When we concluded yesterday's study we found the king of Ammon refusing to listen to reason. He's still insisting that the Israelites stole the land between the Arnon River and the Jabbok River from the Ammonites. We talked about how the land in question was taken from the Ammonites long ago by the Amorites and that, when the Amorites treated the Israelites cruelly after they came out of Egypt, the Lord gave this land into the hands of the Israelites in battle. They are not obligated to return the land to the Ammonites nor do they intend to. The Israelites have occupied the region for over three hundred years now and it was not until the current king came to the throne that anyone tried to accuse the Israelites of occupying something that isn't theirs. But because this king wants war he will get war.
"Then the Spirit of the Lord came on Jephthah. He crossed Gilead and Manasseh, passed through Mizpah of Gilead, and from there he advanced against the Ammonites." (Judges 11:29) Like Gideon, who also went forth in the Spirit of the Lord, Jephthah is doing this great work with the help of the Lord. He could not have done it without the help of the Lord.
But Jephthah makes a promise to the Lord that the Lord didn't ask or want him to make. In his zeal for the Lord, and in his heightened emotional state, Jephthah rashly makes a foolish vow in return for the Lord giving him success. We have not found the Lord saying to him, "I'll go with you into battle and give you victory if you'll do something for me in return." The Lord doesn't need something from Jephthah in order to deliver Israel. If the Lord wants anything in return for this victory it would be that the people of Israel would fully commit their hearts to Him and keep their hearts fully committed to Him. He loves them and wants the best for them; what's best for them is that they would be faithful to the One who created them. What does Jephthah promise to do for the Lord? "And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord: 'If You will give the Ammonites into my hands, whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites is the Lord's, and I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering.'" (Judges 11:30-31) Jephthah will come to regret these words.
The Lord is going to give Israel the victory but not because Jephthah made this promise. In Chapter 10 we were told that the people repented of their idolatry when they realized their terrible living conditions under Ammonite oppression was a result of their sin. They repented and cast their idols aside and as soon as they did that the Lord was ready to move on their behalf. He could not relieve their oppression until they repented (because He had allowed this hardship for the purpose of repentance) but just as soon as they turned from their idols we were told, "He could bear Israel's misery no longer". He had been eagerly awaiting the day when they would turn back to Him so He could do them good. So Jephthah's promise has nothing to do with the Lord's intention to deliver Israel from the Ammonites. He was already determined to deliver Israel and He could just as easily have used any other man to lead Israel's army. It did not have to be Jephthah; it could have been any man willing to be used of the Lord in this endeavor. And victory certainly did not depend on the making or the fulfilling of a promise like Jephthah made. We will look at this promise in just a moment but first we are told of Jephthah's victorious campaign.
"Then Jephthah went over to fight the Ammonites, and the Lord gave them into his hands. He devastated twenty towns from Aroer to the vicinity of Minnith, as far as Abel Keramim. Thus Israel subdued Ammon." (Judges 11:32-33) The soldiers of Israel return home to their families in triumph. Jepthah also returns home, intending to fulfill his vow to the Lord with the first thing that comes out of his house. In those days it was common for smaller farm animals to go in and out of the open doors of houses or tents. A person might also bring animals into the structure during times of very bad weather or for other purposes of protection. No doubt Jephthah expects one of his farm animals to be the first thing he sees when he approaches his house. But that's not what happens. "When Jephthah returned to his home in Mizpah, who should come out to meet him but his daughter, dancing to the sound of timbrels! She was an only child. Except for her he had no son or daughter." (Judges 11:34)
Alright, so here is where a great misunderstanding has taken place. Jephthah's vow is often translated as him saying he would offer up as a whole burnt offering whatever came out his door to meet him. In the original language the phrase he uses can also mean he will "consecrate" to the Lord whatever comes out his door. Someone or something who has been consecrated has been "set apart for the Lord, anointed, dedicated, ordained, or sanctified", according to an online definition. There are a number of times in the Bible when we'll find the people sanctifying themselves (consecrating themselves) before a particular event, such as for an upcoming battle or before the Lord addresses the assembly. I don't believe for a minute that Jephthah killed his daughter and burned her on an altar; most mainstream Christian scholars do not believe that either. That would be in direct opposition to laws the Lord provided in Leviticus and Deuteronomy regarding such practices. The Lord forbade the Israelites to offer up their sons or daughters as burnt offerings. This was something the heathens did; it was not something the Lord ever wanted or approved of. As He will later remind the people through the prophet Jeremiah, human sacrifice is "something I did not command or mention, nor did it enter My mind". (Jeremiah 19:5b)
If one of his farm animals had come out the door to greet him, Jephthah likely would have sacrificed it to the Lord, but he does not sacrifice his daughter to the Lord. He consecrates her to the Lord. Something which is consecrated to the Lord is set aside for His service. (Later in the Old Testament we'll find Hannah, the mother of Samuel, doing a similar thing when she promises the Lord if He will give her a son she will "give him to the Lord all the days of his life". Hannah keeps this promise with her firstborn son, taking him to live at the tabernacle after she has weaned him, where he is raised in the care of the high priest.) Jephthah is setting aside his daughter for the Lord's service, not sacrificing her. If Jephthah had disobeyed the Lord and committed the most heinous of practices by killing his daughter and burning her on the fire, we could hardly expect to find his name in the "Hebrews Hall of Faith" in Hebrews 11:32. His name would have gone down in shame instead.
