Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Judges 11:1
Now Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty man of valor, and he [was] the son of a harlot: and Gilead begot Jephthah.
1. Jephthah ] Hebr. Yiphta, probably a shortened form of Yiphta-el = God will open; cf. Pethah-iah Ezr 10:23. The full form occurs as the name of a town Jos 19:14; Jos 19:27.
the Gileadite ] See on Jdg 10:3. The land of Gilead generally included the country E. of Jordan between the W. el-Menire (Yarmuk), S. of the Sea of Galilee, and W. esbn near the upper end of the Dead Sea. Sometimes it included the Moabite territory as far S. as the Arnon (W. el-Mjb).
Gilead begat Jephthah ] Gilead, properly the name of a region or its population, is here and in Jdg 11:2, Jos 17:1 f., 1Ch 7:14 ff., regarded as a person, i.e. tribal history is related as though it were the domestic history of an individual; see Driver, HDB. s.v. Gilead. These words and the verse which follows evidently come from the late editor, begat is the usual term in the genealogies of P and Chron.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
The history of Jephthah appears to be an independent history inserted by the compiler of the Book of Judges. Jdg 11:4-5 introduce the Ammonite war without any apparent reference to Jdg 10:17-18.
A genealogy of Manasseh 1Ch 7:14-17 gives the families which sprang from Gilead, and among them mention is made of an Aramitess concubine as the mother of one family. Jephthah, the son of Gilead by a strange woman, fled, after his fathers death, to the land of Tob Jdg 11:3, presumably the land of his maternal ancestors (compare Jdg 9:1) and an Aramean settlement (2Sa 10:6, 2Sa 10:8; 1 Macc. 5:13). It is difficult to conceive that Jephthah was literally the son of Gilead, if Gilead was the son of Machir, the son of Manasseh. Possibly Gilead here denotes the heir of Gilead, the head of the family, whose individual name has not been preserved, nor the time when he lived.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Jdg 11:1-33
Jephthah the Gileadite.
Jephthah
It is common to regard Jephthah as one of the wildest characters of the Bible–a rough and heedless man; alike rash in vowing and heartless in fulfilling; one whom it is strange to find in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews. Jephthah was neither a godless nor a selfish man. Not godless, for we find in the brief annals of his life more copious recognition of God than in the case of most of the other judges; and not selfish, because, forgetting his private wrongs, he devoted his life to the service of his country, and, overcoming his strongest feelings of natural affection, he did with his daughter according to his vow. We shall be nearer the truth if we regard Jephthah as a good man, sadly misguided; a man roughly trained, poorly educated, and very deficient in enlightened views; wishing to serve God, but in great error as to what would prove an acceptable service; a man in whose religion the ideas of his neighbours of Moab and Ammon had a strong though unknown influence; one who, with the deepest loyalty to God, had unconsciously come under the delusion that Jehovah would accept of such an offering as the neighbouring nations offered to their gods. In trying to estimate Jephthah aright it is necessary that we bear his early history vividly in mind. He had the grievous misfortune to have a wicked mother, a woman of abandoned character; and as in these circumstances his father could not have been much better, his childhood must have been very dreary. No good example, no holy home, no mothers affection, no fathers wise and weighty counsel. If Jephthah owed little to his parents, he owed less to his brothers. If he knew little of the sunbeams of parental love, he knew less of the amenities of brotherly affection. By his brothers he was, as we may say, kicked out from his fathers house; he was driven forth into the wide, wide world, to shift as he might; and this under the influence of a motive all too common, but which in this case appears in all its native repulsiveness. It was to prevent him from sharing in his fathers inheritance; to keep to themselves the largest possible share. A wretched revelation truly of family spirit! None of the dew of Hermon here. The life to which, in these circumstances, Jephthah resorted was wild and rough, but was not considered immoral in those wild times. He became a freebooter on the borders of Moab and Ammon, like many a borderer two or three centuries ago in Cumberland or Wigton; carrying on an irregular warfare in the form of raids for plunder; gathering to himself the riff-raff of the country-side. The occupation was very unfavourable to a religious life, and yet somehow (such is the sovereignty of grace) Jephthah evidently acquired deep religious impressions. He was strong against idolatry, and that not merely because it was the religion of his enemies, but because he had a deep regard for the God of Israel, and had been led in some way to recognise the obligation to serve Him only, and to be jealous for His glory. And, partly perhaps through the great self-control which this enabled him to exercise, and the courageous spirit which a living belief in such a God inspired, he had risen to great distinction as a warrior in the mode of life which he followed, so that when a leader was needed to contend with the Ammonites, Jephthah was beyond all question the man most fitted for the post. It is very singular how things come round. What a strange feeling Jephthah must have had when his brothers and old neighbours came to him, inviting and imploring him to become their head; trying as best they could to undo their former unkindness, and get him, for their safety, to assume the post for which not one of them was fitted! It is amazing what an ill-treated man may gain by patiently biding his time. In every history there are parallel incidents to that which now occurred in the ease of Jephthah–that of Coriolanus, for example; but it is not every one who has proved so prompt and patriotic. He gave way to no reproach over the past, but only made conditions for the future which were alike reasonable and moderate. His promptness supplies a great and oft-needed lesson for Christians; showing how ready we should be to forgive and forget ill-treatment; to return blessing for cursing, and good for evil. But let us now notice what was peculiar in Jephthahs mode of accepting office. In contemplating the prospect of the Ammonites being subdued, it is not he, but Jehovah, whom he regards as the victor. (Jdg 11:9); and after he has been made head and captain he utters all his words before the Lord at Mizpeh (verse11). And now it was that he made his fatal vow. He made it as a new pledge of his dependence on God, and desire to honour Him. The strangest thing about the transaction is, that Jephthah should have been allowed in these circumstances to make such a vow. It was common enough in times of great anxiety and danger to devote some much-valued object to God. But Jephthah left it to God, as it were, to select the object. He would not specify it, but would simply engage, if he should return in peace from the children of Ammon, to offer to the Lord whatever should come forth from the doors of his house to meet him. It seemed a pious act to leave to God the selection of that object. Jephthahs error lay in supposing that God would select, that God would accept the responsibility which he laid upon Him. What followed we hardly need to rehearse. But what became of Jephthahs daughter? Undoubtedly the weight of evidence is in favour of the solution that, like Iphigenia at Aulis, Jephthahs daughter was offered as a burnt-offering. It is a shocking thought, and yet not inconsistent with the supposition that essentially Jephthah was a sincere and loyal servant of God. We must remember that he was an unenlightened man, ill brought up, not possessing the cool, well-balanced judgment of one who had calmly and carefully studied things human and Divine with the best lights of the age, but subject to many an impulse and prejudice that had never been corrected, and had at last become rooted in his nature. We must remember that Gilead was the most remote and least enlightened part of the land of Israel, and that all around, among all his Moabite and Ammonite neighbours, the impression prevailed that human sacrifices were acceptable to the gods. This remarkable narrative carries some striking lessons.
1. In the first place, there is a lesson from the strange, unexpected, and most unseasonable combination in Jephthahs experience of triumph and desolation, public joy and private anguish. It seems so unsuitable, when all hearts are wound up to the feeling of triumph, that horror and desolation should come upon them and overwhelm them. But what seems so unseasonable is what often happens. It often seems as if it would be too much for men to enjoy the fulfilment of their highest aspirations without something of an opposite kind. General Wolfe and Lord Nelson dying in the moment of victory are types of a not infrequent experience. At the moment when Ezekiel attains his highest prophetical elevation, his house is made desolate, his wife dies. The millionaire that has scraped and saved and struggled to leave a fortune to his only son is often called to lay him in the grave. Providence has a wonderful store of compensations. Sometimes those who are highest in worldly position are the dreariest and most desolate in heart.
2. Another striking lesson of Jephthahs life concerns the errors of good men. It dissipates the notion that good men cannot go far wrong. But let us learn from Jephthah all the good we can. He was remarkable for two great qualities. He depended for everything on God; he dedicated everything to God. It is the very spirit which the gospel of Jesus Christ is designed to form and promote. Jephthah was willing, according to his light, to give up to God the dearest object of his heart. One thing is very certain. Such sacrifices can be looked for from none but those who have been reconciled to God by Jesus Christ. To them, but only to them, God has become all in all. They, and they only, can afford to sacrifice all that is seen and temporal. (W. G. Blaikie, D. D.)
Why are ye come unto me now when ye are in distress?–The elders of Gilead got into trouble, and they said, We are in distress; we turn again to thee, etc. Jephthah mocked them, and said, If I fight for you and win shall I be your head? Who can tell how suggestively he uttered the word your?–head of a mob of ingrates–your: and his heart said, Ha, ha! Why are ye come unto me now when ye are in distress? Why did you not come twelve months ago? Why did you not come when the feast was on the table smoking hot? Why did you not ask me to the dance and the revel and the high glee of Gilead? Here you are like a number of whipped hounds coming to me in your poverty and weakness and humiliation; you have come to the bastard. It was not a resentful speech: it was the eloquence of a noble man. Some people can only be taught when they are whipped. These people belonged to that bad quality. Have we not here a revelation of human nature? Can we boast ourselves against the elders of Gilead and say we are of a higher quality? Are we not all guilty before one another in this very respect? There are some men we never write to except when we want something. They never received a friendly letter from us in their lives. The moment we come into distress or difficulty then we write to those men and call them friends. We pay our friends unconsciously a high tribute by going to them again and again in our distress. Our going, being translated into language, means, We have come again; every other door is shut against us; this kind, hospitable home-door was never thrust in our faces, it was always opened by some kindly hand: the last time we came it was for help, we have come on the same errand again. This may be mean enough on our part, and yet there is an unconscious tribute to the very friends whom we neglected in the time of our strength and prosperity. See how this same question penetrates the whole warp and woof, the whole web of life and thought. Sometimes it is the Church that asks the question. The Church says to some applicants for admission, Why are ye come unto me now when ye are in distress? You never come in the summer-time you never come in the fair weather: why are ye come to me now when ye are in distress? What has brought you? Which of Gods constables has arrested you and planted you in this prison? Trouble is your gaoler, and he has turned the key of the prison upon you in Church. There are people we use thus meanly, and the Church may be used often on this low ground. We go when we are sad. But are we aware that here also we are paying an unconscious tribute to the Church and to everything that is centralised and glorified by that Divine emblem? The Church wants you to come in the time of distress. The Church is not an upbraiding mother. She may utter a sigh over you as she sees your ragged And destitute condition, but she admits you all the same and tells you to go up higher. If our friends can ask the question of Jephthah, if the Church can put the same inquiry, so in very deed and in the fullest significance can the Bible. Who goes to the Bible in the summer-time? The dear old Bible says to many of us, What, you back again? What has happened now? Some one dead? property lost? not well? What do you want with me to-day? Tell me your case; dont profess you love me and want me for my own sake; tell me what it is you want before you begin, and I will open at the place. It is Gods book, because it is so lovely and so sweet and so large of heart. So far we have taken an advancing line. We began with our friends, we passed through the Church, then we went to the Bible, and now we go to God. This is the Divine inquiry: Why are ye come to Me now when ye are in distress? This is the great hold which God has upon us all. His family would be very small but for the distress of the world. His heaven can hardly hold His household because of this wearying trouble, this eternal want, this gnawing worm of discontent. (J. Parker, D. D.)
Jephthah vowed a vow unto the Lord.
Jephthahs vow
I. How the Lord suffereth good men and wise men to snare themselves, and bring needless sorrows and woes on themselves by temerity and rashness (1Sa 25:34; Mat 26:31).
1. The folly of mans heart, which would walk at large, unconfined within the rules of wisdom; this makes men rash even in the things of God, as here.
2. Gods just desertion of good men, for their humiliation; and to give them experience of themselves, and how their own wisdom will make them befool themselves, as David did after his rash numbering of the people, and cleave more close to God and His counsel, when they see their own counsels prove fit for nothing but to cast them down. To be well advised in that we do or speak, avoid temerity and rashness, by which, making more haste than good speed, men do but brew their own sorrow. Consider–
1. That rashness doeth nothing well (Pro 15:22). Without counsel thoughts come to nought, and the hasty man, we say, never wants woe. Herod himself, as wicked as he was, was sorry for his rash oath; and yet how mischievous was it, against the life of John Baptist! A man going in haste easily slideth (Pro 19:2).
2. A note of a man fearing God is to carry his matters with discretion (Psa 112:5). The fear of the Lord is the beginning of true wisdom.
3. The law rejected a blind sacrifice; the gospel requireth a reasonable (Rom 12:1); and all sacrifices must be seasoned with the salt of discretion.
4. Rashness and temerity lays us bare and naked to the lashes of God, of men, and of our own consciences. Rules of direction to avoid this sin of rashness, attended with so much sorrow.
First, watch carefully against thine own rashness in–
1. Judgment.
2. Affections.
3. Speeches.
4. Actions.
5. Passions.
Secondly, arm thyself with the rules of Christian prudence to avoid this sin, and the sorrow of it; as knowing that it is not enough to be a faithful servant, but he must be wise too.
II. The Lord commonly exalting His servants with some high favour, brings some stinging cross with it, to humble them.
1. The Lord spies in us a lewd nature and disposition, even like that of the spider, which can turn everything into poison. There is in the best a root of pride and vanity which in prosperity and warm sunshine sprouteth and grows wonderfully stiff. Paul himself is in danger to be exalted out of measure by abundance of revelation; and therefore the Lord, as a wise physician, adds a dose of affliction to be an antidote to expel the poison of pride, and with a prick lets out the wind of vainglory.
2. This height of honours, success, etc., easily gaineth our affections and delights, and so draws and steals away our delights in the Lord. We are prone to idolise them, and to give them our hearts, and therefore the Lord is forced to pull our hearts from them, and by some buffetings and cooling cards, tells us in what sliding and slippery places we stand, and therefore had need still keep our watch about us, and not pour out our hearts upon such momentary pleasures.
3. We are as children in our advancements who, having found honey, eat too much. If the Lord did not thus sauce our dainties, how could we avoid the surfeit of them? Alas! how would we dote upon the world if we found nothing but prosperity, who are so set upon it for all the bitterness of it.
4. The Lord spies in us an unthankful disposition, who, when He honours us, and lifts us up that we might lift up His name and glory, we let the honour fall upon ourselves.
III. God doth often turn the greatest delights and earthly pleasures of His servants to their greatest sorrow.
1. From the transitoriness of all outward comforts; here below there is never a gourd to cover our head, but a worm to consume it. And therefore what a man doth chiefly delight in the fruition, he must needs be most vexed in the separation and want of it.
2. From the naughty disposition of our hearts.
(1) Hardness of heart which will not yield without such hard and smart strokes.
(2) That we can turn all kind of comforts, natural and supernatural, to bewitching vanities, and yield them strength enough to allure us and draw us from the sound comfort of them; there is no ordinance, no creature, no gift, no comfort that can escape us.
3. From the jealousy of God who hath made all His creatures, ordinances, gifts, His servants as well as ours, and cannot abide that any of them should have any place but of servants with us; His zeal cannot abide that they should gain our hearts, or souls, or any power of them from Him, and therefore when men go a-whoring after the creatures, and lay the level of their comfort below the Lord Himself, then He shows the fervency of His zeal, either in removing the gift or them from the comfort of it.
IV. All promises to God or man lawful and in our power must be religiously and faithfully performed; of all which, thou openeth thy mouth to the Lord, or before the Lord, thou mayest not go back.
1. I say, all lawful promises, for no promise may be a bond of iniquity, and the performance of such is but tying two sins together, as Herod tied to a wicked oath, murder of John Baptist.
2. All promises in our power, for nothing can tie us to impossibilities, as when the bishop makes the priest vow perpetual continency–a thing out of his power and reach.
3. To God or men.
(1) To God (Num 30:3).
(2) To man; fidelity and veracity are of the weighty points of the law (Mat 23:23).
And of the heathen given up to a reprobate sense it is said, they were truce-breakers (Rom 1:30).
4. They must be performed religiously and faithfully. To a conscionable performance three things are required.
(1) Perform them willingly and cheerfully; for God loves as a cheerful giver, so a cheerful performer.
(2) Fully and wholly, not by halves (Num 30:3). He shall do all that is gone out of His mouth, not taking away a part, as Ananias and Sapphira (Act 5:1-42).
(3) Without delay; every seasonable action is beautiful. Besides the express commandment (Ecc 5:4). (T. Taylor, D. D.)
Different views held as to Jephthahs vow
Among Jewish paraphrasts and commentators, the more ancient are mostly of opinion that Jephthah did actually sacrifice his daughter. They censure the rashness of his vow, but they do not appear to doubt that the sacrifice of the maiden was actually made. Some later Jewish writers, however, of great authority, have contended that Jephthahs daughter was not slain, but devoted to a life of virginity; being shut up in a house which her father built for the purpose, and there visited four days in each year by the maidens of Israel as long as she lived. Among Christian writers, perhaps all during the first ten centuries–certainly the exceptions, if any, were few and far between–believed that the maiden was sacrificed. Later Christian writers have not been so unanimous. Many, perhaps the majority, of those who have treated upon the subject, hold the opinion which, as we have seen, was universal in the early Church. Many others, of equal learning and eminence, have maintained that Jephthahs daughter was not offered by her father as a burnt offering, but that she was permitted to live; among these, there are some who believe with the modern Jews just mentioned, that she was shut up by her father and devoted to a life of seclusion; while others suppose that she was devoted to the Lords service in a life of celibacy, and was numbered during the remainder of her life with the women who assemble at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, performing duties of sacred service in connection with the worship at Shiloh That Jephthah was hasty in opening his lips before God is generally admitted; although this rashness is singularly in contrast with his cautiousness and skill in negotiating and arguing with the Ammonite, and shows how elements the most opposite may exist in the same character. That he deliberately contemplated as possible the sacrifice of a human being is a supposition scarcely to be entertained of one who is spoken of in the New Testament as a man of faith. Yet that human sacrifices were familiar to him cannot be doubted; and it is possible that familiarity with the rites of the Ammonites, on whose borders he dwelt, and with whom human sacrifices, as is now the case in many parts of Africa, were religious rites of daily occurrence, may have blunted his feelings, and have caused him to forget how odious such offerings were in the sight of God. The excitement of the occasion, however, seems to have bewildered him, so that he forgot everything not immediately connected with his forthcoming expedition. His vow was utterly rash. He did not take time to consider, for example, that if an ass or a dog had first met him coming out of his house on his return, to offer it to the Lord would have been an abomination. Had he bestowed that thought upon the matter which reason itself would teach us to be necessary when we open our lips to our Maker, he could not have failed to reflect that it was possible, nay, likely, that his only and beloved child would be the first to greet him on his return. It was natural that he should offer a vow to the Lord; strange that he should have done it with such impulsive rashness . . . The peculiar expression of the sacred text, that her father did with her according to his vow which he vowed, and she knew no man, may lend plausibility to the opinion, that she was devoted to a virgin life. But against this view there lie three objections, which, when taken together, compel us to adopt the opposite view. The first is, that a celibate life formed no part of her fathers vow. The second is, that the great distance at which Jephthah was from Shiloh, where the tabernacle was, and the absence of any allusion in all his history to its existence, render the theory of his daughter being transferred thither improbable. The third is, that the misfortune of his birth would alone have prevented such an arrangement. If the sons of a bastard, according to the law of Moses, could not enter into the congregation of the Lord to the tenth generation, it is scarcely probable that Jephthahs daughter could have secured admission among the privileged women who rendered service about the tabernacle. We therefore look upon the maiden as having been sacrificed. Upon the gloom of this painful history, however, an ethereal brightness shines. What can be more beautiful, more wonderful, than this pure and lovely maid, brought up among bandits, and far from the tabernacle of God, thus freely and sweetly giving up herself as a thank-offering for the victories of Israel? And who can fail to see, in the story of the meek and self-sacrificing maid, a marvellous and mysterious adumbration of a better sacrifice of another soul, of an only child, perfectly free and voluntary, and of virgin holiness and heavenly purity, the sacrifice of Christ, who gave His spotless soul to death for our sakes? (L. H. Wiseman, M. A.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
CHAPTER XI
The history of Jephthah, and his covenant with the Gileadites,
1-10.
He is elected by the people, 11.
Sends an embassy to the king of the Ammonites, to inquire why
they invaded Israel; and receives an answer, to which he sends
back a spirited reply, 12-27.
This is disregarded by the Ammonites, and Jephthah prepares for
battle, 28, 29.
His vow, 30, 31.
He attacks and defeats them, 32, 33.
On his return to Mizpeh he is met by his daughter, whom,
according to his vow, he dedicates to the Lord, 34-40.
NOTES ON CHAP. XI
Verse 1. Now Jephthah – was the son of a harlot] I think the word zonah, which we here render harlot, should be translated, as is contended for on Jos 2:1, viz. a hostess, keeper of an inn or tavern for the accommodation of travellers; and thus it is understood by the Targum of Jonathan on this place: vehu bar ittetha pundekitha, “and he was the son of a woman, a tavern keeper.” See the note referred to above. She was very probably a Canaanite, as she is called, Jdg 11:2, a strange woman, ishshah achereth, a woman of another race; and on this account his brethren drove him from the family, as he could not have a full right to the inheritance, his mother not being an Israelite.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
1. Jephthah“opener.”
son of an harlotaconcubine, or foreigner; implying an inferior sort of marriageprevalent in Eastern countries. Whatever dishonor might attach to hisbirth, his own high and energetic character rendered him early aperson of note.
Gilead begat JephthahHisfather seems to have belonged to the tribe of Manasseh (1Ch 7:14;1Ch 7:17).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Now Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty man of valour,…. Jephthah had his name of Gileadite either from his father, whose name was Gilead, or from the city and country in which he was born, which is most likely, and so was of the same country with the preceding judge; and he was a man of great strength and valour, and which perhaps became known by his successful excursions on parties of the enemies of Israel, the Ammonites, being at the head of a band of men, who lived by the booty they got from them:
and he was the son of an harlot; the Targum says, an innkeeper; and, according to Kimchi, she was a concubine, which some reckoned no better than an harlot, but such are not usually called so; some Jewish writers will have her to be one of another tribe his father ought not to have married; and others, that she was of another nation, a Gentile, so Josephus c: and, according to Patricides d, he was the son of a Saracen woman; but neither of these are sufficient to denominate her a harlot:
and Gilead begat Jephthah; he was his son; this was a descendant of Gilead the son of Machir, the son of Manasseh, called after the name of his great ancestor.
c Antiqu. l. 5. c. 7. sect. 7. d Apud Selden. de Success. ad leg. Ebr. c. 3. p. 32.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Election of Jephthah as Prince and Judge of Israel. – Jdg 11:1-3. The account begins with his descent and early mode of life. “ Jephthah (lxx ) the Gileadite was a brave hero” (see Jdg 6:12; Jos 1:14, etc.); but he was the son of a harlot, and was begotten by Gilead, in addition to other sons who were born of his wife. Gilead is not the name of the country, as Bertheau supposes, so that the land is mythically personified as the forefather of Jephthah. Nor is it the name of the son of Machir and grandson of Manasseh (Num 26:29), so that the celebrated ancestor of the Gileadites is mentioned here instead of the unknown father of Jephthah. It is really the proper name of the father himself; and just as in the case of Tola and Puah, in Jdg 10:1, the name of the renowned ancestor was repeated in his descendant. We are forced to this conclusion by the fact that the wife of Gilead, and his other sons by that wife, are mentioned in Jdg 11:2. These sons drove their half-brother Jephthah out of the house because of his inferior birth, that he might not share with them in the paternal inheritance; just as Ishmael and the sons of Keturah were sent away by Abraham, that they might not inherit along with Isaac (Gen 21:10., Gen 25:6).
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| Jephthah’s Promotion. | B. C. 1143. |
1 Now Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty man of valour, and he was the son of a harlot: and Gilead begat Jephthah. 2 And Gilead’s wife bare him sons; and his wife’s sons grew up, and they thrust out Jephthah, and said unto him, Thou shalt not inherit in our father’s house; for thou art the son of a strange woman. 3 Then Jephthah fled from his brethren, and dwelt in the land of Tob: and there were gathered vain men to Jephthah, and went out with him.
The princes and people of Gilead we left, in the close of the foregoing chapter, consulting about the choice of a general, having come to this resolve, that whoever would undertake to lead their forces against the children of Ammon should by common consent be head over all the inhabitants of Gilead. The enterprise was difficult, and it was fit that so great an encouragement as this should be proposed to him that would undertake it. Now all agreed that Jephthah, the Gileadite, was a mighty man of valour, and very fit for that purpose, none so fit as he, but he lay under three disadvantages:– 1. He was the son of a harlot (v. 1), of a strange woman (v. 2), one that was neither a wife nor a concubine; some think his mother was a Gentile; so Josephus, who calls him a stranger by the mother’s side. An Ishmaelite, say the Jews. If his mother was a harlot, that was not his fault, however it was his disgrace. Men ought not to be reproached with any of the infelicities of their parentage or extraction, so long as they are endeavouring by their personal merits to roll away the reproach. The son of a harlot, if born again, born from above, shall be accepted of God, and be as welcome as any other to the glorious liberties of his children. Jephthah could not read in the law the brand there put on the Ammonites, the enemies he was to grapple with, that they should not enter into the congregation of the Lord, but in the same paragraph he met with that which looked black upon himself, that a bastard should be in like manner excluded, Deu 23:2; Deu 23:3. But if that law means, as most probably it does, only those that are born of incest, not of fornication, he was not within the reach of it. 2. He had been driven from his country by his brethren. His father’s legitimate children, insisting upon the rigour of the law, thrust him out from having any inheritance with them, without any consideration of his extraordinary qualifications, which merited a dispensation, and would have made him a mighty strength and ornament of their family, if they had overlooked his being illegitimate and admitted him to a child’s part, v. 2. One would not have thought this abandoned youth was intended to be Israel’s deliverer and judge, but God often humbles those whom he designs to exalt, and makes that stone the head of the corner which the builders refused; so Joseph, Moses, and David, the three most eminent of the shepherds of Israel, were all thrust out by men, before they were called of God to their great offices. 3. He had, in his exile, headed a rabble, v. 3. Being driven out by his brethren, his great soul would not suffer him either to dig or beg, but by his sword he must live; and, being soon noted for his bravery, those that were reduced to such straits, and animated by such a spirit, enlisted themselves under him. Vain men they are here called, that is, men that had run through their estates and had to seek for a livelihood. These went out with him, not to rob or plunder, but to hunt wild beasts, and perhaps to make incursions upon those countries which Israel was entitled to, but had not as yet come to the possession of, or were some way or other injured by. This is the man that must save Israel. That people had by their idolatry made themselves children of whoredoms, and aliens from God and his covenant, and therefore, though God upon their repentance will deliver them, yet, to mortify them and remind them of their sin, he chooses to do it by a bastard and an exile.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
Judges – Chapter 11
Jephthah Disowned and Recalled, vs. 1-11
In the last verse of the foregoing chapter the Israelites, particularly those of Gilead, had come together at Mizpeh determined to fight against the Ammonites, but found they had no capable leader. Now, in chapter 11, there is introduced a man, Jephthah, who is one of them insofar as that he was a Gileadite also. but he was an outcast and compelled by his people to live a life of brigandage. He was the son of a great man of the country, who was named Gilead, but he had the misfortune to be the product of his father’s loose living with a harlot. Because his mother was a harlot the other sons of Gilead refused to allow Jephthah a portion of the father’s inheritance.
So Jephthah had to flee from his brothers, and went to the land of Tob. Tob was an area east of Gilead, a kind of borderland between Gilead and Ammon. Here Jephthah gathered a band of men, whom the Bible calls “vain men”. The Hebrew word is sometimes also translated “worthless”, so they were ne’er-do-wells, who had nothing better to do. Probably they preyed on the Ammonites as well as the Israelites, in which case they might possess a certain amount of usable knowledge about the Ammonite enemy.
