Judges 11 & 12 Bible Study / Podcast

This morning we're going to be looking at the story of Jephthah. This is Judges chapters 11 and 12

So if you have a Bible on hand go ahead and turn there these chapters Judges 11 and 12 are known basically for two things number one

Jephthah's rash vow That's chapter 11 because depending on how you understand this story.

This is potentially one of the most disturbing Passages in all of the

Bible. I actually don't think it's as bad as it sounds, but we'll get into that and the second thing this

Passage chapter 12 is known for is the code word shibboleth Maybe you have heard people say something about shibboleth and maybe you know what that means

Maybe you don't but that's found in chapter 12 But this is one of those terms from the

Bible that people use in the broader culture and most people are probably unaware Where it came from there's a lot of things that people say just Phrases idioms right that people say that come from the

Bible and they're not aware of it I just found out I never knew this when people say, you know, you're getting by by the skin of your teeth

That's actually from the book of Job You know, I'm aware of things like, you know a drop in the bucket and you know

He saw the handwriting on the wall those things come from the Bible. But yeah the skin of your teeth I learned that one this week, but there's a lot of things that come from the scripture

That are used in the culture and this is one of them shibboleth So we'll look at what that means.

But let's start reading. We're going to be looking at judges chapter 11 first this is the story of The judge named

Jephthah, let's begin reading judges chapter 11 verses 1 through 6

Says now Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty man of valor But he was the son of a harlot and Gilead begot

Jephthah Gilead's wife bore sons and when his wife's sons grew up They drove

Jephthah out and said to him you shall have no inheritance in our father's house

For you are the son of another woman then Jephthah fled from his brothers and dwelt in the land of Tob or Tob and Worthless men banded together with Jephthah and went out raiding with him and it came to pass

After a time that the people of Ammon made war against Israel And so it was when the people of Ammon made war against Israel that the elders of Gilead went to get

Jephthah from the land of Tob and they said to Jephthah come and be our commander that we might fight against the people of Ammon Okay, so who is

Jephthah the scripture? Obviously, he's one of the judges but the scripture calls him a mighty man of valor and we've seen that phrase used already for Gideon Gideon was called the mighty man of valor.

So basically Jephthah is a skilled warrior But you see right away That although that's a positive statement.

The scripture doesn't exactly paint Jephthah in a positive light He's the son of a harlot and therefore an outcast in his family

Of course that's not really his fault and the scripture says that a Son is not to be punished for the for the sins of his father.

So that's not That's not Jephthah's fault But he does appear to have honed his skills on the battlefield by being a commander over Sort of a ragtag group of soldiers that the scripture calls worthless men

If you've been following our study a few weeks ago We saw that worthless men is also translated vain and light persons

So these are not exactly a bunch of great guys that Jephthah is leading which sort of casts some shade on his character

But either way Jephthah is a mighty warrior and him and his band of raiders

They make a living by raiding villages and taking the plunder. That doesn't sound very good either but Based on how the

Gileadites the elders Are willing to accept Jephthah as their commander later on That tells you something that Jephthah was not a warlord.

These men were not Criminals in the sense that they're raiding Israelite villages. They would have been raiding

Canaanite villages and of course the Canaanites or the Ammonites the Jebusite all these other groups

They were the enemies of Israel. So Jephthah in his little army They're not exactly a respectable group of characters

But they're not traitors They're not exactly criminals either, but they're not somebody that you would want

Jephthah is not a guy normally you would want leading the nation, but you know, this is the time period of the judges

There's like a downgrade the ongoing in the book of Judges and things just kind of get worse and worse

These are dark times. So desperate times call for desperate measures Jephthah had such a reputation as a warrior

The Israelites figure hey, you know, normally we wouldn't choose this guy, but he's such a great warrior

He's the man for the job. So they ask him to be their commander and he

Accepts and then he goes out to fight Israel's main enemy which at this point is the people of Ammon We've seen different different groups have opposed

Israel, you know the Philistines the Moabites But this time it's the people of Ammon. So who are they the

Ammonites were descended from Lot? Lot of course is the nephew of Abraham Lot's daughter gave birth to a child named

Moab The Ammonites descend from his son So yeah, they are relatives

In in a sense, you know, they're distant cousins so to speak but that really doesn't matter so much time has gone by besides the

Lord has promised the land to Abraham and to his son Isaac and then to Jacob and Jacob as You probably know had his name changed to Israel So the twelve sons of Israel became the heads of the twelve tribes point is the land belongs to them

So the Ammonites are to be driven out. They are the enemies of Israel distant relation or not.

