13 The king of the children of Ammon answered to the messengers of Jephthah, "Because Israel took away my land, when he came up out of Egypt, from the Arnon even to the Jabbok, and to the Jordan: now therefore restore those (lands) again peaceably."
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
From Arnon even unto Jabbok - The land bounded by the Arnon on the south, by the Jabbok on the north, by the Jordan on the west, and by the wilderness on the east was, of old, the kingdom of Sihon, but then the territory of Reuben and Gad.
From Arnon even unto Jabbok, and unto Jordan - That is, all the land that had formerly belonged to the Amorites, and to the Moabites, who it seems were confederates on this occasion.
And the king of the children of Ammon answered unto the messengers of Jephthah,.... Who this king of Ammon was is not said, however he returned an answer to Jephthah's messengers, which they brought to him, and it was to this purpose; that the reason of his invading the land, and bringing war into it, was:
because Israel took away my land when they came out of Egypt; not as soon as they came out of Egypt, for it was thirty nine years afterwards, and upwards, even a little before they entered into the land of Canaan; and the land they took was not theirs, but in the possession of Sihon and Og, kings of the Amorites; though indeed, before their conquest of it, it had been in the hands of the Moabites and Ammonites, and who being confederates, or subjects of the same king, is here claimed by the king of the children of Ammon:
from Arnon even unto Jabbok, and unto Jordan; the river Arnon was the border between Moab and the Amorites, and the river Jabbok was the border of the children of Ammon, Numbers 21:13, the one was to the south of the country claimed, and the other to the north and to the west, which was Jordan, and the wilderness to the east, Judges 11:22,
now therefore restore these lands again peaceably; this is demanded or proposed as terms or conditions of peace, and what would prevent a war, and nothing short of this would do it.
the king of Ammon . . ., Because Israel took away my land--(See on Deuteronomy 2:19). The subject of quarrel was a claim of right advanced by the Ammonite monarch to the lands which the Israelites were occupying. Jephthah's reply was clear, decisive, and unanswerable;--first, those lands were not in the possession of the Ammonites when his countrymen got them, and that they had been acquired by right of conquest from the Amorites [Judges 11:21]; secondly, the Israelites had now, by a lapse of three hundred years of undisputed possession, established a prescriptive right to the occupation [Judges 11:22-23]; and thirdly, having received a grant of them from the Lord, his people were entitled to maintain their right on the same principle that guided the Ammonites in receiving, from their god Chemosh, the territory they now occupied [Judges 11:24]. This diplomatic statement, so admirable for the clearness and force of its arguments, concluded with a solemn appeal to God to maintain, by the issue of events, the cause of right and justice [Judges 11:27].
The king of the Ammonites replied, that when Israel came up out of Egypt, they had taken away his land from the Arnon to the Jabbok (on the north), and to the Jordan (on the west), and demanded that they should now restore these lands in peace. The plural אתהן (them) refers ad sensum to the cities and places in the land in question. The claim raised by the king of the Ammonites has one feature in it, which appears to have a certain colour of justice. The Israelites, it is true, had only made war upon the two kings of the Amorites, Sihon and Og, and defeated them, and taken possession of their kingdoms and occupied them, without attacking the Ammonites and Moabites and Edomites, because God had forbidden their attacking these nations (Deuteronomy 2:5, Deuteronomy 2:9,Deuteronomy 2:19); but one portion of the territory of Sihon had formerly been Moabitish and Ammonitish property, and had been conquered by the Amorites and occupied by them. According to Numbers 21:26, Sihon had made war upon the previous king of Moab, and taken away all his land as far as the Arnon (see the comm. on this passage). And although it is not expressly stated in the Pentateuch that Sihon had extended his conquests beyond Moabitis into the land of the Ammonites, which was situated to the east of Moab, and had taken a portion of it from them, this is pretty clearly indicated in Joshua 13:25, since, according to that passage, the tribe of Gad received in addition to Jaezer and all the towns of Gilead, half the land of the children of Ammon, namely, the land to the east of Gilead, on the western side of the upper Jabbok (Nahr Ammn: see at Joshua 13:26).
(Note: The explanation which Masius gives of this passage (Eatenus moao sursum in Galaaditidem exporrectam jacuisse Gaditarum haereditatem, quatenus dimidia Ammonitarum ditio Galaaditidem ab oriente ambiebat) is not sufficiently in keeping with the words, and too unnatural, to be regarded as correct, as it is by Reland (Pal. ill. p. 105) and Hengstenberg (Dissertations on the Pentateuch, ii. p. 29); and the reasons assigned by Masius, viz., "that the Israelites were prohibited from occupying the land of the Ammonites," and "the Ammonites are not mentioned in Numbers 21:26," are too weak to establish anything. The latter is an argumentum e silentio, which loses all significance when we bear in mind, that even the allusion to the land of the Moabites in Numbers 21:26 is only occasioned by the prominence given to Heshbon, and the poetical saying founded upon its fall. But the prohibition against taking the land of the Ammonites from them had just as much force in relation to the land of the Moabites, and simply referred to such land as these tribes still possessed in the time of Moses, and not to that which the Amorites had taken from them.)
My land - That is, this land of Gilead, which was mine, but unjustly taken from me, by Sihon and Og, the kings of the Ammonites; and the injury perpetuated by Israel's detaining it from me. This land, before the conquests of Sihon and Og, belonged partly to the Ammonites, and partly to the Moabites. And indeed, Moab and Ammon did for the most part join their interests and their forces.
*More commentary available at chapter level.