Now that the Ammonites came against Israel in war, the Gileadites needed a leader, and their minds went to Jephthah as the most capable man they could get. So they sent messengers into the land of Tob to propose to Jephthah that he be captain of the people to lead them in their war. Jephthah reminded them that they had driven him to the life he was living, wanting nothing to do with him, but now when they are in trouble they send pleading for him to come to their aid. The elders of Gilead frankly admitted that they were in distress, and that this was the reason they desired the leadership of Jephthah.
The message went back from Jephthah seeking full assurance that he would not again be driven out after the campaign, if God should grant him deliverance in the war with the children of Ammon. The elders were ready to give him the strong assurance he sought and swore with the Lord as their witness that Jephthah would indeed continue to be their captain in any case. So Jephthah came down to Mizpeh and the Gileadites installed him as their captain.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
THE BOOK OF JUDGES
Judges 1-21.
THE Book of Judges continues the Book of Joshua. There are some Books of the Bible, the proper location of which require careful study, but Judges follows Joshua in chronological order. The Book opens almost identically with the Book of Joshua. In the latter the reading is, Now after the death of Moses the servant of the Lord it came to pass that the Lord spake unto Joshua. In the Book of Judges, Now after the death of Joshua it came to pass, that the Children of Israel asked thd Lord, saying Who shall go up for us against the Canaanites first, to fight against them? And the Lord said, Judah shall go up. God always has His man chosen and His ministry mapped out. We may worry about our successors and wonder whether we shall be worthily followed, but as a matter of fact that is a question beyond us and does not belong to us. It is not given to man to choose prophets, apostles, evangelists, pastors and teachers. That prerogative belongs to the ascended Lord, and He is not derelict in His duty nor indifferent to the interests of Israel. Before one falls, He chooses another. The breach in time that bothers men is not a breach to Him at all. It is only an hour given to the people for the expression of bereavement. It is only a day in which to calm the public mind and call out public sympathy and centralize and cement public interest.
Men may choose their co-laborers as Judah chose Simeon; leaders may pick out their captains as Moses did, and as did Joshua; but God makes the first choice, and when men leave that choice to Him, He never makes a mistake.
Whenever a captain of the hosts of the Lord is unworthily succeeded, misguided men have forgotten God and made the choice on the basis of their own judgment.
People sometimes complain of some indifferent or false preacher, We cant see why God sent us such a pastor. He didnt! You called him yourself. You didnt sufficiently consult God. You didnt keep your ears open to the still, small voice. You didnt wait on bended knees until He said, Behold your leader; follow him!
When God appoints Judah, he also delivers the Canaanites and the Perizzites into his hands. Adoni-bezek, the brutal, will be humbled by him; the capital city will fall before him; the southland will succumb, also the north and the east and the west, and the mountains will capitulate before the Lord of Hosts.
But the Book of Judges doesnt present a series of victories. There is no Book in the Bible that so clearly typifies the successes and reverses, the ups and downs, the victories and defeats of the church, as the history of Israel here illustrates. It naturally divides itself under The Seven Apostasies, The Successive Judges, and The Civil War.
THE SEVEN APOSTASIES
The first chapter is not finished before failure finds expression. Of Judah it was said he could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley because they had chariots of iron (Jdg 1:19). Of the children of Benjamin it was said, They did not drive out the Jebusites that inhabited Jerusalem (Jdg 1:21). Of Manasseh it was said, They did not drive out the inhabitants of Beth-Shean and her towns, nor Taanach and her towns, nor the inhabitants of Dor and her towns, nor the inhabitants of Ibleam and her towns, nor the inhabitants of Megiddo and her towns: but the Canaanites would dwell in that land (Jdg 1:27). Neither did Ephraim drive out the Canaanites that dwelt in Gezer, (Jdg 1:29); neither did Zebulun drive out the inhabitants of Kitron (Jdg 1:30), nor the inhabitants of Mahalol. Neither did Asher (Jdg 1:31) drive out the inhabitants of Acho nor of Zidon; neither did Naphthali drive out the inhabitants of Beth-Shemesh (Jdg 1:33), and this failure to clear the field results in an aggressive attack before the first chapter finishes, and the Amorites force the children of Dan into the mountain (Jdg 1:34).
If one study these seven apostasies that follow one another in rapid succession, he will be impressed by two or three truths. They resulted from the failure to execute the command of the Lord. The command of the Lord to Joshua was that he should expel the people from before him and drive them from out of his sight, and possess their land (Jos 23:5). He was not to leave any among them nor to make mention of any of their gods (Jos 23:7). He was promised that one of his men should chase a thousand. He was even told that if any were left and marriage was made with them that they should know for a certainty that the Lord God would no more drive out any of these nations from before them; that they should be snares and traps and scourges and thorns, until Israel perished from off the good land that God had given them (Jos 23:13). How strangely the conduct of Israel, once in the land, comports with this counsel given them before they entered it; and there is a typology in all of this.
The Christian life has its enemiessocial enemies, domestic enemies, national enemies! Ones companionship will determine ones conduct; ones marriage relation will eventuate religiously or irreligiously. The character of ones nation is more or less influential upon life.
The ordinance of baptism, the initial rite into the church, looks to an absolute separation from the world, and is expressed by the Apostle Paul as a death unto sin, the clear intent being that no evil customs are to be kept, nor companions retained, nor entangling alliances maintained. The word now is as the word then, Come out from among them, and be ye separate (2Co 6:17).
They imperiled their souls by this forbidden social intercourse. It is very difficult to live with a people and not become like them. It is very difficult to dwell side by side with nations and not intermarry. Intermarriage between believers and unbelievers is almost certain to drag down the life of the former to the level of the latter. False worship, like other forms of sin, has its subtle appeal; and human nature being what it is, false gods rise easily to exalted place in corrupted affections.
If there is one thing God tried to do for ancient Israel, and one thing God tries to do for the new Israel, the Church, it was, and is, to get His people to disfellowship the world.
There are men who think God is a Moloch because He so severely punished Israels compromises. They cant forget that when Joshua went over Jordan and Israel lay encamped on the skirts of the mountains of Moab, her people visited a high place near the camp whereon a festival of Midian, idolatrous, licentious in the extreme, was in process, and they went after this putrid paganism and polluted their own souls with the idolatrous orgy. Then it was that Moses, speaking for the Lord, said, Take all the heads of the people, and hang them up before the Lord against the sun, and while that hideous row of dead ones was still before their eyes, the plague fell on the camp and 24,000 of the transgressors perished! But severe as it was, Israel soon forgot, showing that it was not too severe, and raising the question as to whether it was severe enough to impress the truth concerning idolatry and all its infamous effects.
Solomon is commonly reputed to have been the wisest of men, and yet it was his love alliances with the strange women of Moab, Ammon, Zidon and the Hittites, these very people, that brought the Lords anger against him and compelled God to charge him with having turned from the Lord God of Israel and in consequence of which God said, I will surely rend the kingdom from thee, and will give it to thy servant (1Ki 11:11).
Again and again the kingdom has been lost after the same manner. The present peril of the church is at this point, and by its alliance with the world, the kingdom of our Lord is delayed, and Satan, the prince of this world, remains in power, and instead of 24,000 people perishing in judgment, tens of thousands and millions of people perish through this compromise, and swallowed up in sin, rush into hell.
But to follow the text further is to find their restoration to Gods favor rested with genuine repentance. There are recorded in Judges seven apostasies; they largely result from one sin. There are seven judgments, increasing in severity, revealing Gods determined purpose to correct and save; and there are seven recoveries, each of them in turn the result of repentance. God never looks upon a penitent man, a penitent people, a penitent church, a penitent nation, without compassion and without turning from His purposes of judgment. When the publican went up into the temple to pray, his was a leprous soul, but when he smote upon his breast and cried, God be merciful to me a sinner, his was the instant experience of mercy. When at Pentecost, 2500 sincere souls fell at the feet of Peter and the other Apostles, and cried, Men and brethren, what shall we do, the response was, Repent and be baptized every one of you in the Name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and the promise was, Ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.
When David, who was a child of God, guilty of murder and adultery combined, poured out his soul as expressed in the Fifty-first Psalm, God heard that prayer, pardoned those iniquities, restored him to the Divine favor, and showered him with proofs of the Divine love.
When Nineveh went down in humility, a city of 600,000 souls, every one of whom from Sardana-palus, the king on the throne, to the humblest peasant within the walls, proving his repentance by sitting in sackcloth and ashes, God turned at once from the evil He had thought to do unto them and He did it not, and Nineveh was saved.
The simple truth is, God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked. He never punishes from preference, but only for our profit; and, even then, like a father, He suffers more deeply than the children upon whom His strokes of judgment fall.
What a contrast to that statement of Scripture, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, is that other sentence, Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints. The reason is not far to seek. In the first case it is death indeed; death fearful, death eternal. In the second case, death is a birth, a release from the flesh that held to a larger, richer, fuller life. In that God takes pleasure.
There is then for the sinner no royal road to the recovery of Gods favor. It is the thorny path of repentance instead. It is through Bochim, the Vale of Tears; but it were just as well that the prodigal, returning home, should not travel by a flowery path. He will be the less tempted to go away again if his back-coming is with agony, and home itself will seem the more sweet when reached if there his weary feet find rest for the first time, and from their bleeding soles the thorns are picked; if there his nakedness is clothed, his hunger is fed and his sense of guilt is kissed away. Oh, the grace of God to wicked men the moment repentance makes possible their forgiveness!
The court in Minneapolis yesterday illustrated this very point. When a young man, who had been wayward indeed, who had turned highway-robber, saw his error, sobbed his way to Christ and voluntarily appeared in court and asked to have sentence passed, newspapers expressed surprise that the heart of the judge should have been so strangely moved, and that the sentence the law absolutely required to be passed upon him, should have been, by the judge, suspended, and the young man returned to his home and wife and babe. But our Judge, even God, is so compassionate that such conduct on His part excites no surprise. It is His custom! Were it not so, every soul of us would stand under sentence of death. The law which is just and holy and good has passed that sentence already, and it is by the grace of God we have our reprieve. Seven apostasies? Yes! Seven judgments? Yes! But seven salvations! Set that down to the honor and glory of our God! It is by grace we are saved!
THE SUCCESSIVE JUDGES
Evidently God has no special regard for some of our modern superstitions, for in this period of conquest He deliberately chooses thirteen judges and sets them over Israel in turn, beginning with Othniel, the son of Kenaz, and nephew of Caleb, and concluding with Samson, the son of Manoah.
They represented varied stations of Israelitish society. A careful review of their personal history brings a fresh illustration of the fact that God is no respector of persons; and it also illustrates the New Testament statement that Not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. With few exceptions these judges had not been heard of until their appointment rendered necessary some slight personal history. That is the Divine method until this hour. How seldom the children of the great are themselves great. How often, when God needs a ruler in society, He seeks a log cabin and chooses an angular ladAbe Lincoln. The difference between the inspired Scriptures and yesterdays newspaper is in the circumstance that the Scriptures tell the truth about men and leave God to do the gilding and impart the glory, instead of trying to establish the same through some noble family tree. There is a story to the effect that a young artist, working under his master in the production of a memorial window that represented the greatest and best that art ever knew, picked up, at the close of the day, the fragments of glass flung aside, and finally wrought from them a window more glorious still. Whether this is historically correct or not, we know what God has done with the refuse of society again and again. Truly
God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;
And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are:
That no flesh should glory in His presence * * * * He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord (1Co 1:27-29; 1Co 1:31).
Out of these un-named ones some were made to be immortalGideon, Jephthae, Samson, Deborah.
Gideon, the son of Joash, became such because he dared to trust God. The average Captain of hosts wants men increased that the probabilities of victory may grow proportionately. At the word of the Lord Gideon has his hundreds of thousands and tens of thousands reduced to a handful. What are three hundred men against the multitude that compassed him about? And what are pitchers, with lights in them, against swords and spears and stones; and yet his faith failed not! He believed that, God with him, no man could be against him. When Paul comes to write his Epistle to the Hebrews and devotes a long chapter of forty verses to a list of names made forever notable through faith, Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthaethese all appear, and they are put there properly, reason confirming revelation. Barak had faced the hundreds of iron chariots of the enemy, and yet at the word of the Lord, had dared to brave and battle them. Samson, with no better equipment than the jaw-bone of an ass, had slain his heaps. Jephthae, when he had made a vow to the Lord, though it cost him that which was dearer than life, would keep it. Such characters are safe in history. Whatever changes may come over the face of the world, however notable may eventually be names; whatever changes may occur in the conceptions of men as to what makes for immortality, those who believe in God will abide, and childrens children will call their names blessed. Gideon will forever stand for a combination of faith and courage. Barak will forever represent the man who, at the word of the Lord, will go against great odds. Jephthae will forever be an encouragement to men who, having sincerely made vows, will solemnly keep the same; and Samson will forever represent, not his prowess, but the strength of the Lord, which, though it may express itself in the person of a man, knows no limitations so long as that man remains loyal to his vows, and the spirit of the Lord rests upon him.
Before passing from this study, however, permit me to call your attention to the fact that there was made a political exception in the matter of sex. We supposed that the putting of woman into mans place is altogether a modern invention. Not so; it is not only a fact in English language but in human history, that all rules have their exceptions. Gods rule for prophets is men, and yet the daughters of Philip were prophetesses. Gods rule for kings is men, and yet one of the greatest of rulers was Queen Victoria. Gods rule for judges is men, and yet Deborah was long since made an exception. Let it be understood that the exception to the rule is not intended to supplant the rule. The domestic circle is Gods choice for womankind, and her wisdom, tact and energy are not only needed there, but find there their finest employment. And yet there are times when through the indifference of men, or through their deadness to the exigencies of the day, God can do nothing else than raise up a Deborah, speak to a Joan of Arc, put on the throne a Victoria.
I noticed in a paper recently a discussion as to whether women prominent in politics proved good mothers, and one minister at least insisted that they did. We doubt it! The text speaks of Deborah as a mother in Israel, but we find no mention of her children. Our judgment is that had there been born to her a dozen of her own Israel might never have known her leadership. The unmarried woman, or the barren wife, may have time and opportunity for social and political concern; but the mother of children commonly finds her home sphere sufficient for all talents, and an opportunity to reach society, cleanse politics, aid the church, help the world, as large an office as ever came to man. However, let it be understood that all our fixed customs, all our standard opinions, give place when God speaks. If it is His will that a woman judge, then she is best fitted for that office; if He exalts her to lead armies, then victory will perch upon her banners; if He calls her to the place of power on the throne, then ruling wisdom is with her.
In the language of the Apostle Paul, And what shall I say more, for the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and of Samson and of Barak and of Jepkthae. They are all great characters and worthy extended discussion. It would equally fail me to rehearse the confusion, civil and religious, that follows from the seventeenth chapter of this Book to the end, but in chapters nineteen to twenty-one there is recorded an incident that cannot in justice to an outline study, be overlooked, for it results in
THE CIVIL WAR
Tracing that war to its source, we find it was the fruit of the adoption of false religions. We have already seen some of the evil effects of this intermingling with heathen faiths, but we need not expect an end of such effects so long as the compromise obtains. There is no peace in compromise; no peace with your enemies. A compromise is never satisfactory to either side. Heathen men do not want half of their polytheism combined with half of your monotheism. They are not content to give up a portion of their idolatry and take in its place praises to the one and only God. The folly of this thing was shown when a few years since the leaders of the International Sunday School Association attempted to temporarily affiliate Christianity with Buddhism. The native Christians in Japan, in proportion to their sincere belief in the Bible arid in Christ, rejected the suggestion as an insult to their new faith, and the followers of Buddha and the devotees of Shintoism would not be content with Christian conduct unless the Emperor was made an object of worship and Christian knees bowed before him. It must be said, to the shame of certain Sunday School leaders, that they advocated that policy and prostrated themselves in the presence of His Majesty to the utter disgust of their more uncompromising fellows. The consequence was, no Convention of the International Association has been so unsatisfactory and produced such poor spiritual results as Tokios.
Confusion is always the consequence of compromise, and discontent is the fruit of it, and fights and battles and wars are the common issue.
Idolatry is deadly; graven images cannot be harmonized with the true God. The first and second commandments cannot be ignored and the remainder of the Decalog kept. It is God or nothing! It is the Bible or nothing! It is the faith once delivered or infidelity!
The perfidy of Benjamin brought on the battle. We have already seen that men grow like those with whom they intimately associate. This behavior on the part of the Benjamites is just what you would have expected. The best of men still have to battle with the bad streak that belongs to the flesh incident to the fall; and, when by evil associations that streak is strengthened, no man can tell what may eventually occur. Had this conduct been recorded against the heathen, it would not have amazed us at all. We speedily forget that as between men there is no essential difference. Circumstances and Divine aidthese make a difference that is apparent indeed; but it is not so much because one is better than the other, but rather because one has been better situated, less tempted, more often strengthened; or else because he has found God and stands not in himself but in a Saviour.
Pick up your paper tomorrow morning and there will be a record of deeds as dark as could be recorded against the natives of Africa, or those of East India or China, Siberia or the South Sea Islands. The conduct of these men toward the concubine was little worse than that of one of our own citizens in a land of civilization and Christianity, who lately snatched a twelve-year-old girl and kept her for days as his captive, and when at last she eluded him, it was only to wander back to her home, despoiled and demented. Do you wonder that God is no respecter of persons? Do you wonder that the Bible teaches there is no difference? Do you doubt it is all of grace?
The issues of that war proved the presence and power of God. There are men who doubt if God is ever in battle; but history reveals the fact that few battles take place without His presence. The field of conflict is commonly the place of judgment, and justice is seldom or never omitted. We may be amazed to see Israel defeated twice, and over 40,000 of her people fall, when as a matter of fact she went up animated by the purpose of executing vengeance against an awful sin. Some would imagine that God would go with them and not a man would fall, and so He might have done had Israel, including Judah and all loyal tribes, been themselves guiltless. But such was not the truth! They had sins that demanded judgment as surely as Benjamins sin, and God would not show Himself partial to either side, but mete out judgment according to their deserts. That is why 40,000 of the Israelites had to fall. They were facing then their own faithlessness. They were paying the price of their own perfidy. They were getting unto themselves proofs that their fellowship with the heathen and their adoption of heathen customs was not acceptable with God.
Many people could not understand why England and France and Belgium and Canada and Australia and America should have lost so heavily in the late war, 19141918, believing as we did believe that their cause was absolutely just. Why should God have permitted them to so suffer in its defense? Millions upon millions of them dying, enormous wealth destroyed, women widowed, children orphaned, lands sacked, cities burned, cathedrals ruined, sanctuaries desecrated. The world around, there went up a universal cry, Why? And yet the answer is not far to seek. England was not guiltless; France was not guiltless; Belgium was not guiltless.
Poor Belgium! All the world has turned to her with pity and we are still planning aid for the Belgians and to preach to them and their children the Gospel of grace, and this we should do; but God had not forgotten that just a few years ago Belgium was blackening her soul by her conduct in the Belgian Congo. Natives by the score and hundreds were beaten brutally, their hands cut off because they did not carry to the Belgian king as much rubber and ivory as Belgian avarice demanded. American slavery, in its darkest hour, never knew anything akin to the oppression and persecution to which Belgium subjected the blacks in the Congo. Significant, indeed, is the circumstance that when the Germans came into Belgium, many Belgian hands were cut off; hapless and helpless children were found in this mangled state. Frightful as it was, it must have reminded Belgian authorities of their sins in Africa and of the certainty and exactitude of final judgment.
We have an illustration of this truth in the Book of Judges. When Judah went up against the Canaanites and the Lord delivered them into his hands, they slew in Bezek 10,000 men. They found Adoni-Bezek, the king, and fought against him, and caught him and cut off his thumbs and great toes. We cry Horror! and wonder that Gods own people could so behave; but, complete the sentence, and you begin to see justice, And Adoni-bezek said, Threescore and ten kings, having their thumbs and their great toes cut off, gathered their meat under my table. As I have done, so God hath requited me (Jdg 1:7).
Think of England in her infamous opium traffic, forcing it upon natives at the mouths of guns, enriching her own exchecquer at the cost of thousands and tens of thousands of hapless natives of East India and China!
Think of France, with her infidelity, having denied God, desecrated His sabbath, rejected His Son and given themselves over to absinthe and sensuality!
Think of the United States with her infamous liquor traffic, shipping barrels upon barrels to black men and yellow men, and cursing the whole world to fill her own coffers.
Tell me whether judgment was due the nations, and whether they had to see their sin in the lurid light of Belgian and French battlefields; but do not overlook the fact that when the war finally ends, Benjamin, the worst offender, the greater sinner, goes down in the greatest judgment, and one day Benjamins soldiers are almost wiped from the earth! Out of 26,700, 25,000 and more perish. Tell us now whether judgment falls where judgment belongs!
Take the late war. Again and again Germany was triumphant, but when the Allies had suffered sufficiently and had learned to lean not to themselves but upon the Lord; when, like Israel, they turned from hope in self and trusted in God, then God bared His arm in their behalf and Germany went down in defeat, a defeat that made their come-back impossible; a defeat that fastened upon them the tribute of years; a defeat that proved to them that, great as might have been the sins of the allied nations, greater still, in the sight of God, was their own sin; for final judgment is just judgment.
God is not only in history; God has to do with the making of history. If men without a king behave every one as is right in his own eyes, the King of all kings, the Lord of all lords, will do that which will eventually seem right in the eyes of all angels and of all good men. That is GOD!
Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley
JEPHTHAHTRAGEDY AND TRIUMPH
Judges 11, 12.
AS before suggested, we cannot afford to pass over in silence the man to whom the finger of inspiration points with pride, as in Heb 11:32. Any name that is righteously associated with Gideon David and Samuel, not to speak of Barak and of Samson, is thereby made immortal; and any study of the Book of Judges that did not linger thoughtfully upon the eleventh and twelfth chapters would be necessarily superficial and unsatisfactory.
The introductory sentence of the eleventh chapter arrests the attention of the reader, Now Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty man of valor. Such men make history, and over their names intelligent readers, through the centuries, linger; and of their deeds such readers think long and deeply.
The life history of Jeph thah as recorded in these two chapters may be expressed in four suggestionsVice and Jephthah; The Vow of Jephthah; The Victory of Jephthah, and The Virtues of Jephthah.
VICE AND JEPHTHAH
Life is a series of paradoxes. The opening sentence of this chapter, Now Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty man of valor delights the reader, excites expectation, and prepares him for a feast of high exploits; but when the sentence is complete one stands in amazement and is prepared to expect little of heroism and even to anticipate much of ignobility, for the sentence is thus completed, and he was the son of a harlot.
Is human life different from water? one of the two essentials to its existence; can it rise above its source? Can the man who is born in sin and of sin be less than a sinner? These are all questions that the full study of these chapters will illumine if it does not adequately answer.
But, in their contemplation, let us face all the facts. When we have read three verses we will have compassed the following certainties: He was the child of vice; he was the victim of vice; and he was a leader of the vicious.
He was a child of vice! He was the son of a harlot, and Gilead begat Jephthah. What greater blow can strike the life of a lad than to begin it as a bastard? Such is this handicap that thousands of women have destroyed their own, rather than subject them to the natural indignities, handicaps and hardships that such a birth effects.
It is a truth that no matter how one comes into the world he may live gloriously and leave behind him both an honorable and an imperishable name. The laws of God and the grace of God are both adapted to that possibility. But it is also true that Society is the harsh enemy of the unrighteously born, and in consequence of that fact, of all the burdens that men bear few are so crushing as the burden of an illegitimate birth. This is the infliction that Society visits upon the harlot; and it is not content to treat the mother as an outcast, it insists upon visiting the same judgment upon the child.
Society refuses to look for possible points of approval or conceivable virtues in the woman who has loved out of wedlock. She may have the keenest intellect, the tenderest and most compassionate spirit and even entertain the noblest ambitions, but, it compels her, like Hester in Hawthornes Scarlet Letter to stand forever in both mock and mark of shame; and her child to endure with her the same. Such then, was Jephthahs evil heritage.
He was the victim of vice. Gileads wife bare him sons; and his wifes sons grew up, and they thrust out Jephthah, and said unto him, Thou shalt not inherit in our fathers house; for thou art the son of a strange woman (Jdg 11:2).
He was another Ishmael in experience; he was another Joseph in suffering; he was another David in fraternal contempt. This is another instance of social injustice. Jephthah had no guilt. The fact that his mother was not their mother was not Jephthahs fault. Since his was not the sin neither should his have been the shame. Gilead was the culprit, but here that social law, expressed in the Decalogue itself, is wrought into experience and the iniquity of the father is visited upon the children.
The world is filled with such tragedies. Years ago I knew one of the greatest of Americas ministers. In my student days he was a man of advanced age, but extensive and profound influence. Yet it was told me by those who knew his secret that he had come to his place of power in spite of the circumstance that he was the illegitimate child of one of Americas great but godless statesmen; and that the heaviest burden of his life had been the bearing of that knowledge. He had not been permitted to share the honors to which his own father attained; nor to have any part in the estate left at his dying; nor even to call brother and sister those who belonged to him by blood. Such was Jephthahs estate!
He became a leader of the vicious. Then Jephthah fled from his brethren, and dwelt in the land of Tob: and there were gathered vain men to Jephthah, and went out with him (Jdg 11:3).
It is not an unusual thing for the man that Society has unjustly judged and unrighteously condemned, to turn rebel against the same. So did David (1Sa 22:2); and Rezon (1Ki 11:24); and Adonijah (1Ki 1:5); and Jereboam (2Ch 13:7); and also Absalom (2Sa 15:1). Few of these had so unjustly suffered as had Jephthah, but each one of them became a leader of a bandit band; and David, at least, like Jephthah, led successfully and became a nation builder.
It is thus that successful revolutions have commonly been wrought. The time was when George Washington was looked upon in England as a mere free-booter, and unrighteous rebel; yet the time came when even England was compelled to yield to his prowess and unite in his praise. But with Washington it required a lifetime for the first and a century for the second.
Jephthah, however, revealed such valor and wisdom that whilst he was yet in youth Israel acknowledged both and proffered him a captaincy; in fact a supreme rulership for the time. In accepting the same Jephthah dictated his own terms. If he went to their aid he should become their head (Jdg 11:5-11). He was, nevertheless, an astute statesman. When once he had agreed to lead Israel he immediately laid the foundations for righteous procedure. He prepared a way of peace and proffered the same to Ammon (Jdg 11:12-29). This course on Jephthahs part is a tribute to his character; a presentation also of his quick discernment of the right; and a basal occasion of the Spirits descent upon him and enduement of him.
It is not always true that the rebel is the Governments enemy; he may easily be the Governments friend. His rebellion may be justified by existing conditions, and even required for their correction. If his cause is wrong it ends, to be named a rebellion; if right, it commonly eventuates in what is later known as a revolution.
There has always been the impression that still abides, that the man who does not back the national or ecclesiastical program is an undeserving rebel; but history is not more replete with illustrations of any truth than with the absolute certainty that the man who espouses an unpopular cause and in its incipiency accepts the support of the poor and oppressed and outcast crowd, and continues his advocacy of the same until a majority of men have been convinced and join themselves to his colors, is in the end known as the true statesmen. Great causes are seldom born full-blown. The right rarely ever gathers to itself quickly a majority. The valorous man in the initial stages of his plans and opinions is seldom justly judged by Society; time has ever been the friend of truth, and vicissitudes the opportunity of the valorous.
THE VOW OF JEPHTHAH
The preceding history has been but preparatory to the real conflict. It found a sort of counterpart in Germanys request to be permitted to pass peacefully through the territory of Belgium. They knew that the great conflict was to come when France and England and Russia and finally, even America should be faced. It was, therefore, with this mighty enterprise at hand that Jephthah realized his full dependence upon God.
And Jephthah vowed a vow unto the Lord, and said, If Thou shalt without fail deliver the children of Ammon into mine hands,
Then it shall be, that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, shall surely be the Lords, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering (Jdg 11:30-31).
