BRAGADAYJAH 749

BRAGADAYJAH 749

The Question of Right of Ownership

Jephthah on behalf of Israel demanded that the Ammonites should peacefully vacate the land they now possess, because they had dispossessed Israel who was immediately in possession before them. But the Kings of Ammon and of Moab responded by saying, “O No!” We were first in possession and you dispossessed us by fighting against us and seizing our lands by force.  So how did Jephthah reply?  That we asked you to let us pass and you refused; so the LORD our God delivered the land to us.  Now is this a good enough reason to declare to whom the land belonged?  There may be some legal issues to determine first. It is said that possession is nine tenths of the law; and the person in possession on the face of it may have a better title than he one seeking to dispossess. However it is also a principle of land law that the possession had to be nec vi nec clam nec precario, that is to say not taken by force, not by paying a fee, example a tenant, and not by stealth; and finally if we say each had an equitable title to the land, a maxim of Equity holds that where the equities are equal the first in time is the stronger. So if we go back to the first part of Jephthah’s response, it would seem that, a) the Ammonites and Moabites were first in time and b), the Israelites took the land by force in the first place; so based on the law of equity their claim to the lands would fail.  But the second part of Jephthah’s answer puts the whole set of issues in a different light.  According to him it was God Who gave Israel the land, and to whom did the land belong in the first place?  The answer is clearly God. God was the Landlord, and as such He had the right to dispossess the unruly tenants, the nations, and give title to His people, the Israelites.  

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BRAGADAYJAH 748

BRAGADAYJAH 748

Jephthah Sent Messengers to the King of Ammon

Now Jephthah sent messengers to the King of the children of Ammon, advising him to depart from the land of the children of Israel. But the king replied saying that the land belonged to them and was theirs until they the children of Israel came up from Egypt and fought against them and seized their land; so now said the king of Ammon we are here to take back what was originally ours. And further the king demanded, Jephthah must restore the land peacefully. But Jephthah sent messengers again to the Median king, reminding him that Israel did not take away the land of neither the Moabites nor the Ammonites. For when Israel came up out of Egypt, we walked through the wilderness unto the red sea and came to Kadesh. Then Israel sent messengers to the king of Edom saying, let us I pray thee pass through your land. But the king of Edom would not listen; and in like manner we sent messengers to the king of Moab but neither would he listen, or consent to let Israel pass; and Israel dwelt in Kadesh.   

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BRAGADAYJAH 747

BRAGADAYJAH 747

In response to the elders of Gilead asking Jephthah to be their leader, he replied and said to them, “Did you not hate me and expelled me out of my father’s house, so why are you coming to me now you are in distress?” So the elders confessed that they were indeed turning to him because they wanted him to fight with them against the Ammonites, and be head over all the inhabitants of Gilead. However, Jephthah asked for assurance of the elders that if he would in fact return home, and fight against the Ammonites and defeat them, they would indeed make him their head. And the elders swore an oath and said, “The LORD be witness between us if we do not so keep our word with you. So Jephthah went with the elders of Gilead, and the people made him head and captain over them and Jephthah swore an oath before the LORD in Mizpeh.  

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The Wright Stuff?

he Wright Stuff?

Any person living in today’s world, would have to be blind, deaf and dumb not to know that this entire world is on its way to hell in a basket. Throughout every society we see the same moral depredation, like a runaway bus rapidly accelerating down a slippery slope, just before it collapses.

If we can learn one lesson from history, it is that the last cycle in its total collapse is the utter breakdown of morality. In the pre-diluvial world, the sons of God intermingling in marriage with the sons of men; in Sodom and Gomorrah, even the old men breaking down Lot’s door; King Belshazzar in his drunken revelry with his princes and wives and concubines blaspheming the sacred vessels of the Lord’s temple; and in more times the moral collapse of Rome.

Today we see a repeat of those immoral practices in every facet of societies around the world, more particularly in America and Briton as the leading nations of the world. This morning I witnessed a debate, The Wright Stuff, concerning the question not whether it was morally appropriate for “virgin men and women”, to have in-vitro insemination, but whether the State should pay for such processes.”

As the arguments were advanced, there were no questions whatsoever about the moral rectitude of such procedures, but only who should pay for them. But in reality, this is but the latest trend, a mere signpost passed, a bump along the way, to a cataclysmic crash, as we catapult further and further away from the norm.

