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In Judges chapter 11, there's a dark story about Jephthah who offered his daughter to God as a burnt offering. Or did he really do that? There might be another way to interpret that story when we understand the text.
This is When We Understand The Text, a daily Bible commentary to help encourage your time in the Word. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday we feature New Testament Study, an Old Testament book on Thursday, and our Q &A on Friday.
Now here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky.
And greetings, everybody. Welcome to Thursday as we continue our Old Testament study in the book of Judges. Open your Bible to Judges chapters 10, 11, and 12. We'll be reading mostly about a judge named Jephthah and a story of his often made out to be a little more cruel than it probably actually was.
But we'll talk about that when we get to chapter 11. Let's first look at a couple of judges at the beginning of 10 here that are covered in just the first five verses. If you'll remember back to last week, we talked about Abimelech who was a son of Gideon.
Abimelech was not actually a judge. He was a king of the Shechemites and a wicked king at that. Chapter 9 is a pretty dark chapter in the book of Judges, which is saying a lot because Judges itself is a pretty dark book.
But then after Abimelech, there arose to save Israel Tola the son of Pewah, son of Dodo, a man of Issachar. Yep, Dodo happens to be a Hebrew name. And he lived at Shamir in the hill country of Ephraim.
And he judged Israel for years. Then he died and he was buried at Shamir. After him arose Jireh the Gileadite who judged for 22 years. And he had 30 sons and rode on 30 donkeys and he had 30 cities called Havath Jireh to this day, which are in the land of Gilead.
And Jireh died and was buried in. Come on, come on. And then the people of Israel again did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. And they served the Baals and the Ashtoreth, the gods of Syria, the gods of Sidon, the gods of Moab, the gods of the Ammonites, the gods of the Philistines, whatever God was out there in the land of Canaan, if Israel could worship it, they would.
And they forsook the Lord and did not serve him. So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel and he sold them into the hand of the Philistines and into the hand of the Ammonites. And they crushed and oppressed the people of Israel that year.
For 18 years, they oppressed all the people of Israel who were beyond the Jordan in the land of the Amorites, which is in Gilead. And the Ammonites crossed the Jordan to fight also against Judah and against Benjamin and against the house of Ephraim so that Israel was severely distressed.
And the people of Israel cried out to the Lord saying, we have sinned against you because we have forsaken our God and have served the Baals. This is familiar, right? Familiar pattern that we've seen throughout the book of Judges.
But look at how the Lord responds to them this time. The Lord said to the people of Israel, did I not save you from the Egyptians and from the Amorites, from the Ammonites and from the Philistines, the Sidonians also and the Amalekites and the Mayonites oppressed you and you cried out to me and I saved you out of their hand.
Yet you have forsaken me and have served other gods. These people whom God had delivered them from now, they were worshiping their gods. I mean, how twisted is that? Therefore, I will save you no more, God said.
Go and cry out to their gods whom you have chosen and let them save you in the time of your distress. The people of Israel said to the Lord, we have sinned due to us. Whatever seems good to you, only please deliver us this day.
So they put away the foreign gods from among them and serve the Lord. And he became impatient over the misery of Israel. Let me show you something else here before we continue in the book of Judges. Go to Second Corinthians, chapter two, Second Corinthians, chapter two.
The apostle Paul is talking to the Corinthians, of course, being Second Corinthians. This is after First Corinthians, when Paul wrote to them, rebuking them for some of the behaviors that were going on in that church, the kinds of behaviors that should not be demonstrated by the church of Jesus Christ.
And so Paul rebuked them. And this letter is a follow up to that one. The Corinthians were grieved. They repented of their sin. And so now Paul is appreciative of the Corinthians because what they experienced was a godly kind of grief.
In chapter two, he talks about some of those individuals that might have been mentioned in that first letter who were grieved over their sin. And Paul said, if anyone has caused pain, he has caused it not to me, but in some measure, not to put it too severely to all of you.
For such a one, this punishment by the majority is enough. So you should rather turn to forgive and comfort him or he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. That's in Second Corinthians, two, seven. So here the way the Lord has responded to the Israelites in the book of Judges, they cried out to him for mercy, but he said, no, I'm not going to I'm not going to help you this time.
You go, you go and ask those gods of the people whom I have delivered into your hand. And yet you started worshiping their gods. If you think they're so great, you ask those gods for deliverance. And so then the people cried out to the Lord again.
