Commentaria in Judices
15. ISRAEL DID NOT TAKE AWAY THE LAND OF MOAB, NOR THE LAND OF THE CHILDREN OF AMMON,—which namely the Moabites and Ammonites then actually possessed; for God had forbidden the Hebrews to invade them as kinsmen of themselves from Lot and Abraham, Num. xxi, and Deut. ii and iii; but that part of the land of Moab and Ammon which Sehon king of the Amorrhites had seized by war, whether just or unjust (for this matter is uncertain and doubtful), the Hebrews seized, he having been overthrown, by God’s command, as Jephte relates in what follows; because that was no longer the Moabites’, but of king Sehon, an enemy of the Hebrews, which the Moabites had been unable to recover from him and reclaim by war; wherefore the Hebrews seized it as Sehon’s, not as the Moabites’, by right of war, God consenting. This is the first reason by which Jephte proves that the king of the Ammonites falsely complains of his land seized by the Hebrews under Moses, and therefore sent the Ammonites against Judea unjustly to oppress it. But this reason alone was not enough, nor did it satisfy the king of Ammon, so Jephte adds others, by which he strengthens it.
24. ARE NOT THOSE THINGS WHICH CHAMOS THY GOD POSSESSETH, DUE TO THEE BY RIGHT? BUT WHAT THE LORD OUR GOD HATH OBTAINED BY CONQUEST SHALL BE OUR POSSESSION.—This is the second reason, as if to say: You occupy those regions which your god Chamos gave you; therefore with equal right we occupy the land of king Sehon (in which were some cities taken by him from the Moabites and Ammonites), which God, fighting for us, gave us as victor. This reason of Jephte is not in every way sound. For God gives victories to Turks and other tyrants, and subjects the regions of Christians; and yet Turks and tyrants unjustly invade and hold them from ambition and lust of dominion. For the opinion of Albericus Gentilis, book I On the Law of War, chap. xxii, is impious, that all things which the Turk has wrested from Christians are justly possessed by him, because he does it by the will of God willing to chastise the Christians:
Moabites, who were peoples brothers and united under the same government since the death of Eglon king of the Moabites.
nor was it true that Chamos had given that land to the Moabites.
Yet this reason was apt ad hominem, as if to say: Do you, O king of Ammon, declare from whom and by what right you hold all your regions and cities. Surely you will say and give nothing more splendid than the will and voluntary gift of your god Chamos. But I in like manner assert that our God gave us by his victory that land which you reclaim; and God is the Lord of all kingdoms, who therefore transfers kingdoms from one nation to another as it pleases him.
But the true title of the Hebrews’ right to occupy these regions was that they had invaded the kingdoms of Sehon and Og, kings of the Amorrhites, by God’s command, and by the same command seized and possessed all that had been subject to them, as is plain from Num. xxi, and Deut. ii. Jephte hints at this title but does not expressly allege it, because he could scarcely have proved it to the Gentile king of Ammon. So Abulensis.
25. UNLESS THOU ART BETTER THAN BALAC THE SON OF SEPHOR, KING OF MOAB,—as if to say: When the Hebrews, Sehon being killed, seized his dominions, Balac was then king of Moab, and he wise and powerful. Yet he did not then so much as by one word reclaim these dominions from the Hebrews. Therefore neither ought you, nor can you, who are nearly three hundred years later than he, reclaim them. This is the third reason.
we have occupied these regions, which you now reclaim by postliminy. Therefore we occupy them by the very long prescription of time, especially since in all that time no one has reclaimed them from us.
WHY HAVE YOU MADE NO ATTEMPT IN SO LONG A TIME TO RECOVER THEM?—but you kept silent, and by your silence showed yourselves content, and tacitly consented that we should possess them? Note that from Moses to Jephte precisely three hundred years had not flowed, but only 266; but Jephte, as the common people do, increased the years to strengthen the prescription more, and used round and perfect numbers, namely hundreds, as if to say: Now the third hundred of years is running, the third age of prescription and possession: in vain therefore do you labour to dislodge us from them so late. Moreover Melchior Canus and Serarius, who separate the years of the oppression of the Hebrews from the years of the Judges and count them separately, reckon from Moses to Jephte at least 340 years. Abulensis thinks that in that age prescription by long time, even with bad faith, held good by the law of nations, and that a thing so long possessed was confirmed to the possessor; for otherwise, he says, the king of Ammon would have replied that this possession of the Hebrews was begun in bad faith, and therefore the time of prescription did not avail here. But this he would have had to prove. For in doubt the condition of the possessor is better. And if the plaintiff wishes to dislodge a possessor from his possession, the proof of bad faith lies upon him. For everyone is presumed to be a good and bona fide possessor, unless the contrary is proved. So lately Solyman, Emperor of the Turks, out of ambition, wished after a thousand years all those rights to be restored which had once been the Great Constantine’s, as Jovius testifies, book XXX. This is Turkish. Moreover in a way like Jephte’s the Lacedaemonians once answered, in Isocrates’ Archidamus: “We inhabit this land given by the posterity of Hercules, confirmed by the Delphic oracle, and its inhabitants overcome in war. It is not hidden from you that possessions, whether private or public, are confirmed by prescription of long time. We have held Messana for more than
27. THE LORD BE JUDGE OF THIS DAY,—that is, of this suit which we are pleading this day. So day is taken for judgment, 1 Cor. iv, 3, and Jerem. xvii, 16; it is a metonymy.
