Judges 11:5

(5) When the children of Ammon made war.—The allusion is to some special threat of invasion (acriter instantibus, Vulg.) at the close of the eighteen years of oppression (Judges 10:9).

To fetch Jephthah.—Because by this time he had made himself a great name as a brave and successful chieftain of marauders, who would doubtless come with him to lead the Gileadites.