No, no, no, no. Deal with us how you will. But please deliver us from our distress. And so the Lord wanted them to experience the remorse that they felt. But then he he relieved them. He gave them deliverance through a judge named Jeff, though we're going to read about here in just a moment.
So he forgave them and comforted them so that they would not be overwhelmed with excessive sorrow. In chapter seven, the apostle Paul said, for even if I made you grieve with my letter, I do not regret it, though I did regret it.
For I see that that letter grieved you, though only for a while as it is. I rejoice not because you were grieved, but because you were grieved into repenting for you felt a godly grief that you suffered no loss through us.
So the kind of grief that we should experience is the kind of grief that leads to repentance. There is an ungodly kind of grief, a worldly grief, which Paul goes on to talk about there in Second Corinthians, chapter seven.
And that is a grief that leads to death. But this is a grief for the Israelites that, as far as we know in this story, had led them to true repentance. And God sent to them once again a judge who would deliver them from the hands of their enemies there.
Let's continue on into Judges chapter 10, verse 17. Then the Ammonites were called to arms and they encamped in Gilead. And the people of Israel came together and they encamped at Mizpah and the people, the leaders of Gilead said to one another, who is the man who will begin to fight against the Ammonites?
He shall be head over all the inhabitants of Gilead. So here we read about him in chapter 11. Now, Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty warrior, but he was the son of a prostitute. Gilead was the father of Jephthah and Gilead's wife also bore him sons.
And when his wife's sons grew up, they drove Jephthah out and said to him, you shall not have an inheritance in our father's house, for you are the son of another woman. Then Jephthah fled from his brothers and lived in the land of Tob and worthless fellows collected around Jephthah and went out with him.
After a time, the Ammonites made war against Israel. And when the Ammonites made war against Israel, the elders of Gilead went to bring Jephthah from the city of Tob. And they said to Jephthah, come and be our leader, that we may fight against the Ammonites.
But Jephthah said to the elders of Gilead, did you not hate me and drive me out of my father's house? Why have you come to me now when you are in distress? And the elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, that is why we have turned to you now that you may go with us and fight against the Ammonites and be our head over all the inhabitants of Gilead.
And Jephthah said to the elders of Gilead, if you bring me home again to fight against the Ammonites and the Lord gives them over to me, I will be your head. And the elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, the Lord will be witness between us if we do not do as you say.
So Jephthah went with the elders of Gilead and the people made him head and leader over them. And Jephthah spoke all the words before the Lord at Mizpah. So then Jephthah has an exchange with the king of the Ammonites and he kind of recalls some of the history of Israel and how God had delivered their enemies into their hands.
Jephthah is kind of issuing this as some kind of a threat, kind of like, hey, if you want to come against us again, I can promise you it's not going to not going to go for you any better than it did for those who went against us 300 years ago.
But then in chapter 29, Jephthah makes a vow with the Lord so that his enemies would be turned over into his hands. And it was a vow that was made very hastily. But the way that we talk about this vow and the way we kind of conclude the events as they happen, we probably talk about it a little more severely than how these events actually went.
And we'll talk about that as we go here. So Judges chapter 11, verse 29. Then the spirit of the Lord was upon Jephthah and he passed through Gilead and Manasseh and passed on to Mizpah of Gilead and from Mizpah of Gilead he passed on to the Ammonites.
And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord and said, if you will give the Ammonites into my hand, then whatever comes out from the doors of my house to meet me when I return in peace from the Ammonites shall be the Lord's and I will offer it up for a burnt offering.
So Jephthah crossed over to the Ammonites to fight against them and the Lord gave them into his hand and he struck them from Arur to the neighborhood of Minas, 20 cities and as far as Abel-Kerimim with a great blow.
So the Ammonites were subdued before the people of Israel. That's quite a victory. Then Jephthah came to his home at Mizpah and behold, his daughter came out to meet him with tambourines and with dances.
She was his only child. Besides her, he had neither son nor daughter. And as soon as he saw her, he tore his clothes and he said, Alas, my daughter, you have brought me very low and you have become the cause of great trouble to me, for I have opened my mouth to the Lord and I cannot take back my vow.
