Jephthah Kills 42,000

The leaders of Ephraim responded, “The men of Gilead are nothing more than rejects from Ephraim and Manasseh.”  So Jephthah called out his army and attacked the men of Ephraim and defeated them.  Jephthah captured the shallows of the Jordan, and whenever a fugitive from Ephraim tried to go back across, the men of Gilead would challenge him.  “Are you a member of the tribe of Ephraim?” they would ask.  If the man said, “No, I’m not,” they would tell him to say “Shibboleth.”  If he was from Ephraim, he would say “Sibboleth,” because people from Ephraim cannot pronounce the word correctly.  Then they would take him and kill him at the shallows of the Jordan River.  So forty-two thousand Ephraimites were killed at that time.  (Judges 12:4-6 NLT)