Have you ever met someone who has to have everything in writing? I mean, not necessarily in a literal sense; just someone who is so afraid of being cheated, ‘burned’ in the modern vernacular, that they want assurances and promises from others before they will take any requested action or partner in any conceived plan.
When I read Judges chapter 11 I get the sense that this is the sort of person we have presented to us in Jephthah.
I guess it should not be a surprise that he was that way. After all, he was the product of union between his father and a prostitute. In other words, an accident.
We’re only told in our text that when the legitimate sons of Gilead grew up they drove Jephthah out so they wouldn’t have to share their inheritance. The wording seems to indicate that he was older than the rest; perhaps conceived and born before Gilead even married the woman who gave him other sons. In that case, and according to the tradition of the day, the older son would receive a double portion and the sons under him would divide up what was left of the inheritance between them equally.
So here is the picture of some number of brothers who have grown up in a house with a half-brother as the oldest, in line for the lion’s share of the inheritance, and kind of an embarrassment to them because of the circumstances of his birth, so when it comes time to start thinking about dad going the way of all flesh they decide Jephthah has to hit the road.
Funny how it took them all those years to decide he wasn’t family. I’ll bet they were glad to call him ‘big brother’ when there was hard work to be done.
Anyway, perhaps you can see that this would leave ol’ Jephthah with a bad taste in his mouth and a little less than trusting of his fellow man. Especially if they really did treat him as a second class citizen in the years before they finally drove him away.
Well, verse one says he was a valiant warrior, and that apparently played a role in his success in drawing a gang of tough guys around him. The Bible says they were ‘worthless fellows’. The NIV uses the word ‘adventurers’. The Hebrew word means ‘empty’, idle’; in other words, they had too much time on their hands and we all know that usually leads to trouble.
They hung out together in the land of Tob. I had to look that one up.
It is an area east of the Jordan and according to Bible maps it was a region just outside of Gilead to the northeast and was probably a dangerous place to live for various reasons.
So do you get the picture? Here is this scrapper who has been dealt a hand that pretty much cuts him out of the game altogether, and for his own safety he has had to flee to the badlands and now all of his friends are from the deodorant-free crowd. This man does not know grace. He hasn’t seen any and he doesn’t have any to give.
He’s James Dean, Johnny Ringo, ‘Mad Max’ and Wolverine all rolled into one (whatever age group you’re in you must know who at least one of those characters is). If you don’t know who any of those guys are, just know he was a dude with a ‘tude, but there is more to him than meets the eye. So let’s go see how this story unfolds.
A MAN NEEDING ASSURANCES
Well, after Jephthah is gone for a while the Ammonites attack Israel. So the pious, God-fearing, clean-cut pillars of the church in Gilead get together to decide what they’re going to do and the first person they think about to go to for help is valiant Jephthah.
Not illegitimate Jephthah… but mighty warrior Jephthah. It’s amazing how forgiving legalists can be when they need something you have.
In verse 7 is one of the first evidences of the attitude in Jephthah that I was talking about. He tosses their earlier ill treatment of him in their faces and then challenges them to justify now coming to him for help.
Can you picture the scene like a modern day movie? Jephthah and his unshaven, misfit buddies are sitting in the shade of a big rock near their favorite hideout cave in the desert, their camels tethered nearby, and here comes this band of shaky little guys, huddling so close they’re almost stepping on each other’s feet. As they timidly approach Jephthah and his friends all stand to their feet forming a very intimidating mass of muscles, square jaws and scowling eyebrows.
The elders state their reason for coming and in the very wording of it they say they want him to come and be their chief. But in verse 9 Jephthah asks for a confirmation of what they have offered; in fact, he puts the question to them as though they haven’t already made the offer and it’s all his idea.
He wants to know what’s in it for him, and he’s not going to mount up until he has a verbal agreement before witnesses.
“If you take me back to fight against the sons of Ammon and the Lord gives them to me, will I become your head?”
Now what’s wrong with this picture?
Christian, listen. When you find yourself in a position to do something in the name of the Lord, and you are ready to acknowledge that the task you are about to undertake can only be accomplished in His strength, are you right in asking ‘what’s in it for me’? Or are you justified in listing to the Lord all the sacrifices you’ve made in order to be in His service?
In Luke 18:28 Peter apparently thought he was going to impress Jesus when he declared that he and the others had left their own homes to follow the Lord.
Being gracious, Jesus probably never thought of responding by saying, “Well, I left My own home to die for you!”
