Then Jephthah gathered together all the men of Gilead, and fought with Ephraim; and the men of Gilead struck Ephraim, because they said, You are fugitives of Ephraim, you Gileadites, in the midst of Ephraim, [and] in the midst of Manasseh.
In the battle that followed east of the Jordan, 42,000 Ephraimites (or 42 military units) suffered defeat, a high price for jealousy. The Gileadites stopped those who tried to flee back home at the fords of the Jordan. The Ephraimites’ accent did not permit them to say shibboleth (meaning "ear of corn" or "flowing stream") normally. Similarly during World War II, the Nazis identified Russian Jews by the way they pronounced "kookoorooza," the Russian word for corn. [Note: Wolf, p. 458.] In this way the Gileadite soldiers identified the fleeing Ephraimites.