And what is that norm? Jesus restated it when he said, “Have ye not read that He who made them at the beginning made them male and female? That a man shall cleave to his wife and that the two shall be one flesh?”  But look where we are today! If you do not agree to homosexuality and sexual infamy, there is something wrong with you; for they are normal and you are abnormal.

In the Book of Leviticus, Chapter 18, God mandated some two dozen prohibitions having to do with the prohibited degrees of sanguinity and morality. Today we say God was wrong, or at least has made a mistake, and we make bold to correct the situation. Well the real question is where will we arrive at tomorrow? If we follow the line of regression where will it logically lead us? That a man may marry his mother, his daughter his sister, and a woman her son her brother?  And what about a man wanting to marry his horse, his dog or his cat? Did I hear someone say ludicrous? Well the idea of men marring men or women marrying women and, of virgin women and men, having babies would have sounded both ludicrous and ridiculous not too long ago.  And so logically nothing can prevent this runaway bus of moral depredation from crashing short of the personal intervention or appearance on the scene of Christ himself. For things hardly ever remain the same; and if they are not getting better, they are getting worse.     

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BRAGADAYJAH 746

BRAGADAYJAH 746

After that, the children of Ammon gathered themselves together and assembled themselves at Gilead, and the children of Israel assembled themselves and encamped at Mizpeh. And the people and princes of Gilead said one to another, “What man is he that will begin to fight against the children of Ammon? Any such shall be head over the all the inhabitants of Gilead. Now Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty man of valor and he was the son of a harlot, and Gilead begat Jephthah. And Gilead’s wife bore him a son, and his wife’s son grew up and they thrust out Jephthah and told him that he would not be allowed to inherit as an heir to his father because he was the son of a harlot. So Jephthah fled from his brethren and dwelt in the land of Tob, and there he gathered unto him men of ill repute. And in the course of time, the children of Ammon made war against Israel; and the elders of Gilead went and fetched Jephthah out of the land of Tob, and invited him to be their captain to lead them in the fight against the Ammonites.

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BRAGADAYJAH 745

BRAGADAYJAH 745

So then the Nations whose gods they served vexed Israel for eighteen years while they lived in the land of the Amorites which is in Gilead. In addition, the children of Ammon crossed over Jordan to fight also against Judah, and against Benjamin, and against the house of Ephraim; so that Israel was sore distressed. And so the children of Israel cried unto the LORD saying, “We have sinned against you, both because we have forsaken the LORD our God, and also served Baalim.” And the LORD answered and said unto the children of Israel, “Did I not deliver you from the Egyptians, and from the Amorites, from the children of Ammon and from the Philistines, the Zidonians, the Amalekites, and the Maonites which did oppress you, and you cried to me and I delivered you out of their hands?  Yet you have forsaken me and served there their gods.  Therefore I will deliver you no more. Go and cry unto the gods which you have chosen; let them help you out of your tribulation.”  And the children of Israel said unto the LORD, “We have sinned; do unto us as thou deem appropriate; but please deliver us this day.” And they put away the strange gods from among them, and served the LORD; and His soul was grieved for the misery of Israel.  

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BRAGADAYJAH 744

BRAGADAYJAH 744

To’la and Ja’ir raised Up

After the death of Abimelech, the Lord raised up To’la to defend Israel. He was the son of Pu’ah the son of Do’do a man of Issachar and he dwelt in Sha’mir in Mount Ephraim.  And To’la judged Israel twenty years and he died and was buried in Sha’mir.  And after To’la was dead, God raised up Ja’ir a Giliadite, and he judged Israel twenty two years. And Ja’ir had thirty sons which rode on thirty ass colts and they ruled over thirty cities called Ha’voth-Jair, located in the land of Gil’ead. And Ja’ir died and was buried in the land of Ca’mon. And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord and served Baalim and Ashtaroth, and the gods of Syria, and the gods of Zidon, and the gods of Moab, and the gods of the children of Ammon  and the gods of the children of the Philistines and forsook the LORD and served him not. And the anger of the LORD was hot against Israel and he sold them into the hands of the Philistines and into the hands of the children of Ammon.

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