AM Bible Study Group; August 12, 2015 from Judges 11:28-40
Theme: Jephthah’s vow warns us of the seriousness with which God takes our promises.
(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).
We come this morning to a very controversial passage—one that is ethically perplexing and variously interpreted. But however it is understood, it still has a great lesson to teach us.
It’s a passage that shows us that God takes our promises to Him seriously—and that we need to take them seriously too. We tend to make promises to God in far too reckless a manner. As it says in Ecclesiastes 5:4-5; When you make a vow to God, do not delay to pay it; for He has no pleasure in fools. Pay what you have vowed—better not to vow than to vow and not pay.” In the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord Jesus warned us not to make vows; telling us, “But let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No.’ For whatever is more than these is from the evil one” (Matthew 5:37). Before God, if promises are made, they must be paid—and that’s because God Himself is a promise keeper.
The vow of the mighty judge Jephthah was one that was made before God—but one that was tragically hard to pay. And this makes his story a very important cautionary tale.
I. THE VOW THAT WAS MADE (vv. 28-31).
A. The story of this vow was in the context of God’s call upon the life of Jephthah to deliver His people from the oppression of the Ammonites. They were aggressively—and as we saw in the previous verses unjustly—claiming the land that Israel occupied. He had made a powerful argument against them; “ However, the king of the people of Ammon did not heed the words which Jephthah sent him” (v. 28). And so, the battle was on.
B. It’s important to know that Jephthah was a man who was empowered and enabled by God. We’re told. “Then the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah, and he passed through Gilead and Manasseh, and passed through Mizpah of Gilead; and from Mizpah of Gilead he advanced toward the people of Ammon” (v. 29). He made his way to the enemy with a sense of God’s enabling presence. It’s important to the context of this story to remember that this man was highlighted in Hebrews 11 as a man who entered into this conflict by faith (see Hebrews 11:32-34). He was no rash pagan—and God’s hand was definitely upon him! And perhaps because of his faith, he felt free to make the vow we’re told about in verses 30-31). “And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord, and said, ‘If You will indeed deliver the people of Ammon into my hands, then it will be that whatever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the people of Ammon, shall surely be the Lord’s, and I will offer it up as a burnt offering.’”
C. Was it necessary to make this vow? It seems pretty clear that it was not. A commitment had already been made before God by Jephthah and the people (vv. 9-11); and it’s clear that the Spirit of the Lord was already upon Jephthah (v. 29). Perhaps a lesson to be learned is that we are in the most danger of falling into a rash vow before God at a time when we feel most confident in doing so! May God help us to be on guard during the spiritual ‘highs’ as much as in the ‘lows’!
II. THE VICTORY THAT WAS GRANTED (vv. 32-33).
A. The sense that Jephthah was in God’s hand already is made even more clear by the fact that God gave a great victory. In fact, it was the Lord who had delivered the Ammonites into his hand—just as he had asked in his vow. “So Jephthah advanced toward the people of Ammon to fight against them, and the Lord delivered them into his hands. And he defeated them from Aroer as far as Minnith—twenty cities—and to Abel Keramim, with a very great slaughter. Thus the people of Ammon were subdued before the children of Israel” (vv. 32-33).
B. The details that are given to us in this victory are frustratingly brief. There are no exciting stories of heroism given to us. It seems that the writer is mostly concerned about the story that will follow—the story of the sad consequences of this vow. In fact, as one commentator put it, you can almost say that Jephthah—the victor in the story—suffered more deeply in the end than the victims! Because of the vow that was made, it truly became a tragic and sad victory; a victory that would have been made far more joyful if the vow had never been made.
III. THE VICTIM THAT CAME FORTH (vv. 34-35).
A. When Jephthah made his vow, he may not have been thinking that a human being would come out to greet him—although it would have been hard to imagine a mere animal coming out of the door to “meet” him at his return. But what a tragic turn of events it was. We’re told, “When Jephthah came to his house at Mizpah, there was his daughter, coming out to meet him with timbrels and dancing; and she was his only child. Besides her he had neither son nor daughter” (v. 34). It may have been that she had prepared herself to come out to greet him in the joyful way that Miriam—the sister of Moses—celebrated the victory over the Egyptians in the Red Sea (see Exodus 15:20-21). But it brought no joy to Jephthah’s heart.
B. It’s important to remember that Jephthah’s whole family story had been a tragic one. His brothers had despised him and rejected him because of his questionable birth (see vv. 1-3); and he was truly a loner. His daughter would have been all the more precious to him because of his past; and she would have represented his only hope for the future. How tragic then that we read, “And it came to pass, when he saw her, that he tore his clothes, and said, ‘Alas, my daughter! You have brought me very low! You are among those who trouble me! For I have given my word to the Lord, and I cannot go back on it’” (v. 35). Note in this, however, that there was no question in his mind. He made a vow; and now he must keep it. She must be offered to the Lord.
IV. THE VIRGINITY THAT WAS BEWAILED (vv. 36-40).
A. But how was she offered? The matter is much debated. Some say that she was offered as a literal burnt offering. They would point back to the story of Abraham’s offering of Isaac as an example (Genesis 22). But Abraham’s act was commanded by God—not as a result of a vow; and it was stopped before Isaac could be slain. Surely Jephthah would have known that he could not sin against God and slay his daughter. Micah 6:7 asks, “Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”—with the clear implication that no such offering would ever be accepted. Instead, it seems most sensible to see this as a figurative “burnt offering”—an offering of full dedication, as a burnt offering would be; but without the literal full consumption by fire. It seems instead to see this best as a full dedication of Jephthah’s daughter—with the full loss of Jephthah’s future of a family line. His daughter was in full and faithful submission with reverence toward God: “So she said to him, “My father, if you have given your word to the Lord, do to me according to what has gone out of your mouth, because the Lord has avenged you of your enemies, the people of Ammon” (v. 36). She would be the sacrifice Jephthah had pledged—with her own future as a wife and a mother and a bearer of Jephthah’s offspring as the offering to be made.
B. That this was a figurative offering of Jephthah’s own future is further implied by the request of his daughter: “Then she said to her father, ‘Let this thing be done for me: let me alone for two months, that I may go and wander on the mountains and bewail my virginity, my friends and I.’ So he said, ‘Go.’ And he sent her away for two months; and she went with her friends, and bewailed her virginity on the mountains” (vv. 37-38). To “bewail her virginity” meant that she and her companions spent two months of mourning over the fact that she would never experience the joy of being a wife or a mother. She would be devoted—life-long—to the Lord in celibacy and childlessness. This would be a great loss to her; and perhaps an even greater loss to her father. “And it was so at the end of two months that she returned to her father, and he carried out his vow with her which he had vowed. She knew no man. And it became a custom in Israel that the daughters of Israel went four days each year to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite” (vv. 39-40).
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Psalm 15:4 says that God honors the man who so fears Him that he “swears to his own hurt and does not change”. God takes the promises we make to Him very seriously. May He help us to never make rash vows.