Parasha Chukat and Haftarah: Judges 11:1-33

(1) יהוה spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying: (2) This is the ritual law that יהוה has commanded: Instruct the Israelite people to bring you a red cow without blemish, in which there is no defect and on which no yoke has been laid. (3) You shall give it to Eleazar the priest. It shall be taken outside the camp and slaughtered in his presence. (4) Eleazar the priest shall take some of its blood with his finger and sprinkle it seven times toward the front of the Tent of Meeting. (5) The cow shall be burned in his sight—its hide, flesh, and blood shall be burned, its dung included— (6) and the priest shall take cedar wood, hyssop, and crimson stuff, and throw them into the fire consuming the cow. (7) The priest shall wash his garments and bathe his body in water; after that the priest may reenter the camp, but he shall be impure until evening. (8) The one who performed the burning shall also wash those garments in water, bathe in water, and be impure until evening. (9) Another party who is pure shall gather up the ashes of the cow and deposit them outside the camp in a pure place, to be kept for water of lustration*water of lustration Lit. “water for impurity.” for the Israelite community. It is for purgation. (10) The one who gathers up the ashes of the cow shall also wash those clothes and be impure until evening. This shall be a permanent law for the Israelites and for the strangers who reside among them. (11) Those*Those Heb. impersonal sing., taken as a collective and rendered in the plural. who touch the corpse of any human being shall be impure for seven days. (12) They shall purify themselves with [the ashes] on the third day and on the seventh day, and then be pure; if they fail to purify themselves on the third and seventh days, they shall not be pure. (13) Those who touch a corpse, the body of a person who has died, and do not purify themselves, defile יהוה’s Tabernacle; those persons shall be cut off from Israel. Since the water of lustration was not dashed on them, they remain impure; their impurity is still upon them. (14) This is the ritual: When a person dies in a tent, whoever enters the tent and whoever is in the tent shall be impure seven days; (15) and every open vessel, with no lid fastened down, shall be impure. (16) And in the open, anyone who touches a person who was killed*killed Lit. “slain by the sword.” or who died naturally, or human bone, or a grave, shall be impure seven days. (17) Some of the ashes*ashes Lit. “earth” or “dust.” from the fire of purgation shall be taken for the impure person, and fresh water shall be added to them in a vessel.

(1) Jephthah the Gileadite was an able warrior, who was the son of a certain prostitute. Jephthah’s father was Gilead; (2) but Gilead also had sons by his wife, and when the wife’s sons grew up, they drove Jephthah out. They said to him, “You shall have no share in our father’s property, for you are the son of an outsider.”aan outsider Lit. “another woman.” (3) So Jephthah fled from his brothers and settled in the Tob country. Men of low characterbMen of low character Or “Rootless men”; see note at 9.4. gathered about Jephthah and went out raiding with him. (4) Some time later, the Ammonites went to war against Israel. (5) And when the Ammonites attacked Israel, the elders of Gilead went to bring Jephthah back from the Tob country. (6) They said to Jephthah, “Come be our chief, so that we can fight the Ammonites.” (7) Jephthah replied to the elders of Gilead, “You are the very people who rejected me and drove me out of my father’s house. How can you come to me now when you are in trouble?” (8) The elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, “Honestly, we have now turned back to you. If you come with us and fight the Ammonites, you shall be our commander over all the inhabitants of Gilead.” (9) Jephthah said to the elders of Gilead, “[Very well,] if you bring me back to fight the Ammonites and GOD delivers them to me, I am to be your commander.” (10) And the elders of Gilead answered Jephthah, “GOD shall be witness between us: we will do just as you have said.” (11) Jephthah went with the elders of Gilead, and the people made him their commander and chief. And Jephthah repeated all these terms before GOD at Mizpah. (12) Jephthah then sent messengers to the king of the Ammonites, saying, “What have you against me that you have come to make war on my country?” (13) The king of the Ammonites replied to Jephthah’s messengers, “When Israel came from Egypt, they seized the land that is mine, from the Arnon to the Jabbok as far as the Jordan. Now, then, restore it peaceably.” (14) Jephthah again sent messengers to the king of the Ammonites. (15) He said to him, “Thus said Jephthah: Israel did not seize the land of Moab or the land of the Ammonites. (16) When they left Egypt, Israel traveled through the wilderness to the Sea of Reeds and went on to Kadesh. (17) Israel then sent messengers to the king of Edom, saying, ‘Allow us to cross your country.’ But the king of Edom would not consent. They also sent a mission to the king of Moab, and he refused. So Israel, after staying at Kadesh, (18) traveled on through the wilderness, skirting the land of Edom and the land of Moab. They kept to the east of the land of Moab until they encamped on the other side of the Arnon; and, since Moab ends at the Arnon, they never entered Moabite territory. (19) “Then Israel sent messengers to Sihon king of the Amorites, the king of Heshbon. Israel said to him, ‘Allow us to cross through your country to our homeland.’ (20) But Sihon would not trust Israel to pass through his territory. Sihon mustered all his troops, and they encamped at Jahaz; he engaged Israel in battle. (21) But the ETERNAL, the God of Israel, delivered Sihon and all his troops into Israel’s hands, and they defeated them; and Israel took possession of all the land of the Amorites, the inhabitants of that land. (22) Thus they possessed all the territory of the Amorites from the Arnon to the Jabbok and from the wilderness to the Jordan. (23) “Now, then, the ETERNAL, the God of Israel, dispossessed the Amorites before this covenanted people Israel; and should you possess their land? (24) Do you not hold what Chemosh your god gives you to possess? So we will hold on to everything that the ETERNAL our God has given us to possess. (25) “Besides, are you any better than Balak son of Zippor, king of Moab? Did he start a quarrel with Israel or go to war with them? (26) “While Israel has been inhabiting Heshbon and its dependencies, and Aroer and its dependencies, and all the towns along the Arnon for three hundred years, why have you not tried to recover them all this time? (27) I have done you no wrong; yet you are doing me harm and making war on me. May GOD, who judges, decide today between the Israelites and the Ammonites!” (28) But the king of the Ammonites paid no heed to the message that Jephthah sent him. (29) Then the spirit of GOD came upon Jephthah. He marched through Gilead and Manasseh, passing Mizpeh of Gilead; and from Mizpeh of Gilead he crossed over [to] the Ammonites. (30) And Jephthah made the following vow to GOD: “If you deliver the Ammonites into my hands, (31) then whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me on my safe return from the Ammonites shall be GOD’s and shall be offered by me as a burnt offering.” (32) Jephthah crossed over to the Ammonites and attacked them, and GOD delivered them into his hands. (33) He utterly routed them—from Aroer as far as Minnith, twenty towns—all the way to Abel-cheramim. So the Ammonites submitted to the Israelites.