Judges 12: Jephthah’s conflict with Ephraim; Ibzan, Elon and Abdon.

After Jephthah’s victory over the Ammonites, the men of Ephraim came to Jephthah, demanding to know why he hadn’t asked them to join the battle. Jephthah answered that when his people had struggled against Ammon in the past, Ephraim had not answered their calls for help.

Jephthah and Ephraim went to war over this dispute, and Ephraim was defeated. Jephthah’s men, the men of Gilead, stood by the fords of the Jordan to catch fleeing Ephraimites. When a man asked to cross, they would tell him to say “Shibboleth”. The men who pronounced the word as “Sibboleth” were from Ephraim, and were put to death. In total, forty-two thousand Ephraimites were killed in the war.

Jephthah died after judging Israel for six years, and was buried in Gilead.

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The spiritual meaning of Ephraim is to understand the truths of the Word. Wherever Ephraim is referenced in a negative sense, as in this chapter, the spiritual meaning becomes an understanding of the Word which has been destroyed. The Word commands us to live by what we understand and believe; in this story, Ephraim did not heed Jephthah’s words (see Swedenborg’s work, Doctrine of Sacred Scripture 79[3]).

The escaping Ephraimites were exposed by their accent, as they could not pronounce the ‘sh’ sound of “Shibboleth”. The letter ‘h’ stands for the genuine truth of the Word, which is the love of the Lord and for the neighbour. A purely intellectual understanding of the Word fails to comprehend this living heart that makes the Word what it is, and consequently, can only say “Sibboleth” (see Swdenborg’s work, Arcana Caelestia 4280).

The Word tells us that forty-two thousand Ephraimites were killed - that seems an colossal number of casualties! But the Word does not report facts from a historical standpoint; it presents living truths, even in numbers. Forty-two is six multiplied by seven, so its spiritual meaning can be understood as a combination of both numbers. In the creation story, the Lord worked for six days and rested on the seventh. This idea relates to our regeneration, which involves our struggles during temptation, as well as the peace that comes from spiritual growth. The fact that the number of casualties was in the thousands emphasizes the significance of the spiritual meaning (Arcana Caelestia 8539[2]).

Jephthah judged Israel six years. The number six here carries the same meaning of conflict and work during temptation. The temptation in this chapter would be to understand the Word purely in an intellectual or dead way (Ephraim in a bad sense), rather than living by the truths it teaches.

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After Jephthah, there were three minor judges of Israel. The first was Ibzan, who gave away thirty daughters to marry abroad, and brought in thirty foreign daughters for his thirty sons. The Bible does not tell us any more about Ibzan, except the curious fact that he came from Bethlehem. It’s uncertain whether this is the same town where the Lord would be born, or another town of the same name.

Ibzan, whose name means ‘illustrious’, stands for a generous and willing spirit, able to take in new perspectives and to share his blessings with others. This concept is called mutual love, which is a key quality of heaven (Arcana Caelestia 2738).

The next judge, Elon, came from Zebulun, and led Israel for ten years. Even these few details that we learn about him present a sense of integrity in their spiritual meanings: his name means an ‘oak’, a tree which is associated with nobility, strength, and longevity, each of which are fitting qualities of a leader; he came from Zebulun, which represents the unity of good and truth (Arcana Caelestia 4592[13]); and the number ten (the number of years that he judged Israel) symbolizes completeness, and also our spiritual ‘remains’ (see Sweenborg’s work, Doctrine of Life 56).

The third and final judge, Abdon, had forty sons and thirty grandsons who rode on seventy young donkeys. Abdon’s name means “to serve”, which is the third spiritual principle after love and truth. To serve is to offer our life to God through charity toward others. A young donkey represents the untamed level of our lives before regeneration, which needs spiritual care (Arcana Caelestia 5084[8]).

These last three ‘minor’ judges remind us of the qualities which guard against the next major opponent of Israel: the Philistines, who represent faith without regard to charity or good works.