This vow was suddenly made, but it may not have been suddenly conceived. Such vows were common in Jephthahs day; common with the heathen nations, and even well-known to Israels customs. It revealed a sense of dependence upon the Divine One.
In the further discussion of these chapters, we shall find that Jephthah was rather poorly instructed in the law and ways of the Lord, but as a Gileadite he knew Him and worshiped Him and trusted His power.
It is a great thing to know God, even though the knowledge is utterly incomplete. It is a great thing to depend upon Him in the fateful hours of life. It is a great thing to bind ourselves to Him by vows, and it is a great thing to put our trust in His power. It may be a truth, as W. J. Dawson said, War under the best circumstances is a gigantic gamble, in which the stakes are not only human lives, but national destinies. No great general, however brave and sagacious he may be, can ever be absolutely sure of success. In all warfare what seems chance plays a great part, often so unexpected a part that all the calculations of the wisest strategy are upset by the event. Hence the greatest soldier, surest of himself and of his cause, can scarcely meet the dawn of battle without solemn thoughts and noble fears.
But the gambling element is taken out when God is taken in. The element of uncertainty is removed when the cause is truly committed to Him. Chance plays no part when Providence appears, and the humbled captain may be sure of himself and his cause if God go with him to battle.
This Jephthah seems to have believed and so based his vow.
This vow was seriously made. The language, If thou shalt without fail deliver the children of Ammon into mine hands, Then it shall be, that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, shall surely be the Lords, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering (Jdg 11:30-31), is language remote from flippancy.
Beasts do not dwell in houses, with the exception of that domestic favorite, the dog; and he, being an unclean animal, could not have been involved in this vow. It would seem fairly certain that Jephthah knew that some member of his family would become this sacrifice, and there is nothing in this entire story to indicate that Jephthah was a brutal man who could offer a wife, or child, without regret. On the contrary, his rent clothes, his stricken cry, his broken spirit, as recorded in the thirty-fifth verse, all go to indicate his parental tenderness and paternal affection.
What, then, is the meaning of this strange procedure? Necessarily this, that Jephthah knew the significance of the hour to which he had come, and understood what it would mean for the Children of Israel to go down before the face of Ammon. Every war demands domestic sacrifices. The wife lays her young husband on the altar in the interest of the homeland. The most affectionate fathers, the most tender mothers, contribute their sons to be slain that their people and nation may live. If, in such an hour as that of the late war, a father or mother draw back and try to keep the son at home and alive, when the safety of the country demands his sacrifice, they are hotly condemned, and he must wear that most contemptuous of epithetsa shirker. Taking, then, the most serious view of this subject conceivable, that Jephthahs daughter was actually sacrificed on the altar to God, are you ready to condemn the man who, to save his country, contributed his child? You answer me, Nay, but we condemn the God that demanded it, or that would even accept it. But do you? Do you condemn the God that demanded our sons for the safety of England, and France, and America, in the horrible experience of 1914-18?
And yet, further, when did God demand it? This vow, on the part of Jephthah, was a voluntary one. It was not in response to a Divine speech. It was, rather, the prompting of a human heart in the hour of need. How like our own day, and even our own experiences now! Have you not made many and serious pledges to God when danger was nigh, when destruction was just at hand, when everything dear seemed to be in the balance? And have you not, in your deepest soul, believed that such pledges on your part were acceptable to Him and might secure fresh exhibitions of His favor and proofs of His love? And, then, have you not done the thing that is shamed by Jephthahs conduct, namely, when God has heard you and has marvelously answered, and has brought you victoriously through, forgotten to pay your vow, and even broken the very covenant that you yourself thought and voiced, and trampled your own pledges under your feet as you turned again to sin?
THE VICTORY OF JEPHTHAH
It was a complete victory.
So Jephthah passed over unto the children of Ammon to fight against them; and the Lord delivered them into his hands.
And he smote them from Aroer, even till thou come to Minnith, even twenty cities, and unto the plaint of the vineyards, with a very great slaughter. Thus the children of Ammon were subdued before the Children of Israel (Jdg 11:32-33).
The Lord does nothing incompletely, and the Lord delivered them into his hands. It was like the victories that had attended Jonathan and his armour-bearer. It was like the victories that had been with David in his best day. It was like the victory that He had given to Gideon. In other words, it was like God! The children of Ammon were subdued before the Children of Israel.
The promise of your victory and mine is in Him. We know whom we have believed, and are persuaded that He is able to keep that which we have committed unto Him. Faith is the victory because faith brings God, before whose face all opposition flees, and by whose hand all enemies are overthrown.
It was a costly victory.
And Jephthah came to Mizpeh unto his house, and, behold, his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dames: and she was his only child; beside her he had neither son nor daughter.
And it came to pass, when he saw her, that he rent his clothes, and said, Alas, my daughter! thou hast brought me very low, and thou art one of them that trouble me; for I have opened my mouth unto the Lord, and I cannot go back (Jdg 11:34-35).
When was war ever waged without this very price? It meant, then, it means now, and so long as war lasts, it will forever mean the sacrifice of our darlings, our sons, our daughters. Old men excite war and become, themselves, the directors of war; but young men and maidens are the sacrifices on its bloody altar.
However, we cannot pass by this pathetic scene of a beautiful daughter, dancing into her fathers presence to the music of timbrels, to break his heart by her vision of beauty, to compel him to rend his clothes and cry, Alas, thou hast brought me very low, for I have opened my mouth unto the Lord, and I cannot go back, without grieving over Jephthah as we grieve over so many men, because like him they know not the ways of God, nor are yet acquainted with the Word of God.
How many times we shut ourselves up to judgment when God has provided a path of mercy, because we knew it not? How many people harrow their souls with the sense of sin, and forget the promised salvation? How many people face constantly the final judgment, and even hell, and forget that they need not come into judgment nor endure hell? They know some Scripture, enough to fall under the condemnation of its sentences, and they do not know enough to find the way out. Such is the tragedy of ignorance itself!
Jephthahs vow could have been kept, and his daughter saved at the same time, had he but known the law of the Lord. Far back in Lev 27:1-4, the Lord had revealed mercys way:
And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,
Speak unto the Children of Israel, and say unto them, When a man shall make a singular vow, the persons shall be for the Lord by thy estimation.
And thy estimation shall be of the male from twenty years old even unto sixty years old, even thy estimation shall be fifty shekels of silver, after the shekel of the sanctuary.
And if it be a female, then thy estimation shall be thirty shekels.
Poor Jephthah! Anguished, heart-broken, wretched, and undone, because he knew not the Word of the Lord. The knowledge of that single sentence would have saved him out of his sorrow, and at the same time kept his vow absolutely, for if it be a female, then thy estimation shall be thirty shekels. He was rich now! The wealth of Israel was at his command, for he was potentially their king, and all the spoils of the Amorites were his to dispose of as he would, and yet, in the ignorance of the Word of the Lord, his heart is broken, his life is blighted, his very soul within him is stricken, and he is a man who had saved his country by loyalty to the Lord, and knew not how to save himself, in his ignorance of His Word.
It was a victory of the cross.
And she said unto him, My father, if thou hast opened thy mouth unto the Lord, do to me according to that which hath proceeded out of thy mouth; forasmuch as the Lord hath taken vengeance for thee of thine enemies, even of the children of Ammon.
And she said unto her father, Let this thing be done for me: let me alone two months, that I may go up and down upon the mountains, and bewail my virginity, I and my fellows.
And he said, Go. And he sent her away for two months: and she went with her companions, and bewailed her virginity upon the mountains.
And it came to pass at the end of two months, that she returned unto her father, who did with her according to his vow which he had vowed: and she knew no man. And it was a custom in Israel,
That the daughters of Israel went yearly to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite four days in a year (Jdg 11:36-40).
Men have always condemned this vow of Jephthah, and enemies of the truth have used it again and again to prove that Jehovah was merely another Molocha god who delighted in sacrifice and sniffed the blood of the beautiful and virtuous, with pleasure. But all such interpretations are contortions.
It is a singular thing that this Book, written millenniums ago, in the day when the ideas of God were supposed to be primitive and deficient, falls not into the mistake of making God responsible either for this vow or for its execution. There is not a hint anywhere that God either demanded this sacrifice, or delighted in it. It was not because He had required it; it was because Jephthahs uninstructed conscience suggested and executed.
But there is here a true lesson. The voluntary surrender of this daughters life as a sacrifice because her nation had been saved, is one of the greatest adumbrations of the cross known to Old Testament teaching. She died that Israel might live, and Christ died that we might be saved. Her voluntary offering of self was akin to His voluntary offering of self, and the great and eternal principle that the individual must suffer to secure societys safety, has been so often illustrated that men who talk against atonement prove themselves ignorant of all moral and spiritual values.
But we prefer to conclude this study by a consideration of
THE VIRTUES OF JEPHTHAH
Condemn his ignorance as you like; call as much attention as you will to his heathenish ideas of propitiation, certain great facts remain that give occasion to his name in the galaxy of the faithful found in Hebrews 11.
First, he sought not to save himself. If ever a man was tempted to break his vow to God, Jephthah was that man; and if ever a man proved that he would rather die than do it, Jephthah is that illustration. There is no natural father living who would not yield up a dozen lives to save his darling daughter, and, in this instance, his only child. So when she died, Jephthah died a dozen times, yea, a hundred, a thousand deaths. What a temptation to retract! The war is over, the victories are won, the channel of history is changed; even God Himself will not bring back to life the slaughtered hosts of the Amorites. Why, then, keep my word? So Jephthah might have reasoned; but be it forever said to his credit, that he did not so. He had vowed, and he would pay his vow at all cost. What a lesson for the modern man!
You were in trouble yesterday! Clouds hung above your head! Lightning flashes were before your eyes! It looked to you that at any moment everything that you held dear might be in ruin, and you promised God that if He would intervene, clear the clouds away, and save you out of impending judgment, you would prove your loyalty, illustrate your love, and never again be faithless, or even forgetful. He heard you; He answered you. Are you keeping your pledge? Yesterday, I was at deaths door, and I said over and over, Lord, if I can live, I will do this; I will do that; I will prove myself a servant of Thy will, and never again will I depart from the paths of Thine appointment! He raised me up; where are the vows? Am I keeping them at all cost? Am I able to say, as Jephthah said, I have opened my mouth unto the Lord, and I cannot go back? Oh, we men of this twentieth century; ye women of this very day! We; ye, need the history of Jephthahs conductSteadfastness in keeping vows to God. Is that not a virtue?
He made an unspeakable sacrifice. When adepts in figures sit down and calculate into the millions, and billions, what a war has cost a nation, how foolish and how utterly materialistic are all such reckonings! What matters it that England is in debt for one hundred years? What matters it that America must be taxed so heavily, and France to the point of continuous and oppressive extent? Our losses are not our money. Thats a bagatelle, and I dont care how big the amount was! Pile up your figuresbillions on billionswhat are they beside the sons that were slaughtered, and the daughters that died? Thats the loss! Thats the true sacrifice. Life, after all, is the gold of the worldits rubies, its diamonds. The world has but one precious possession, and thats its sons and its daughters. No man, therefore, ever paid a greater price. No patriotism ever voiced itself in a greater sacrifice than Jephthah made to save Israel. His was the supreme sacrifice!
He was enrolled with Gods saints. And what shall I more say? for the time would fail me to tell of Gedeon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthae; of David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets (Heb 11:32).
Do you mean to tell me now that you dont believe he belongs there? Then I mean to tell you that your opinion has little value since it sets itself in opposition to Divine revelation. This name, in spite of all the ruggedness associated with its carving, in spite of all the handicaps with which the life linked to it began and continued, is among the immortals, to abide!
The Ephraimites may gather themselves together, if they will, and complain of Jephthah as they complained of Gideon. But Jephthah will answer them in words and in war. There are those who think that we should not war with men who do not speak our shibboleth, and they tell us that it is a minor matter. Nay, verily! It is a distinction with a difference. The man who does not speak the shibboleth of Gods revelation may profess kinship with us, but, as a matter of fact, he is not of us. He may claim that he wants to fight with us, but the truth is that he is ready to fight against us. Jephthah laid the ages under an additional tribute of obligation, when he held these apostate children of Benjamin to strict account for their course and conduct.
The Ephraim of today is the enemy of the Church of God. He is known now as the middle-of-the roader. He will not take sides with Israel, the fundamentalist; nor will he fight with the Amorite, the modernist. But his chief complaints are against the former, and his chief assistance is unto the latter. How, then, can it be otherwise than that he, too, should be judged an enemy and meet the fate of them that will not fight for God? Did not Christ say, He that is not with Me is against me. If ever there was just claim, as in the apostolic line of them that are loyal to God, Jephthah holds it. His true successors are those who, like him, seek the salvation of the nation and look for the same through sacrifice, and are ready, if need be, to put themselves upon the altar, for it is still a truth, as Christ asserted, He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal (Joh 12:25).
Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley
CHOICE OF A LEADER; AND SLAUGHTER OF THE ENEMY
Jdg. 11:1-33.
CRITICAL NOTES. Jdg. 11:1. The Gileadite.] Many regard this as not a definite patronymic, but indicating that he belonged to the clan of the Gileadites. The phrase, Gilead begat Jephthah, they suppose to mean that the son of Machir was his ancestor, and add, that his posterity is not more distinctly given because his birth was illegitimate. But this is to put a strain on the passage, for we are told that Jephthahs father had other sons (Jdg. 11:2). Gilead here spoken of then, must have been a descendant of the son of Machir, wearing the same name, for the same names often recurred in Jewish families (see the genealogies in 1 Chronicles 2, 4.) The ancestor of the family is referred to in Num. 26:29. The designation, Gileadite, by itself, may be regarded as a general patronymic, similar to Elon the Zebulonite (ch. Jdg. 12:11-12), signifying that he belonged to the family line of the Gileadites, and that one of the line of the same name with the ancestor, Gilead, was his father. It also implies, that Gilead was the country of his birth.
A mighty man of valour] comp. Jos. 1:14; 2Ki. 5:1; also ch. Jdg. 6:12, implying great physical strength, boldness and courage. A man able to endure hardness as a good soldier, a man that had often done great exploits on the field, and that had looked death in the face on great adventures in the field(Trapp). This feature is mentioned, as it gave him distinction in such an age, an age of wars and fightings. The son of an harlot.] The sacred penman, with ever impartiality, gives the actual outlines of a mans history, whether for honour or dishonour.
Jdg. 11:2. Thrust out Jephthah.] From the circumstance of his birth, he was not entitled to share in the paternal inheritance. Not even the children of the secondary wife were so entitled (Gen. 21:10; Gen. 25:6). It is probable, that Jephthah from his bold and enterprising spirit, bade fair to take the lead in the general family circle, and so jealousy was awakened.
Jdg. 11:3. Dwelt in the land of Tob.] 2Sa. 10:6. Probably some part of Syria, a part on the borders of Gilead, to the north, or north-east. He flees thither as to an asylum, and by constraint, good, may apply to the land, and signify that the land was fertile. Such a phrase as eretz tob, a good land, is used in Exo. 3:8. Yet some suppose it may have been owned by one who was called Tob, on account of his goodness, as Aristides was surnamed the Just, and Phocion was called the Good. Of Probus, the Emperor, it was said if he had not already had Probus (the honest) for his name, he would certainly have had it given him for a surname, for he was honest all over. (Trapp).
Were gathered unto him vain men.] Rather, they gathered themselves unto him. They were probably attracted to him, partly because he belonged to a family of distinction, but still more by his sterling qualities as a leader of men. Courage, enterprise, and decision of character, are sure to make a following. vain men. Men of no moral restraint (see on ch. Jdg. 9:4), of loose, perhaps infamous character; for it corresponds with the term Raca in Matthew 5, which is a term of great reproach. In fact, Jephthah now became an adventurer, not of choice, but through force of circumstances; and adversity makes us acquainted with strange bedfellows. These were not chosen associates of Jephthah, as was the case with Abimelech (ch. Jdg. 9:4), but they had this in common, that they were driven out from the pale of constituted society, and were compelled to lead the life of adventurers. Jephthah, however, could have had no sympathy with anything that was ungodly, or dissolute in character.
They went out with him,] i.e. in any of his adventures. These were necessary as a means of subsistence. Nothing would be more to the taste of such a class of men than a system of freebooting, without regard to moral principle. But to a man of conscience, like Jephthah, such considerations as these would regulate his conduct: The heathen all round were the enemies of the God of Israel, and of the people of Israel; they were long ago marked out for destruction; most of them had already oppressed Israel for years without making compensation; and at the present moment (during the 18 years mentioned), the Ammonites were doing their very utmost to tread down the tribes throughout Gilead to the east of Jordan, his own people. Was he not, therefore, justified in attacking the enemies of his people, and of his God, the same as he would be in fighting a battle with an enemy? Was he not at liberty to despoil those who were already doomed to destruction by Jehovah, at the hand of Israel? A parallel case we have in the history of David (1Sa. 22:2). David made raids from time to time into the countries of the Lords enemies (1Sa. 27:8-10; 1 Samuel 30; also 1Sa. 23:1-5). Jephthah was very successful in these excursions, and so gained a great name as a warrior.
Jdg. 11:4. In process of time.] After several years, or as the years rolled on. The meaning seems to be, when a considerable period had elapsed after Jephthahs expulsion, and many things had come and gone. When he was expelled, it was the period of the peoples sin and impenitence, and not at all unlikely, one of the special items of dislike to him on the part of his brethren, was his staunch loyalty to the God of Israel, while they at that time were idolaters. That he was a true fearer of Jehovah is manifest from the whole account, and he was not likely to learn that lesson in Aram while living among heathen strangers. He must have learned it before leaving his fathers house and kindred, for in the darkest nights of Israels history, there were always some glimmerings of the true light left unextinguished. Jephthahs brethren, being now penitent, and having returned to the worship of Israels God, would feel that his piety, which they formerly disliked, was one of the best qualifications for his becoming their leader in a battle, which was to be won through the aid of Israels God.
Made war against Israel.] The historian now returns from his digression to the point stated in ch. Jdg. 10:17. The Ammonites had for years made many desultory and desolating excursion into the land of Israel, but now they were collecting their forces for a general subjugation of the country. It was about this period, say some, that the Greeks made war against Troy, and after ten years took it.Trapp.
Jdg. 11:6. Come and be our captain.] Because of his fame as a warrior, and also because of his loyalty to Israels God. a leader in war (Jos. 10:24), and is distinguished in Jdg. 11:11 from , a chief in peace and war. The former word seems to refer to a temporary appointment, the latter to a permanent office; hence its importance in Jdg. 11:9, where is used. And the force of the statement is, If I fight with Ammon as your temporary captain for the battle, and the Lord deliver them into my hand, then I will become your permanent head or judge, or shall I become so? To this they agreed.
Jdg. 11:7. Did ye not hate me and expel me, etc.?] We see nothing very harsh or resentful in these words as some do. A great injury had been done to him in forcing him into exile, and compelling him to lead the life of a guerilla chief for these eighteen years, and the language now used is only what might be expected from a man of proper self-respect. His brethren really did the wrong, but the elders, or leading men in Gilead of that day, seemed to have concurred in the act, or at least could have prevented it.
Jdg. 11:8. Therefore we turn to thee now, etc.] We now come to make amends, and we not only ask thee to fight with us against the children of Ammon, but to be head or ruler over all Gilead.
Jdg. 11:9. And the Lord deliver them before me.] He speaks of God under his covenant name, Jehovahnot Elohim, which last refers equally to all the inhabitants of the world, but the former relates to the special covenant he had made with Israel as a redeemed people. He also looks for victory, not as coming through his own prowess or skill as a general, but as a blessing coming from Jehovah.
Shall I be your head?] Shall I become your permanent ruler or head (as explained in Jdg. 11:6)? Or, it will be on condition that I become your permanent head.
Jdg. 11:10. The Lord be witness, etc.] The enemy was at the gate, and there was no time for hesitation. They were glad to get the help of a man like Jephthah, on any terms. They are even willing to make the agreement with the solemnity of an oath, for an oath for confirmation is to men an end of all strife.
Jdg. 11:11. Uttered all his words before the Lord.] He does everything under Jehovahs immediate inspection and sanction. He generously forgets all former grievances, and forgives as he hoped to be forgiven.
In Mizpeh.] This place from Jacobs time had always more or less of a sacred character. There was set up the heap of stones as a witness before God, that neither Laban nor he should pass it to do the other harm (Gen. 31:49-53). It, afterwards, became the capital of Gilead. It was also one of the 48 Levitical cities given to that sacred tribe, among all the other tribes (Jos. 21:38), and it was one of the six cities of refuge (Jos. 20:8). In these verses it is spoken of as Ramoth-in-Gilead. The special presence of God was supposed to be with the tabernacle, with the ark, or with the priest officiating clothed with the ephod. This latter may have been the case here.
Jdg. 11:12. What hast thou to do with me?] He now speaks in name of the nation, having been chosen their captain. His first step is to try to settle the dispute peacefully, according to the law of his God (Deu. 20:10). Even the Romans held that all things ought to be tried first before war.
Jdg. 11:13. Israel took away my land, &c.] This was a mere pretext for a quarrel. A district of fertile land lying between Arnon on the south, and Jabbok on the north, enclosed by Jordan on the west, and the wilderness on the east, did at one time belong to the Moabites, or Ammonites, or both; for being both sons of Lot and brethren, they are often spoken of as if they were but one nation (see Num. 21:26-30). But that territory was taken from them by Sihon, king of the Amorites, so that when Israel, at their entrance into Canaan, passed along, they found it to be a part of the kingdom of Sihon, and as they conquered Sihon in turn, it naturally fell into their hands; yet, in no sense, as a portion of Moab or Ammon, but as a division of the kingdom of Sihon (Jdg. 5:22; Deu. 3:16; Jos. 13:25). The Arnon (rushing stream) empties itself into the Dead Sea, mid-way down on the east side (Num. 21:13). The Jabbok (pourer) rises in the mountains of Gilead, and empties itself into the Jordan, near the city of Adam (Jos. 3:16) (Lias).
Jdg. 11:14. Sent messengers again.] He was a man of robust intellect, as well as robust body, and saw through the flimsiness of the pretext in a moment.
Jdg. 11:15. Thus saith Jephthah.] He recapitulates all the facts bearing on the case, and shows how fully he was acquainted with all Gods past dealings towards his covenant people. Like Moses in the desert, or like David in the cave, he must have occupied much of his time in that foreign land, in meditating on the mighty acts of the Lord towards His chosen people.
Jdg. 11:17. Sent messengers to the King of Edom and to the King of Moab, etc.] These peoples were descendants of Esau and of Lot, and the Israelites were forbidden to attack any of them (Deu. 2:5; Deu. 2:9; Deu. 2:19; 2Ch. 20:10). So Israel abode in Kadesh, when these kings refused to grant them liberty to pass through. They took no step to force a passage, though they were well able to do so.
Jdg. 11:18. Compassed the land of Edom and of Moab.] Took a long and fatiguing journey round these territories, that they might not come within the borders of Moab nor yet of Edom (Num. 21:4; Num. 21:11; Num. 21:13; Num. 22:36; Deu. 2:1-12).
Jdg. 11:19-20. Let us pass through thy land unto my place, etc.] Even Sihon was not attacked by Israel, but the Amorite king himself brought on the war which took place (Num. 21:21-25; Deu. 2:26-34).
Jdg. 11:22. They possessed all the coasts of the Amorites from Arnon to Jabbok, and from the wilderness to Jordan.] This was the territory in dispute, and Jephthah shows how it came into Israels possession. It was not taken by Israel from Moab, for at that time Moab had it not. Israel too showed a jealous care not to touch anything that belonged to Moab, being forbidden by Jehovah to do so. What took place before that, between the Amorites and Moab, Israel had nothing to do withit was a piece of past history. But Israel took it from a king by whom they were attacked in war.
Jdg. 11:23. The Lord God of Israel hath dispossessed the Amorites, etc.] (Deu. 2:32-37). The blessed and only Potentate did so. There could be no higher title to any possession than this. The God that made the world and all things therein determines for men the bounds of their habitation (Act. 17:24; Act. 17:26; Dan. 4:25). At the first, the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance (Deu. 32:8). The Lord of the whole earth (Psa. 24:1) has a right to give any part of it to whomsoever he pleaseth. The complaint now made was really a complaint against the doing of the God of Israel.
Jdg. 11:24. That which Chemosh thy god giveth thee.] He appeals to their own principles of action. They were accustomed to hold that what their god gave them they had the fullest right to possess, for no law was higher with them than the decision of their god. Had not Israel then the same high title to possess that which their God gave them? This was unanswerable reasoning (Deu. 9:3; Deu. 9:5; Deu. 18:12; Jos. 3:10). Ammon and Moab got possession of the territory they then had, by forcibly driving out its previous possessors (Deu. 2:10-22).
Jdg. 11:25. Art thou anything better than Balak, etc.?] Jephthah knew the whole history well and could reason upon it equally well. He means, art thou better than the King of Moab of that day? Yet he never disputed Israels title to the possession of that which they took from Sihon, when they had conquered him in battle. And if Moabs king at the time did not find fault, why raise a dispute now after the lapse of 300 years? There was now a prescriptive right. A title so long unquestioned, was to be presumed to be unquestionable(Bush). Balak did indeed hire Baalam to curse Israel, but not because he wished thereby to recover the lost portion of land, but his object was to save his crown itself and the kingdom which he possessed. Ammon and Moab went together in this nefarious attempt (Deu. 23:4). They were brethren. Moab was the more civilised and agricultural, Ammon the more fierce, Bedouin-like and marauding half of Lots descendants (Isaiah 15, 16; Jeremiah 48; comp. with 1Sa. 11:2; Amo. 1:13; 2Sa. 10:1-5; 2Sa. 12:31)(Fausset).
Jdg. 11:27. Wherefore I have not sinned against thee, &c.] I have the land by right of conquest, the same as that by which you own your own territory. I have it by the gift of our God, who is the Sovereign Proprietor of heaven and earth. And I have it by the right of long unquestioned possession.
The Lord be judge, etc.] He leaves the matter in the hands of the Sovereign Judge of all the earth. It is clear that throughout this chapter, Jephthah acknowledged the Lord in all his ways, believing that He would direct his steps.
Jdg. 11:28. Hearkened not to the words of Jephthah.] Though the reasoning was most conclusive. His purpose to fight was already fixed. It was a case of the wolf and the lamb. God hardened his heart, for He purposed to destroy him for lifting his hand against the people of God.
Jdg. 11:29. The Spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah.] Already he had the spirit of grace, now he got the spirit of power (see on ch. Jdg. 3:10; Jdg. 6:34). The effect was to raise him above his natural level in courage, strength, boldness, and wisdom. This was the crowning proof that Jehovah had chosen Jephthah, and not the elders of Israel merely, to be the leader in this important crisis. It was the same as if a horn of oil had been poured on his head. It was also an indication of the fact, that victory was to come, not by natural energy or skill, not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit saith the Lord.
Passed over Gilead and Manasseh.] To collect an army, in Reuben, Gad, and the tribe of Manasseh east. Mizpeh of Gilead is specially mentioned as being the rendezvous for all public assemblies of the people, on the east side of Jordan. The reasons are given above under Jdg. 5:11. It is called Mizpeh of Gilead, to distinguish it from Mizpeh of Judah, a town about 20 miles to the south of Jerusalem (1Sa. 7:5-7; Jos. 15:21; Jos. 15:38), but some place it in Benjamin (Jos. 18:26).
Jdg. 11:32. The Lord delivered them into his hands.] No account is given of the particular means employed. But when Gods hand is specially engaged, it is easy with him to set 1000 springs in operation, in the most natural way, to bring out victory. Whatever was fitted to hamper, to enfeeble, to disconcert, or strike with panic the forces of the enemy, was set agoing. Whatever was needful to encourage, to embolden, and to give fresh strength to His own people, was furnished by the God of battles. A very great slaughter followed, and twenty cities fell into the bands of the victors.
