The leaders are forced to sweeten the deal. They make him the offer of the leadership of all of Gilead, a position that implies leadership in peacetime and in war. That is what he wants—status, power, and a complete reversal of the wrongs that had been done to him.1
8 And the elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, “That is why we have turned to you now, that you may go with us and fight against the Ammonites and be our head over all the inhabitants of Gilead.”