29. SO THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD CAME UPON JEPHTE,—that is, God infused into Jephte a spirit of fortitude, ardour and zeal to undertake war against the unjust king of Ammon; and impelled by it he summoned to it the inhabitants of Galaad, and the tribe of Manasses, and “Maspha of Galaad,” that is, Maspha, which is on the farthest bounds of Galaad towards the mountains Libanus and Hermon; for the neighbouring enemies, the Ammonites, threatened these especially and most nearly.
30. HE MADE A VOW TO THE LORD, SAYING: IF THOU WILT DELIVER THE CHILDREN OF AMMON INTO MY HANDS, WHOSOEVER SHALL FIRST COME FORTH OUT OF THE DOORS OF MY HOUSE, AND SHALL MEET ME WHEN I RETURN IN PEACE FROM THE CHILDREN OF AMMON, THE SAME WILL I OFFER A HOLOCAUST TO THE LORD.—Like this is what Aldrovandus writes in his treatise on the Ass: When the lot was given to Alexander of Macedon, he says, that he should put to death the one who first met him, when he saw a certain man driving an ass before him, they say he at once ordered the man to be seized according to the oracle. But he, understanding the reason of his death as he was about to be slain, proclaimed that his forerunner was not the one sought by the response, since the one who first met him was his ass.
You will ask first, what victim did Jephte vow here? First, some think that he vowed to immolate to God the first man who should meet him from his house. So St. Augustine. Secondly, the Rabbis and Abulensis think that he vowed to sacrifice to God the first animal fit for sacrifice that met him, whether it were an ox, or calf, or goat, or ram; but that afterwards Jephte doubted of the meaning and matter of his vow, because his words were general: wherefore, his daughter meeting him first, he judged himself bound to immolate her.
Thirdly and best, Jephte intended to slay to God the first living thing, or the first animal that should meet him from his house. Hence from the Hebrew it can be rendered in the neuter gender: whatsoever, namely whatever animal first meets me from the house, I will immolate. So the Chaldee, Vatablus, Pagninus and others. This is plain from the event: for when his daughter first met him from the house, he thought himself bound by the vow to immolate her.
You will ask secondly, whether this vow was lawful or unlawful. First, many hold that it was impious, foolish and parricidal. So St. Ambrose, book of Offices last chapter, St. Augustine, Question XLIX, Tertullian, book III Against Marcion, Nazianzen, oration On the Machabees, Theodoret and Procopius; here Chrysostom, homily On Jephte. And St. Thomas, citing St. Jerome, IIa IIae, Question LXXXVIII, art. 2:
“In vowing,” he says, “he was foolish, because he had no discretion, and in performing it impious.” For it is impious to kill a daughter, it is impious to immolate men to God, and to propitiate with human blood. Hence St. Jerome, book I Against Jovinian, before the middle: “The father is blamed for a rash vow, etc. For if a dog or an ass had met him, they say, what would he have done?”
For by the law it was forbidden to offer a dog or an ass.
St. Jerome goes on: “From which they (the Hebrews) will have it that it was done by God’s dispensation, that he who had vowed heedlessly should feel the error of his vows in his daughter’s death,” that the rashness of the one vowing might be chastised, says St. Augustine, Question XLIX.
If you say that Jephte is praised by the Apostle, Heb. xi, Abulensis answers that he is praised for the merit of faith; namely because, trusting in God, he exposed himself to the danger of death in battle fighting against such powerful Ammonites, but not for the vow; and it is sufficiently clear that Jephte, and any of those men whom the Apostle placed in his Catalogue of faith, sinned gravely, says Abulensis. Hence even the Gentiles blamed and condemned those who immolated men to Saturn. Who, says Serarius, does not blame Creon, because he immolated his son Menoeceus at Thebes, or Erechtheus, because he immolated his daughter Proxithea at Athens? Did not the Cretans expel their king Idomeneus, because, returning from the Trojan war, like this our Jephte he wished to place on the altars of the gods his son who met him, according to his vow? Of Agamemnon’s Iphigenia how much do the Poets say, and Seneca in his Suasoria! Were not the Scythians, Taurians, Pontics and Africans once infamous also for this? Of whom Tertullian in the Scorpiace, Minucius in the Octavius, Clement and Euripides in the Protrepticus.