HEBREW WORD STUDY – A  PORTER –  SABBOLETH –   סבלת 

Judges 12:6 Then said they unto him, Say now Shibboleth: and he said Sibboleth: for he could not frame to pronounce [it] right. Then they took him, and slew him at the passages of Jordan: and there fell at that time of the Ephraimites forty and two thousand.

Gilead was being forced into war against the Amonites and desperately needed a warrior as a leader.  Jephthah was the most qualified but was an outcast because his mother was a prostitute and he did not know who his father was giving him no real ethnic identity. Gilead was forced to hire Jephthah as their commander who promptly raised an army from the surrounding tribes. All came to help Gilead except the people of Ephraim. We do not know why Ephraim did not join into the battle with their brothers from Gilead, but I suspect they just thumbed their righteous nose at Jephthah using the “B” word which was quite correct, he was the son of a prostitute and they would not join themselves to such a loser.  

God would surely not use such a person to bring victory, he did not have the right heritage.  But they apparently did not know the heart of God and what God would do for someone who humbled themselves before Him and was willing to give him full credit for any victory.  Which Jephthah did and won a great victory. When that happened Ephraim knew they had made a big mistake by not joining with their brothers in a righteous cause so they went to Jephthah and rather than apologize for their arrogance, they simply demanded to know why Jephthah did not ask them for help.  Jephthah had begged for their help but they said he was lying so they could save face. Their pride just would not allow them to lower themselves to a man who was the son of a prostitute.  

Jephthah, like a bull in a china shop, was no politician or diplomate, he was a warrior who picked up his sword and the Ephraimites took off running, high tailing it across the Jordan river. The only problem was that when they reached the Jordan, there were Jephthah’s men guarding the bridge.  When the Ephraimites asked to be allowed to cross river Jephthah’s men simply said: “Sure, but first say the secret word.”  They then asked what the secret word was and Jephthah’s men said, “Shibboleth.”  Now Shibboleth could mean either an ear of corn or a stalk of grain, but it could also mean a stream or river.  In this context, it would most likely mean a river and what Jephthah’s men said was, “Go ahead say the words, ‘let us cross the river.’”  The problem was that even though you may speak the same language, you could have a different dialect.  I grew up in Chicago and when I went to school in various parts of the country, people would often comment on my Chicago accent.  For instances, if I did not stop to think about it, I will say Da Bears rather than The Bears. I suspect it was pretty much the same way in this situation, for you see the people of Ephraim could not make the sh sound but just used the s sound so what they said was sibboleth. This would immediately identify them as an Ephraimites and as a result, they would be killed by Jephthah’s men.

What bothers me about this is that they killed 42,000 Ephraimites using this little test. Now it takes time to kill 42,000 and I doubt very much they crossed the river one at a time. They came in groups and you would think that somewhere along the line they would get wind of what was going on and would start practicing their sh sound.  I don’t think the Ephraimites were that stupid, I think they were that arrogant and they were not going to let the followers of that man with a dubious background tell them what they could or could not do.  I think many of them deliberately said shibboleth as a challenge and died for it. You see the word shibboleth means a stream or river, but the word sibboleth, when spelled with a Samek, means a porter.  I believe the arrogance of the Ephraimites led them to sneer back the Gileadites and call them just a porter, a butler, a red cap and they should help them carry their bags across the river.

The problem of Ephraim was pride, just like in Western Christianity, only our shibboleth is our education.  The more letters a person has after his name the more he is honored and respected.  That pastor who loves God with all his heart and spends more time on his knees praying and reading God’s Word than reading books on theology and what other teachers have to say will not be given the time of day.  If they pronounce some theological term wrongly they are scorned and treated like a sibboleth.