Jdg. 11:33. The children of Ammon were subdued, etc.] A single verse is reckoned sufficient to tell the great decision, whether the dark cloud which had hung over Israel for many years was to continue, and grow darker still, or whether light, liberty, and joy were again to visit the homes of the children of the covenant. But nearly two chapters are taken up with getting the peoples sins disposed of, and the arguments of the case set forth.
The word signifies greatly brought down, or laid very low. Their pride was humbled, and their strength was utterly broken; so it usually fared with those who dared to attack the people of the living God. They were not merely defeated, but the defeat became a rout, and indeed ruin. None of those who oppressed Israel, after Gods controversy with His people was closed, could lift up their heads a second time. Here the word might be translated Canaanised (Bush).
HOMILETIC REMARKS
Jdg. 11:1-33
THE EXILE LEADER, AND A GREAT TRIUMPH
I. Every man has his starting point in life fixed by God.
All do not enter on the race of life with the same advantages. Some are born kings sons, and have the prestige of royalty at every step they take. Others are the children of parents of high rank and great wealth, to whom many doors of ease and enjoyment, as well as an honourable position in life, are thrown open. But a far larger number are born to tread more among thorns than flowers, and have to climb hard, ere they reach a respectable elevation in society. Others still are born under the shadow of reproach, and have from the first to fight their way through a strong prejudice, which it may take many years to dispel. Thus it was with Jephthah, who in early life was banned even from the society of his own brethren, because of the illegitimacy of his birth, and had at length to flee into a land of strangers. There was no blame on his part; but in Gods Providence, this cloud came over him through the sin of his parents.
Similar are the disadvantages, with which many have to contend in fighting the battle of life. How many are born with sickly constitutions, so that many things are a burden or a labour to them, which are a light exercise to others. How many are blind, or have weak eyesight from the first, or are maimed, or deformed. How many have dissolute parents, have uncomfortable homes, are clothed in rags, and see only spectacles of misery and squalor from day to day. How many have to toil hard for the bare necessaries of life, want the means of a liberal education, and have no influential friends to take them by the hand in climbing up the ladder.
In one aspect of the case, this fixing of a mans starting point is the arrangement of God, for it is He who determines every mans lot. Yet it is also true that when a mans ways please the Lord (whatever his station in life) He not only gives him promotion, but maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him (Pro. 16:7), Psa. 75:6-7.
II. Much of a mans future in life depends on himself.
This must be taken in connection with the former remark. Jonathan was a kings son, but he had a wicked father, and he knew from his youth that the wicked fathers son would not inherit the throne of Israel. Yet notwithstanding this blight in his early hopes, he did not quarrel with the position which God had given him, but nobly turned round and said to David, Thou shalt be king over Israel, and I shall be next unto thee. That honour denied him, he sought another distinction, that of being a man of strong faith in his God. Such deeds did he perform through that faith, that his name illumines some of the brightest chapters of the Book of God, and stands higher through all time than if he had worn a crown.
Had Jephthah sat down sullenly as an ill-fated man, complained, as an ungodly man would have done, that the fates were against him, or that God had taken a grudge against him, and begun to cherish a gloomy, perhaps a reckless and misanthropic spirit, he would never have risen in the scale in after life. Nor would Joseph have done so, if he had given way to hard thoughts of God, when cast into the pit, or sold for a slave, falsely accused, and immured within the walls of an Egyptian prison. Nor would David have risen to eminence, if, when chased like a roe among the mountains, he had lost all hope in God, and become demoralised. Every man is bound to make the most of his position, and, like the woman of Zarephath, to gather the two sticks that are left to prepare the last meal, in the faith that the covenant God will not let the barrel of meal waste, nor the cruse of oil fail, till the day that He shall send rain on the earth (1Ki. 17:12-16).
III. Disaffection in a family circle brings chastisement sooner or later.
If it were undutifulness to parents, the sentence according to the Mosaic law was most severe. It was the first commandment in the Second Table of the Law, to honour parents, and often breaches of that commandment were visited with death (Exo. 21:13; Exo. 21:17; Deu. 21:18-21), or some severe penalty (Pro. 30:17; 1Ti. 1:9; Rom. 1:30; Rom. 1:32); or if disaffection break out among brethren, we have a strong illustration of the Divine scourge coming down in after years, in the case of Josephs brethren (comp. Genesis 37 with ch. Gen. 42:21-22). To what a humiliation had Jephthahs brethren to submit, when, in after years, they had to journey into a far country to seek out him whom they had driven out, and implore him to come to their rescue in the day of their extremity! What earnest charges are given against brethren falling out among one another (Gen. 45:24; Mat. 20:24-28; 2Co. 12:20-21; Jas. 3:16; Jas. 4:1, etc.)
IV. Adversity in youth is often a blessing (Lam. 3:27-33).
The man whom God sent into Egypt to provide the staff of bread for His people in days of famine, was sold for a slave (while yet a youth), his feet were hurt with fetters, and he was laid in irons, etc. (Psa. 105:17-22). Joseph, the indulged child, could never have acquired the capacity of dealing with men with firmness, sagacity, and good judgment, as ruler over all the land of Egypt, had he not been taken by Gods own far-seeing hand, and set to learn hard lessons in the school of sharp affliction. David learned much during the years that his life was sought by the envious king of Israel, and also while he was in the cave of Adullam, and living actually in the very country of the Philistines. Jacob, Moses, and others, would never have been the men whom they became, had they not been well schooled in adversity, at the beginning of their public life. Many have had reason to say, It was good for me that I was afflicted.
Jephthah, too, led by the kind hand of Gods Providence, was taught to scorn delights, and live laborious days in his early youth, little knowing at the time, that he was thus really being sent to school, to learn lessons which he could learn so well in no other way, and which were essential to fit him for the great work marked out for him to perform, and the high position he was to occupy in Gods Church in after years.
V. The righteous and the wicked are often compelled to live together in this world.
When driven from his home in Gilead, Jephthah appears to have gone to his mothers country in Aram, or that part of Syria, which is just across the boundary line from Israel, in the north-east. It was a land of idols, yet Jephthah had lived long enough in Israel to acquire a considerable knowledge of Israels God, and no truth makes so deep an impression on the heart that really receives it, as this truth. So he still lived an Israelite, while surrounded by idolaters. Men came around him whom he did not care to seek, and with whose spirit he had no sympathymen who were unprincipled in character, and abandoned in their conduct, but who, being outlaws, like himself, and in need of a captain, were attracted by the robust strength and imperial bearing of this stalwart Gileadite. They would naturally also acknowledge him all the more readily, as he belonged to what was reckoned a good family in Manasseh, and already some favourable rumours were heard, respecting his feats in arms against the neighbouring nations.
Thus was Jephthah compelled to live with many men who had no fear of God before their eyes. On his part, to have a following was a necessity, both, like David, as a protection for his person, and also as a means of fighting the battles of his country and his God. Thus did David (1Sa. 22:2, etc.; 1Sa. 23:1-5; 1Sa. 27:8-9). Besides, Jephthah, like David, was not in a position to choose his company. Idolaters were round him on all sides. These exiles, if they were, or if most of them were, desperadoes, were still the only human beings he could associate with. He would have required to have gone out of the world, if he had determined to keep free of the company of the wicked altogether (1Co. 5:9-10). That Jephthah should have consented to act with these men, was not a matter of preference or of choice, but of pure necessity. If this is not expressly stated, it is at least as fair an inference as any other, and harmonises well with his general character.
While a good man is on earth, he will always have something in his surroundings, to remind him that he is in the enemys country, that it is earth and not heaven. While the people of God are yet only travelling in the wilderness, a mixed multitude travel step by step with them. But when they come to cross Jordan, only the circumcised shall be allowed to enter Canaan. There they shall have only their own company. Here we must act as far as possible by the rule, Thou shalt not plough with an ox and an ass together. When it is a matter of desire, our prayer should be: Gather not my soul with sinners. But when necessity leads us to perform the duties of life in company with the wicked, our prayer should be, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
VI. The same actions may be good or evil, as they are done from right or wrong motives.
If Jephthah and his followers were exiles, or outlaws, the force of their circumstances in such an age, would naturally lead them to act as adventurers. That they made raids in different directions, or prosecuted this kind of life more or less, seems to be implied in the statement, they went out with him. To the followers, mere pillage or robbery would doubtless be the chief impelling motive, or, we may add to that, the love of adventure. But to a man of conscience like Jephthah, the guiding motive would be, to do battle against the enemies of Jehovah, and to give suitable recompense for all the wrongs they had done to his people. All the nations were of this category, so that wherever he turned, the same rule of action would hold good (see Crit. Notes on Jdg. 5:3). Thus the same action was to Jephthah the fulfilment of a sacred duty, while to his followers, it was an action of robbery and brigandage. It is also important to remember, that the whole of these heathen lands, north and south, east and west, were gifted to Israel, and the destruction of their inhabitants was appointed to Gods people as a duty to be fulfilled. All this would be present to the mind of Jephthah, and give another and totally opposite complexion to the acts, from that which they had in the case of his associates, who did what they did as mere plunderers.
In like manner, any offering made to God, good in itself, may become an abomination, when the motives in the heart are those of hypocrisy, or otherwise displeasing to God (Pro. 15:8; Isa. 1:11-15). The kiss of salutation, in the way of acknowledging each other as Christian brethren, was well-pleasing to God, but the kiss of Judas in betraying his Master was diabolically bad. To eat flesh that had been offered to idols, was, to an enlightened Christian, nothing more than the means of good nourishment, and most lawful to do, but to eat such, in the presence of one whose conscience felt such an act to be a stumbling-block to his faith, was positively sinful.
VII. Gods choice of instruments to do His work often appears singular in the estimation of men.
Who could have looked for any good thing coming out of the land of Toba land beyond the boundary of Israel, and where idolatry was universal? Who could have supposed that the illegitimate son of Gileads family, whose mother was a heathen and a stranger to Israels God, and who himself in early boyhood was shunned and scowled upon by all the family circle, and was at length so persecuted at home, that he was obliged to take refuge in a foreign landwho could have supposed, that he should become one day the only man, among all the thousands of Israel, that was found qualified to occupy the post of Judge in Israel, and Leader of the hosts of the Lord against the invasion of the enemy. Truly, this was a rose springing up among thornsstaunch loyalty to Jehovahs name amid surrounding treason, like that of the few solitary faithful ones in Sardis, whose undefiled garments do not escape the notice of Him, who walks in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks (Rev. 3:4). God saw the affliction of his boyhood, and made him a child of His grace. Having begun the good work, He keeps him by his mighty power through faith against all the temptations of the wicked (Rev. 3:10). Thence Jephthah, when called for to do Gods work, is found to be a man of decided piety. Despised by all around him, with a ring of marauders hailing him as their captain, and an exile from his people and home, this man seemed little likely to be of any use to the church of God in his generation. But God seeth not as man seeth. Under the unpromising exterior, He beheld the germ of a thoroughly religious character, and in His holy Providence He made the last first, and the first last. Jephthahs name went down into the Book of Gods remembrance, and that of the Churchs remembrance, as a good name (Heb. 11:32), a pearl among dross, a child of God among children of the wicked one.
How like is this picture to that of Jephthahs great antitype, who was despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, yet in due time was exalted to be the man of Gods right hand. The stone which the builders rejected became the head of the corner.
It illustrates also the difference between Gods estimation and mans estimation of human character (1Sa. 16:6-12; Luk. 7:37; Luk. 7:50; Jas. 4:4; Mar. 12:41, &c.; Luk. 16:15; Heb. 11:38-39).
VIII. Gods wisdom and love in seeming to forget His peoples sufferings.
For the larger part, if not the whole, of the 18 years of the enemys oppression, and perhaps longer still, did Jephthah remain in the land of his exile. It must have seemed to him long, very long, to be deprived of having any fellowship with Gods people in their religious exercises, and he must often have prayed very earnestly for a restoration of his captivity in language similar to that of Psalms 42. It must have seemed as if God had forgotten His word (Psa. 119:49). And so have others of Gods people often felt (Psa. 74:1; Psa. 74:10-11; Psa. 77:7-10). The children of Abraham were kept for more than two generations in the iron furnace in Egypt, yet all the while the Divine pity was felt, and kept looking down with intense sympathy on the scene presented. I have seen, I have seen the affliction of my people, and I have heard their groaning, and am come down to deliver them. Wisdom and love were at work all the time, deciding the best time and mode of deliverance.
But in Jephthahs case, as in Davids, the long delay previous to his great public work was needed, to build up a character suitable to the greatness of that work. The seven or more years of Davids wanderings among wildernesses, and pits, and caves, and mountains, and valleys, were well occupied in the bringing forth of those clear crystal effusions of a pious heart, which we find in many of the precious Psalms. There is the 63rd for example; we have to thank the wilderness of Judah for that. To his flight beyond Jordan, and its long continuance we owe the 42nd. To his narrow escape from Saul, we owe the 57th; and to his danger when among the Philistines we owe the 56th; so with others. What a loss to the Church of God in all ages, not to have had these genuine outpourings of a pious heart, in the midst of overwhelming troubles. Hence the far-seeing wisdom and love of God, that arranged such a course of life for David.
Thus it was with Jephthah. His many years in the land of Tob, we verily believe he spent more in intercourse with his God, than with his associates in adversity. It would be a relief to him to ponder over from day to day the marvellous history, which Moses and Joshua had left behind them of Gods mighty acts of love, and power on behalf of His people; in proof of which, we have a specimen of the accuracy and fulness of his knowledge, in his reasoning with the King of Ammon. Little is indeed recorded, but when it is so, we are to take it, that that little is but a specimen of more that might have been given.
IX. It is wise to make the best of ones circumstances, however adverse.
Many would have said, in his circumstances, that it was of no use to try to do anything to better ones position, or even to do anything for the glory of God, and the good of His church. But this man of faith improved such opportunities as he had, and gained such a name for zeal in vindicating the cause of Jehovah, and such fame as a warrior in the field, that all eyes were turned to him in the day of Israels distress. He was the first who dared to attack the Ammonites on this occasion, and, according to a public resolution come to, he was chosen to be the captain of Israels army (ch. Jdg. 10:18).
X. How legible the records of Scripture history are, compared with those of profane history.
How clear and distinct in every line is the account here given of what took place in Jephthahs days! Yet this is supposed to be about the time of the Trojan war, ending in the overthrow of that famous town by the Greeks. That is reckoned to be about the dawn of general history outside the Bible; and yet even that is so much under a haze, that it is difficult to say how much of the account is truth, and how much is fable. Even before this time, as far back as the days of Moses, the ink seems yet scarcely dry on the page (if the expression might be allowed), everything being so fresh and legible, while all profane records, even of a date less remote, seem covered with lichen, or are musty and moth-eaten.
XI. The unwisdom of despising anyone in the day of prosperity.
The brethren of Jephthah were foolish enough to do this, and lived afterwards bitterly to lament it. God has so dovetailed society together, and made one part so necessary to another (as in the case of the human body), that in many cases, that member of it whom we think we may frown upon or injure at pleasure, may turn out at another time to be a most valuable auxiliary. God has it all arranged in His plan, that now one, now another, of our fellow creatures, shall serve us materially at certain points of our history, and as we do not know who these persons are, our wisdom is to despise no one, but live in amity and peace with all. This is only in conformity with the great law, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Jephthah might be base in the estimation of his brethren, but the day came round, when both they and the brethren of Joseph found it was a capital error to despise their brother. Base things of the world, and things which are not, hath God chosen to bring to nought things that are. Kings often despise their soldiers, until such times as their crowns begin to hang on the one side of their heads.[Trapp.]
A good many years ago, a young man who had been brought up in a religious family circle in Scotland, went out to India to join the army there. He took with him all the peculiarities of the somewhat antiquated and austere school of religion in which he had been trained, including not only the practice of prayer and reading of the Scriptures twice a day, and his strict observance of the Lords Day, but also such matters as the great length of his prayers, the blessing asked before meat, and the thanks returned after it being also of unusual length, the quaint nature of the language used, and the quaint tone in which it was spoken, his manifold scruples of conscience to joining with his comrades in any practice, important or unimportant, which he thought to be wrong, with many other points of a similar character. These soon drew down upon him a storm of ridicule from the officers of the regiment to which he belonged. He became the butt of innumerable taunts and jeers, his religious profession was treated with constant derision, and every day for years the artillery of reproach was more or less directed against him. In silence and in meekness he endured it all. After some years, a dreadful plague broke out in the camp. Many were laid low and many died. So virulent was the nature of the malady, that none had the courage to approach the victims to supply them with the means of healing. Now was the opportunity for the man of prayer. Fearlessly he entered the area where death was doing its work. He alone day after day stood at the bedsides of the dying, doing the duty of physician, nurse, and chaplain; and he alone had the courage to prepare the dead for a decent sepulture. At length the plague was stayed, and he who formerly had been the object of so much insult and mockery now rose to the rank of a hero. No man was so highly honoured. The last became first, and he was promoted at once from the rank of cadet to that of captain. A prayer meeting under his auspices was opened, which soon became numerously attended, and ere long a second meeting was opened, the culmination of which was, that a revival of religion took place amid signal marks of the Divine blessing. Them that honour me I will honour.
XII. Confession is better than prevarication (Jdg. 11:7-8).
It is nobler to confess at once frankly we have done wrong, and are come to make amends, than to begin partly to deny and partly to palliate, the unworthy act of days gone by (Pro. 28:13; Gen. 32:31-32; with Gen. 42:21-22; 1Ki. 18:17-18).
XIII. A pious character formed diligently in secret will sooner or later be justified openly.
Whatever mens first impressions might be about this young man who was banished from his home, when Gods time came for a revelation of his true character, there could be no mistake about the spirit of loyalty to his God which he had cultivated, when there was no eye upon him. He began by not fighting with his brethren, but acknowledged the disadvantage arising from his birth (Deu. 23:2). He submitted to lead the life of an adventurer. He did not worship strange gods in a heathen land. Afterwards, when it was in his power, he did not take revenge on his brethren by refusing to agree to their requests. He looked for all success as coming only from the God of Israel. The fight he entered into with Ammon was only for the glory of the God of Israel, and not for showing his own prowess. He puts the whole transaction before God in prayer, and by a solemn service, ere he takes a single step in carrying out his mission. All these and other points come out at last in connection with this mans character, and show how high it stood with God (Pro. 4:18; Job. 17:9; Act. 7:35-38; 1Sa. 17:34-37).
XIV. To look for Gods presence and blessing in all our work is the sure way to success (Jdg. 11:10-11).
He acknowledges that all victory comes, not through his prowess or skill, but solely from the God of Israel; and he seems to hint that now, when the people are truly mourning for their sins, there was a good hope that God Would deliver the enemy into their hands. This spirit of Jephthah is yet more clearly shown by his uttering all his words before the Lord in Mizpeh. In every step he took in so solemn a transaction he called God to witness. David did this continually, and Jephthah, like David, has prospered whithersoever he went. I have set the Lord always before me is the proper rule of guidance for every good man (Pro. 3:6; Psa. 37:5-6; Psa. 80:16-17).
XV. It is better to go round about to do what is right, than to go straightforward to do what is wrong.
To have gone straightforward through either Edom or Moab forcibly, on their way to the promised land, would have been for Israel the practical breach of a Divine command, for God had given the one territory to the children of Esau for an inheritance, and the other in like manner to the children of Lot. There are many things in life, where it would save us much trouble if we could get at them directly, instead of having to make a wide detour to the right hand or the left. Israel made a long journey to keep by the right (Deu. 2:5-9).
XVI. Past history is full of instruction for the actors in the present (Jdg. 11:16-27; Rom. 15:4; 1Co. 10:11).
XVII. When God appoints a man to do a special work, He gives him special qualifications for it.
He sends none a warfare on their own charges. The Spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah. This was done specially to endow him with every gift and grace that he might require for the fulfilment of his arduous work. Thus was Joshua endowed (Jos. 1:5; Jos. 1:7). Jeremiah (ch. Jdg. 1:17-19). David (Psa. 71:16), and even the Messiah Himself (Isa. 61:1; Isa. 11:2-3).
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Jephthah Delivers Israel Jdg. 11:1-28
Now Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty man of valor, and he was the son of a harlot: and Gilead begat Jephthah,
2 And Gileads wife bare him sons; and his wifes sons grew up, and they thrust out Jephthah, and said unto him, Thou shalt not inherit in our fathers house; for thou art the son of a strange woman.
3 Then Jephthah fled from his brethren and dwelt in the land of Tob: and there were gathered vain men to Jephthah, and went out with him.
4 And it came to pass in process of time, that the children of Ammon made war against Israel.
5 And it was so, that when the children of Ammon made war against Israel, the elders of Gilead went to fetch Jephthah out of the land of Tob:
6 And they said unto Jephthah, Come, and be our captain, that we may fight with the children of Ammon.
7 And Jephthah said unto the elders of Gilead, Did not ye hate me, and expel me out of my fathers house? and why are ye come unto me now when ye are in distress?
8 And the elders of Gilead said unto Jephthah, Therefore we turn again to thee now, that thou mayest go with us, and fight against the children of Ammon, and be our head over all the inhabitants of Gilead.
9 And Jephthah said unto the elders of Gilead, If ye bring me home again to fight against the children of Ammon, and the Lord deliver them before me, shall I be your head?
10 And the elders of Gilead said unto Jephthah, The Lord be witness between us, if we do not so according to thy words.
11 Then Jephthah went with the elders of Gilead, and the people made him head and captain over them: and Jephthah uttered all his words before the Lord in Mizpeh.
12 And Jephthah sent messengers unto the king of the children of Ammon, saying, What hast thou to do with me, that thou art come against me to fight in my land?
13 And the king of the children of Ammon answered unto the messengers of Jephthah, Because Israel took away my land, when they came up out of Egypt, from Arnon even unto Jabbok, and unto Jordan: now therefore restore those lands again peaceably.
14 And Jephthah sent messengers again unto the king of the children of Ammon:
15 And said unto him, Thus saith Jephthah, Israel took not away the land of Moab, nor the land of the children of Ammon:
16 But when Israel came up from Egypt, and walked through the wilderness unto the Red Sea, and came to Kadesh;
17 Then Israel sent messengers unto the king of Edom, saying, Let me, I pray thee, pass through thy land: but the king of Edom would not hearken thereto. And in like manner they sent unto the king of Moab: but he would not consent: and Israel abode in Kadesh.
18 Then they went along through the wilderness, and compassed the land of Edom, and the land of Moab, and came by the east side of the land of Moab, and pitched on the other side of Arnon, but came not within the border of Moab: for Arnon was the border of Moab.
19 And Israel sent messengers unto Sihon king of the Amorites, the king of Heshbon; and Israel said unto him, Let us pass, we pray thee, through thy land into my place.
20 But Sihon trusted not Israel to pass through his coast: but Sihon gathered all his people together, and pitched in Jahaz, and fought against Israel.
21 And the Lord God of Israel delivered Sihon and all his people into the hand of Israel, and they smote them: so Israel possessed all the land of the Amorites, the inhabitants of that country.
22 And they possessed all the coasts of the Amorites, from Arnon even unto Jabbok, and from the wilderness even unto Jordan.
23 So now the Lord God of Israel hath dispossessed the Amorites from before his people Israel, and shouldest thou possess it?
24 Wilt not thou possess that which Chemosh thy god giveth thee to possess? So whomsoever the Lord our God shall drive out from before us, them will we possess.
25 And now art thou any thing better than Balak the son of Zippor, king of Moab? did he ever strive against Israel, or did he ever fight against them.
26 While Israel dwelt in Heshbon and her towns, and in Aroer and her towns, and in all the cities that be along by the coasts of Arnon, three hundred years? why therefore did ye not recover them within that time?
27 Wherefore I have not sinned against thee, but thou doest me wrong to war against me: the Lord the Judge be judge this day between the children of Israel and the children of Ammon.
28 Howbeit the king of the children of Ammon hearkened not unto the words of Jephthah which he sent him.
1.
Who was Jephthah? Jdg. 11:1
Jephthah was the son of a man named Gilead who lived in a territory by the same name. His mother was an ishah zonah, a harlot. The same kind of a word is used in the Hebrew language to describe Rahab, who spared the spies in Joshuas day (Jos. 2:1). Since he was of a different mother, his half-brothers drove him out of the land where they lived. There in Gilead he and his followers lived a life of free-booters. At the same time, he is described as a mighty man of valour. This same phrase is used by the angel of the Lord in his address to Gideon (Jdg. 6:12).
2.
Why was Jephthah driven away from his brothers? Jdg. 11:2
Jephthahs half-brothers did not want the inheritance of their father to be marred by the claims which might be made to it on the behalf of a son born to a wife of low estate. Abimelech, who was a son of Gideon by a concubine in Shechem, had already brought evil days upon the Israelites; and some of the Israelites may have resented anyone who was of such parentage, We often see such ostracization of one who is not exactly of the same parentage as the rest of the members of a family. Jealousy arises among members of such families. Some are haughty and feel they are superior to others. Those who are despised are then either forced out of the family circle or they have to avoid the bad treatment they have received.
3.
Where was Jephthahs home? Jdg. 11:3
Jephthah went and lived in the land of Tob. Dr. William Smith in Smiths Bible Dictionary concludes that Tob was somewhere in Hauran but is unable to give any further identification of the spot. The Hebrew words for land of Tob might have been translated as a good land. In 1Ma. 5:13, we find a reference to the land of Tubias, whence Jews numbering about one thousand men arose and were slain by their enemies. Their wives and children were carried into captivity. Reference is made in later Jewish writings to the land of Tob in such a way as to place it on the plateau east of the Sea of Galilee.
4.
When was Israel attacked by Ammon? Jdg. 11:4
The note is made that it came to pass in process of time an attack was made by Ammon on Israel. This attack was summarized in chapter ten when the children of Israel turned their backs on God and began to serve the Baalim and Ashtaroth. God sold them into the hands of the Philistines and into the hands of Ammon. Such vexation had continued over a period of time. Eighteen years of trouble with Ammon were suffered by the children of Israel (Jdg. 10:8).
5.
Why did the elders of Gilead look for Jephthah? Jdg. 11:5-6
The elders of Gilead went to the land of Tob to find Jephthah. He had been driven out from among them by his half-brothers; but when they needed someone to go to war on their behalf, they recognized Jephthah as being a mighty man of valour. He also had a group of men who are described as vain men (Jdg. 11:3). These accompanied him. As the elders of Gilead approached him, they asked him to be their captain. Joshua had men who are called captains of the men of war (Jos. 10:24), and the same word is used in the original text there as in this passage. However, it appears the elders of Gilead really needed someone to be commander-in-chief.
6.
What office did Jephthah want to occupy? Jdg. 11:9
Jephthah did not ask them if he could be their captain; he asked the elders of Gilead if he could be their head. It is apparent that he wanted to be the rulerthe man in authority. He wanted to be recognized as more than a fighter. He wanted to be considered a leader and accepted in their society. Such a position was occupied by the judges; and since the men of Israel accepted Jephthah as their head, he has found his place among the judges of Israel.
7.
In what way did Jephthah utter all his words before the Lord? Jdg. 11:10-11
The elders called God to be their witness as they agreed that Jephthah should be their captain and head. Jephthah went with the elders of Gilead upon being assured of their good faith in this matter. The people then made him head and captain and at that time it is said that Jephthah uttered all his words before the Lord in Mizpeh. There must have been some kind of an inauguration of Jephthah. The service was a religious service and corresponds closely to such times as the anointing of Saul (1Sa. 10:1) and David (1Sa. 16:1 ff.).
8.