It makes no difference at this point and besides the Israelites and Battling each other.

We're gonna we're gonna see that by the end of this study and that's unfortunate, but the the thing is

Jephthah he starts out despised by his brethren, but to defeat a common enemy

Jephthah's enemies Amongst his own people they are willing to accept him and appoint him as their commander

So Jephthah then sends a message to speak to the people of Ammon Diplomacy does not work

Therefore Jephthah now has to go to war But remember the battles that he has fought up until this point.

He's raiding villages So all the warfare that Jephthah has seen at this point is on a small scale

This new battle this would be by far the biggest challenge that he would face so He's not exactly confident, which is why he seeks the

Lord's help and that's where he makes his rash vow or you just might call it a a

This is this is just a dumb thing to do But let's look at verse 29.

God is with Jephthah It should be pointed out verse 29 says 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 So when it says that the spirit of the

Lord came upon Jephthah What does that mean it means that the

Holy Spirit has come upon him with power the Holy Spirit is strengthening

Jephthah the Holy Spirit has empowered him now for the work of ministry

Now I know someone to say well wait ministry. This is this is warfare. How is this ministry?

Well the word ministry simply means service Today we think of the gospel, you know

Christians hear the word ministry They think of the gospel ministry or ministries of mercy, but the word historically has been used for any type of service

So we have the Pentagon and the Department of Defense, but it's not uncommon

For a nation to call that the Ministry of Defense So the church is defined in the

New Testament as a spiritual nation but back back in Old Testament times Israel is a physical nation therefore the the ministers the servants of the physical nation sometimes had to engage in Warfare and of course, that's what

Jephthah does and the Lord is with him Not because he is the most righteous man around because he isn't

Or because he was born to the best family we see that's not the case

But because the Lord is sovereign and he chooses whoever he wishes

God chose Jephthah and presumably the Lord sees something in Jephthah that he could use

So Jephthah has his flaws and that comes out very clearly here in verse 30

It says in Jephthah made a vow to the Lord and he said Lord 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.

So what is he saying Lord? If you give me the victory when I go home the first thing out my front door,

I'll sacrifice it to you as a burnt Sacrifice. Okay. So this is obviously a very foolish thing to do

Because if an Israelite took an oath before God it could not be broken So clearly just because God is with someone just because the

Holy Spirit comes upon them. That does not prevent them from doing Dumb things it doesn't prevent them from doing sinful things.

I mean Just take the church today. I mean there are all sorts of people that are Indwelt by the

Holy Spirit doesn't mean you're automatically gonna say and do everything, right? There are people that are filled with the

Spirit But they're not filled with the Spirit a hundred percent of the time and sometimes people do the wrong thing

Same thing with the judges. They were flawed men. So Jephthah makes this vow and You know just because he does it just because we're reading this in the scripture doesn't mean that God necessarily

Approved of what he did. It's it's remember we've talked about this What's descriptive versus what's prescriptive sometimes the

Bible Says, you know thou shalt not kill thou shalt not steal that's prescriptive.

It's telling you what to do what not to do Here that it's descriptive. It's just telling you what happened

It's not saying that God wanted him to do it or approved or disapproved. It's just telling you what's taking place so Jephthah he makes this oath and He is victorious in battle so when he goes home

Whatever the first thing to come out The front door, you know of his house that that's the thing he has to offer unto

God as a burnt sacrifice Why would he say this

You have to assume That Jephthah figures the first thing out of this door is gonna be an animal animal, right?

Like when you go home, maybe the dog Maybe the dog is always the first thing out the door to greet you

But we see in verse 34 that when Jephthah Comes home. His daughter is the first one out the door

And of course, he immediately realizes how much of a mistake this vow was so Jephthah is devastated

And if you know the story, you know That it says he carried out the oath

Which going back to what I said at the start depending on how you understand this This is potentially one of the most disturbing passages in all of the

Bible But I don't think it's as bad as it sounds and I'll give you My explanation of that So this passage

Jephthah's vow The burnt offering and keeping his vow there's basically two ways to understand this

The way it looks at first and how some people understand it is that Jephthah Actually offered his own child as a human sacrifice

That's one point of view. I Personally do not think That's what happened first of all

While that is what he pledged that's true To do such a thing in Israel would have been unthinkable

One of the reasons why the Lord wanted the Canaanites And the Ammonites and all these group wiped out is because they did things like this

