The accounts of the preceding judges indicated at the end a number of years of rest following the judge’s deliverance (Judges 3:11, Judges 3:30; Judges 5:31; Judges 8:28). The Jephthah narrative does not end that way. For his leadership was a failure even in his lifetime. He himself violated the rest
of Israel when he slaughtered the Ephraimites.1
It is a pitiful end to the narrative. There is also no notice that the Ammonite threat has been averted (as in Judges 3:30; Judges 4:23; Judges 8:28, of other foreign enemies). His account simply ends with the report that he died and was buried in his city of Gilead.
7 Jephthah judged Israel six years. Then Jephthah the Gileadite died and was buried in his city in Gilead.