn't even add anything.

As for the second part of your comment.
Amon (and Moab) lost this territory a few years Before Israel took it.
So Israel didn't take their land, but they took Sihon land (at that time).

And that is why it was allowed to take it.
The Talmud has a verse that says that "(the land of) Amon and Moab were purified by (the act of) Sihon".

Israel didn't even try to take the land from Amon and Moab, but it was the event in which Sihon came to fight Israel, and Israel, in that war, took what they took - From the Amorites.

And Jephthah told them that they didn't fight the Amorite to get it back (after they lost it), and also, they didn't claim it from Israel for 300 years.
Plus the religious argument that this is their God's will.