What Does Judges 11:2 Mean in the King James?
And Gilead’s wife bare him sons; and his wife’s sons grew up, and they thrust out Jephthah, and said unto him, Thou shalt not inherit in our father’s house; for thou art the son of a strange woman.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The claim to inherit becomes the reason Jephthah is driven out of his own father’s house.
THE MEANING
This verse names a live pattern: when belonging is guarded as an inheritance, a household can deny someone both a share and a home. Calling Jephthah “the son of a strange woman”, בֶּן־אִשָּׁה אַחֶרֶת (ben ishah acheret), “son of another woman”, makes his mother’s different place in the household the stated reason for his expulsion.
THE ROOT
וַיְגָרְשׁוּ
vayegarshu
GROWS FROM
גרש
Drive out, expel, send away.
“thrust out” in this verse is vayegarshu. The root carries the act of sending someone away, and it also appears in the Hebrew word for a divorced woman, one sent away from a marriage. The same verb appears in Genesis 21:10, where a mother and her son are told to leave a household over an inheritance claim.
ALSO GROWS
legarēsh: To drive out, expel
לְגָרֵשׁ
This infinitive carries the same act of sending away found in Jephthah’s expulsion.
gerushah: A divorced woman; a woman sent away
גְּרוּשָׁה
The root extends expulsion into a severed marital bond, showing how sending away can end a person’s place in a household.
תִּנְחַל
tinḥal
GROWS FROM
נחל
Receive as a possession; inherit an allotted share.
The word points to an allotted possession, not merely an abstract entitlement. The brothers use the claim that Jephthah cannot inherit to deny him both a future share and his present place in their father’s house.
ALSO GROWS
naḥalah: Inheritance, possession, allotted portion
נַחֲלָה
This noun makes clear that the dispute concerns a share assigned within a family.
hinḥil: Cause to inherit; allot as a possession
הִנְחִיל
This related form shows inheritance as something apportioned to a person, the very place the brothers deny Jephthah.
THE PATTERN
When inheritance is treated as an exclusive claim, protecting the share can divide a household and push someone outside it.
Wherefore she said unto Abraham, Cast out this bondwoman and her son: for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac.And the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living.But those husbandmen said among themselves, This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance shall be ours.THE THREAD
Wherefore she said unto Abraham, Cast out this bondwoman and her son: for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac.“Cast out” comes from the same Hebrew root, גרש (garash), as “thrust out” in Judges. Both verses join an inheritance claim to the expulsion of a woman’s son, exposing the shared mechanism beneath the two scenes.
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