Life in
Ancient Israel was always
full of surprises. If the
Hebrew tribes weren't under
attack by
vicious Gentiles, they were
fighting amongst each other for one reason or another. The
Ephraimite Tribe in northern Israel, for reasons that seemed
good at the time, decided to wage war on the
Gileadite Tribe in what is today northwest
Jordan. They were roundly
repulsed, and the Ephraimites soon found themselves attempting to
flee the Gilead territory by crossing the
Jordan River.
Jephthah, the Gilead General, didn't like the idea of letting men leave who could later come back to attack again, so he posted troops at Jordan crossings, and ordered them to slay all Ephraimites. However, Ephraim and Gilead were both Hebrew tribes, and it was difficult to tell a Gileadite from an Ephraimite when they weren't wearing armor. So Jephthah ordered his guards to ask those who would pass to prounounce the Hebrew word for an ear of corn. Gileads said 'Shib-bo-leth', while Ephraimites said it as 'Sib-bo-leth'. Any man who couldn't pronounce it correctly was killed on the spot.
This has always confused me, because there has never been a 'TH' sound in modern Hebrew. Maybe it was pronounced Shib-bo-let.
For many centuries, the term 'shibboleth' was used in a manner synonymous with (and somewhat more accurate than) the modern word 'buzzword'.