Here is what was wrong with the attitude of Jephthah. He went with them only after they promised to make him their chief and leader. He was willing to admit he needed the Lord’s help against the Ammonites, but he needed assurances that they wouldn’t take away his place when the job was done.
I wonder how many men considering their call to Christian ministry refuse to look at any opportunity that doesn’t guarantee good salary, benefits, vacation time and a large oak desk?
By His grace alone God was vindicating Jephthah before the very people that had spurned him. How much better might things have gone later if he had been able to see that and responded in Godly humility?
We’ll be talking about that. But there is what’s wrong with this picture. Let’s see what’s right about it.
A MAN OF FAITH
Hebrews 11:32-34
“And what more shall I say? For time will fail me if I tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets, 33 who by faith conquered kingdoms, performed acts of righteousness, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, 34 quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, from weakness were made strong, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight.”
Glean what we will of the character of Jephthah from the text of Judges 11, from the Holy Spirit’s testimony of him in Hebrews 11 we are assured that he was a man who had faith in God and that his faith was put into action.
As we have already noticed in verse 9 he expects that if he goes up against the Ammonites and gains victory it will be the Lord’s doing.
That is always the thing we should do before an undertaking, and certainly after the thing has been accomplished. As James said,
“Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.” 14 Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. 15 Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.” Jas 4:13-15
Of course, once we have confessed the name of the Lord as the One who guides our steps, we’d better make sure He is guiding our steps and that when our goal has been accomplished we give Him the glory and the credit.
Because of the emphasis that is so often placed on unacceptable language in regards to the 3rd commandment, I think we often fail to recognize that this is the sort of thing God was speaking of when He said, “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain”.
If we invoke His name for help we’d better be seeking His will, and if we use His name in an oath we’d better fulfill it.
One commonality among the men and women remembered in the Bible for their faith was that they did not take lightly the using of the name of the Lord.
It would behoove us all as Christians today, to remember this and pay attention to how often we hear, even from each other, such glib expressions as “God help me”, “Oh, my God!” “Oh Lord” and so on, and be aware that just because we’re not uttering what we consider profanities using His name we may be no less spouting blasphemy in our carelessness.
A MAN OF WISDOM
The next characteristic we can see displayed in Jephthah is that of patience. Rather than just jumping on his horse and riding off with an army to go after the Ammonites he sends messages to them, trying to reason with them.
The whole thing is contained in verses 12 through 28 and is quite lengthy for our purposes today, but I’ll give it to you in brief.
The excuse the Ammonites are using to attack Israel is that the Israelites took away what the king of the Ammonites now calls ‘my land’ when they came up from Egypt. So now he wants it back.
It’s been somewhere around 300 years since then, so it sure took him a long time to get mad. Jephthah even says so in verse 26 of this chapter.
“While Israel lived in Heshbon and its villages, and in Aroer and its villages, and in all the cities that are on the banks of the Arnon, three hundred years, why did you not recover them within that time?”
He also argues, -and I know I’m jumping around a little here-, that Israel did not ‘take’ land from anyone, but that it was won in battles that Israel did not start. So the land wasn’t stolen, it was captured, just as the Ammonites originally captured it in battle centuries past from the Moabites.
So if the Ammonites came to the land by winning it in war, how are the Israelites wrong in winning it in turn from the Ammonites?
So we look down at verse 27 and see once more that after he has successfully refuted any false claims they made for a right to attack Israel, Jephthah once more invokes the name of his God in a prayer of sorts that the Lord will vindicate His people by passing judgment against the Ammonites.
“I therefore have not sinned against you, but you are doing me wrong by making war against me; may the LORD, the Judge, judge today between the sons of Israel and the sons of Ammon.’ “
But of course the king of the sons of Ammon disregarded the message and the fight was on.
We’ll talk about this very controversial oath of Jephthah’s in verse 30 and 31, but first let’s take note that God answered Jephthah’s prayer.
Verse 29: “Now the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah…”
And the rest is history. When the Spirit of the Lord comes upon a yielded vessel God’s will is done and God is glorified. Just as in the case of all the other Judges of Israel, Jephthah went forward in the Lord’s might and great victories were won.
“So Jephthah crossed over to the sons of Ammon to fight against them; and the LORD gave them into his hand. 33 He struck them with a very great slaughter from Aroer to the entrance of Minnith, twenty cities, and as far as Abel-keramim. So the sons of Ammon were subdued before the sons of Israel.”
