Jephthah’s Vow
And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord: “If you 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 will be the Lord’s, and I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering (Judges 11:30b-31).
Let’s carefully reflect on Jephthah’s tragic vow, because there are a lot of lessons to learn about faith. There are two types of Christians that scare me: those who are careless and casual about their faith - and then those who are unswervingly passionate and over-zealous: both can do great damage to themselves, to those close to them, and to their witness for Christ.
Perhaps Jephthah made his terrible vow because he had failed to hear from God. We’ve already seen that he had talked carefully to the Lord at Mizpah, but no response from God is recorded. Joshua had been reassured (Joshua 6:2; 8:1; 11:6) and Gideon had been warned (Judges 7:2), but Jephthah, as far as we know, heard nothing to reassure him or direct him. We are simply told that the Spirit came upon him, in language that reminds us of Samson’s experience. Some believe that Jephthah made his vow as an attempt to engineer a response from the God who was not speaking to him, an attempt to control God: to bind him to an outcome rather than trust even as he had been empowered by the Spirit. And in doing so, he showed that he didn't really believe all that he said that he believed. He had challenged the Ammonites to let Yahweh, “the Judge, decide… between the people of Israel and the people of Ammon” (v. 27). On the one hand, Jephthah insists that God will be the judge in these matters - and then he enters into a rash vow to try to influence the outcome.
Speaking frankly, sometimes I find what seems to be a general reluctance by God to speak difficult to deal with. And there are extended seasons when he seems to be utterly silent. I worry about those who apparently hear from him many times each day.
Perhaps God isn’t saying much to you at the moment. And it might be that you’ve never had a sense of him speaking, either in an audible voice or in a nudge that made sense. In the silence, don’t panic, as Jephthah apparently did: carry on.
Jephthah’s vow was so obviously wrong, not only for the reasons we’ve already considered, but because human sacrifice was expressly condemned by God. He offered to God that which God not only didn’t require, but clearly prohibited. Human sacrifice was practiced by the Canaanites, and so God condemned it in the giving of the law (Lev. 18:21; 20:2). The laws frequently refer to the Canaanite custom of burning “their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods” (Deut. 12:31; 18:9, 10). And the prophet Micah spoke of giving “the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul” (Mic. 6:7) as a mistaken popular idea of “what is good.” Jeremiah and Ezekiel roundly condemned child sacrifice. So Jephthah’s vow was absolutely wrong at every level: in its conception, and in its fulfilment. Having made the vow that was actually a pledge to disobedience and murder, Jephthah should have realised his error and spared his daughter. Notice the Israelite commemoration is in memory of Jephthah’s courageous daughter, and not of Jephthah himself. It’s sad that no-one sought to intervene to prevent the terrible vow from being fulfilled, and somewhat confusing that God himself didn’t stay Jephthah’s hand either, as he had done in the case of Abraham and Isaac.
Terrible things have been done in the name of God, either by people who were ignorant of his word, or because they twisted or misunderstood his word. All of this should make us more determined than ever not only to know the bible, but to understand it, wrestle with its complexities, and seek to never misuse or misapply it.
We’ve seen that Jephthah was obviously doing what God never commanded, and actually prohibited. A commitment to one biblical idea - the fulfilment of vows - led him to ignore the far more serious commands against murder and child sacrifice. And that has got me thinking. I wonder how often we latch on to a particular biblical teaching - and hold on to it so tightly that we forget the bigger picture: the person who believes that worship matters, but then yells at the worship leader and is vicious because not enough time was spent in singing last Sunday; the murmuring soul who hears a rumour that one of the young people had a little to much to drink, but then, with breathless piety, spreads the news about it all over the church, with embellishments that make it into pernicious gossip.
And then, how many ‘words from the Lord’ have nothing to do with him at all? How many projects have been created that were never his idea, or initiatives were maintained when they had totally passed their kingdom sell-by date? I sometimes wonder how many billions of pounds have been spent on schemes and plans that never did find their origin in God’s heart at all? Its’a challenge. I don’t want to spend my life and energy on things of which God will ultimately say, ‘It was not in my name’.