And she said to him, my father, you have opened your mouth to the Lord due to me according to what has gone out of your mouth. Now that the Lord has avenged you on your enemies, on the Ammonites. So she said to her father, let this thing be done for me.
Leave me alone for two months that I may go up and down on the mountains and weep for my virginity, I and my companions. So he said, go. Then he sent her away for two months and she departed, she and her companions, and they wept for her and for her virginity on the mountains.
And at the end of two months, she returned to her father, who did with her according to his vow that he had made. She had never known a man and it became a custom in Israel that the daughters of Israel went year by year to lament the daughter of Jephthah, the Gileadite, four days in the year.
Now, here's how this story often goes. We read Jephthah's tragic vow in Judges chapter 11, verses 29 through 40. And what we conclude, this is typically how this goes. What we conclude is that Jephthah sacrificed his daughter as a burnt offering.
I want to offer to you that that is not how this story went. And here are the key things to look at to see. This is not what it was that Jephthah did with his daughter. He did not offer her on an altar before God and burn her as a sacrifice.
That is not how this story concludes. First of all, here's how the story begins. Verse 29, the spirit of the Lord was upon Jephthah. If the spirit of the Lord was upon Jephthah, he was not about to do something that God had previously said in the law was an abomination to him.
And such a person who did such a thing would be cut off from the inheritance of Israel. God says in the book of Deuteronomy, when you come into the land that the Lord, your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations.
There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering. Anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens or a sorcerer or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead.
For whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord. So, again, if the spirit of God was with Jephthah, he was not going to do something that was an abomination to God. The Holman Christian Standards Study Bible, when you read in the HCSB this story in Judges chapter 11, it says that Jephthah likely had confused his God with the Canaanite gods.
And so that's why the customs, the practices of the Canaanite gods, which include child sacrifice. And so that's why he offered his daughter to the Lord. I think that's totally wrong. That is a wrong summary of our understanding of this particular story.
Jephthah did not offer his daughter as a sacrifice or as a burnt offering anyway, because not only is it said here of Jephthah that the spirit of the Lord was with him, but also in Hebrews chapter 11, he's listed as one of the heroes of the faith.
So there's no way that he would have been considered that way if he had done something as abominable as sacrificing one of his children as a burnt offering to the Lord. So then what did happen to Jephthah's daughter?
Because here we read that Jephthah's vow with the Lord was that whatever came through his house, through the door of his house, he would offer as a burnt offering. So if he's following through with his vow to God, wouldn't that mean that he had offered his daughter as a burnt offering?
No, I believe that he had offered his daughter to the Lord as a celibate offering, as somebody who would pledge their entire lives to God. And so therefore they would be celibate, probably undertaking the Nazarite vow that's talked about in Numbers chapter six.
And it says there that a man or a woman can take the Nazarite vow. So in keeping with this vow that Jephthah had made to God, his daughter became somebody who was devoted entirely to the Lord and never got married and never had children because what she is mourning throughout her period of mourning is her virginity, not her life.
And Jephthah likewise mourns because his daughter is not going to be able to get married and carry on his line. It is very clear here, it states very clearly that his daughter is his only offspring. He has no son and no other daughter.
And so he's expecting to be able to give his daughter in marriage and then his line would be carried on through that young man with his daughter. And since that's not going to happen, then Jephthah is not going to be able to have any other offspring.
So he mourns, he's feeling brought low, and his daughter goes with her friends out to the mountains and they go up and down the mountains and they mourn her virginity. And then it says that to this day, there is a time of mourning, four days of mourning that is known in Israel where the daughters of Israel would go year by year to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite because she was a virgin and she never knew what it was like to be a wife or a mother.
So likely she became sort of this representative for the Israelite women who also would never get married and never would know what it was like to have children and they would be barren for their entire lives.
They would remember Jephthah's daughter in this way, not that she was offered on some altar as a sacrifice, which would be greatly worse than never having had children her entire life. It'd be worse to be burned on an altar.
That's not what it is that they mourn. What they mourn is the fact that she never got the chance to be a wife and a mother. And there are other women in the Bible who probably never had the chance to experience that.
Yet it's Jephthah's daughter that gets singled out and it's because she was turned over as an offering to the Lord. Somebody would commit her entire life to God in holiness in such a way that she would never know a man and never know what it was like to have children.
