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Welcome!  I’m glad you’re here.  It means that you took the time to put down your newsletter and fill in a gap in your Biblical Knowledge.

In my article, I referred to a “shibboleth.”  There is a lesser-known story from the Bible in the book of Judges which takes place following the battle between the Ephraimites and the Gileadites.  The Israelite tribe of Ephraim aggressively attacked the inhabitants of the land of Gilead.  They were roundly beaten and the survivors of the initial battle found themselves trapped in the land of Gilead.  In trying to get back home, they would need to cross the river, but their enemies know this and are lying in wait.  The men are stopped and asked, “Are you an Ephraimite?”  Knowing they will be killed if they answer, “yes,” the Israelites try to “pass” as Gileadites.  In a sort of ancient lie-detector test, they are challenged to pronounce the word “Shibboleth.”  The meaning of the word is unimportant – it’s just a part of the wheat seed – it is the dialect of the speaker that is most telling.  The Ephraimites did not pronounce the “sh” sound, rather saying it, “Sibboleth.”  Listening for what they considered to be a mispronunciation was enough for the Gileadites to identify the strangers as an enemy and the outcome was not good for the individual!

This has become a meme in modern culture for a way to separate the friend from the foe.  To identify through a sort of password or biblical “dog whistle.”  Here are the verses from the Bible I’ve been referring to:

Judges 12:4 - 6

And Jephthah gathered all the men of Gilead and fought the Ephraimites. The men of Gilead defeated the Ephraimites; for they had said, “You Gileadites are nothing but fugitives from Ephraim—being in Manasseh is like being in Ephraim.”  The Gileadites held the fords of the Jordan against the Ephraimites. And when any fugitive from Ephraim said, “Let me cross,” the men of Gilead would ask him, “Are you an Ephraimite?”; if he said “No,” they would say to him, “Then say shibboleth”; but he would say “sibboleth,” not being able to pronounce it correctly. Thereupon they would seize him and slay him by the fords of the Jordan. Forty-two thousand Ephraimites fell at that time.