Judges 11:25

And now art thou any thing better than Balak the son of Zippor, king of Moab? did he ever strive against Israel, or did he ever fight against them,

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(25) Art thou anything better than Balak?—Literally, Are you the good, good in comparison with? It is one of the Hebrew ways of expressing the superlative. Jephthah here argues from prescriptive right, which even the contemporary king Balak had not ventured to challenge, showing, therefore, that he admitted the claim of Israel, deadly as was his hatred against them.

Did he ever fight against them?—This may seem at first sight to contradict Joshua 24:9. There “Balak the son of Zippor arose and warred against Israel”; and we might infer that it was in some Moabite battle that Baalam had been slain (Numbers 31:8; Joshua 13:22). But this would not affect Jephthah’s argument. Balak had fought against Israel out of pure hatred, not from any pretensions to claim their conquests from them.

Benson Commentary

Jdg 11:25. Art thou any thing better than Balak? — Art thou wiser than he? Or hast thou more right than he had? This is a third argument, that though Balak plotted against Israel, in defence of his own land, which he feared they would invade and conquer, yet he never contended with them about the restitution of those lands which Sihon took from him or his predecessors, laid no claim to them, nor ever demanded to have them restored.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

11:12-28 One instance of the honour and respect we owe to God, as our God, is, rightly to employ what he gives us to possess. Receive it from him, use it for him, and part with it when he calls for it. The whole of this message shows that Jephthah was well acquainted with the books of Moses. His argument was clear, and his demand reasonable. Those who possess the most courageous faith, will be the most disposed for peace, and the readiest to make advances to obtain; but rapacity and ambition often cloak their designs under a plea of equity, and render peaceful endeavours of no avail.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Jephthah advances another historical argument. Balak, the king of Moab, never disputed the possession of Sihon's kingdom with Israel.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

13. the king of Ammon …, Because Israel took away my land—(See on [221]De 2:19). The subject of quarrel was a claim of right advanced by the Ammonite monarch to the lands which the Israelites were occupying. Jephthah's reply was clear, decisive, and unanswerable;—first, those lands were not in the possession of the Ammonites when his countrymen got them, and that they had been acquired by right of conquest from the Amorites [Jud 11:21]; secondly, the Israelites had now, by a lapse of three hundred years of undisputed possession, established a prescriptive right to the occupation [Jud 11:22, 23]; and thirdly, having received a grant of them from the Lord, his people were entitled to maintain their right on the same principle that guided the Ammonites in receiving, from their god Chemosh, the territory they now occupied [Jud 11:24]. This diplomatic statement, so admirable for the clearness and force of its arguments, concluded with a solemn appeal to God to maintain, by the issue of events, the cause of right and justice [Jud 11:27].

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Art thou better than Balak? art thou wiser than he? or hast thou more right than he had? Balak, though he plotted against Israel, in defence of his own land, which he feared they would invade and conquer, Numbers 22:4; yet he never contended with them about the restitution of those lands which Sihon took from him or his predecessors, after the Israelites had conquered them.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And now art thou anything better than Balak the son of Zippor king of Moab?.... This argument seems to strengthen the conjecture, that this king was king of Moab at this time, and so Balak was one of his predecessors. Now he is asked, whether he thought he was a wiser and more knowing prince than he, as to what was his right and due; or whether he had a better claim, or any additional one to the land in dispute the other had not; or whether he judged he was more able to regain what belonged to him:

did he ever strive against Israel? for the land they took away from Sihon formerly in the possession of the Moabites? did he ever lay any claim to it, or enter into any dispute, or litigate with Israel about it? not at all:

or did he ever fight against Israel? that is, on that account; no, he sent for Balaam to curse Israel, and sought to defend and secure his own country he was in possession of, which he thought was in danger by the Israelites being so near him; but he never made war with them under any such pretence, that they had done him any injury by inheriting the land they had taken from Sihon and Og, kings of the Amorites.

Geneva Study Bible

And now art thou any thing better than Balak the son of Zippor, king of Moab? did he ever strive against Israel, or did he ever fight against them,

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

25. art thou … better than Balak] Though the king of Ammon is supposed to be addressed, the question really aims at some king of Moab: is he a better man than his predecessor Balak, who did not dare to fight Israel? The verse agrees with Numbers 22-24, where no mention is made of a war between Moab and Israel; Joshua 24:9 a is probably due to an annotator.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 25. - Art thou anything better, etc. Jephthah now advances another argument to prove the justice of his cause and the unreasonableness of the Ammonite claim. If the territory in question was Moabite property, bow came it that Balak laid no claim to it? He was an enemy of the Israelites, and yet when Israel took possession of the land, and dwelt in Heshbon, its capital, and the daughter cities or villages thereof, and in Aroer and her daughter cities or villages, and in all the cities on the banks of the Amen, Balak never strove about them with Israel, or went to war to recover them - a plain proof that he did not look upon them as his property. If they were his, that was the time to claim and recover them, but he had not done so. Judges 11:25

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

But not contenting himself with this conclusive deduction, Jephthah endeavoured to remove the lost appearance of right from the king's claim by a second and equally conclusive argument. "And now art thou better than Balak son of Zippor, the king of Moab? Did he strive (רוב, inf. abs. of ריב or רוּב) with Israel, or did he fight against them?" By the repetition of ועתּה (Judges 11:25, cf. Judges 11:23), the new argument is attached to the previous one, as a second deduction from the facts already described. Balak, the king of the Moabites, had indeed bribed Balaam to destroy Israel by his curses; but he did so not so much with the intention of depriving them of the territory of the Amorites which they had conquered, as from the fear that the powerful Israelites might also conquer his still remaining kingdom. Balak had neither made war upon Israel on account of the territory which they had conquered from the Amorites, nor had he put forward any claim to it as his own property, which he certainly might have done with some appearance of justice, as a large portion of it had formerly belonged to the Moabites (see Numbers 21:26 and the comm. on this passage). If therefore Balak the king of the Moabites never thought of looking upon this land as being still his property, or of asking it back from the Israelites, the king of the Ammonites had no right whatever to lay claim to the land of Gilead as belonging to him, or to take it away from the Israelites by force, especially after the lapse of 300 years. "As Israel dwells in Heshbon, ... and in all the cities by the side of the Arnon for three hundred years, why have ye not taken away (these towns and lands) within that time" (i.e., during these 300 years)? If the Ammonites had had any right to it, they ought to have asserted their claim in Moses' time. It was much too late now, after the expiration of 300 years. For "if no prescriptive right is to be admitted, on account of length of time, and if long possession gives no title, nothing would ever be held in safety by any people, and there would be no end to wars and dissension" (Clericus). On Heshbon and its daughters, see at Numbers 21:25. Aror (ערעור, another form for ערער, or possibly only a copyist's error) is Aror of Gad, before Rabbah (Joshua 13:25), and is to be sought for in the Wady Nahr Ammn, on the north-east of Ammn (see at Josh. l. c.), not Aror of Reuben, on the border of the valley of Arnon (Numbers 32:34; Deuteronomy 2:36; Deuteronomy 4:48; Joshua 12:2; Joshua 13:9). This is evident from the fact, that it is distinguished from "all the cities on the side (ידי על, see at Numbers 34:3) of the Arnon," which included Aror of Reuben. Aror of Gad, with its daughter towns, was probably Ammonitish territory before the time of Sihon. On the 300 years, a round number that comes very near the reality, see the Chronol. p. 285.