So that's what happened with Jephthah's daughter. Having said that, though, it was still a foolish vow. As Jesus says in Matthew chapter five, you have heard it said to those of old, you shall not swear falsely but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.
But I say to you, do not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God or by the earth, for it is his footstool or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great king. And do not take an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black.
Let what you say simply be yes or no. Anything more than this comes from evil. It's evil for us to think that we have control over the heavens or the earth or the city of the great king. Rather, let your yes be yes and your no be no.
And that's what Jephthah should have done. There was no reason for him to make his silly vow because the spirit of the Lord was with him. That's another reason why we read that in verse twenty nine. There was no reason for Jephthah to have to make any kind of vow because God would have given him victory anyway.
And so he made this foolish vow that resulted in the end of his lineage and he would no longer have any children that would carry on his name. In chapter twelve, we read about Jephthah's conflict with Ephraim.
The men of Ephraim were called to arms and they crossed to Zaphon and said to Jephthah, why did you cross over to fight against the Ammonites and did not call us to go with you? We will burn your house over you with fire.
And Jephthah said to them, I and my people dispute with the Ammonites. And when I called you, you did not save me from their hand. And when I saw that you would not save me, I took my life in my hand and crossed over against the Ammonites and the Lord gave them into my hand.
Why then have you come up to me this day to fight against me? Then Jephthah gathered all the men of Gilead and fought with Ephraim and the men of Gilead struck Ephraim because they said you are fugitives of Ephraim, you Gileadites in the midst of Ephraim and Manasseh.
And the Gileadites captured the fords of the Jordan against the Ephraimites. And when any of the fugitives of Ephraim said, let me go over, the men of Gilead said to him, are you an Ephraimite? And he would say no.
And they would say to him, then say Shibboleth. And he and he said Shibboleth, for he could not pronounce it right because they were from a different area. They had, you know, sort of a different accent and they were not being they were not able to fake the way that they said Shibboleth.
So then they seized him and slaughtered him at the fords of the Jordan at the and at that time, 42 ,000 of the Ephraimites fell and Jephthah judged Israel for six years. Then Jephthah the Gileadite died and was buried in his city and in Gilead.
So here we have kind of a period of civil unrest amongst Israel where the people of Israel are fighting against the people of Israel. And darkness continues in the hearts of the Israelites during this period of the judges.
We finish up Judges chapter 12 after him. Ibzan of Bethlehem judged Israel. He had 30 sons and 30 daughters, which he gave in marriage outside his clan and 30 daughters he brought in from outside for his sons.
And he judged Israel seven years. Then Ibzan died and he was buried at Bethlehem after him. Elan the Zebulunite judged Israel and he judged Israel for 10 years. Then Elan the Zebulunite died and he was buried at Ajelon in the in the land of Zebulun.
After him, Abdan the son of Hillel the Pirithonite judged Israel. He had 40 sons and 30 grandsons who rode on 70 donkeys and he judged Israel for eight years. Then Abdan the son of Hillel the Pirithonite died and he was buried at Pirithon in the land of Ephraim in the hill country of the Amalekites.
Thus, we come to the end of chapter 12 and on the verge of the final judge that we will be reading about, and that is Samson. And we'll pick up the story of Samson next week. Our Lord God, as we wrap up this study of the book of Judges today, I pray that we would not only see the failure of the Israelites and thus not repeat their sins, placing something in our lives of greater importance than God and thus make of that thing an idol.
But we also see in this book your great love and mercy that you had for your people, though what they deserved was to be wiped out and driven from the land. Yet you continue to show them their grace. It was even gracious of you that they would experience a period of mourning so that they would cry out to you all the more and their repentance might be genuine.
Lord, I pray that of each one of us when we experience that conviction in our heart and we pray and ask you for deliverance, that the request that our repentance would be genuine, that it wouldn't be false and that it wouldn't come with these ridiculous vows or these bargains that we might make with God.
God, if you deliver me from this, then I will do this for you. But we simply let our yes be yes and our no be no. We ask you for forgiveness from our sins. And we know as it says in 1 John 1, 9 that if we're faithful to ask forgiveness for our sins, you are faithful and just to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Let that be our assurance in the work of Christ. Not in any work of ours or any vow that we can make, but the covenant that we have with God through Jesus Christ, our Lord. That is our faith. That is our assurance.
And we pray and ask this in the name of Jesus. Amen.
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