So if Jephthah then does something like this, it just wouldn't make any sense

Now it's true. Obviously a vow to God was not to be broken So the other point of view the second way to interpret this

I believe Jephthah kept his vow in That he kept his daughter as a virgin

For life that he sack what he sacrificed was his daughter in the sense that She did not give him any more

Offspring or descendants which would have been a very big sacrifice You know the more children you had back then meant, you know more children more grandchildren a bigger family

That's what people wanted So I think that's what the sacrifice was and I think the text bears that out because they're really you know

There is a sense where you kind of wish that was true But you know, you don't interpret the

Bible based on what you wish that it said, right? I do think it actually does teach this

So when interpreting the Bible, what do you do you compare Scripture with Scripture? God would not have been pleased with such a offering of human sacrifice

So by not permitting his daughter to marry Jephthah's sacrifice was that his lineage would come to an end because verse 34 is careful to point out you have to pay attention to What the verses say verse 34 is very careful to point out that she was his only child in verse 36

His daughter urges him to carry out the oath which if he was going to kill her would she really be doing that and Look at verse 37.

She only has one request. She says let this thing be done for me She says let me alone for two months, you know, just give me two months that I may go and wander on the mountains

My friends and I that we may bewail my virginity So I think it's telling you right there.

The sacrifice was she she was forbidden from getting married and having children

She isn't going out with her friends to mourn that. Hey when I get back home, my dad's gonna kill me

I mean, that's not it Because verse 39 says she returned to her father and he carried out his vow with her which he vowed

And how does the Bible define that it says she knew no man?

There you go Jephthah did not offer his daughter as a burnt Sacrifice, you know, sometimes when people have a really negative view of the

Bible. It's because they Misunderstand it remember the verse that Jesus says, you know to be a thought to be my follower

You have the first you have to hate mother and father Well, gee if you take that at face value that's gonna leave a bad taste in your mouth

So there's a lot of people out there. They have a very negative view of the Bible Oftentimes it's because they don't they don't understand what's being said.

So Jephthah did not kill his daughter It says that he did carry out the vow verse 39 in That she did not know a man

And it says 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 Because a woman in Israel at this time to produce a godly offspring

That was everything to them. That's not really the way it is today That's not the way, you know modern a lot

Not all but that's not the way a lot of modern women think but back then

That's that's what it was about. So the vow point is the vow was upheld

But it was modified Jephthah's daughter would remain a virgin for life

You know, can I be dogmatic about this? No, but I'm I'm pretty certain about that If you want to disagree that's up to you, but I think the text bears that out

So Jephthah would not have any children and as the leader in Israel, you know, you would want children right

Gideon had 70 sons and Abimelech and they would You sort of pass the mantle on to them

But Jephthah would have no children So the quality of the judges if you look at it with Jephthah and his his background the son of a harlot

How he's leading this group of Soldiers that the Bible calls worthless men then once he is

Established as the leader. He does this incredibly dumb thing this rash vow.

I think what you see in the book of Judges is a Downgrade there's a downgrade going on.

The quality of the judges is getting less and less if You've been following the study from the first chapter

Or I guess it's in chapter 3 that you see the first judges Nothing negative is said about them

Gideon really was a turning point. I mean Gideon may be the most celebrated of the judges, but Gideon is where you really start seeing

Judges doing wrong things right Gideon practiced polygamy He created the ephod which

Israel later used for idolatry and Considering what his son Abimelech did after his death things in Israel are getting worse the way judges started

It wasn't that bad It wasn't that bad. The first few judges were were good.

They Got victories. They secured peace in Israel for a long long time.

Things are getting worse So the the period of the judges is looked upon as one of the darkest times in Israel's history and things are getting darker

The days of Moses there's a lot of glory in the time of Moses There is glory in the days of Joshua.

That was probably a bright spot There would be glory again during the reigns of David and Solomon But as the book of Judges tells us at the very end though the last verse of the book

What does it say in those days? There was no king in Israel and everyone did what was right in his own eyes

Things are getting worse and worse and I sort of feel like we're living in similar times

This I believe is a very dark time in our nation's history If the

Lord we're not at war officially anyways, I mean there's a proxy war you could argue with Russia through Ukraine, but Things obviously could be a lot worse

We still personally we still have it very good. But the moral state of the country and our leadership, you know if the

Lord Terry's I Think people in the future historians will look back at this time

And I'm convinced that They'll look back sort of like we do when

America practiced slavery, we kind of look back and think what I I Can't believe that this was allowed.