A MAN IN NEED OF GRACE
I have pointed out in the past that in the New Testament where Old Testament saints are named, none of their faults are dredged back up. Only their faith is on display there.
But I thank God that in the Old Testament nothing was held back. We can read of the failures of Moses and Abraham and Jacob and David and all the others and be encouraged that God uses real people with real faults and problems. Then we can go to the New Testament and find that by His grace He only remembers and only records their faith, and be encouraged that He views us through that same lens of grace.
So it is here with Jephthah. His faith in the Lord and the subsequent victories he has won by the Lord’s anointing are not diminished by his folly.
In point of fact, the Lord’s mercy and grace and His determination to have His will done through vessels of clay are only more clearly demonstrated by the fact that even in the shadow of this foolish vow made by Jephthah, He still uses the man for His purpose and His victory.
Let’s look at it and make some sense of a difficult passage and some application for ourselves. Verses 30 & 31.
“Jephthah made a vow to the LORD and said, “If You will indeed give the sons of Ammon into my hand, 31 then it shall be that whatever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me when I return in peace from the sons of Ammon, it shall be the LORD’S, and I will offer it up as a burnt offering.”
Folly #1
We can glance back at verse 9 and remind ourselves that Jephthah has already given the Lord advanced credit for any victory he might win. It is assumed before he goes that he will be going in the name of the Lord God of Israel.
Now granted, the bravest, noblest, most seasoned warrior is going to be a little on edge just before battle, and especially when going up against a formidable foe.
But remember that Jephthah had just given the king of the Ammonites an Israeli history lesson, so he obviously knew about the exodus from Egypt and also a great deal about Israel’s victories in taking and keeping the land.
So he already knows that the odds don’t shake God up. After all hadn’t Gideon defeated the hoards of Midian with only 300 men just about 95 years earlier? And it had been obvious to all that this was the hand of the Lord.
Nevertheless, Mr. ‘I want everything in writing’ Jephthah says, “If Thou wilt indeed give the sons of Ammon into my hand…” I will do thus and such.
Listen, believers in the Lord. It is an insult to the God who has provided our eternal salvation and assured us Heaven, to presume to cut a deal with Him about some petty endeavor in this life.
It is a demonstration of faithlessness when we cast doubts on His desire to see us through a trial and bring glory to His own name by causing us to triumph in Him, by saying “If You will do thus and such”.
It is arrogant presumption to offer for His help something that we ought to have been giving Him anyway.
“Oh, Lord, I’m going in for this job interview, and if you help me get it I will tithe and give offerings for missions and to help the poor”.
IF? I think the Lord would say you should have been giving of what little you have for the support of ministry and to help missions and the poor; job or not. That’s just New Testament truth.
“Oh, Lord, if you help me (or my loved one) win this battle with this disease or this malady I will strive to serve you better in the church and in my life.”
The Lord would ask, how might you be serving me in the church and in your life, even in the midst of the trial? Nowhere in the Bible is there an admonition to give your life to the Lord and the church in service, only when everything is going right and only when the Lord has delivered you from all your trials.
Jephthah shouldn’t have offered God any frivolous vows in exchange for His help. If you’re going to offer worship and sacrifice to the Lord, just do it from a worshiping heart and it will be accepted by Him. And do it, even if His help does not seem forthcoming. He is God.
As Job said, “Though He slay me, I will hope in Him,” Job 13:15a
The command of Deuteronomy 23:21-23 on the other hand, is that no vow is required of you, but if you do make a vow, keep it.
21 “When you make a vow to the LORD your God, you shall not delay to pay it, for it would be sin in you, and the LORD your God will surely require it of you. 22 “However, if you refrain from vowing, it would not be sin in you. 23 “You shall be careful to perform what goes out from your lips, just as you have voluntarily vowed to the LORD your God, what you have promised.”
Ok. So it was folly #1 to make this vow in the first place; especially one so specific. If he felt he had to secure God’s blessing with a vow he could have said, “Lord, when this is done and you have given us the victory I will go to the temple and make a sacrifice of thanksgiving to You.”
That would have been acceptable as long as he kept his vow.
But as we already noted, no vow was necessary, and was apparently made out of insecurity and perhaps a moment of doubt.
Folly #2
Folly number 2 is that in his vow he boasted by being very specific and making a promise which, if he had stopped to give it any thought, he might have realized he was potentially putting himself in a tight spot.
