Strife has arisen among the Israelites before, but this time the ingratitude of the Ephraimites, who took up arms against Jephthah, the man who saved the people, is striking. No one prevented the Ephraimites from going out against the enemy at the proper time; yet it turns out that they themselves are not to blame for failing to fight, but those who did not invite them to share the spoils.
The fratricidal war begun by the Ephraimites naturally turned against them. Yet the evil sown by the strife did not disappear after their defeat. The Ephraimite rebellion and the cruel reprisal against them showed that the evil of division was eating ever more deeply into the people. The later calamities brought by invaders are therefore no surprise: they were provoked by people mired in strife and thus turned away from the Lord.