I think people will look back at this point in history and They'll look at it with embarrassment

For the obvious reasons right the things going on in our culture. And of course, there's a lack of good leadership

Our rulers like the judges are okay, you know, the quality of leadership is going down obviously

I Think both sides would recognize that Well, maybe not

Our rulers certainly don't speak One thing Christians can agree on our rulers certainly do not speak with a clear moral voice

We've utterly forsaken God We celebrate as a nation we celebrate the breaking of God's Commandments Even churches will hang flags out front and post flags on Facebook to celebrate what the

Bible calls sin So there's a clear downgrade in our country with the morality with our nation's leaders and there's a downgrade in the church as well

False gods are worshipped all over this land And what do Christians do Christians oftentimes will make excuses for these things

So it's pretty sorry state of affairs but even when times are rough and Things were pretty rough back in judges chapter 11 and 12

In the next chapter Israel is going to be engulfed and sort of like a civil war at least on a small scale

So things were bad back then things may be bad today, but you know, even when times are rough The Lord is still at work

God never Stops working and God never forsakes his people

Here in judges chapter 11 the fact that Jephthah is the man that God is using.

I think that says a lot. I Suppose one thing it says is that God can use just about anyone to accomplish his purposes

But clearly this is not A high point in Israelite history.

These are not the glory days and That comes out in the next chapter as well

So let's look at judges chapter 12 now Jephthah is having a conflict with the

Ephraimites who are his own countrymen I mean their fellow Israelites, right?

so if you remember the story story of Gideon something similar occurred

Gideon had also had a conflict or Narrowly avoided a conflict with the

Ephraimites Let's start reading in verse 1 of judges chapter 12 It says then the men of Ephraim gathered together crossed over towards Zaphon and said to Jephthah Why did you cross over to fight against the people of Ammon and did not call us to go with you?

This is the same thing. They said to Gideon But look at what the Ephraimites say they say to Jephthah.

We will burn down your house We will burn your house down on you with fire and Jephthah said to them

My people and I were in a great struggle with the people of Ammon and when

I called you You know, I did tell you I did call to you, but you did not deliver me out of their hands

So when I saw that you would not deliver me I took my life in my hands and crossed over against the people of Ammon and the

Lord delivered them into my hand Why then have you come up to me this day to fight against me?

Now Jephthah gathered together all the men of Gilead and fought against Ephraim Again this is

Israelite fighting Israelite and the men of Gilead defeated Ephraim because they said you

Gileadites are fugitives of Ephraim among the Ephraimites and among the

Manassites So they just flat -out insult him Then the

Gileadites seized the fords of the Jordan before the Ephraimites arrived and when any

Ephraimite who escaped Said let me cross over the men of Gilead would say to him.

Are you an Ephraimite? And he said no Then they said to him

Then say Shibboleth and he would say Sibboleth For he could not pronounce it, right

Then if that happened, they would take him and kill him at the fords of the Jordan and there fell at that time 42 ,000

Ephraimites Obviously, this is a great tragedy Israelite fighting

Israelite 42 ,000 men dead Israel has so many enemies all around them.

So it's sad to see that at times they Resort to fighting each other and isn't that the case oftentimes?

This is what the devil will do instead of fighting the real enemy. He just turns people on each other

Of course later in Israel's history this because this is happening on a small scale later in Israel's history after the reign of David Solomon takes over as king over the

United Kingdom But after Solomon dies Israel is divided by civil war into north versus south eventually the north

That was conquered by the Assyrians. Those are the ten northern tribes sometimes called the ten lost tribes of Israel those who survived

From the north many of them intermarried with the Assyrians and they became known as the

Samaritans The nation of Judah to the south they became known as the Jews and they survived a few hundred years

More than the Northern Kingdom did before they were taken into captive Taken to captivity in Babylon for 70 years the point being however

The Israelites now are turning on each other But this this is nothing new.

It's happened before and it's going to happen again on an even larger scale But as for this term because I said this is one of the things that people remember about the chapter this term shibboleth

This is one of those Words in the English language that's borrowed from the

Bible So you saw what happened the Ephraimites would come over and they would kind of test them Say shibboleth and they couldn't pronounce it.

So they say shibboleth and that's how they knew that they were from the

Tribe of Ephraim so this is one of those terms that people use today as an

Identifying word or a manner of speaking or behavior that shows someone to be part of a particular group.

