The men of Ephraim always seem to get testy when someone
fights a battle without inviting them. They
did the same thing with Gideon in Judges 8 when he fought against the Midianites,
accused him of leaving them out of the fight.
They take their grievance to another level here thought, threatening to
burn down Jephthah's house. Jephthah
reminds them that they failed to answer the call and it is on. Civil war breaks out and it seems
long-standing grievances are at stake here with the men of Gilead and
Ephraim. If you look back a bit further
to the first chapter of Judges you'll find that the Ephraimites didn't drive
out the Cananaanites in their land so perhaps some of the problem here is
intermarriage and who is actually an Israelite.
In the end, it is a rout. Apparently
the Ephraimites had a speech impediment which rendered them unable to say the
word shibboleth which made them easy to spot when captured. Perhaps they didn't like Jephthah because
they couldn't say his name. ;)
The idea of being born again completely befuddles
Nicodemus. He had been fortunate the
first time around to be born into a covenant community, circumcised on the
eighth day and all that. He took his religion
and the word of God seriously, he was a Pharisee. He had exactly the same
pedigree Paul had in many respects but here he stood before Jesus who was
questioning whether he knew anything at all and he couldn't respond except with
questions. This teacher come from God
who did remarkable things left him confused.
They had much in common but it seemed that either this rabbi knew more
than he did or the man was a fraud. Nicodemus
hung in there though and we know that in the end, unlike his brethren in the
Pharisaic community he believed in Jesus.
He could have lashed out at him and been defensive but that wasn't his
character, he was a true seeker, a humble man who came to see for himself. He was definitely not an Ephraimite with a
chip on his shoulder.
The Sadducees controlled the office of high priest and they
weren't about to share the spotlight with these impudent men who proclaimed
this Jesus as resurrected from the dead, even if they did do miraculous things
they couldn't do themselves. Their
decision to arrest them and throw them in prison didn't work out well either,
the Lord set them free and told them to go back to the temple and keep on doing
what they had been doing. These men
would never have done this pre-Resurrection and pre-Pentecost. There was a boldness about them now that couldn’t
be stopped. Jealousy was the reason they
had Jesus put to death and that jealousy now was directed at His apostles. Civil war was happening all over again in
Israel and for the same reason, they hadn't come when called.
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