3318. 'And he was weary' means a state of conflict. This becomes clear from the meaning of 'weary' or weariness as the state following conflict. Here however, because the subject is a state of conflict in which good and truth within the natural man are joined together, the state of conflict itself is meant. As regards 'weary' here meaning a state of conflict, this is not apparent except from the train of thought in the internal sense, and in particular from the fact that without conflicts, or what amounts to the same, without temptations, good is unable to be joined to truth in the natural man.

[2] So that the nature of this state may be known - though only as man experiences it - let a brief statement be made regarding it. Man is nothing other than an organ or vessel which receives life from the Lord, for man does not live of himself, 290, 1954, 2021, 2536, 2706, 2886-2889, 3001. The life flowing in with man from the Lord comes from His Divine Love. This Love, that is, the life from it, flows in and applies itself to the vessels that are in man's rational and that are in his natural. On account of the hereditary evil into which man is born, and on account of the evil of his own doing which man acquires to himself, these vessels with him are set the wrong way round for receiving that life. But insofar as it is possible for this inflowing life to do so, it resets those vessels to receive it. These vessels within the rational man and within his natural are such as are called truths. In themselves they are nothing else than perceptions of the variations in form possessed by those vessels and of the changes of state which in different ways give rise to those variations, which are produced in the most delicate of organic substances, and in ways that defy description, 2487. Good itself, which possesses life from the Lord, that is, which is life, is that which flows in and resets them.

[3] When therefore those vessels, varying in the forms they take, are set and turned, as has been stated, the wrong way round for inflowing life, they clearly have to be re-positioned to receive that life, that is, to be controlled by it. This cannot possibly be effected as long as the person remains in that condition into which he was born or which he has brought upon himself. Indeed at that time they are unsubmissive because they resolutely withstand and harden themselves against the heavenly order governing the way that life acts. Indeed the good which moves them, and to which they are subservient, is that which stems from self-love and love of the world. From the dull warmth it contains that good makes these vessels what they are. Consequently before they can be made submissive and capable of receiving any of the life that belongs to the Lord's love, they have to be softened. The only ways that such softening can be achieved is by temptations, for temptations take away the things that constitute self-love and contempt for others in comparison with oneself, consequently that constitute self-glory, and also hatred and revenge on account of that. When therefore they have to some extent been subdued and mellowed by means of temptations those vessels start to become yielding and compliant to the life which belongs to the Lord's love and which is constantly flowing in with man.

[4] From this point onwards good, first of all in the rational man and then in the natural, starts to be joined to the truths there, for as has been stated, truths are nothing else than perceptions of the variations in form which are determined by the states that are changing all the time - those perceptions being a product of the life that is flowing in. This is the reason why a person is regenerated, that is, is made new, by means of temptations, or what amounts to the same, by means of spiritual conflicts, and after that receives an inward disposition different from before, that is to say, becomes gentle, humble, single-minded, and contrite at heart. From these considerations one may now see the use served by temptations, which is that good from the Lord may not only flow in but also render the vessels subservient and so join itself to them. For truths are the recipient vessels of good, see 1496, 1832, 1900, 2063, 2261, 2269. Here therefore, since the subject is the joining together of good and truth in the natural man, and since the first stage of that conjunction comes about through the conflicts brought about by temptations, 'he was weary' clearly means a state of conflict.

[5] As for the Lord however, who is the subject here in the highest sense, He so imposed Divine order on everything within Himself by means of the very severe conflicts that went with temptations that nothing remained of the human He had derived from the mother, 1444, 1573, 2159, 2574, 2649, 3036, so that He was not made new as any other human being but was made altogether Divine. For man, who is made new through regeneration, nevertheless retains within himself the inclination towards evil; indeed he retains the evil itself but is withheld from it by the influx of the life that is the life of the Lord's love, and by an extremely powerful force. But the Lord cast out completely everything evil that was His by heredity from the mother and made Himself Divine, doing so even as to the vessels, that is, as to the truths. This is what in the Word is called Glorification.