The Old Testament of the Bible is full of endless tribal wars.

One obscure group was always battling some other obscure group.

The Moabites and the Midianites, the Benjamites and the Ammonites, the Watseites and the Huzites.

I never could keep them straight.

But one biblical battle from the 1100 BC always stood out to me.

In this battle, the Gileadites were fighting the Ephraimites.

The Gileadites quickly routed their enemies and scattered their army.

Then the Gileadites stationed themselves at a crossing on the Jordan River to cut off

the Ephraimites' escape route home.

The Gileadites were eager to kill every last man.

There was just one problem.

As neighbors, the Gileadites and Ephraimites dressed alike and looked alike.

They also spoke the same language.

So whenever a stranger approached the Jordan River to cross it, how would the Gileadites

soldiers know whether to kill him?

The stranger could always just lie and claim he was Gileadite.

The Gileadites got around this problem by setting a clever trap.

Whenever a stranger approached the Jordan crossing, they would point at the water and say,

what's that?

To see the Gileadite word for river was shibboleth.

And unfortunately for the Ephraimites, their accent was unusual.

They didn't say the shhhh sound.

...