Judges 11:12
Judges 11:1212Then Jephthah sent messengers to the king of the Ammonites, saying, “What do you have against me that you have come to fight against my land?”
Witnesses use the Jephthah narrative for examples of faithfulness to Jehovah's name, and 11:12 is rarely deployed independently in JW teaching. The Hebrew idiom in this verse — "What have I to do with thee" — is not flagged as relevant to the Cana episode in , leaving Witnesses without the Old Testament context that decides the meaning of Jesus' words to Mary.
This verse is one of five Old Testament occurrences of the Hebrew idiom "mah-li va-lak" — literally "what to me and to thee?" Jephthah's messengers say it to the king of the Ammonites: not "what business of yours is mine?" but "we have no quarrel in common; why are you attacking?" The same idiom appears at (David to the sons of Zeruiah), (the widow to Elijah), (Elisha to the king of Israel), and (Neco to Josiah). In every case the idiom signals distance of intent or non-alignment of agenda — not contempt or rejection. When Jesus uses the same idiom to his mother in ("ti emoi kai soi, gynai"), the Old Testament background is decisive. He is not rebuking her; he is signalling that his messianic timing is not set by her social cue. The verse Watchtower readers seldom encounter is the verse that resolves the verse Watchtower readers most often misread.
The NWT renders the Hebrew idiom here as "What do you have against me that you have come to attack my land?" — a contextual paraphrase rather than the literal "What have I to do with thee?" The same idiom in is rendered "Woman, why is that of concern to me and to you" — different paraphrase, different effect. The cumulative consequence is that a reader comparing the NWT renderings at and may not recognise the same Hebrew idiom underneath, and so may miss the parallel that decides the reading of Cana.