Why did Jephthah send messengers to the king of Ammon? Jdg. 11:12
Jephthah did not want to fight the children of Ammon. When the Israelites had come out of Egyptian bondage, they had been instructed not to attack Moab or Ammon (Deu. 2:9; Deu. 2:19). These people were the descendants of Lot by his incestuous union with his daughters (Genesis 19), and God had instructed the Israelites that the land which had been possessed by the Ammonites and Moabites was not a part of the Promised Land. These people had lived more or less in peace for three hundred years, and Jephthah did not believe they had any just cause for going to war.
9.
What reason did the king of Ammon give for his attack on Israel? Jdg. 11:13
The king of the Ammonites told Jephthahs messengers that he was attacking Israel because Israel had taken away his land. He wanted the lands restored again peaceably. The land which is in question is described as being the land which lay between the Arnon and Jabbok Rivers on the east side of the Jordan. This was the territory assigned to the tribes of Reuben and Gad by Moses. It was this land which had been settled by these people after they were dismissed from Shiloh in the days of Joshua.
10.
What answer did Jephthah give to the king of Ammon? Jdg. 11:15-23
Jephthah showed a very good knowledge of the history of the people of Israel. He reminded the king of Ammon that Israel had not disturbed the territory. They had heeded the warning of the king of Edom and had gone around the territory of the Edomites. At that time, they were also in communication with the king of Moab, and there was no attempt to fight any of these peoples. Sihon, king of the Amorites, had possessed some of this land. Since he blocked Israels way, he was attacked. The land which he had possessed was then taken by the Israelites. None of this land, however, was in the possession of the Ammonites when the Israelites came into the area.
11.
Whom did Jephthah mention as the god of the Ammonites? Jdg. 11:24
Evidently the Ammonites had not continued in the fear of Jehovah the God of Israel. Although Lot had accompanied Abraham when he left Ur of the Chaldees, he was separated from Abraham. His separation led him to reside in Sodom and Gomorrah, the wicked cities which God destroyed. Along the way sometime, his descendants had taken up the worship of Chemosh;. and Jephthah recognizes that these are not followers of the true and living God.
12.
How long did Jephthah say Israel had been in the land? Jdg. 11:26
Jephthah said that Israel had been there three hundred years. This is about the same length of time which is indicated in the chronological notes found in the book of Judges if consideration is given only to the times when the land had rest or the span of time during which a leader judged. The book of Judges was preceded by the forty years wandering in the wilderness and the era of Joshua. Jephthah, himself, is followed by Ibzan, Elon, Abdon, and Samson. If the periods of these final judges are added to the time indicated for the preceding judges, the entire span of judges fits well into the chronological note of 1Ki. 6:1; which says that the temple of Solomon was built four hundred and eighty years after the exodus. Likewise, an equal period of time is indicated by adding the period of wandering to the total length of time of the preceding judges. For these reasons, we feel it is best to regard these judges as ruling successively and the periods of oppression as overlapping with the times which are assigned to the various judges or times when the land had rest.
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
(1) The son of an harlot.The words are so rendered in all the versions, and can hardly have any other meaning. If an inferior wife had been meant, the word used would not have been zonah, but pilgesh, as in Jdg. 8:31. The word may, however, be used in the harsh sense of the brethren of Jephthah, without being strictly accurate. (Comp. 1Ch. 2:26.)
Gilead begat Jephthah.We are here met by the same questions as those which concern Tola and Jair. That Gilead is a proper name, not the name of the country mythically personified, may be regarded as certain. But is this Gilead the son of Machir, the son of Manasseh, or some later Gilead? or does begat mean was the ancestor of? The answer to these questions depends mainly upon the insoluble problem of the chronology; but we may note (1) that since no other Gilead is mentioned, we should naturally infer that this is the grandson of Manasseh; and (2) that the fact referred to in the obscure genealogy of 1Ch. 7:14-17 seems to show that the family of Manasseh had Syrian (Aramean) connections, and Jephthahs mother may have been an Aramitess from the district of Tob. The name Jephthah means he opens (the womb).
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
ELECTION OF JEPHTHAH, Jdg 11:1-11.
This chapter should have begun with Jdg 11:17 of the preceding chapter, where the history of Jephthah properly begins.
1. Gileadite Like Jair, Jephthah was a native of the land of Gilead, and, what is noticeable also, his father’s name was Gilead. He was probably a descendant of Gilead, the grandson of Manasseh. Num 26:29. We see no sufficient reason to take Gilead here as the name of the country, or a tribal name used in place of an unknown personal name.
A mighty man of valour Distinguished for great physical strength, skill in the use of arms, and boldness of character.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Chapter 11 Jephthah the Gileadite.
This chapter gives an account of a further judge of Israel, Jephthah, of his descent and character, of the call the elders of Gilead gave him to be their general and lead out their forces against the Ammonites, and the agreement he made with them.
It tells of the message that he sent to the children of Ammon, which brought on a dispute between him and them, about the land Israel possessed on that side of Jordan, which the Ammonites claimed, stressing Israel’s right to it. As he probably expected, the children of Ammon did not agree with what he said, so he prepared to give battle. But prior to it he made a vow, after which he set forward and fought them, and obtained victory over them. The chapter concludes with the difficulties Jephthah had on his return home because of his vow, and the performance of it.
Jdg 11:1
‘ Now Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty man of valour, and he was the son of a harlot, and Gilead begat Jephthah.’
The man the leaders of Gilead had their eye on was named Jephthah. His name means ‘opens’ and was probably short for Yiptah-el – ‘God opens (the womb)’. He was a great warrior. But there were problems. His father Gilead had begotten him by either an ordinary prostitute or by a wanton woman, although it has to be said in Gilead’s favour that he had then taken him into his home. But it was a different matter with his family. For when Jephthah grew up he was thrown out of his home as the son of ‘another woman’, that is not a true wife or even a concubine. This was contrary to the teaching of the law which protected ‘the fatherless’, for thereby they had made Jephthah fatherless (Deu 10:18; Deu 14:29; Deu 16:11; Deu 24:17).
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Jdg 11:1 Now Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty man of valour, and he was the son of an harlot: and Gilead begat Jephthah.
Jdg 11:1
Jdg 6:12, “And the angel of the LORD appeared unto him, and said unto him, The LORD is with thee, thou mighty man of valour.”
Jdg 11:3 Then Jephthah fled from his brethren, and dwelt in the land of Tob: and there were gathered vain men to Jephthah, and went out with him.
Jdg 11:3
[24] Robert A. Watson, Judges and Ruth, in The Expositor’s Bible, ed. W. Robertson Nicoll (New York: Funk and Wagnalls Company, 1900), 235.
Jdg 11:1-3 Comments – The Historical Background of Jephthah Jdg 11:1-3 is inserted within the plot of Jdg 10:6 to Jdg 12:7 in order to explain why the elders of Gilead chose Jephthah as their leader. The two armies of the Ammonites and Israelites are encamped in Gilead (Jdg 10:8) as the author discusses the historical background of Jephthah (Jdg 11:1-3) before returning to the plot of Israel’s war with Ammon (Jdg 11:4).
Jdg 11:7 And Jephthah said unto the elders of Gilead, Did not ye hate me, and expel me out of my father’s house? and why are ye come unto me now when ye are in distress?
Jdg 11:7
Jdg 11:8 And the elders of Gilead said unto Jephthah, Therefore we turn again to thee now, that thou mayest go with us, and fight against the children of Ammon, and be our head over all the inhabitants of Gilead.
Jdg 11:8
Jdg 10:18, “And the people and princes of Gilead said one to another, What man is he that will begin to fight against the children of Ammon? he shall be head over all the inhabitants of Gilead.”
Jdg 11:11 Then Jephthah went with the elders of Gilead, and the people made him head and captain over them: and Jephthah uttered all his words before the LORD in Mizpeh.
Jdg 11:11
[25] C. Warren, “Mizpah and Mizpeh ,” in A Dictionary of the Bible with its Language, Literature, and Content Including the Biblical Theology, vol. 3, ed. James Hastings (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1901), 400.
[26] C. Warren, “Mizpah and Mizpeh ,” in A Dictionary of the Bible with its Language, Literature, and Content Including the Biblical Theology, vol. 3, ed. James Hastings (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1901), 400.
Comments The children of Israel were encamped at Mizpeh in preparation for battle with the Ammonites (Jdg 10:17). Jephthah and the elders of Gilead met at Mizpeh to confirm their vow between one another. There stood a heap of stones made as a witness between Jacob and his father-in-law Laban centuries earlier when he fled from him and was overtaken (Gen 31:46-52). This heap of stones served as an enduring testimony of the covenant made between these two parties on that day. It was at Mizpeh that Jephthah and the elders retreated to make another vow, following the tradition of this place as the location where God met with their forefather Jacob and honored his vow with Laban. Thus, Jephthah uttered his words as well before the Lord at Mizpeh.
Jdg 11:10-11 Scripture References The Lord Is Witness – Note a similar statement in Psa 50:4, “He shall call to the heavens from above, and to the earth, that he may judge his people.”
Jdg 11:12 And Jephthah sent messengers unto the king of the children of Ammon, saying, What hast thou to do with me, that thou art come against me to fight in my land?
Jdg 11:12
“that thou art come against me to fight in my land” – Comments The Ammonites were encamped in Gilead (Jdg 10:17).
Jdg 10:17, “Then the children of Ammon were gathered together, and encamped in Gilead. And the children of Israel assembled themselves together, and encamped in Mizpeh.”
Jdg 11:13 And the king of the children of Ammon answered unto the messengers of Jephthah, Because Israel took away my land, when they came up out of Egypt, from Arnon even unto Jabbok, and unto Jordan: now therefore restore those lands again peaceably.
Jdg 11:13
Deu 2:9, “And the LORD said unto me, Distress not the Moabites, neither contend with them in battle: for I will not give thee of their land for a possession; because I have given Ar unto the children of Lot for a possession.”
Deu 2:19, “And when thou comest nigh over against the children of Ammon, distress them not, nor meddle with them: for I will not give thee of the land of the children of Ammon any possession; because I have given it unto the children of Lot for a possession.”
Jdg 11:13 “now therefore restore those lands again peaceably” Comments – This statement sounds like nations today around Israel trying to get lands controlled by Israel.
Jdg 11:28 Howbeit the king of the children of Ammon hearkened not unto the words of Jephthah which he sent him.
Jdg 11:28
Jdg 11:29-31 Comments – Jephthah’s Rash Vow We must understand that Jephthah was doing what he thought was right in the sight of the Lord in making a rash vow. Jephthah was simply doing what the devout pagans around him were doing in performing a religious vow of faith in their gods, or what the Israelites were doing as an act of faith in YHWH. Jephthah may have believed that when he returned home from war, one of his domesticated animals would run to meet him first, as it commonly happens. However, some scholars believe this was a clear reference to a human sacrifice. [27] Either way, Jephthah may have not expected his own beloved daughter to come out and reach him first. He was expressing his greatest depth of devotion to the Lord.
[27] Robert A. Watson, Judges and Ruth, in The Expositor’s Bible, ed. W. Robertson Nicoll (New York: Funk and Wagnalls Company, 1900), 243.
Such a rash vow testifies of the emotional passion of oriental people. They were passionate but fierce people, ready to be hospitable to others, and quick to become inflamed with wrath. They were as quickly moved to tears as to wrath.
The Mosaic Law clearly forbade the sacrifice of human beings (Lev 18:21; Lev 20:2, Deu 12:31; Deu 18:10).
Lev 18:21, “And thou shalt not let any of thy seed pass through the fire to Molech, neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God: I am the LORD.”
Lev 20:2, “Again, thou shalt say to the children of Israel, Whosoever he be of the children of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn in Israel, that giveth any of his seed unto Molech; he shall surely be put to death: the people of the land shall stone him with stones.”
Deu 12:31, “Thou shalt not do so unto the LORD thy God: for every abomination to the LORD, which he hateth, have they done unto their gods; for even their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire to their gods.”
Deu 18:10, “There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch,”
The fact that Jephthah’s vow found its fulfillment in a human sacrifice may imply his ignorance of the Mosaic Law, for there were clear provisions for substituting redemption money for the sacrifice (Lev 27:1-13). After all, he had been exiled from Israel and did not have as easy access to the Mosaic. However, he certainly knew the history of his land as recorded in the Pentateuch, telling the king of the Ammonites how the Lord delivered it unto the Israelites (Jdg 11:14-26). Thus, he may have felt redeeming his daughter was a way of reducing the sincerity of his vow unto God.
Jephthah may have misunderstood Lev 27:28-29 and interpreted it to allow human sacrifices under the Mosaic Law. [28]
[28] Matthew Henry, Leviticus, in Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible, New Modern Edition, Electronic Database (Seattle, WA: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., 1991), in P.C. Study Bible, v. 3.1 [CD-ROM] (Seattle, WA: Biblesoft Inc., 1993-2000), notes on Leviticus 27:26-34.
Lev 27:28-29, “Notwithstanding no devoted thing, that a man shall devote unto the LORD of all that he hath, both of man and beast, and of the field of his possession, shall be sold or redeemed: every devoted thing is most holy unto the LORD. None devoted, which shall be devoted of men, shall be redeemed; but shall surely be put to death.”
Jdg 11:39 And it came to pass at the end of two months, that she returned unto her father, who did with her according to his vow which he had vowed: and she knew no man. And it was a custom in Israel,
Jdg 11:39
Gen 22:2, “And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.”
Jdg 11:39, “And it came to pass at the end of two months, that she returned unto her father, who did with her according to his vow which he had vowed: and she knew no man. And it was a custom in Israel,”
2Ki 3:27, “Then he took his eldest son that should have reigned in his stead, and offered him for a burnt offering upon the wall. And there was great indignation against Israel: and they departed from him, and returned to their own land.”
2Ki 23:20, “And he slew all the priests of the high places that were there upon the altars, and burned men’s bones upon them, and returned to Jerusalem.”
1Ki 13:1-2, “And, behold, there came a man of God out of Judah by the word of the LORD unto Bethel: and Jeroboam stood by the altar to burn incense. And he cried against the altar in the word of the LORD, and said, O altar, altar, thus saith the LORD; Behold, a child shall be born unto the house of David, Josiah by name; and upon thee shall he offer the priests of the high places that burn incense upon thee, and men’s bones shall be burnt upon thee.”
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
Ammonite Oppression and Deliverance by Jephthah The story of Jephthah’s leadership over Israel during the period of the Judges offers readers one of the most amazing stories to deal with in the Holy Scriptures. This judge made a vow unto the Lord that resulted in the offering of his daughter as a burnt sacrifice unto the Lord. Yet, the great victory that the Lord gave him in defeating the Ammonites won him recognition in the “Hall of Faith” found in Heb 11:1-40. Jephthah is listed with a number of other judges because he demonstrated tremendous faith in God (Heb 11:32-34).
Heb 11:32-34, “And what shall I more say? for the time would fail me to tell of Gedeon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthae; of David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets: Who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, Quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens.”
Haddon Robinson says this story teaches us that “God overlooks ignorance, but not unbelief.” [22]
[22] Haddon W. Robinson, “The Story of Jephthah: Judges 11,” Expository Homiletical Conference, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, Hamilton, Massachusetts, 14 October 2011.
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
Jephthah Chosen as Leader Against Ammon
v. 1. Now Jephthah, the Gileadite, was a mighty man of valor, v. 2. And Gilead’s wife bare him sons; and his wife’s sons grew up, and they thrust out Jephthah, v. 3. Then Jephthah, v. 4. And it came to pass in process of time that the children of Ammon made war against Israel, v. 5. And it was so, that when the children of Ammon made war against Israel, the elders of Gilead went to fetch Jephthah out of the land of Tob, v. 6. and they said unto Jephthah, v. 7. And Jephthah said unto the elders of Gilead, v. 8. And the elders of Gilead said unto Jephthah, Therefore we turn again to thee now, that thou mayest go with us and fight against the children of Ammon and be our head over all the inhabitants of Gilead. v. 9. And Jephthah said unto the elders of Gilead, If ye bring me home again to fight against the children of Ammon and the Lord deliver them before me, shall I be your head? v. 10. And the elders of Gilead said unto Jephthah, v. 11. Then Jephthah went with the elders of Gilead, and the people made him head and captain over them,
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
EXPOSITION
Jdg 11:1-11
The narrative here goes back probably some years, to explain the antecedents of Jephthah, who was about to play so prominent a part in the ensuing history. Jephthah we learn was a bastard son of Gilead by a foreign harlot, an Aramitess, if there is any connection between this verse and 1Ch 7:14; and when the sons of Gilead’s wife were grown up, they expelled Jephthah, and refused to let him have any share in the inheritance of their father, because he was the son of a foreigner; Jephthah therefore fled from Gilead, and took up his residence in the land of Tob, apparently an Aramean settlement (2Sa 10:6, 2Sa 10:8), and presumably the land of his mother’s birth, where he gathered round him “vain men” (Jdg 9:4), and became a famous freebooter. There he was at the time of the Ammonite invasion mentioned in Jdg 10:17, and thither the Gileadites sent for him to come and be their captain, after the consultation in Jdg 10:18, with the promise that if he came he should be the head or prince of all the inhabitants of Gilead. After some demur he agreed, and came, and was installed as head of the State at the Gileadite metropolis of Mizpah (Jdg 10:17, note).
Jdg 11:1
Jephthah the Gileadite. Gilead has two meanings: it is the name of the country so called (Jdg 10:8, note), and it is the name of the son or descendant of Machir the son of Manasseh (1Ch 7:14, 1Ch 7:17; Num 26:29, Num 26:30). Gileadite also may be explained in two ways: it may mean an inhabitant of Gilead (Jdg 10:18), or it may mean a member of the family of the Gileadites, either an actual son or a more remote descendant of Gilead (Num 26:29)two meanings which would usually coincide. Gilead begat Jephthah. Here Gilead must mean the person so called, i.e. the son or descendant of Machir, from whom the family, including Jephthah, were called Gileadites; but whether son or descendant cannot positively be affirmed. All that is certain is that he was that one of Maehir’s descendants who was the head of that division of the Manassites who were called Gileadites. Again, when it is said Gilead begat Jephthah, we cannot be certain whether it is meant that Gilead was Jephthah’s father, or merely his ancestor (see Jdg 10:3, note).
Jdg 11:2
And Gilead’s wife. Whenever Gilead lived, besides the son by the foreign harlot, whom Jephthah represented, he had sons and descendants by his legitimate wife, who claimed to be his sole heirs, and who therefore drove Jephthah from the inheritance of their father’s house. They might, as far as the language used is concerned, have been Gilead’s own sons, or they may have been his grandsons or great-grandsons, and so either the brothers or the cousins and fellow-tribesmen of Jephthah.
Jdg 11:3
The land of Tob. This is certainly the same country as is spoken of in Ish-tob, i.e. the men of Tob, of whom 12,000 were hired by the children of Ammon to fight against David. They are thus named side by side with the men of Beth-Rehob, and Zoba, and Maacah, other small Aramean or Syrian states (2Sa 10:6, 2Sa 10:8). Tob is again mentioned in all probability in 1 Macc. 5:13; 2 Macc. 12:17, and the Thauba of Ptolemy agrees in situation as well as in name with Tob, but no identification with any existing place has been hitherto effected. Vain men, as in Jdg 9:4.
Jdg 11:4
This verse brings us back to Jdg 10:17, and reunites the two streams of narrative.
Jdg 11:5
The elders of Gilead. The same as the princes in Jdg 10:18.
Jdg 11:6
Our captain. A military term, as in Jos 10:24. It is also used in Isa 1:10 for the rulers of Sodom.
Jdg 11:7
Did not ye hate me, etc. Jephthah’s reproach to the “elders of Gilead” strongly favours the idea that “his brethren” in Jdg 11:3, and the “father’s house” in Jdg 11:2, are to be taken in the wider sense of fellow-tribesmen and “house of fathers,” and that his expulsion was not the private act of his own brothers training him out of the house they lived in, but a tribal act (taking tribe in the sense of house of fathers), in which the elders of Gilead bad taken a part. If this is so, it removes a great difficulty about Jephthah being Gilead’s son, which it is very hard to reconcile with chronology.
Jdg 11:9
Shall I be, etc. There is no interrogative in the Hebrew. The words may be taken as the laying down of the condition by Jephthah, to which in the following verse the elders express their assent.
Jdg 11:11
Head and captain. Both civil ruler or judge, and military chief. Uttered all his words before the Lord. The expression “before the Lord” is used in Exo 34:34; Le Exo 1:3; Jdg 21:2 (before God), and elsewhere, to signify the special presence of the Lord which was to be found in the tabernacle, or with the ark, or where there was the priest with an ephod. And this must be the meaning of the expression here. Jephthah was installed at the national place of gathering and consultation for Gilead, viz; at Mizpah in Gilead, into his office as bead of the State, and there, as in the capital, he performed all his duties under the sanctions of religion. Whether, however, the ark was brought there, or the altar, or a priest with an ephod, or whether some substitute was devised which the unsettled times might justify, it is impossible to say from want of information. There seems to be some reference in the words to Jephthah’s vow, in verse 31, as one of such utterances.
Jdg 11:12
And Jephthah sent, etc. His first attempt was to make an honourable peace by showing that there was no just cause of quarrel. What hast thou to do with me? or, rather, What business, what cause of quarrel, is there between you and me? (he speaks in the name of Israel, as head of the State) what is it all about?
Jdg 11:13
And the king, etc. The Ammonite king stated his ground of quarrel very distinctly. He claimed the land between the Amen and the Jabbok as Ammonitish or Moabitish territory, and demanded its surrender as the only condition of peace. It appears from Jos 13:25 that part of the land of the tribe of Gad, that, namely, “on the western side of the upper Jabbok,” had once belonged to the Ammonites, but had been conquered by the Amorites, from whom Israel took it, together with that which had formerly belonged to the Moabites.
Jdg 11:16
When Israel came up, etc. In this and the following verses there is a distinct reference to the history in Numbers and Deuteronomy, and in some instances verbal quotations. Thus in this verse the words below which are put in italics are found in Num 13:26; Num 14:25 : Israel … walked through the wilderness unto the Red Sea, and came to Kadesh.
Jdg 11:17
Then Israel sent messengers unto the king of Edom, saying, Let me, I Pray thee, pass through thy land (country in A.V. Num 20:17). The words in italics are found in Num 20:14, Num 20:17. And Israel abode in Kadesh. These words are in Num 20:1; see also Deu 1:46. The king of Edom would not hearken. This is related in substance in Num 20:18-21. And in like manner they sent unto the king of Moab. There is no mention of this in the Mosaic narrative. The knowledge of it must have been preserved either by tradition or in some other now lost writings; perhaps in the Book of the Wars of the Lord (Num 21:14). It is in itself very probable that such a message should have been sent to the king of Moab, whose territories Israel was forbidden to meddle with (Deu 2:9, Deu 2:19).
Jdg 11:18
Then they went along, etc. The narrative here follows Deu 2:1. For they compassed the land of Edom. Deu 2:1 has, “we compassed Mount Seir;” but Num 21:4 has, “to compass the land of Edom.” By the east sideliterally, by the sun-rising side, as in Num 21:11. They pitched on the other side of Arnon. The identical words occur in Num 21:13. For Arnon was the border of Moab. The identical words of Num 21:18, where it is added, “between Moab and the Amorites.“ South of the Amen belonged to Moab, and north to the Amorites. The route taken by the Israelites is carefully traced (Num 21:11-20).
Jdg 11:19
And Israel, etc. The text here follows Num 21:21-24 almost verbatim; but the expression, “the king of Heshbon,” is from Deu 2:24, Deu 2:26, 80.
Jdg 11:20
In Jahaz. Otherwise Jahazah (Num 21:23; Deu 2:32; Isa 15:4; Jer 48:21, Jer 48:34). It seems to have lain immediately to the north of the Amen.
Jdg 11:21, Jdg 11:22
These verses are an epitome of Num 21:24-32. Cf. also Deu 2:33-36. The wilderness is the country lying east of Moab up to the hill country (see Jdg 10:8, note). From the Amen to the Jabbok is the measurement from south to north; from the wilderness to the Jordan, from east to west.
Jdg 11:24
Chemosh. The national god of the Moabites (of. Num 21:29; 1Ki 11:7, 1Ki 11:33; Jer 48:7, Jer 48:13, Jer 48:46, etc.). Thy god. The phrase indicates a very close connection between Moab and Ammon at the present time, both possibly being under one king. Chemosh, rather than Moloch, is mentioned because the territory had belonged to the Moabites, but Chemosh had not been able to save it from the Amorites. The Lord our God. Jehovah was the God of Israel as truly as Chemosh was the god of Moab, in one sense. Possibly Jephthah had not risen to the conception of Jehovah as the God of the whole earth.
Jdg 11:25
Art thou anything better, etc. Jephthah now advances another argument to prove the justice of his cause and the unreasonableness of the Ammonite claim. If the territory in question was Moabite property, bow came it that Balak laid no claim to it? He was an enemy of the Israelites, and yet when Israel took possession of the land, and dwelt in Heshbon, its capital, and the daughter cities or villages thereof, and in Aroer and her daughter cities or villages, and in all the cities on the banks of the Amen, Balak never strove about them with Israel, or went to war to recover thema plain proof that he did not look upon them as his property. If they were his, that was the time to claim and recover them, but he had not done so.
Jdg 11:26
The occupation of the cities and villages referred to is related in Num 21:23 and following verses, and in Deu 2:36; see too Jos 12:2. Aroer is not mentioned among the cities of Moab taken by the Amorites in the ancient book quoted in Num 21:27 -80, and it has been conjectured that it may have been built by the Amorites to secure their new frontier. It is described by Eusebius and Jerome in the ‘Onomasticon’ as built on a hill overhanging the bank of the Amen, and a ruin called Arair has been found on the very spot so described. The Aroer mentioned in Num 21:33 (where see note) is probably a different place. By the coasts of Arnon, i.e. on the banks. The Septuagint for Arnon reads Jordan, which was the western boundary, as Arnon was the southern (Num 21:22). The corresponding description in Deu 2:36 is, From Aroer, which is by the brink of the river of Arnon, and from the city that is by the river, even unto Gilead:, there was not owe city too strong for us: the Lord our God delivered all unto us. Three hundred years. These words seem quite unintelligible and out of place. They are also chronologically impracticable. One expects the number of the cities, as in Deu 2:33, rather than the number of years; and it is remarkable that the whole number of cities taken by the Israelites on the cast of Jordan must have been just about 300, since the half-tribe of Manasseh had sixty. If Gad and Reuben had the same proportion, it would be exactly 300 (5 x 60). Within that time. The Hebrew phrase, which occurs about seventy times, invariably means at that time, and here can only refer to the time of the first settlement in the days of Balak, of which he had been speakinganother proof that the enumeration three hundred years is out of place here. If the reading years is not, as above suggested, an error for cities, the whole sentence, three hundred years, may very probably be an interpolation by a professed chronologist. The adding up of all the numbers of the servitudes and rests given in the book gives 301 years from the commencement of the oppression by Chushan-rishathaim to the death of Jair. But this method of reckoning gives the impossible period of 600 years from the exodus to the building of the temple.
Jdg 11:27
Jephthah now asserts his own entire blamelessness, and appeals to the justice of God to decide between him and the Ammonites.
HOMILETICS
Jdg 11:1-28
The controversy.