As we take a look at the remainder of this segment it becomes quite clear what is happening in our passage. "When he saw her, he tore his clothes and cried, 'Oh no, my daughter! You have brought me down and I am devastated. I have made a vow to the Lord that I cannot break.' 'My father,' she replied, 'you have given your word to the Lord. Do to me just as you promised, now that the Lord has avenged you of your enemies, the Ammonites. But grant me this one request,' she said. 'Give me two months to roam the hills and weep with my friends, because I will never marry.'" (Judges 11:35-37) His daughter receives the news and accepts it stoically. The reason for that is revealed in what she says to her father. She does not say, "Give me two more months to live! Give me two months to mourn my impending death." What she says is, "Give me two months to mourn the fact that I will never marry." Jephthah is not going to make a burnt offering of his daughter. He's going to devote his living daughter to the Lord. She will not marry and bear children but instead will enter the service of the Lord at the tabernacle. Ladies who enter this type of service are probably those who are referenced in Exodus 38:8 and in 1 Samuel 2:22 as "the women who served at the entrance to the tent of meeting". Jephthah's daughter will live a celibate life and we might compare this to the more modern practice in the Catholic church of a young woman entering the convent to become a nun. If Jephthah had truly been telling his daughter he was going to sacrifice her, her response would not have been to bewail the fact that she'll never marry; her response would have been to bewail the fact that she's about to lose her life.
Jephthah grants her request to delay her entry into the service of the Lord for two months. "'You may go,' he said. And he let her go for two months. She and her friends went into the hills and wept because she would never marry." (Judges 11:38) I don't know whether girls and young women in ancient Israel thought about marriage the way they do in modern times. Meeting a man and falling in love and getting married is something many girls and young women enjoy thinking about and looking forward to. Jephthah's daughter knows she will never have that experience. Even though her father would likely have chosen her husband, and even though she might or might not have ever fallen in love with her husband, she knows that in being deprived of marriage she will be deprived of bearing children. Being a mother and carrying on the family line, in her day, was considered the most important thing a woman could do. Childless women were pitied.
Jephthah's daughter mourns with her friends and Jephthah mourns too, I am sure. He mourns because his unwise promise has changed his daughter's dreams and goals for her life. It has changed his dreams and goals for her life and for the future of his family because, since she is his only child, he will never have grandchildren. His branch of the family tree will die when his daughter passes away. Jephthah does not kill his daughter but he kills his family line. She agrees to do what he has vowed out of respect for the Lord as well as respect for her father, for she said to Jephthah, "You have given your word to the Lord." She takes a vow to the Lord very seriously.
"After the two months, she returned to her father, and he did to her as he had vowed. And she was a virgin." (Judges 11:39a) She remained an unmarried virgin for the rest of her life, serving the Lord at His tabernacle. It is believed by many scholars that the women who served at the tabernacle (and later at the temple and at the church of Christ) were usually older widows, not young ladies who had never been wives and mothers. The Apostle Paul spoke on this subject in his letter to Timothy who was a church pastor, saying that he should not allow widows under the age of sixty to fill this type of role at the church. He said the younger widows would probably want to remarry and would go back on their vows to the Lord and leave His service in order to get married again. Timothy was to kindly refuse these roles at the church to younger widows in the first place, telling them to remarry and concentrate on being wives and mothers.
"From this comes the Israelite tradition that each year the young women of Israel go out for four days to commemorate the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite." (Judges 11:39b-40) If you do any background study on this you'll find that the theory that Jephthah did not kill his daughter is mainly a Christian theory and not even a theory of all Christian preachers and teachers. But in all good conscience and with much thought on the matter I feel it is the theory that best suits the character of the Lord. Nowhere in the Bible do we find the Lord approving human sacrifice. In fact, He treats it as an abomination of the worst kind. What Jephthah did was consecrate his daughter to the Lord, not in sacrifice but in service. In doing so he cut off any hope of descendants and any hope that the Messiah could come from any direct descendant of his. We know that it was the Lord's will to bring the Messiah from the line of Judah, but this does not preclude the possibility of a descendant of Jephthah marrying into the tribe of Judah and becoming an ancestor of the Messiah. But now, with his only living child devoting a life of celibacy and service to the Lord, Jephthah cannot even speculate on such a thing because it can never come to pass.
No vow of any kind should ever be made lightly. Vows should never be made while in the throes of an emotional high or an emotional low. They should be entered into thoughtfully and prayerfully. If Jephthah had thoughtfully and prayerfully considered how he could show his thanks to the Lord for victory, the Lord would not have told him to make such an unwise promise. The best way Jephthah could have shown thanks to the Lord would probably have been to set a godly example for his family, his community, and his nation. It would have been to steadfastly seek the Lord's will in all things and obey the Lord's words. It would have been to demonstrate a sober and thoughtful attitude instead of a reckless and impulsive attitude. We would do well to take his mistake to heart and stop to think and pray before binding ourselves by promises we either cannot keep or will not want to keep.
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