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.
"And they took the fords of the Jordan against Ephraim"  (Judges 12:5). A great army of Ephraim had moved against Jephthah and the Gileadites, and God gave Jephthah a great victory over them, as the remnants of the defeated army attempted to flee back to Ephraim, the Gileadites took the fords of the Jordan, and by a clever linguistic test identified the Ephraimites and slaughtered a vast number of them.  Keil stated that the number of Ephraimites slain was, "Forty and two thousand during the whole war."[7]