The first element of peace, whether in private or in national controversies, whether in civil or religious disputes, is the genuine desire to be fair. When men have that spirit of justice that they do not desire to claim anything which is not really theirs, or to withhold from their opponents anything that is their due; when their aim is to ascertain what is true, and not to overbear truth by force; when they strive for truth, and not merely for victorythere is a fair chance of both sides arriving at the same result, and so being at peace. The first step in any dispute, therefore, should be a calm and careful examination of the facts of the case. It should not be taken for granted that the views which self-interest, or personal predilection, or party prejudice, incline us to are the right ones, but we should remember that our opponents have equal rights with ourselves, and-that it is at least possible that their predilections and prejudices may rest upon as good grounds as our own. A fair and impartial examination of the facts of the case is therefore the first step in every controversy; and that the examination may be fair, we should patiently allow our opponent to state his own case in his own way. The same fact may wear a different aspect according to the mode of stating it, and according to the side of it which is brought prominently into view. Thus Jephthah acted fairly when he asked the king of the sons of Ammon to state the grounds on which he invaded Israel, and when on his side he refuted that statement by an historical retrospect of the transactions in question. Though, however, the spirit of fairness gives the best chance of an amicable settlement of controversies, it does not always lead to such a settlement. Often fairness on one side is met by prejudice and unfairness on the other. But even when both parties arc actuated by the like desire of getting at the rights of a question, it may happen that there is that measure of doubt in some matter on which the controversy hinges, that honest minds may differ about it, and that it is inevitable that men’s different interests, prepossessions, and prejudices, should incline them different ways. Thus in Jephthah’s controversy with the Ammonites there was room for doubt how far the defeat and dispossession of the children of Ammon by the Amorites had for ever extinguished the claim of the former to the ownership of the land. That Israel had not taken the land from the children of Ammon, or displayed any hostility towards them, was undoubtedly true. But it did not necessarily follow that the Ammonite claim was wholly unrighteous. The question how long a time it takes to establish or to invalidate ownership is obviously a debateable one, in the decision of which personal feelings will carry much weight. In the Franco-German war of 1870 the Germans no doubt felt about Alsace and Lorraine that even 200 years possession by France had not wholly abrogated the German rights. And so it may have been with the king of the children of Ammon. He may have thought that he was justified in claiming the land which had once belonged to his people; and the matter could only be decided by the arbitrament of war. The practical lesson, however, to be learnt is, in all the business of life, whether in politics, or commerce, or in social intercourse, or in religion, to cultivate a spirit of fairness. In religious controversies especially the value of fairness, with a view to truth, and to the peace of the Church, cannot be overrated. It is as humiliating to our Christian character as it is prejudicial to the real interests of religion, when men approach religious questions in a spirit of heated partisanship, seeking only to crush their opponents by ridicule, or abuse, or vehemence, and treating them with insult and indignity. It is no less painful to see falsehood, and suppression of truth, and pious frauds, imported into controversies, the professed object of which is to vindicate the glory of God and the truth of his holy word. If religious controversialists would approach all subjects of difference in a spirit of thorough fairness, would look at their adversaries’ arguments with a sincere desire to understand and appreciate them, would give due weight to them, and would believe it possible that they may have reason and justice on their side, there would be a good chance of agreement on many points which now keep Christians hopelessly asunder. And if there should remain some points on which temperament, or education, or habits of thought, in different men, were too diverse to admit of unanimity on doubtful points, then heavenly charity would step forward and maintain that agreement in love which could not be attained in opinion. The unity of the spirit would not be broken, the peace of the Church would not be violated, and the enemies of the gospel would not find their way to victory through the divisions and hatreds of the servants of one Lord. May the Spirit of God come as a Spirit of fairness upon all that name the name of Jesus Christ!
HOMILIES BY A.F. MUIR
Jdg 11:1-3
The shaping influences of life.
These different in their nature from that of which the poet speaks”There s a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will” (Hamlet, 5.2) It is an anticipative part they play. In many lives the manner in which they are thus influenced is apparent; but even when otherwise the effect is none the less powerful and lasting. It has been questioned whether this be not the most important part of the work of creation. Of these influences, notice
I. HOW STRONG AND VARIED THEY ARE.
1. In Jephthah‘s birth. He was a child of shame, the fruit of an age of licentiousness and idolatry. He receives the title Gileadite, yet it is said Gilead was his father; he must therefore either have had a father with such a name, a member of the tribe of Manasseh, living in Gilead, or, having no clear proof of his paternity, have received the tribal name in that relation. A foundling, with a shameful mystery lying behind his life.
2. In the behaviour of men towards him. Those who were his brethren according to the flesh acted a most unbrotherly part. Either from selfishness or a false feeling of shame, they expelled him from his father’s house, closing the door of peaceful, honourable toil, and compelling him to resort to a career of bloodshed and irregularity. The very men who might, any of them, have committed a like sin to that of Jephthah’s father are forward to rid themselves of its results. The world judges of men rather from their misfortunes than from their personal misdeeds. And where nature has been unkind, “man’s inhumanity to man” is only the more signal. A social stigma is worse to bear up against than many of the greatest calamities which do not involve it.
3. In the force of his circumstances as they arose. He is compelled to take up his abode in a far off border town, near to Ammon, the hereditary enemy of Israel, and surrounded by the conditions of a desert life, where he had to be “a law unto himself.” A life of guerilla warfare, with its comparatively loose morale, is thrust upon him. Men of like misfortune and disposition, all more or less compromised with their tribes or nations, gather about him, and look to him for direction and initiative. But
II. NEVERTHELESS, THEY DO NOT DETERMINE DESTINY. He has somehow managed to preserve a measure of morality and religious observance, even in that wilderness stronghold. The worship of Jehovah is maintained, and the heart of the chieftain beats true to all the traditions of Israel. His personal influence and warlike prowess are at its service. His greatest exploits are not those of the private marauder, but of the patriot. It is character alone that determines destiny, and character is in our own keeping. One is continually meeting with such peoplepeople who in difficult circumstances are yet kept on the whole pure and faithful. Such were “they of Caesar’s household.” And
III. IF RIGHTLY ENCOUNTERED THEY MAY REDOUND TO ADVANTAGE AND HONOUR. In the hour of Israel’s need, repentant and humble, its elders approach the outlaw whom they had expelled. The man himself is not prepared for the singular conversion. He questions them suspiciously, nay, with all his magnanimity, reminds them of their different behaviour in years gone by. They admit all; but they are too humbled to make evasion and to conceal their real motive. He is master of the situation. His whole previous training and reputation now stand him in good stead, and he understands a little of God’s dealings with him. The Bible is full of instances of men who have gained power and fame through the overcoming of difficulties. Time and God are on the side of them who, notwithstanding temptation, are found faithful. And is there not One who outshines all others in this? “The stone which the builders rejected is become the head stone of the corner.” His career is our incentive and example (Php 2:5-11). Have not all rejected Christ? In our need let us go to him, a nobler than Jephthah.M.
Jdg 11:4-11
Magnanimity of patriotism.
In the behaviour of Jephthah on this occasion we have a noble illustration of the blending of the religious and the patriotic spirit.
I. PERSONAL WRONGS ARE FORGIVEN. He might have brooded over them, sulked, and rejoiced over the elders in their trouble. But he felt that his country’s distress was not a time or occasion for revenging the contumely and wrong that were past. This is the true spirit of the patriot. The individual is lost in the commonwealth.
II. HIS COUNTRY‘S NEED IS GENEROUSLY RESPONDED TO. What an opportunity for an. unprincipled, irreligious man! He might have turned Israel’s loss to his own gain.
III. HIS OWN FORTUNES ARE LOST SIGHT OF IN THE GREATER AMBITION Of BEING THE SAVIOUR OF HIS COUNTRY. Rank he does not value. He refuses leadership until it is shown that he is the Divinely revealed leader. He gives all the honour to Jehovah. From that moment he was at the service of his people, and the unselfish “servant of Jehovah.” Men are found who will behave thus for earthly fatherlands and temporal attachments. Often the human tie and the Divine conflict. Jephthah was serving God and country at once. The Christian will serve his friends and his country best by serving God first. How dear should the Church and kingdom of God on earth be to us! All other considerations should be lost sight of in the zeal for our Master’s glory.M.
Jdg 11:11
Recognition of God in positions of honour and responsibility.
How many would have at once swollen with self-conceit! etc. It is a test of the inner life of Jephthah. We may all be more or less tested in this way.
I. HE ENTERED UPON HIS GREAT TASK WITH A SENSE OF SOLEMN RESPONSIBILITY TO GOD. Mizpah was the reminder of an ancient covenant, and its associations are honoured.
II. HE MADE PUBLIC CONFESSION OF JEHOVAH.
III. HE LOOKED TO JEHOVAH FOR GUIDANCE AND HELP.M.
Jdg 11:12-28
The model diplomatist.
I. THE PROFOUND SAGACITY AND SENSE OF INTERNATIONAL COURTESIES AND OBLIGATIONS DISPLAYED BY JEPHTHAH. An historical site is chosen, which had significance to all the nations neighbouring upon it. At Mizpah had Jacob and Laban made solemn covenant. To their descendant nations the place could not but possess a religious interest. It was a distinct advantage, therefore, to take up his head-quarters there. All his soul is possessed by the old associations of the place. It appears even in his language (Jdg 11:10, Jdg 11:11). This persistent reference to the place was a guarantee of good faith and brotherly feeling. He speaks of the gods of Ammon and Israel from a neutral point of view.
II. HIS APPEAL TO HISTORY. It is sacred history, with the seal of God upon it. He recounts the details of the conquest by Israel, so far as they are relevant; shows that their own land is held by that title, and asks why for 300 years Israel’s occupancy of the disputed territory had not been contested. The example of Balak, who saw that it would be destruction for him to contend with Israel, and forbore, is quoted aptly. The geographical limits are carefully indicated.
III. ALL THIS WAS WORTH WHILE, even with a heathen adversary. It stated the case upon broad, intelligible grounds; it raised no irrelevant questions, but was conciliatory; and there was no attempt at compromise. It is a moral gain when a point in dispute is thus clearly and dispassionately argued. It did not avert war, but it justified it. And Israel were strengthened and encouraged. The people could grasp the outlines of this great claim. They could go forward with confidence that their cause was righteous, and therefore the cause of God. Disputes between individuals and nations should be settled
(1) upon common grounds and associations;
(2) courteously and kindly;
(3) with careful regard to facts; and
(4) God should be the great Witness.M.
Jdg 11:7
The friend in need.
I. THE VALUE OF A TRUE FRIEND IS SEEN IN THE TIME OF ADVERSITY. Jephthah was hated by the elders of Israel in prosperous times, but when trouble came he was discovered to be their best friend. The wise man will endeavour to cultivate the friendship of the good and great. It is foolish to let valued friends pass away from us through negligence or slight offence. There are few forms of earthly riches more valuable than that of a treasury of friendships. We may be careless of this in circumstances of ease; but if so, trouble will reveal our mistake. Christ is a Friend who sticketh closer than a brother, too often neglected in prosperity, but found to be the one needed Helper in the hour of darkness (Isa 32:2).
II. THE BEST FRIEND IS NOT ALWAYS THE MOST POPULAR. He may be poor, unpretending, eccentric, or dull It is foolish to choose our friends by the superficial attractions of social amusement. The boon companion may prove a shallow friend. Sterling qualities of fidelity, self-denying devotion, etc. are not always accompanied by brilliant conversational gifts and such other pleasing characteristics as shine in festive scenes. Christ, the best of friends, was despised and rejected of men. It may be that the very excellency of the friend is the cause of his unpopularity. He will not lend himself to low pursuits, and so is considered morose; he refuses to flatter our weakness,perhaps bravely and disinterestedly rebukes our faults,and is therefore thought censorious and offensive; he aims at raising us to what is worthy of our efforts, and is voted “a bore.” The time of trouble will destroy this unjust estimate, but it would be more wise and generous in us to value our friends at all times for their best qualities, even though the sobriety of them may appear dull.
III. THE TRUE FRIEND WILL NOT REFUSE HELP IN NEED, ALTHOUGH HE MAY HAVE RECEIVED UNWORTHY TREATMENT IN PROSPEROUS TIMES. Jephthah naturally reproaches the elders of Israel, but he is too noble to refuse to come to their help. True friendship is generous, unselfish, and forgiving. It does not stand “on its rights,” “on its dignity.” It is more concerned with the welfare of those in whom it is interested than with their deserts. The patriot will not let his country suffer because he is personally piqued at the conduct of its leaders. The Christian should learn not to injure the cause of Christ through the pride and offence which the wrong conduct of responsible persons in the Church may excite. Israel is larger than the elders of Israel. The Church is greater than her doctors and ministers. Jephthah is a type of Christ, who does not refuse to help us though we have rejected him in the past.A.
Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary
CHAP. XI.
Jephthah’s covenant with the Gileadites: his vow; which he performeth on his daughter.
Before Christ 1186.
Jdg 11:1. The son of an harlot See the note on Jos 2:1. Josephus understands it, that he was a stranger by the mother’s side. The meaning of the original word, which we render harlot, is explained in the second verse;a strange woman, or a woman of another country.
REFLECTIONS.The people being reduced to straits, and a captain wanted, we have here an account of one whom, though under a brand of disgrace, God chooses to be their deliverer. A Gileadite, whose name was Jephthah, the son of an harlot, or a Gentile; whose brethren, on their father’s decease, counting him a scandal to the family, expelled him from the house. Being brought hereby into great distress, and a man of valour, he resolves to live by the sword; collecting a band of men, therefore, he maintained them and himself, most probably, by incursions on Israel’s enemies. Note; (1.) A man should not be reproached with the unhappiness of his birth, when his ways bespeak him deserving of a more honourable relation. (2.) They who know the difficulties of adversity are best prepared for the blessings of prosperity.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
The previous history and exile of Jephthah. His recall by the elders of Gilead.
Jdg 11:1-11.
1Now [And] Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty man of valour [a valiant hero], and he was the son of an harlot: and Gilead begat Jephthah. 2And Gileads wife bare him sons; and his [the] wifes sons grew up, and they thrust [drove] out Jephthah, and said unto him, Thou shalt not inherit in our fathers house; for 3thou art the son of a strange [another] woman. Then [And] Jephthah fled from his brethren, and dwelt in the land of Tob: and there were gathered [there gathered themselves] vain men [lit. empty men, i. e. adventurers]1 to Jephthah, and went out with him. 4And it came to pass in process of [after a considerable] time, that the children [sons] of Ammon made war against [with] Israel. 5And it was so, that when the children [sons] of Ammon made war against [with] Israel, the elders of Gilead went to fetch Jephthah out of the land of Tob: 6And they said unto Jephthah, Come, and be our captain, that we may [and let us] fight with the children [sons] of Ammon. 7And Jephthah said unto the elders of Gilead, Did not ye hate me, and expel me out of my fathers house? and why are ye come unto me now when ye are in distress? 8And the elders of Gilead said unto Jephthah, Therefore we turn again to thee now, that thou mayest go with us, and fight against the children 9[sons] of Ammon, and be our head over all the inhabitants of Gilead. And Jephthah said unto the elders of Gilead, If ye bring me home [back] again to fight against the children [sons] of Ammon, and the Lord [Jehovah] deliver them before me, shall I [then I will] be your head? [.] 10And the elders of Gilead said unto Jephthah, The Lord [Jehovah] be witness [lit. hearer] between us, if we do not so according to thy words [word]. 11Then Jephthah went with the elders of Gilead, and the people2 made [placed] him [for a] head and captain over them: and Jephthah uttered all his words before the Lord [Jehovah] in Mizpeh [Mizpah].
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
[1 Jdg 11:3. Dr. Cassel here (cf. Jdg 9:4) renders, lose Leute, loose, unsettled persons. In his article on Jephthah in Herzogs Real-Encyklopdie, vi. 466, he describes them aspeople who had nothing to lose. The character and condition of such persons is more definitely described in 1Sa 22:2, where distressed persons, embarrassed debtors, and men of wild dispositions, are said to have attached themselves to the fugitive David. To prevent erroneous inferences, it is necessary to add the next sentence: But that Jephthah, like David, engaged in marauding expeditions, cannot be proved.Tr.]
[2 Jdg 11:11.. Dr. Cassel: Gesammtheitthe collective body,evidently with reference to his previous rendering in Jdg 10:18. Cf. note 1, p. 161.Tr.]
EXEGETICAL AND DOCTRINAL
The story of Jephthah is one of the most remarkable episodes of the Sacred Scriptures. But at the same time it is one of those episodes which, from being too exclusively considered in the character of disconnected fragments, have been subjected both anciently and in modern times, to the most singular misapprehensions and distortions. It gives the moral likeness of an Israelitish tribe, in the time of its awakening and return to God. Manasseh is again the coperating tribe,not the western half, however, but the eastern, its equal in warlike spirit (1Ch 5:24) and strength, but holding a relation to the hero who appears among them different from that formerly held by the other toward Gideon. When Gideon entered on his work, everything depended on his own personality. No divine awakening had preceded, not even in his own city. In his own house, there was an altar to be destroyed. The number of those who deserved to be his followers was only three hundred. Even in the time of his success and greatness, it is he alone who keeps and upholds the divine life in the nation.
The history of Jephthah furnishes a different picture. Gilead too had sinned, but it had repented. The whole people had put away its false gods, before it found its hero. This hero, on his part, finds himself supported by a spiritually awakened tribe, thoroughly animated with the spirit of faith and obedience toward Jehovah. Every part of the picture is projected on a background of true piety. Jephthah is the hero, the leader, the head of the tribe: but he is not the only one whose eyes are fixed on God; the whole tribe, like members of the head, obey the same attraction. It is only because this background was ignored, i. e. because the connection between chapters 10 and 11 was overlooked, that the principal incident in the history of Jephthah has from the earliest times given rise to such singular explanations.
Jdg 11:1-2. And Jephthah the Gileadite was a valiant hero. The same terms were applied to Gideon by the Messenger of God (Jdg 6:12). The nobles of Gilead had determined (Jdg 10:18) to elect as their leader, him who should give evidence that God is with him, by beginning to wage successful warfare. Thereupon the narrative proceeds: And Jephthah was a valiant hero. It was he concerning whom they learned that he answered their description. His history is then related. A noble of Gilead had begotten him by a public harlot, and taken him into his house. The name of the father is unknown. In the statement: Gilead begat Jephthah; and also when we read of the wife of Gilead; the term Gilead, as tribe name, takes the place of the unknown personal name. Not, indeed, as if Gilead could not be a personal name; but if it were, Jephthah would have been designated as son of Gilead, and not as a Gileadite, without any paternal surname, as he is styled at the first mention, when he enters on the scene, and at the last, when he dies (Jdg 12:7). This conclusion is strengthened by a comparison with the names of other heroes; with that of his predecessor Gideon, for instance, who is constantly styled the son of Joash; and also, among others, with that of one of his successors, Elon the Zebulonite (Jdg 12:11), as to whom there can be no doubt that he was of the tribe of Zebulun, and had no more definite patronymic.The father, subsequently, had other sons by his lawful wife. These, when they had grown up, and their father had died, expelled Gideon from the house, although the eldest; for, said they,
Thou art the son of another woman ( ). Other is here to be taken in a bad sense, as in the expression other (acherim) gods. As those are spurious gods, so another ishah is a spurious wife. The expulsion of Jephthah was a base act; for his father had reared him in his house, and left him there, and he was the oldest child. The act cannot be compared with the removal of Ishmael and the sons of Keturah from the house of Abraham. Those the father himself dismissed with presents. But Jephthahs father had kept him in the house, and had thus signified his purpose to treat him as a son. Nevertheless, Jephthah could obtain no redress from the elders of Gilead (Jdg 11:7). If he had been the son of one who was properly a wife, his brothers would doubtless have been obliged to admit him to a share in the inheritance; for Rachel, the ancestress of Gilead, had also several co-wives, whose sonsof whom, be it observed in passing, Gad in Gilead was oneinherited as well as Joseph himself. But they maintained that his mother had not been a wife of their father at all, not even one of secondary rank,that she was nothing but an harlot. On the ground of bastardy, they could drive him out of the house; and at that time, no voice raised itself in Gilead but that of mockery and hatred toward Jephthah. Such being the case he fled.
Jdg 11:3. And dwelt in the land of Tob. The name Tob is found again in 2Sa 10:6, in connection with a war of the Ammonites against king David. Its subsequent mention in the Books of the Maccabees (1Ma 5:13; 2Ma 12:17), as , , affords no material assistance to any attempt at identification. But since Jephthah flees thither as to an asylum; and since adventurers collect about him there, as in a region of safety, whence he is able to make successful expeditions, we may be justified perhaps to hazard a conjecture which would tend to increase our knowledge of the Hauran. Erets tob ( ) means good land, and fertile, as Canaan is said to be (Exo 3:8). The best land in Hauran, still named from its fertility, and with which Wetzstein has made us again acquainted, is the Ruhbeh, in eastern Hauran. Its name signifies, fertile cornfield. It is the best land in Syria. It is still the seat of Bedouin tribes, who extend their pillaging expeditions far and wide. Of the present tribes, Wetzstein relates that they frequently combine with the Zubd, whose name reminds us of the Zabadeans (1Ma 12:31). Their land is an excellent place of refuge, difficult of attack, and easily defended.
At the head of adventurous persons whom the report which soon went out concerning his valor, had collected about him, he made warlike expeditions like those of David (1Sa 22:2), directed, as Davids were also, against the enemies of his nation. Of the son of Jesse, it is true, we know for certain that, notwithstanding his banishment, he attacked and defeated the Philistines (cf. 1Sa 23:1 ff.); but though we have no such direct statements concerning Jephthah, we yet have good grounds for concluding that his expeditions were directed against the Ammonites. For he evinced himself to be a mighty hero; and the Gileaditish nobles had pledged themselves to elect him as their head who should initiate victories over Ammon. Therefore, when their choice falls on Jephthah, it must be because they have heard of his deeds in the land of Tob against this enemy.Modern writers, especially, have made a real Abllino of Jephthah, steeped in blood and pillage. The character belongs to him as little as to David. Though banished, he was a valiant guerilla chieftain of his people against their enemies. He was the complete opposite of an Abimelech. The latter sought adventurers () for a wicked deed; to Jephthah, as to David, they come of their own accord and subordinate themselves to him. Abimelech was without cause an enemy of his fathers house, and dipped his sword in the blood of his own brothers. Jephthah, banished and persecuted by his brothers, turned his strength against the enemies of Israel; and when recalled, cherished neither revenge nor grudge in his heart. Abimelech had fallen away from God; Jephthah was his faithful servant. All this appears from his words and conduct.
Jdg 11:4-6. And after a considerable time it came to pass that the sons of Ammon made war with Israel. It was during the time of sin and impenitence, that Jephthah was driven away by violence and hatred. He returned as an elderly man, with a grown-up daughter. The Ammonitish conflict and oppression lasted eighteen years. The flight of Jephthah to Tob occurred probably some time previous to the beginning of these troubles. In the course of these years he had acquired fame, rest, house, and possessions. He had found God, and God was with him. If this were not his character, he would not have met the elders of Gilead as he did. Meanwhile, however, another spirit had asserted itself in Gilead also. For it is the sign of new life, that the elders of Gilead do not shun the humiliation of going to Jephthah. To be sure, they must have been informed that he also served no strange gods; for how otherwise could he be of service to them? In any case, however, it was no small matter to go to the hero whom, not his brothers only, but they also, the judges, had once ignominiously driven forth, and now say to him: Come with us, and be our captain! (: a leader in war, and according to later usage in peace also.)
Jdg 11:7-9. And Jephthah said unto the elders of Gilead, Did ye not hate me, and expel me out of my fathers house? The interview between him and the elders affords a striking proof of the subduing influence which the confession of God exercises, even over persons of vigorous and warlike spirits. Jephthahs speech does not conceal the reproach, that after the hard treatment he received, they should have invited him back before this, not first now when they are in distress. He speaks in a strain similar to that in which the voice of God itself had recently addressed Israel (Jdg 10:11).
And nobly do the elders answer him. For that very reason, say they, because we are in distress, do we come to thee. Such being the fact, thou wilt surely come. Did matters stand differently, thou wouldest probably (and not unjustly) refuse; but as it is, we call thee to go with us to fight, and be our head over all the inhabitants of Gilead. The satisfaction thus made to Jephthah is indeed great; but the danger and responsibility to which he is invited are not less eminent. His answer, nevertheless, exhibits no longer any trace of sensitiveness or pride. If his tribe call him to fight, he will obey their summonsas all heroes have ever done, who loved their native land. He, however, does it under a yet nobler impulse. Under other circumstancessuch is the underlying thoughtI would not have come to be your head. If you were now as heretofore, who would wish to come! for far as it is from being a blessing to the trees when the thorn-bush reigns, so far is it from pleasing to a noble mind to rule over thorn-bushes. But since you come to get me to fight with you against Ammonfull of a new spirit, so that I can cherish the hope that God will deliver the enemy before meI consent to be your head. It is not to be overlooked that Jephthah speaks of Jehovah, not of Elohim, and that he places the issue in Gods hand; for, as Judges 10 teaches, Gilead had learned to see that only God can help. Jephthah is called because Gods Spirit is recognized in him. Verse 9 has often been taken as a question; a construction which Keil has already, and very properly, rejected.3 The position of affairs has altogether erroneously been so apprehended, as if Jephthah were fearful lest, after victory achieved, they would then no longer recognize him as head, and wished to assure himself on this point beforehand. This view originates in the failure to perceive the spiritual background on which the action is projected. Jephthah is not a man who will be their head at any cost. There is no trace of ambition in his language. He is willing to be their head, if they are such members as will insure the blessing of God. Whoever knows his countrymen as he knew them, and has himself turned to God, will not be willing to be their leader, unless they have become other than they were. For that reason he says: If you bring me back, in order truly and unitedly to fight Ammon, and be worthy of Gods blessing,in that case, I will be your head. The guaranty of victory is sought by this valiant man, not in his own courage, but in the worthiness of the warriors before God.
Jdg 11:10. Jehovah be a hearer between us, if we do not so according to thy word. They invoke God, whom they have penitently supplicated, as witness; they swear by Him that they will do whatever Jephthah will command. They give him thereby a guaranty, not only that as soldiers they will obey their general, but also that in their conduct towards God they will be guided by their leaders instruction and direction. For not in military discipline only, but much rather in the moral and religious spirit by which Israel is animated, lies his hope of victory.
Jdg 11:11. And Jephthah spake all his words before Jehovah in Mizpah. Jephthah goes along; the peoplethe collective nobilitymake him head and leader; but not by means of sin and dishonor, as Abimelech became king. Jephthah receives his appointment from the hand of God. In the spirit of God, he enters on his work. As chieftain, it devolves on him to tell his people what course must be pursued: he does it in the presence of God. It is the ancient God of Israel before whom, at Mizpah, where the people are encamped, he issues his regulations, addresses, and military orders. On Mizpah, see at Jdg 11:29.
Keil has justly repelled the idea that the expression , before Jehovah, necessarily implies a solemn sacrificial ceremony. But, on the other hand, the impossibility of such a solemnity cannot be maintained. Whatever the ceremonial may have been, the meaning is, that Jephthah, in speaking all his words before God, thereby confessed Jehovah and his law, in contradistinction to heathenism and idolatry. In the spirit of this confession, he entered on his office.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
The manner in which divine compassion fills men with his Spirit, for the salvation of Israel, is wonderful. The inquiry into the origin of the heroes who suddenly arise in Israel, and in nations generally, to deliver and save, is one which leads down into the profoundest depths of divine wisdom. The selection of every Israelitish Judge is a new sign of compassion, but also of corrective chastening. For presumption and self-sufficiency were always at the bottom of their apostasies. Hence, in the selection of the Judges, the admonition to humility becomes continually more urgent. Israel is made to know that God chooses whom He wills, and raises from the dust him whom the people will place at their head. They have already experienced this in the cases of Ehud, the left-handed, of Deborah, a woman, of Gideon, the youngest and least of his family. All these, however, had been well-born persons, connected with the people by normal relations. In Jephthahs case, the choice becomes still more extraordinary. A bastard, an exile and adventurer, must be gone after. The magnates of the land must humble themselves to bring the exile home, to submit themselves to him, and make him the head of the tribe. That they do it, is proof of their repentance; that the choice is just, is shown by the result.
Thus, many a stone, rejected by the builders, has, typically, even before Christ, become the head of the corner. Unbelief deprives a nation of judgment. To discern spirits, is a work to be done only by an inward life in God. Sin expels whomsoever it cannot overcome; but penitence recalls him, whenever it perceives the ground of its own distress. Only he, however, returns without a grudge in his heart, who shares in the penitence.
