The men of Ephraim were gathered together, and passed northward; and they said to Jephthah, Why did you pass over to fight against the children of Ammon, and didn't call us to go with you? we will burn your house on you with fire.
"Here is graphic evidence that language distinctions had begun to mark the rapidly widening division of the nation." [Note: Merrill, Kingdom of . . ., pp. 172-73. Cf. Daniel I. Block, "The Role of Language in Ancient Israelite Perceptions of National Identity," Journal of Biblical Literature 103:3 (September 1984):339, n. 75.] 