Judges 11:24

24 Are you going to try to take it back? You can keep whatever your god Chemosh has given you. But we are going to keep everything that the Lord, our God, has taken for us.

Judges 11:24 Meaning and Commentary

Judges 11:24

Wilt not thou possess that which Chemosh thy god giveth thee
to possess?
&c.] Chemosh was the idol of the Moabites, see ( Numbers 21:29 ) , which has led some to think, that the present king of Ammon was also king of Moab, and who insisted on that part of the country, which formerly belonged to Moab, to be delivered to him, as well as that which had belonged to Ammon. Now since the land, which they now inhabited, as well as what they had lost, they had taken away from others, ( Deuteronomy 2:10 Deuteronomy 2:11 Deuteronomy 2:20 Deuteronomy 2:21 ) , having conquered them, and which they ascribed to the help and assistance they had from their idol, and possessed as his gift; Jephthah argues with them "ad hominem", from the less to the greater:

so whomsoever the Lord our God shall drive out from before us, them
will we possess;
we have surely as good a claim to what the Lord our God gives to us in a way of conquest, as you have, or can think you have, to what your idol, as you suppose, has given you: however, what we have got, or get this way, we are determined to possess, and keep possession of.

Judges 11:24 In-Context

22 They occupied all the Amorite territory from the Arnon in the south to the Jabbok in the north and from the desert on the east to the Jordan on the west.

23 So it was the Lord, the God of Israel, who drove out the Amorites for his people, the Israelites.

24 Are you going to try to take it back? You can keep whatever your god Chemosh has given you. But we are going to keep everything that the Lord, our God, has taken for us.

25 Do you think you are any better than Balak son of Zippor, king of Moab? He never challenged Israel, did he? Did he ever go to war against us?

26 For three hundred years Israel has occupied Heshbon and Aroer, and the towns around them, and all the cities on the banks of the Arnon River. Why haven't you taken them back in all this time?