Text: Judges 11:15-27
OT Text Referred to: Deuteronomy 2:36-37
Subject: Jephthah's appeal to Amorite territorial boundaries
Source: Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Reference Type: Allusion
Connection Method(s): None
Significance: Jephthah's argument in Judges 11:15-27 references Deuteronomy 2:36-37, which specifies that Israel took every city "from Aroer on the edge of the Arnon Valley" but explicitly notes: "only to the land of the Ammonites you did not draw near" (רַק אֶל־אֶרֶץ בְּנֵי־עַמּוֹן לֹא קָרָבְתָּ). This is the most direct Pentateuchal proof text for Jephthah's case: Deuteronomy itself records that Israel's conquest stopped at the Ammonite border. Jephthah's forensic skill lies in citing the very passage that most decisively refutes the Ammonite king's territorial claim.
Consolidated 2026-06-09 per the later-text → earlier-text canonical-direction ruling (Full Corpus Audit, Phase 0). The content below is preserved verbatim from the deleted file "Deuteronomy 2.36-37 to Judges 11.15-27"; fold unique material into the Significance during the Phase 3 IP audit, then remove this section.
Text: Deuteronomy 2:36-37
OT Text Referred to: Judges 11:15-27
Subject: Israel's territorial limits respected Ammonite borders
Source: Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Reference Type: Allusion
Connection Method(s): None
Significance: Deuteronomy 2:36-37 records both the extent and the limits of Israel's conquest: they took all of Sihon's cities from Aroer through Gilead, "but you did not go near the land of the Ammonites." Jephthah's argument in Judges 11 depends on this crucial distinction—Israel conquered Amorite territory but deliberately avoided Ammonite land as God commanded. The specificity of Deuteronomy 2:37—naming the Jabbok River and the cities of the hill country as territory Israel did not touch—provides Jephthah with the geographic evidence to refute Ammon's claim that Israel had stolen their land. Moses's account becomes Jephthah's strongest legal precedent.