Jephthah’s story is found in Judges 11—a chapter that begins not with triumph, but with rejection. “Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty warrior,” the Bible tells us, “but his father was Gilead and his mother was a prostitute.” (Judges 11:1) From the start, Jephthah was marked as an outsider. He was the child no one wanted to claim. His half-brothers, born to Gilead’s wife, drove him away: “You are not going to get any inheritance in our family,” they said.