That's what a shibboleth is and this got me looking into I Tried to find an example of a shibboleth today, you know today in the

United States. We call gasoline gas, right? But if you hear someone call gasoline petrol,

I Guess that means they're from Britain Great Britain, but so that's one example and I'm sure there's things that divide

You know, you can even almost tell what region a person is from based on what they call a grinder

You know, is it a submarine a hoagie a grind, you know There's stuff like that that depending on where you live you're gonna call things by a different name

But this is just the pronunciation But it got me thinking Because I don't know about you.

I find this interesting all the terms all the idioms that people use That they they don't even realize

It's from the Bible. So I Looked at some of these

Job chapter 19 verse 20 Uses that phrase by the skin of your teeth

Before yesterday, I didn't realize that came from the Bible I'm still not quite sure how it makes any sense, but it does come from the

Bible I mean, what what's the skin of your teeth? I'm not sure Seeing the handwriting on the wall that comes from the book of Daniel Isaiah 40 verse 15 says behold the nations are a drop in the bucket

Referring to something that is just insignificant Bite the dust apparently comes from Psalm 72 verse 9

Obviously, I think most people would know this The term, you know, someone is that he's a real thorn in my side

You know that comes from Paul's thorn in the flesh And obviously if you call someone a good

Samaritan that comes from Jesus's parable So there's a lot of things that come from the

Bible that are used in the culture shibboleth is from Judges chapter 12, so let's finish judges chapter 12, and we'll try to make some application and we'll close verse 7 says after that battle

With the Ephraimites it says in Jephthah judged Israel for six years then

Jephthah the Gileadite died and was buried among the cities of Gilead and Then in verses 8 through 15 three more judges are mentioned just in passing

Ibzan judges Israel for seven years Elon judges Israel for ten years and Abdon judges

Israel for eight years and nothing else is really said about Those men it's sort of like Jair if you remember

Jair in chapter 10 he had 30 sons and had a One another one of these guys had 40 sons which tells you they practice polygamy as Gideon did so these three men

Elon Ibzan and Abdon we would call them minor judges sort of like Tola and Jair in chapter 10

See everyone's heard of Samson and everyone's heard of Gideon Hardly anyone knows

Elon and Tola right and then Shamgar in chapter 3 These are minor judges and even

Jephthah Jephthah is a fairly well -known figure in The book, but really why do you know

Jephthah? What you know Jephthah? Oh, yeah, he's the guy who made that vow like this isn't really something you want to be remembered for So while two chapters is dedicated to Jephthah if you look at it

He only judged Israel for six years And we're just not seeing those statements anymore like how the book started out off Neal I think off Neal was actually a great judge

Deborah Deborah achieved peace for 40 years off Neal achieved peace for 40 years e hood

I Believe was a great judge. Nothing really bad is said about him. He achieved peace that lasted for 80 years

Jephthah reigns for six years and You're just not seeing that 40 years of peace 80 years of peace

Which further proves the theory that things are quickly deteriorating in Israel because next week who are we going to start reading about?

we're gonna read about Samson and few biblical characters Have more drama

Surrounding them than Samson. I mean say talk about making dumb decisions

Jephthah made a really dumb choice with his vow Samson at times just the things that he does.

It's just How is this the man of God like how? It doesn't even make sense.

Like remember Delilah like she's asking him, you know If I wanted to destroy you, how would

I go about doing that? Oh, well like he knows what she's doing and yet he stays with her and He sort of ends up getting caught in his own trap

So Samson goes in to see a prostitute and like again, there's a downgrade the quality of the judges

Started out good with Othniel and Ehud and Deborah things started out good but ever since Gideon Things really are on the decline so in conclusion

You know, what do we take away from this chapter these two chapters I Think this is all an object lesson

This is what happens. The Bible is showing us what happens when people decide

To do things their way instead of God's way ancient

Israel Had the Word of the Lord, but they really just were not obeying it

They believed in God they knew that he was in heaven and they spoke about him But they just seemed to be off doing their own thing

So the moral of the story is when people do what is right in their own eyes

Instead of what's right in God's eyes It turns out to be a complete disaster

So the best thing we can do is to study the Word of God study to show ourselves

Approved what does the Lord say? What does the scripture say? We should diligently look to his word studying books like judges

Along with biblical characters like Gideon and Jephthah and Samson and as we look at these men

Hopefully we will learn what to do and what not to do the scripture teaches us

What's right and what's wrong? It gives us good advice and godly advice