And Gilead's wife bare him sons; and his wife's sons grew up, and they thrust out Jephthah, and said unto him, Thou shalt not inherit in our father's house; for thou [art] the son of a strange woman.
Ver. 2. They thrust out Jephthah.] Little thinking that they should one day be glad to be beholden to him. It is good for great men, who now work their own wills without wit, to remember that greatness may decay, the wheel may turn, and they may have need of those they now slight; as Sir James Paulet had of Cardinal Wolsey when he came to be Lord Chancellor, whom the said Sir James had, out of humour, set by the heels when he was a poor schoolmaster; a and as Sir Francis Askew had of Archbishop Holgat, whom he had much molested in law when he was a country minister. b
“ Discite iustitiam moniti, et non temnere quenquam. ”
The Pope, who is the devil's by-blow, was worthily thrust out of England A.D. 1245, as before he had been out of France and Arragon, it being said that the Pope was but like a mouse in a satchel, or a snake in a man's bosom, &c. England had been his ass; but at length she cast her rider, and would no longer bear his burdens. c
For thou art the son of a strange woman.] Vulgo quaesitus, as the Latins call such: the Hebrews shatuki, from shatack, tacere, because when others are praising their parents, such must hold their peace. But Jephthah was hardly dealt with, to be put to shift for a livelihood, and to get it before he ate it.
a Negotiat. of Card. Wolsey, p. 2.
b Godw., Catal., p. 625.
c Speed, 622.