Starke: Men are accustomed to go the nearest way; but God commonly takes a roundabout way, when He designs to make one noble and great.4The same: Happy he, who in all he speaks and does looks with holy reverence, even though it be not expressed in words, to the omniscient and omnipresent God; for this is the true foundation of all faithfulness and integrity.
[Bp. Hall: The common gifts of God respect not the parentage or blood, but are indifferently scattered where He pleases to let them fall. The choice of the Almighty is not guided by our rules: as in spiritual, so in earthly things, it is not in him that willeth.Scott: As the sins of parents so often occasion disgrace and hardship to their children, this should unite with higher motives, to induce men to govern their passions according to the law of God.Bush: The pretense of legal right, is often a mere cover to the foulest wrongs and injuries.Henry: The children of Israel were assembled and encamped, Jdg 10:17; but, like a body without a head, they owned they could not light without a commander. So necessary it is to all societies that there be some to rule, and others to obey, rather than that every man be his own master. Blessed be God for government, for a good government!Bp. Hall (on Jdg 11:7): Can we look for any other answer from God than this? Did ye not drive me out of your houses, out of your hearts, in the time of your health and jollity? Did ye not plead the strictness of, my charge, and the weight of my yoke? Did not your willful sins expel me from your souls? What do you now, crouching and creeping to me in the evil day?Tr.]
Footnotes:
[1][Jdg 11:3. Dr. Cassel here (cf. Jdg 9:4) renders, lose Leute, loose, unsettled persons. In his article on Jephthah in Herzogs Real-Encyklopdie, vi. 466, he describes them aspeople who had nothing to lose. The character and condition of such persons is more definitely described in 1Sa 22:2, where distressed persons, embarrassed debtors, and men of wild dispositions, are said to have attached themselves to the fugitive David. To prevent erroneous inferences, it is necessary to add the next sentence: But that Jephthah, like David, engaged in marauding expeditions, cannot be proved.Tr.]
[2][Jdg 11:11.. Dr. Cassel: Gesammtheitthe collective body,evidently with reference to his previous rendering in Jdg 10:18. Cf. note 1, p. 161.Tr.]
[3][Keil observes that the reply of the elders in Jdg 11:10, , presupposes an affirmative, not an interrogative utterance on the part of Jephthah. The (Jdg 11:9) is simply the emphatic correlative of the preceding .Tr.]
[4][Jdg 11:13.Dr. Cassel omits Because. , in this place, may be either the sign of a direct quotation, as which it would be sufficiently indicated by a colon after Jephthah; or a causal conjunction (E. V., De Wette). If the latter, the sentence is elliptical: We have much to do with each other, or, I am come to fight against thee, because, etc.Tr.]
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
CONTENTS
The history of the Judges during the commonwealth of Israel, and their government is continued. In this chapter we have the relation of Jephthuh’s administration. His birth, valor, contest with Ammon in the deliverance of Israel, victory, and rash vow, and the event of it, on the person of his daughter: these form the contents of this chapter.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
It was remarked in the preceding chapter, that the men of Gilead were consulting who to appoint as their leader, to go out with them to battle against the Ammonites. The Lord was about to appear for their deliverance. And when the Lord comes forth for this purpose, he never needs an instrument in order to accomplish his gracious designs. The distinction that is here made between the children of lawful wedlock, and those sprung from unlawful connections, is uniformly marked through the bible. There is indeed more in it, in a spiritual sense, than is gene rally considered. The married state is expressly said to be a figure of the union between Christ and his church. So the apostle explains it; Eph 5:24-32 . But notwithstanding all this, we find instances in scripture, in which the Lord is pleased to show that publicans and harlots are not disqualified for participating in the mercies of Jesus. Perhaps a more illustrious instance cannot be found than in that of Rahab the harlot. And was not this a type of the call of the Gentiles, to whom the Lord was not married as to Israel? Compare Jos 2:1-14 . with Jas 2:25 ; Heb 11:31 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Jdg 11:6
When a subject presented itself so large and shapeless, and dry and thorny, that few men’s fortitude could face, and no one’s patience could grapple with it; or an emergency occurred demanding, on a sudden, access to stores of learning, the collection of many long years, but arranged so as to be made available at the shortest notice then it was men asked where Lawrence was.
Lord Brougham.
Jdg 11:10
In a sermon preached at Fenwick in 1663, William Guthrie told his congregation: ‘If you be not ashamed of Him and His word, He shall not be ashamed of you. We are in the case of the Gileadites, sore oppressed; and Christ is Jephthah. He may say to us, as Jephthah did, Did you not hate Me, and expel Me out of My Father’s house? Why now come you to Me in your distress? We must take with the charge, and put ropes on our necks, and still press our point on Him. Well, He says, if He deliver us or right our matters, shall He then be Head over us? Let us all lay our hand to our heart this day. Dare we say as Gilead said, The Lord be witness between us if we do not according to Thy words? Well then, here is the Covenant, and here I take instruments, and do append His seal to the Covenant. Now take your Sacrament upon this.’
Jdg 11:11
Thomas Boston, in his Memoirs, describes a lengthy fast in which he reviewed his past life and renewed his vows to God. In the middle of the work, being exhausted, he desired some tokens from God of acceptance. Two, he observes, ‘were somewhat relieving unto me. One was that God knew the acceptance of His covenant, as above expressed, was the habitual bent of my heart and soul…. Another was that Scripture brought to my remembrance: and Jephthah uttered all his words before the Lord in Mizpeh. So I closed the work betwixt three and four o’clock in the afternoon.’
Jdg 11:34-35
‘Now you read poetry, I daresay what you call poetry,’ said the old Dissenting preacher in The Revolution in Tanner’s Lane. ‘I say in all of it all, at least, I have seen nothing comes up to that. She was his only child: beside her he had neither son nor daughter. The inspired writer leaves the fact just as it stands, and is content. Inspiration itself can do nothing to make it more touching than it is in its own bare nakedness. There is no thought in Jephthah of recantation, nor in the maiden of revolt, but nevertheless he has his own sorrow. He is brought very low. God does not rebuke him for his grief. He knows well enough, my dear friends, the nature which He took upon Himself. He does not anywhere, therefore, I say, forbid that we should even break our hearts over those we love and lose…. He elected Jephthah to the agony he endured while she was away on the hills! That is God’s election, an election to the cross and to the cry, “Eli, Eli, lama Sabachthani”. “Yes,” you will say, “but He elected him to the victory over Ammon.” Doubtless he did; but what cared Jephthah for his victory over Ammon when she came to meet him, or indeed for the rest of his life? What is a victory, what are triumphal arches and the praise of all creation, to a lonely man?’
References. XI. 35. J. Keble, Sermons for Lent to Passiontide, p. 328. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxiii. No. 1341.
Jdg 11:39-40
It is perhaps significant of Japanese married life that a Japanese bride goes to be married in a pure white mourning robe, which is intended to signify that henceforth she is dead to her old home and her parents, and that she must henceforth look upon her husband’s people as her own. But to the bride I think it must have a deeper significance. It must mean that she has said good-bye to all freedom and all family devotion, and to most of the pleasures of life: and that she has been disposed of to a man of whom she probably knows nothing, for him to use and abuse as the good or evil in him dictates. If ever the Japanese as a nation take to reading our Bible, the Japanese girl will make a god (not a goddess) of Jephthah’s daughter. A Japanese is called upon to perform the sacrifice of Jephthah when his daughter is married.
Miss Norma Lorimer in More Queer Things About Japan.
Fuente: Expositor’s Dictionary of Text by Robertson
Jdg 11 (Annotated)
[“The history of Jephthah appears to be an independent history inserted bodily by the compiler of the Book of Judges. For it is obvious that Jdg 11:4-5 , introduce the Ammonitish war without any apparent reference to chap. Jdg 10:17-18 , though in perfect agreement with what is there related.” The Speaker’s Commentary. ]
Jdg 11:1-40
( Giving the results of the best available criticism. )
1. Now Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty man of valour, and he was the son of an harlot: and Gilead begat [may mean, was the ancestor of] Jephthah.
2. And Gilead’s wife bare him sons; and his wife’s sons grew up, and they thrust out Jephthah [in perfect accordance with the law, see Deu 23:2-3 ], and said unto him, Thou shalt not inherit in our father’s house; for thou art the son of a strange woman.
3. Then Jephthah fled from his brethren, and dwelt in the land of Tob [a Syrian district on the north-east of Pera]; and there were gathered vain [“These are exactly analogous to the doruphoroi , a body guard of spear-bearers, which an ambitious Greek always hired as the first step to setting up a tyranny. We find David ( 1Sa 22:2 ), and Absalom ( 2Sa 15:1 ), and Rezon ( 1Ki 11:24 ), and Adonijah ( 1Ki 1:5 ), and Jeroboam ( 2Ch 13:7 ), all doing the same thing.”] men to Jephthah, and went out with him [as fellow freebooters].
4. And it came to pass in process of time [after days], that the children of Ammon made war against Israel [this has been fully related in chap. x].
5. And it was so, that when the children of Ammon made war against Israel [at the close of eighteen years of oppression, chap. Deu 10:9 ], the elders of Gilead went to fetch Jephthah out of the land of Tob:
6. And they said unto Jephthah, Come, and be our captain [our leader in time of war], that we may fight with the children of Ammon.
7. And Jephthah said unto the elders of Gilead, Did not ye hate me, and expel me out of my father’s house? and why are ye come unto me now when ye are in distress?
8. And the elders of Gilead said unto Jephthah, Therefore we turn again to thee now, that thou mayest go with us, and fight against the children of Ammon, and be our head over all the inhabitants of Gilead.
9. And Jephthah said unto the elders of Gilead, If ye bring me home again to fight against the children of Ammon, and the Lord deliver them before me, shall I be your head? [more than merely leader in times of war.]
10. And the elders of Gilead said unto Jephthah, The Lord be witness [be hearing] between us, if we do not so according to thy words.
11. Then Jephthah went with the elders of Gilead, and the people made him head and captain [civil as well as military leader] over them: and Jephthah uttered all his words before the Lord in Mizpeh [by some solemn religious ceremony].
12. And Jephthah sent messengers unto the king of the children of Ammon, saying, What hast thou to do with me, that thou art come against me to fight in my land? [He speaks officially in the name of all Israel.]
13. And the king of the children of Ammon answered unto the messengers of Jephthah, Because Israel took away my land [plausible, but not factual], when they came up out of Egypt, from Arnon even unto Jabbok [the space occupied by Gad and Reuben], and unto Jordan: now, therefore, restore those lands again peaceably.
14. And Jephthah sent messengers again [because he disputed the king’s facts] unto the king of the children of Ammon:
15. And said unto him, Thus saith Jephthah, Israel took rot away the land of Moab, nor the land of the children of Ammon: [“What they took was the territory of Sihon which they had never been forbidden to take, and had, indeed, been forced to take by Sihon’s attack upon them.”]
16. But when Israel came up from Egypt [compare Numb. xx, xxi.], and walked through the wilderness [in the second year of the wanderings] unto the Red sea, and came to Kadesh;
17. Then Israel sent messengers unto the king of Edom [as narrated in Num 20:14 , etc.], saying, Let me, I pray thee, pass through thy land: but the king of Edom would not hearken thereto. And in like manner they sent unto the king of Moab: but he would not consent: and Israel abode in Kadesh [where they may have encamped for a great part of forty years].
18. Then they went along through the wilderness, and compassed the land of Edom, and the land of Moab, and came by the east side of the land of Moab, and pitched on the other side of Arnon, but came not within the border of Moab: for Arnon was the border of Moab.
19. And Israel sent messengers unto Sihon king of the Amorites, the king of Heshbon [king of the Amorites by birth, king of Heshbon by conquest]; and Israel said unto him, Let us pass, we pray thee, through thy land into my place.
20. But Sihon trusted not Israel to pass through his coast: but Sihon gathered all his people together, and pitched in Jahaz, and fought against Israel.
21. And the Lord God of Israel delivered Sihon and all his people into the hand of Israel, and they smote them: so Israel possessed all the land of the Amorites, the inhabitants of that country.
22. And they possessed all the coasts of the Amorites, from Arnon even unto Jabbok, and from the wilderness even unto Jordan.
23. So now the Lord God of Israel hath dispossessed the Amorites from before his people Israel, and shouldest thou possess it? [a theological as well as a military view.]
24. Wilt not thou possess that which Chemosh thy god [“The expression shows the close connection between Ammon and Moab. Chemosh was distinctively the god of Moab, and Molech of Ammon: but the two nations were of kindred blood and allied institutions.”] giveth thee to possess? So whomsoever the Lord our God shall drive out from before us, them will we possess.
25. And now art thou any thing better than Balak [are you the good, good in comparison with?] the son of Zippor, the king of Moab? did he ever strive against Israel [except with pure hatred], or did he ever fight against them,
26. While Israel dwelt in Heshbon and her towns, and in Aroer and her towns, and in all the cities that be along by the coasts of Arnon, three hundred years? [An argument drawn from undisputed possession. The time mentioned may be a marginal gloss which has crept into the text] why therefore did ye not recover them within that time [at that crisis]?
27. Wherefore I have not sinned against thee, but thou doest me wrong to war against me: the Lord the Judge be judge this day between the children of Israel and the children of Ammon. [A familiar appeal. See Gen 16:5 , Gen 31:53 , Gen 18:25 ; 1Sa 24:15 .]
28. Howbeit the king of the children of Ammon hearkened not unto the words of Jephthah which he sent him.
29. Then the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah [endowing him with courage and wisdom], and he passed over [“he swept through the land from end to end to kindle the torch of war, and raise the population”] Gilead, and Manasseh, and passed over Mizpeh of Gilead, and from Mipzeh of Gilead he passed over unto the children of Ammon [went to attack them].
30. And Jephthah vowed a vow [“A practice among all ancient nations, but especially among the Jews: Gen 28:20-22 ; 1Sa 1:11 ; 2Sa 15:8 ; Psa 66:13 .”] unto the Lord, and said, If thou shalt without fail deliver the children of Ammon into mine hands,
31. Then it shall be, that whatsoever cometh forth [“Jephthah ignorant as he was, being a man of semi-heathen parentage, and long familiarised with heathen surroundings contemplated a human sacrifice.” St. Augustine ridicules the idea that there is any reference to a mere animal.] of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, shall surely be the Lord’s, and I will offer it up for a burnt-offering.
32. So [And] Jephthah passed over unto the children of Ammon to fight against them; and the Lord delivered them into his hands.
33. And he smote them from Aroer, even till thou come to Minnith [Maanith, four miles from Heshbon], even twenty cities, and unto the plain of the vineyards, with a very great slaughter. Thus the children of Ammon were subdued before the children of Israel.
34. And Jephthah came to Mizpeh unto his house, and behold, his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances: [As Miriam went to meet Moses ( Exo 15:20 ); and the women to meet Saul and David ( 1Sa 18:6-7 )] and she was his only child; beside her he had neither son nor daughter.
35. And it came to pass, when he saw her, that he rent his clothes [” Every Jew on approaching Jerusalem for the first time has to submit to the Krie, i.e., to a cut made in his sleeve, as a sort of symbol of rending his clothes.”], and said, Alas, my daughter! thou hast brought me very low [crushing, thou hast crushed me], and thou art one of them that trouble me: for I have opened my mouth unto the Lord [a vow to be binding, must have been actually expressed in words], and I cannot go back [no room was left for mental reservations: Lev 27:28-29 ].
36. And she said unto him, My father, if [omit if] thou hast opened thy mouth unto the Lord, do to me according to that which hath proceeded out of thy mouth; forasmuch as the Lord hath taken vengeance for thee of thine enemies, even of the children of Ammon.
37. And she said unto her father, Let this thing be done for me: Let me alone two months, that I may go up and down upon the mountains, and bewail my virginity, [The thought most intolerable to a Hebrew maiden was to die unwedded and childless. In this case there was additional bitterness because she was an only child, and in her early death prophecy would seem to come to nought] I and my fellows.
38. And he said, Go. And he sent her away for two months: and she went with her companions, and bewailed her virginity upon the mountains.
39. And it came to pass at the end of two months, that she returned unto her father, who did with her according to his vow which he had vowed [offered her up for a burnt offering]: and she knew no man. And it was a custom in Israel [the Targum of Jonathan adds “in order that no one should make his son or his daughter a burnt offering as Jephthah did, and did not consult Phinehas the priest,” who would have redeemed her with money],
40. That the daughters of Israel went yearly to lament [to praise or celebrate] the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite four days in a year.
Jephthah
JEPHTHAH was an illegitimate son. His brethren were cruel to him: they thrust him out, and said unto him, “Thou shalt not inherit in our father’s house; for thou art the son of a strange woman.” ( Jdg 11:2 ). So the man was driven away. That is the first picture. The man was unfortunate, not criminal. He was the victim of circumstances. Why should society be so cruel? Is a man to be blamed because he was born blind? Who does not thrust the cripple away when there is a great feast, or a grand show, or some occasion of family pride and delight? Who does not hide the thing that is unpleasant? This is the mystery of society that we should fix responsibility where there is none, and be very light in our thought concerning responsibility where it is evident and incommunicable that is to say, where it is fastened upon the individual and cannot be transferred to any other person. There is something wrong here in social thought. Who does not gather himself up in a kind of conscious or unconscious disdain and look severely and repudiatingly upon a man who has come into the world under infinite disadvantages? We should show a better quality if we were more kindly disposed towards such, saying to them in effect: Poor souls! you had a bad beginning; the time will go heavy with you; you have somehow come into a world that is lacking in compassion and magnanimity; but, in God’s name, some of us will stand by you, and help you, and make the world as glad for you as we can. That would be noble chivalry; that would be the very Spirit of Christ. So Jephthah is doomed to everlasting obscurity: is he? The Lord is very pitiful and kind. Jephthah was disreputable in birth, but he was illustrious in faith. That is your opportunity! However you came into the world you may go out of it a gentleman, a hero, a saint Says the Apostle: “What shall I more say? for the time will fail me to tell of Gideon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthah.” So when his mocking brothers or alien kin are all forgotten, the bastard Jephthah stands out elect, precious a mighty man in faith as in valour. Cheer ye! you may yet have a time of gladness. There is no difficulty that is not conquerable. Many a time your disadvantages will be thrown in your face. When you are advancing with terrific pace upon the foremost men and threatening to overrun them, they will not forget your birth and your disadvantages. Every one of them will be turned into a stone, which will be thrown at you, but not one of the stones will strike you. Never mind what is thrown have your purpose right and good, and God will defend you.
So “Jephthah fled from his brethren, and dwelt in the land of Tob” ( Jdg 11:3 ) perhaps in the land of his maternal ancestors. There is room enough in the world. Do not crowd one another so. If there is a family difference, a disagreement of a painful kind, you will find that Space may be turned into a kind of reconciliation. Divide, separate: there is wonderful healing in fresh air, and in new sunshine, and in new scenery and surroundings. If you are thrust out, it may be the making of you. Some men would have been better today if they had been driven from home. They have grown not one visible inch during the last quarter of a century. A little hardship would have been the making of them; it would have awakened them all through and through, so that most of them would not have been asleep, but every faculty would have become a burning point, a centre of new vitality. Jephthah went, and he left the shame with his brothers. That must be the law of life, if we would follow Christ. Behave you like a gentleman, however much others may mock you and persecute you. Let the shame be theirs! Wear them out by the very patience of goodness; be so constant in all nobleness, truth, honour, and genuine goodness, that at last they will give up, saying, Truly this man is a son of God! Marvellous are the healings of time and space, mountains and seas.
Was there, then, no compensation? Was there nothing but disadvantage in the life of Jephthah? The question turns us back again to the first verse: “Now Jephthah… was a mighty man of valour.” Even his mother might not be without great qualities. Surely the mother lives again in the son. She was a giantess of a mother, fit to be the mother of kings. Do not scatter your contempt about too freehandedly. You cannot tell whom you are undervaluing, and whom you are attempting to deride. Your virtue may consist of some one point of respectability, and the person you contemn may be a person whose shoe’s latchet you are not worthy to unloose. God knows what is in every man, woman, and child. He does not fix his eye upon little points or great, but takes in the whole man, the entire life, in its whole bulk and weight and force. Jephthah has a fortune in himself. The young man who went out from his father’s house with the portion of goods that fell to him, had a fortune in his hand, not in his head not in his heart; and whatever is in the hand only may be spent, for there is nothing so easy as spending: any fool can learn the art without a premium. Jephthah’s fortune was internal, spiritual; within him, in his mind, not yet awakened: for that gigantic body habited a mind worthy of itself. Study the law of compensations. If a dozen boys are playing at a game, and there is a cripple amongst them, the cripple is the winning man; nothing can stand before the cripple; all the handsome boys will be behind. You may have seen this again and again. It seems to be a kind of law of nature. Where a man is unable to speak much, you should see one of his letters every sentence meaning something, and there is more in one page of his letters than in all the epistles some of the most fluent speakers ever wrote. See a man who is very timid under some circumstances, and that same man may be as bold as a lion under others: in the first instance the circumstances were not equal to the man they did not awake him; the latter appealed to his best quality. So it is all through and through life. The unsuccessful man may have a happy temperament, which is worth a very great amount as to quietness and happiness and music. God hath not left any of his creatures without some token of blessing, some point of light, some gift all his own. Search for that particular gift, and make it the beginning of heaven. You may be driven out, but how strong you are! You may be derided by others, but how wonderfully you can take care of yourself! Look at the bright side, and though you be driven into far-away lands, yet, with a soul touching God’s great economies, and drawing out of them all nutriment and inspiration, every land is home.
Now came a period of trial. The brethren got into trouble: “The children of Ammon made war against Israel” ( Jdg 11:5 ). But a bastard might not reign in Israel; so it was written in the law. Jephthah, therefore, must keep out of the way; the captaincy is forbidden to him. There were social reasons for this, strong enough for their time, adapted to the civilisation which they ruled. What, then, was to be done? A provision was made for overgetting the difficulty. Such a man must be called to the captaincy by the elders. Hence we find “the elders of Gilead,” including the brethren, in a formal and official manner “went to fetch Jephthah out of the land of Tob” ( Jdg 11:5 ). Now we see a turn in the wheel of Providence which is not unusual. The elders said unto Jephthah, “Come, and be our captain, that we may fight with the children of Ammon” ( Jdg 11:6 ). Jephthah was but a man; who can be more, unless he be crucified with Christ unless the life he now live in the flesh be a life of faith of the Son of God? “And Jephthah said unto the elders of Gilead, Did not ye hate me, and expel me out of my father’s house? and why are ye come unto me now when ye are in distress?” ( Jdg 11:7 ). Your opportunity will come, and you will feel that question though you may not ask it. When men are in distress they seem almost inspired to be able to find out one’s address. We think we are well concealed, and it will be impossible for any person whom we wish to avoid to find out where we are; but there is a kind of invisible directory they get hold of, and as soon as the wolf is upon them they are upon us. Who could keep back the question, “Why are ye come unto me now when ye are in distress? ” remember the old times when you were hard with me, and thrust me away, hardly giving me a garment with which to cover my shoulders, sending me away from my father’s house without a blessing or a cheer, without one word of prayer or benediction, without a single “God bless you” to shorten the road and brighten the end; why are ye come to me now? If we push the question too much, we shall show that we are unworthy of the honour which is sought to be conferred upon us. Joseph showed a right spirit when he said to his brethren, “Now, therefore, be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves…. It was not you… but God.” Jephthah was not so well instructed. Presently we shall find that he did not know the law of Israel, for if he had known it he would have saved himself infinite pain. How could Jephthah know the law? We thrust men out of their houses, drive them away into far lands, and then blame them for not being as civilised as we are, as highly educated, as fully trained. This is the evil way of the human spirit when it is not subdued and sanctified. We give men no chances, we turn them out into the bare desert, we treat them as if they were of inferior quality: and then if they make a slip or mistake, or commit offence, we charge them with ignorance of the law. We first make the heathen, then we deride him, and at last we feebly attempt to convert him! Have we not driven away many? What this land has to answer for, and many other lands, in the way of exiling men from their natural positions and opportunities! Surely the day must come when our Christian preachers will not be afraid to read and preach the whole Bible. When that day comes there will be a sword in the country, there will be a fire in the earth! Now we read the comforting promises, the tender exhortations, we apply all the needful solaces, and call such reading and preaching honouring the Bible! There is no fire so hot as the fire that burns in God’s Book, in relation to all sin, injustice, irrational and oppressive inequality. The wrath of the Lamb is such wrath as cannot burn in evil breasts. Jephthah said, “If ye bring me home again” we cannot get rid of that word” home”; it follows us into the land of Tob, and into every land, and makes a song for itself “to fight against the children of Ammon, and the Lord deliver them before me, shall I be your head? And the elders of Gilead said unto Jephthah, The Lord be witness between us, if we do not so according to thy words” (Jdg 11:9-10 .) It is really a pitiful moment when one gets the better of the enemy. There is something so crouching in the humiliation of the foe that we almost wish the conquest had never been effected. The elders of Israel would do anything, give anything, promise anything, if this great Samson in anticipation would only come and deliver them from the children of Ammon.
Then came the battle and the victory. Jephthah stated his case in a statesmanlike manner (Jdg 11:12-27 , ante , p. 71).
There is nothing furious in the claim; history is stated, victories are avouched, and a claim is made. Jephthah wishes to be strong in justice. If a man is not morally strong even an arm of iron may be broken and sinews of brass may be melted. Have right on your side. That is the coat-of-mail. There is no crevice in it. Let the arrows come with the thickness of rain; they will fall harmlessly at your feet. Jephthah was a superstitious man, not well trained in the law. How could he be? He was full of a wild kind of superstition. “Then the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah, and he passed over Gilead, and Manasseh, and passed over Mizpeh of Gilead, and from Mizpeh of Gilead he passed over unto the children of Ammon” ( Jdg 11:29 ) passed like a mighty tempest! Who can arrest a man who is made mad by the divine presence? He was not inspired in the prophetic or apostolic sense of the term, but he was “possessed “; he was no more himself, but a tabernacle of the living God. He had a purpose to realise, and God was in him that that purpose might be consummated.
Jephthah made a vow. He said that whoever came out of his house when he returned should be offered in sacrifice ( Jdg 11:30-31 ). “And Jephthah came to Mizpeh unto his house, and, behold, his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances: and she was his only child; beside her he had neither son nor daughter” ( Jdg 11:34 ). Here he was just as steadfast as at the earlier points of his history. There is a wonderful consistency about the man. When he saw the child, “he rent his clothes, and said, Alas, my daughter! thou hast brought me very low, and thou art one of them that trouble me; for I have opened my mouth unto the Lord, and I cannot go back” ( Jdg 11:35 ). So he was a great man even in his heathenism. But he did not know the law, we have said. If he had been allowed to remain at home, and to study the law and acquaint himself with the ordinances of Israel, he might have known that provision was made for this very crisis. Oh, had one been at hand that day to whisper in his ear, “And if it be a female, then thy estimation shall be thirty shekels” ( Lev 27:4 )! Jephthah did not know that in the law there was mercy hidden. Jephthah was not aware that all the great necessities of life have been anticipated by providential economies, and that heaven’s great, sweet law provides against the rashness and the madness into which we are plunged by our sin. For “thirty shekels” he could have redeemed his vow, and his only child might have been spared! Search the Bible for the way out of your difficulty. Everything is in the Book of God. Whatever your sorrow or strait, sit down to the inspired volume and read it until you find the gate that opens upon liberty; it is unquestionably in the Bible. All the deepest questions man has ever asked were answered before they were propounded. Who can be before the Lord, or prevent the Eternal?