Now let’s look at verses 34 and 35
34 When Jephthah came to his house at Mizpah, behold, his daughter was coming out to meet him with tambourines and with dancing. Now she was his one and only child; besides her he had no son or daughter.
35 When he saw her, he tore his clothes and said, “Alas, my daughter! You have brought me very low, and you are among those who trouble me; for I have given my word to the LORD, and I cannot take it back.”
The commentators have a wide range of arguments for their various stands on what actually happened here. As briefly as I can I will recount some of those arguments.
The ones who want to argue that what actually happened was that when he saw his daughter come out, he sent her to spend her life in service in the tabernacle, and both his sadness and her own were due to the fact that she would never have children and continue his line, give the following arguments.
First, God would never accept a human sacrifice, and neither would the people of Israel allow it. They say that during her two months of mourning for her virginity someone would have done something to make sure Jephthah didn’t carry out such a foolish vow. They also argue that since sacrifices were only allowed in the tabernacle the priests would not have allowed that kind of desecration of the altar.
Second, they argue that nothing is said about him actually sacrificing his daughter on an altar, and that the wording about mourning her virginity implies that she did live, but never had children, which was something very important to that culture.
On the other hand are the scholars who remind us that Jephthah was half pagan. I’m not sure where they get that. Verse one of chapter eleven says his mother was a harlot but it does not say she was not an Israelite.
They argue that being ‘half pagan’ he very well might have sacrificed her on an altar of his own making, thinking that he had no option left open to him but to carry out his vow.
There is also the fact that this was a time of Israel’s history when “Every man did what seemed right in his own eyes”, 17:6 and although God raised up these Judges to rescue His people from their oppressors, still, there followed apostasy and turning away and the renewed need to discipline them as a nation. It was a cyclic condition that was repeated throughout this period of their history.
So it would not be much of a stretch to say that a man could be a man of faith, wish to do God’s will, yield himself to service and even be used by God, but still be in error as to the true nature and character of God and what would please Him and what would grieve Him.
After all, hadn’t Jesus warned His disciples that after His departure some would seek to kill them thinking they were pleasing God?
As far as I can see, the Bible says that Jephthah made a vow to offer in burnt offering the first thing he saw coming out of his house after his victory, and in verse 39 when it says that after her mourning period he “did to her according to the vow which he had made”, that means he offered her as a burnt offering, probably on an altar on his own property.
Does that make it right? Of course not. It would have been an abomination to God. It just means it’s in the Bible and the Bible tells the whole story; even the nasty parts.
So how do we get something from this that is valuable to us today?
Well first, I think, by not letting ourselves be so focused on the difficulty of the vow question and the shocking thought of a man offering his only daughter as a burnt offering that we miss the whole point of scripture here.
Remember as we said earlier, the Bible is absolutely honest. God doesn’t cover up His people’s sins, rather He exposes them so that they might repent and so that those who see the sin and the consequences might exercise wisdom and avoid the same follies.
He also exposes them to bring glory to His name, because where sin increases grace abounds (Rom 5:20). Not that our sin helps God’s grace to abound, but that by contrast, the gloriousness of God’s grace is made manifest in contrast to the utter ruin caused by sin.
Romans 5:21 “…that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord”
So here in our text today we are given the picture of a man who is no different than any one of us. He is a man who believes in the one true God, yet is capable of the most heinous of acts.
Are we, even as believers, capable of such abominations? If you think not, then you are setting yourself up for a fall.
Jephthah is a man who knows the history of God’s people and also the history of God’s miraculous help throughout, and yet has doubts, needs assurances, is tripped up by his tendency to want to walk by sight and not by faith.
Are we, even as New Testament believers, prone to these faults? If you think not, you are self deceived.
Jephthah was a rebel with a clause. He wanted assurances, he wanted to argue his case, he wanted to make deals that would secure his success.
But Jephthah is a man God chose to mention in the New Testament as one of those who by faith, “…conquered kingdoms, performed acts of righteousness, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, from weakness were made strong, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight.”
And while you and I are made of the same stuff as Jephthah, and equally capable of folly and error and insecurity and doubts, we serve the same God of Jephthah, who glorifies His name through the yielded vessel, helps in time of trouble, grants approval through faith – that is, justifies the sinner – and because He accepts us through the atoning work of His Son and grants to us His righteousness, never again mentions our sin or dredges up our past.
For we have no past in Him, except that “…we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life”. Rom 6:4
