Thoughts on Judges 12

Today's reading: Judges 12-13; Acts 24

I don't have too much to say about today's reading, but the opening paragraph of Judges 12 confused me a bit and I thought I'd share what I found in case anybody else is confused. 

The questions I had out of that opening paragraph were:

1. Why were the Ephraimites mad that Israel was saved from the Ammonites and they didn't have to fight?
2. Who are the Gileadites?
3. Why are the Gileadites in Ephraim and Manasseh's land?

I'm going to deal with these kind of in reverse, starting with who the Gileadites were and why they were in Ephraim and Manasseh's land. The Gileadites were a clan of Manasseh, which kind of easily answers both questions. They were Manassites, which is why they lived in the land of Manasseh... Seems pretty straightforward.

The reason I was even questioning this though is that the Ephraimites seem to imply the Gileadites don't belong there. The men of Ephraim say to the men of Gilead, "You are fugitives of Ephraim, you Gileadites, in the midst of Ephraim and Manasseh." One writer I found who talked about this pointed out that Ephraim and Manasseh, the two tribes of Joseph, were largely ruled by Ephraim, but Gilead seems to have operated on it's own, not really even subject to Manasseh. So if Ephraim wants to be in charge of Manasseh, and Gilead is part of Manasseh but won't subject itself to Ephraim, then this jibe from Ephraim makes sense. They are essentially saying, "Who do you think you are to operate independently from us? You are nothing more than a single clan of Manasseh. We are the ones in charge. Don't get a big head just because you beat the Ammonites and think you don't need to subject yourselves to us!"

This self-importance of the Ephraimites also seems to be the answer to my first question of why were they mad in the first place. War is a big risk and costs lives, so if someone else goes and defeats your enemies who were about to invade your territory without you risking a single life, why would you be angry instead of celebrating? Because Ephraim wanted the credit for the victory. This is actually the second time we have seen this exact behavior from them. After God gave Gideon victory the Ephraimites came out and confronted him as well with the same accusation. Gideon answered diplomatically in a way that let Ephraim walk away still filled with pride, but Jephthah wasn't having any of that and led the Gileadites to kill 42,000 men of Ephraim in response to their arrogance.

So in short, the confusion in the opening paragraph of Judges 12 seems like it is most likely rooted in Ephraim's self-importance and unwillingness to see a clan they think is beneath them achieve glory in Israel without them.