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.