Into the mystery of what then happened we cannot enter. The daughter was worthy of the father. She said, “If thou hast opened thy mouth unto the Lord, do to me according to that which hath proceeded out of thy mouth” ( Jdg 11:36 ). We sometimes understand fathers best by studying the children. Jephthah’s child had in her the making of a great woman. So the compensations of Providence are a million in number. They come upon a man at unexpected points, and they cheer him in the most critical distresses. Jephthah might have felt himself filled with a pride pleasing to heaven, as he heard his child utter this sublime reply. Men are sacrificing their daughters today in quite as heathenish a manner as Jephthah ever sacrificed his only child. There is less hope of them. They have passed through Moses and the prophets, the evangelists and the apostles, in so far as their moral teaching is concerned; and the men in question have come out of the process more obdurate and worldly than ever. Are there not men today who are saying, If I can marry my child to a rich man I shall be satisfied; no matter what his belief, no matter what his conduct, wealth is the one condition? Such men are cruel; they are not fit to live. They may not put the case to themselves quite so boldly; they may throw a good deal of social decoration around their proposals; but if at the heart of those proposals there is this idea of wealth, then truly their condemnation is just. There is only one thing perhaps worse than this, and that is that a daughter should vow herself away on this mean altar. But are there not people who are saying, If there is wealth, no matter what else there is or is not? What can come of an association of that kind, but disappointment, bitterness, death? Are there not some also who are saying: I dedicate my children to enjoyment; they must have a good opportunity in the world, for life is brief and chances are few, and they must not be brought up to slave as I have slaved: they must be saved from hard work, and drudgery, and humiliation; they shall run with the footmen and outstrip the horsemen in the race of time? Poor fools! they, too, are cruel. There is no kindness like the kindness of bringing up a child to work. He ought to be punished by society who leaves his child without a trade or a means of obtaining an honest living. These are the vices to frown down. These are the injustices that ought to be put down. The children will arise to condemn the memory that ought to have been for ever kept clean. Dedicate your children to honesty, industry, self-reliance, sobriety, honour. Tell them there is a poverty which is wealth, and a wealth which is poverty: a repute which is infamous, and a repudiation of a social kind which amounts to a real crowning and enthronement. If we cannot look for these things from Christian people, from whom can we expect them? This is the Spirit of Christ. In all things he was our example in making his living, in giving an equivalent for everything he received, in giving himself for the life of the world. “If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.” “To him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin.” I know of no cruelty so great as to substitute a momentary kindness for a lifelong discipline. Let us learn that every direction suited to the education and development of human life is to be found in the Book of God. He who walks by this book will walk straight into heaven; he will make no permanent mistakes; he may sometimes have a rod in his hand; sometimes his face may be darkened by a frown; sometimes his voice may tremble with menace; but, pursuing the course of education marked down in God’s Book, at the last his children shall bless him, and they will speak with their father’s enemies in the gate, if he should ever need to be vindicated or his honour to be upheld. Let us stand by the Bible preach, read, study, proclaim the Bible. Human life has no necessity that has not been anticipated by the living Book of the living God.
Selected Note
Volumes have been written on the subject of “Jephthah’s rash vow;” the question being whether, in doing to his daughter “according to his vow,” he really did offer her in sacrifice or not. The negative has been stoutly maintained by many able pens, from a natural anxiety to clear the character of one of the heroes in Israel from so dark a stain. But the more the plain rules of common sense have been exercised in our view of Biblical transactions, and the better we have succeeded in realizing a distinct idea of the times in which Jephthah lived and of the position which he occupied, the less reluctance there has been to admit the interpretation which the first view of the passage suggests to every reader, which is, that he really did offer her in sacrifice. The explanation which denies this maintains that she was rather doomed to perpetual celibacy, and this, as it appears to us, on the strength of phrases which to one who really understands the character of the Hebrew people and their language suggest nothing more than that it was considered a lamentable thing for any daughter of Israel to die childless. To live unmarried was required by no law, custom, or devotement among the Jews; no one had a right to impose so odious a condition on another, nor is any such condition implied or expressed in the vow which Jephthah uttered. To get rid of a difficulty which has no place in the text, but arises from our reluctance to receive that text in its obvious meaning, we invent a new thing in Israel, a thing never heard of among the Hebrews in ancient or modern times, and more entirely opposed to their peculiar notions than anything which the wit of man ever devised, such as that a damsel should be consecrated to perpetual virginity in consequence of a vow of her father, which vow itself says nothing of the kind. If people allow themselves to be influenced in their interpretations of Scripture by dislike to take the words in their obvious meaning, we might at least expect that the explanations they would have us receive should be in accordance with the notions of the Hebrew people, instead of being entirely and obviously opposed to them. The Jewish commentators themselves generally admit that Jephthah really sacrificed his daughter; and even go so far as to allege that the change in the pontifical dynasty from the house of Eleazar to that of Ithamar was caused by the high-priest of the time having suffered this transaction to take place.
Professor Bush maintains with us that a human sacrifice was all along contemplated. But he suggests that during the two months, Jephthah might have obtained better information respecting the nature of vows, by which he would have learned that his daughter could not be legally offered, but might be redeemed at a valuation ( Lev 27:2-12 ). This is possible, and is much more likely than the popular alternative of perpetual celibacy; but we have serious doubts whether even this meets the conclusion that “he did with her according to his vow.” Besides, in this case, where was the ground for the annual “lamentations” of the daughters of Israel, or even for the “celebrations” which some understand the word to mean?
Kitto.
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
XXIX
THE STORY OF ABIMELECH, THE USURPER, AND OF JEPHTHAH
Judges 9-12
1. Who was Abimelech, and was he one of Israel’s judges sent out by the Lord?
Ans. Abimelech was the natural son of Gideon, not the legal son, and evidently a godless case. He was not sent of the Lord to be a judge. Whatever rule he obtained he obtained by murder, unsurpation, and conspiracy. So we don’t count him at all in the list of the judges, but his history only as an episode in the period of the judges.
2. How was his usurpation effected?
Ans. By conspiracy with the city of Shechem, and by the murder and assassination of all his father’s legal children except one, the youngest, Jotham, who escaped.
3. Analyze the sin of Abimelech and Shechem.
Ans. (1) The sin consisted in the attempt to establish a monarchy while God was the ruler of the theocracy. (2) It consisted of murder in order that no competition might arise between the real, legal children of their great leader, Gideon.
4. Through whom and how came a protest against the sin?
Ans. The protest came from Jotham, the youngest son of Gideon. He took his position on top of Mount Gerizirn, and from the top of that mountain all the valley could hear him and all on the highest mountains, so he occupied a high pulpit. He stated his case in the form of a parable, or in the strictest sense of fable. He said that the trees of the field called upon the fig tree to be their king, and it had better things to attend to than to be king; they called on the olive tree, and the olive tree had better things to do than to be king; so finally they applied to the bramble, and it agreed that it would be king if they would rest under its shadow. Now the briar doesn’t make much of a shadow, but they agreed to it.
5. Was Jotham’s illustration a fable or a parable, and what the distinction between them?
Ans. Parable is a broader word and includes fable. A fable is a parable of this kind: It attributes intelligent action to either inanimate creation or brute creation. Numerous cases you have of them in Aesop’s Fables. But a parable supposes real people and presents them acting as one would naturally do under the circumstances. But inasmuch as a parable etymologically means, according to the strict Greek word parabola, the putting of one thing down against another for the purpose of contrast, therefore a fable may come within the definition of a parable.
6. What fable of Aesop’s somewhat similar?
Ans. The fable of the frogs who implored Jupiter to send them a king. He dropped a log into the pond and it made a great splash and ripples but later when they found that they could jump upon that log they had no regard for their king and implored Jupiter to send another. Whereupon Jupiter sent a long-necked stork, or crane. And he gobbled up quite a number of his subjects every morning and they much regretted swapping King Log for King Stork.
7. What are the great lessons of Jotham’s fable?
(1) The best and most ambitious men are not ambitious to rule over people. See our Lord’s lesson in the Gospel: “The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; it shall not be so with you.” There is something greater than to be king and whoever ministers to others is greater than any king that ever sat on the throne.
(2) The second lesson of the fable is that when the ambitious in their selfishness seek to rule and the people are gullible enough to give them rule, then it means mutual destruction both to the self-seeking ambitious one and the gullible people who put him in power.
8. How did Jotham apply his fable?
Ans. In this way: “Now if you have done the right thing to Gideon in the murder of his children and in the election of this self-seeking assassin, then have joy in him and let him have joy in you; but if you are wrong in that may the fire come out of him that will burn you up and may a fire come out of you that will burn him up.”
9. Cite proof that the fable was inspired.
Ans. The proof is found at the close of this lesson where it is said, “according to the word of Jotham,” and that is exactly what happened. The first time a row came up between him and the people he wiped them off the face of the map, and soon after a remnant in fighting against him killed him; a woman dropped a millstone down on his bead. What an inglorious death! So he perished and they perished, and the record says that it was done according to the word of Jotham.
10. What use does Dr. Broadus make of Jotham in his History of Preaching?
Ans. In citing cases of real pulpit eloquence he mentions Jotham and his high pulpit he stood on, his use of illustrations and his sensational sermon, and then that having created a sensation, he ran away from it. That is about the substance, but you had better read what Dr. Broadus says in his History of Preaching.
11. What Old Testament parables precede Jotham’s fable?
Ans. None; for another fable, see 2Ki 14:9-14 .
12. Cite the names and tribes of the next two judges after Gideon and their respective periods of judging.
Ans. Tolar of the tribe of Issachar, who judged twenty-three years, and Jair of the tribe of Manasseh, who judged twenty-two years.
13. After Tolar and Jair how did Israel increase its idolatries and what the deities?
Ans. Read 10:6. Here is what he says: “And the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the Lord, and served Baalim, and Ashtaroth [both of these are plural], and the gods of Syria, and the gods of Sidon [Sidon is a part of Phoenicia], and the gods of Moab, and the gods of the children of Ammon, and the gods of the Philistines.” They took in more gods this time than ever before.
14. Find the names of the gods of the Philistines, of Ammon, of Moab, and of Sidon in addition to Baalim and Ashtaroth.
Ans. One god of the Philistines was Dagon; another was Baal-zebub; Milcom, or Moloch of Ammon; Chemosh of Moab; Gerakles and Melkar of Phoenicia.
15. What evidence of their repentance when trouble came?
Ans. (1) The confession of sin Jdg 10:10-15 . (2) Putting themselves in God’s hands to be punished at his will, Jdg 10:15 . (3) Putting away the strange gods. That is good proof of repentance.
We now come to consider the case of JEPHTHAH
16. Cite the story of Jephthah up to the call of the people to make him leader. Where is Tob, what his life there and what the similarity with the case of Abimelech?
Ans. Jephthah, as I have stated, was the son of Gilead, by a harlot, and his brethren or his half-brothers, the legal children of Gilead, denied him the right to any part of the inheritance, and the city of Shechem coincided with them. So he had to leave, and he retired to a great rich country in Syria. The name of the place was Tob, and there, being a valorous man, he gathered about him a company of men, pretty lawless fellows; some of them, regular free-lances. The similarity of his case and Abimelech’s is that he and Abimelech were both natural sons.
17. Considering Gen 21:10 , the case of Hagar; the case of Tamar, Gen 38:12-26 ; and Deu 21:15-17 , was it lawful to deny Jephthah a part of his father’s inheritance, and if so wherein does this case differ from others cited?
Ans. Hagar was really the wife under the law and Tamar’s action was strictly within the law, though Judah did not suppose it at the time. And in the case cited in Deuteronomy there were the children of two wives but they were both wives. So none of them applies to this case. Jephthah was the son of a harlot born utterly out of wedlock, and therefore, it was lawful to deprive him of any inheritance, but it was a mean thing to do.
18. What condition did Jephthah exact of Gilead before he would accept their appeal and how did he certify it?
Ans. He made them enter into a claim covenant at Mizpah that if he came in their extremity and delivered them from this bondage that had come upon them, then he was to be their prince, and he had the word spoken before the Lord at Mizpah. The student of history will remember how Rome pleaded with Coriolanus, whom she expelled, not to destroy Rome, and sent his mother to beg him not to do it. He said, “Mother, you have saved Rome but you have lost your son.”
19. State Jephthah’s negotiation with Ammon, and its results.
Ans. He sent a very able statement to the king of Ammon, who was leading this invasion of Israel, and he put the case this way: “We obtained this territory 300 years ago under Moses; God put it into our hands. Why have you been silent 300 years? We will not surrender what God has put into our hands and which we have held for that long.” They disregarded his negotiation.
20. What the first proof that Jehovah had any part in the leadership of Jephthah?
Ans. Now, heretofore everything that is said in the record shows that it was the plan of the people to go and stand for Jephthah as leader, and the first sign is in Jdg 11:29 , showing that after he took the position of leader the Spirit of the Lord came upon him.
21. What the vow of Jephthah and wherein its rashness?
Ans. When they refused to negotiate, he vowed if God would give him the victory over them that whoever was the first to come out of his house to meet him on his return from battle) he would offer as a burnt offering to Jehovah. The rashness of it was, as all the context goes to show, that he meant persons and Jehovah’s law was against offering people as burnt offerings.
22. State two theories of what became of Jephthah’s daughter, which the older, which best supported by the context and history, and if you say the first, how, then, did the second originate?
Ans. The first theory is that Jephthah said he would offer the one meeting him as a burnt offering and the text shows that just what he vowed, that he did unequivocally. That theory held the fort until 1,200 years after Christ, i.e., from Jephthah’s time until 1,200 years after Christ; all commentaries, Jewish and Christian, stated that Jephthah did sacrifice his daughter as a burnt offering to Jehovah, but about 1,200 years after Christ a Jewish rabbi questioned it and then a few of the sentimental Christians, among them Grotius, the distinguished theologian of Holland, followed by Hengstenberg, a German, and a few English people, Adam Clarke for one, and their theory was that Jephthah vowed to the Lord that if something that could be offered as a burnt offering met him it should be burned, but if it were not it was still to be consecrated to God, and what took place was not the death on the altar of sacrifice, but the daughter was shut up to perpetual virginity. The overwhelming majority of the commentaries, and men who have respect for what the Word says, hold to the first theory, but if you want to see both theories stated and your question demands that, you look in Appendix 4 to the “Cambridge Bible,” Book of Judges. Now, that second theory being more and more in fashion was originated by early nunneries, women taking the vow of perpetual virginity for Christian service, and yet the majority of the Catholics do not believe that. They believe that she was put up as a burnt offering.
23. Why, in your judgment, did not Jephthah appeal to Lev 27:2-8 , for commutation of his vow? That is, if one made a vow, a scale of compensation was provided and by paying that compensation in money he could be released from the vow. The question now is why did not Jephthah appeal to the Levitical law?
Ans. A great many people say that Jephthah was ignorant of this law, but that history took place at Mizpah where the high priest lived, and the high priest knew of that law if Jephthah didn’t. He did not appeal to that because the Levitical law did not apply as it does to other kinds of vows.
24. From the context was the vow inspired?
Ans. Jdg 11:29-30 , shows that the Spirit of the Lord rested on him, and inasmuch as in Heb 11:32 , Jephthah is commended as one of the heroes of faith, my answer is that the vow was not inspired and an entirely new subject on the vow question was introduced after the statement that the Spirit of the Lord came on Jephthah. Heb 11:32 has nothing to do with it from the fact that a man may have faith and do many mean things and wrong things, as David did.
25. Is it better to break a vow that involves sin than to keep it?
Ans. Before you answer, compare Psa 15:4 , Ecc 5:4 , with Mat 14:6-11 , where Herod vowed with an oath that he would give the dancing girl anything she asked for, and she asked for the head of John the Baptist. Take the three passages and make out your answer. Let those first two cases refer to cases that are not sin. I heard a man once swear that he would eat the devil in flames and I have always excused him from eating the devil particularly as hot as that.
26. What proverb of English classics applies to Jephthah’s vow?
Ans. This proverb, “This promise is better in the breach than in the observance of it.”
27. Cite the case of Jephthah’s contention with Ephraim, and what use has been made of “Shibboleth”?
Ans. Ephraim as usual (you know, I quoted the prophet who said that Ephraim is a cake not turned), when Jephthah gained that victory, drew out his army and demanded why he did not call on him. Jephthah did not give him a soft answer. He said, “I did call on you and you refused to come and when you refused I wrought the deliverance, and now if you want to fight let us fight.” And he gave him a good beating. In other words, when he got through the cake was cooked on both sides. Now, this “Shibboleth,” that was the word that the enemy had to pronounce. They could not pronounce the sh; they said Sibboleth, and as they were running away and Jephthah’s men found them, they were asked to say “Shibboleth,” and if they said “Sibboleth,” they were known to be the enemy and were killed right there. It has become since that day popular with those who think that others are requiring too hard doctrines. They say, “Well, I don’t pretend to be able to pronounce ‘Shibboleth,’ but you need not want to kill me just because I can’t sound every letter just like you.”
28. What three judges succeeded Jephthah, from what tribes, and the notes of time?
Ans. That is expressed in two or three verses, as follows: Ibzan of the tribe of Zebulon, judged seven years; Elon of the tribe of Zebulon, judged ten years; Abdon of the tribe of Ephraim, judged eight years.
Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible
Jdg 11:1 Now Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty man of valour, and he [was] the son of an harlot: and Gilead begat Jephthah.
Ver. 1. Was a mighty man of valour. ] Magna vi animi et corporis fuit, as Sallust saith of Catiline: He was stout and strong, hardy and able to suffer hardship, as a good soldier should do; one that had done great exploits, and had oft looked death in the face upon great adventures in the field.
And he was the son of an harlot.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Jephthah = He will deliver. Note the Fig, Epanadiplosis (App-6), to call attention to the facts of this verse, introducing Jephthah. All was irregular: no king, no judge, no priest.
Gileadite = son of the man Gilead.
man. Hebrew. gibbor. App-14.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Chapter 11
He was a mighty man of valour, he was the son of a harlot: and Gilead begat Jephthah. And Gilead’s wife bore him sons; and the wife’s sons when they grew up, they threw Jephthah out, and they said, You’re not gonna inherit our father’s house; you’re the son of a strange woman. So Jephthah fled from his brothers, and he dwelled in the land of Tob: and there gathered unto him vain men who began to [sort of pal around him]. And it came to pass in the process of time, that the children of Ammon made war against Israel. And it was so, when the children of Ammon made war against Israel, the elders of Gilead sent to fetch Jephthah out of the land of Tob: And they said to Jephthah, Come, and be our captain, that we might fight with the children of Ammon. And Jephthah said unto the elders of Gilead, Did you not hate me, and expel me out of my father’s house? why are you now come because you are in distress? The elders of Gilead said unto Jephthah, Therefore we turn again to thee now, that you may go with us, and fight against the children of Ammon, and be our head over all of the inhabitants of Gilead. So Jephthah said unto the elders of Gilead, If you bring me home again to fight against the children of Ammon, and the LORD delivers them before me, shall I be your head? And the elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, The LORD be witness between us, if we do not according to your words ( Jdg 11:1-10 ).
In other words will you let me rule over you?
So Jephthah went with the elders of Gilead, the people made him the head and captain over them: and Jephthah uttered all of his words before the LORD in Mizpeh. And Jephthah sent messengers unto the king of the children of Ammon, saying, What have you to do with me, that you come against me to fight in my land? And the king of the children of Ammon and said to the messengers of Jephthah, Because Israel took away my land, when they came up out of Egypt, from Arnon even to Jabbok, and unto Jordan: and now therefore restore those lands again peaceably ( Jdg 11:11-13 ).
So there was a little sort of a running feud. Jephthah sent, and he said, “Hey, why are you guys coming to fight to take away our land?” And they sent back, “Hey, we were here before you ever thought of being here. We lived here before you came and you came and took the land away from us.”
So he wrote back to them another message. It said, “No way. We were willing to live peaceably. You came out against us. You started the fight and we wiped you. And so the land belongs to us. We’ve been dwelling there all along. How come you haven’t come sooner to reclaim it? Why didn’t you take it then you know, if it was your land? So we settled in it. It’s our land.”
And so they then gathered together to battle. Now, at this point Jephthah made a vow unto God. He said, “Lord if you will deliver these people of Ammon or the Ammonites into my hand giving me victory over them, then I will sacrifice unto you the first thing that comes out of the door of my house when I return home as a burnt offering unto thee.”
So God delivered the Ammonites into the hands of Jephthah. And he was coming home victorious, leading the armies and who should come out the door of his house then his daughter, his only child? With a tambourine and a song that she had made up of the great victories of her father and the how great of dad and everything he was. And when he saw her come out the door he said, “Oh sweetheart, you’ve brought grief to my soul today.”
And she said, “Dad, whatever you promised the Lord to do, go ahead and do.” And so he told the vow that he had made and she said, “All right you know, you’ve made a vow to God and you’re to do it but,” she said, “Allow me a couple of months to go through the mountains with my friends and just sort of bewail my virginity.” And so she went through the mountains bewailing her virginity for a couple of months.
And it came to pass [verse thirty-nine] at the end of two months, that she returned unto her father, who did with her according to his vow which he had vowed: and she knew no man. And it was a custom in Israel, that the daughters of Israel went yearly to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite four days in a year ( Jdg 11:39-40 ).
Now, number one, God had forbidden human sacrifice. There is a question of whether or not he actually killed her. The burnt offering sacrifice was actually a sacrifice of consecration unto God. And there are some commentators who teach that he gave her to God to perpetual virginity. In other words, to keep her from ever marrying and she was consigned to a life of celibacy because of the vow her father had made. That is possible, it isn’t probable but it is possible. From the apparent reading of the text he did this awful thing and actually sacrificed his daughter unto the Lord.
However, I am convinced that God did not require it of him nor would God require it of him. Under the law where your first child actually was to be given to God, God made provisions for the redemption of the first child with an animal. And I’m certain that God would have allowed Jephthah to make a substitution for his daughter in this case.
We must remember that in the society that was surrounding the children of Israel in those days, human sacrifice of your children was a very common thing to the pagan gods. In the worship of Moloch, in the worship of Baal, the common practice was the sacrificing of your children unto god, unto your gods. In the uncovering of the houses of the Canaanites, in the foundations of the houses they discovered many jars with the skeletons of babies. They considered a good luck omen to actually bury your baby in the foundation when you build a house sacrificing it unto the gods and so forth. And it was common practice among the pagans by which the children of Israel surrounded. But it was something that was strictly forbidden by God. So if Jephthah did it, he did it of his own will, not because God demanded it. It is a very horrible thing. It is hard for us to understand. We cannot really blame God. You say, “But why did God allow her to come first out of the house? Why didn’t she chase the cat out in front of her or something?” That I don’t know. “
Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary
At last deliverance came through Jephthah, whose history is full of interest. He was the son of a harlot and had been thrust out from his inheritance by the legitimate sons of his father. Evidently the iron had entered into his soul and he had gathered to himself a band of men and had become a kind of outlaw freebooter. He was evidently a man of courage and heroic daring, and it is impossible to read the story of the approach of the men of Gilead to him without recognizing that he had certain excellencies of character. He can hardly be measured even by the highest standards of his own time. For some period he had been compelled to live outside the national life. Nevertheless, it is evident that he had his own religious convictions.
Perhaps the chief interest in this story is in the matter of his vow, of which there have been various interpretations. The story seems to leave no room for doubt that he intended to offer a human sacrifice, for when he promised to give what came to the door of his house, the reference can hardly be to an animal. When his daughter appeared, whether he actually slew her or whether, as some commentators believe, he condemned her to perpetual virginity must remain open to question. If indeed he offered her as a sacrifice by death, the question of the morality of his act can be discussed only in the light of his time, and, indeed, in the light of his own personal conviction. Certainly such an act was not justified by the law of Moses. Nevertheless, the impulse was a religious impulse.
Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible
Turning to a Rejected Leader
Jdg 10:17-18; Jdg 11:1-11
The life of Jephthah is a great consolation to those whose birth has been irregular. The sin of his parents was not allowed permanently to injure his career. He is also distinctly mentioned in Heb 11:1-40 as one of the heroes of faith. See Eze 18:14-17.
Driven from his home, Jephthah took to the life of a bandit-chieftain, probably in much the same fashion as David in after-years when he protected, for payment, the cattle of the Hebrew grazers from Ammonite forays. See 1Sa 25:15. Jephthahs wife apparently had died; but his sweet and noble daughter grew up amid that wild horde, and they were all in all to each other. As David influenced a similar band, so did this father and child lift the tone and morale of their followers, until the story of it filled the land and brought the, elders, who years before had sided with Jephthahs brethren, to entreat him to lead the fight for freedom. What a beautiful suggestion of our Lord! He came to His own and they crucified Him. He comes to us and we at first refuse Him. But His love never faileth. Being reviled, He blesses; being persecuted, He endures; being defamed, He entreats, 1Co 4:12.
Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary
CHAPTER 11 Jephthah and the Ammonites
1. Jephthahs covenant (Jdg 11:1-11)
2. The messages to Ammon (Jdg 11:12-28)
3. Jephthahs vow and victory (Jdg 11:29-33)
4. Jephthah keeps his vow (Jdg 11:34-40)
Jephthah the judge who delivered Israel from the servitude of Ammon was the offspring of an unholy union the son of an harlot. Then he became an outcast and had to flee from his brethren. He dwelt in the land of Tob (goodness) and vain, or worthless, men gathered unto him. Yet he was a mighty man of valor. He was therefore an humble instrument, despised and rejected by his own. But finally those who rejected him had to send for Jephthah to be their saviour from the hands of the children of Ammon. They had to own him as their leader, whom they had hated and cast out on account of his lowly birth. He reminds us of our Lord, who was hated by His own and who is yet to be their deliverer.
Jephthah means he opens. Gilead, to which he belonged, means witness. The enemy, Ammon, as we stated in the annotations of the previous chapter, typifies for us rationalism and the wicked errors connected with it, which distress the people of God. Here then we have in a simple yet blessed way the deliverance from those evils indicated. It needs a true witness, one who opens. The witness of an opened Word, the testimony of the Word of God and with it the Spirit of God, will make an end of error. It is the only true way to combat the wicked departures from the faith so prominent in the last days. How God in this book bears witness in types to the one remedy for all the declensions and backslidings of His people! Othniel has Debir the Word; Ehud with his sword, the sword of the Spirit; Shamgar and his oxgoad; Deborah and Lapidoth, the Word and the Spirit; the barley loaf which smote down Midians tent and Jephthah, the one who opens, the true witness.
Jephthah made a hasty vow. It was bargaining with Jehovah, as Jacob did. And when his daughter met him first the awful vow was carried out. In reading the story one can hardly escape the literal offering up of the child.
it is true that a mode of interpreting this vow and its fulfilment has been proposed, according to which Jephthahs daughter was not offered as a sacrifice, but devoted to a life of celibacy, and consecrated to the service of the tabernacle; and the confirmation of this view has been sought in the institution of an order of females who served before the tabernacle (Exo 38:8; 1Sa 2:22; Luk 2:37). Luther already remarked: Some maintain that she was not sacrificed, but the text is too clear to admit of this interpretation. But stronger evidence of her sacrifice than even the unambiguous words of the vow afford, is found in the distress of the father, in the magnanimous resignation of the daughter, in the annual commemoration and lamentation of the daughters of Israel, and, particularly, in the narrative of the historian himself, who is not able to describe clearly and distinctly the terrible scene on which he gazes both with admiration and with abhorrence. The Law undoubtedly prohibited human sacrifices as the extreme of all heathen abominations (Lev 18:21; Deu 12:31, etc.). But the age of the judges had descended to a point far below the lofty position occupied by the Law. (J.H. Kurtz, Sacred History.)
And yet there are difficulties in connection with literal interpretation. The word burnt-offering is in the Hebrew an offering that ascends.
The great Jewish commentators of the Middle Ages have, in opposition to the Talmud, pointed out that these two last clauses (shall surely be the Lords and I will offer it up for a burnt-offering) are not identical. It is never said of an animal burnt offering that it should be to Jehovah, for the simple reason that as a burnt offering it is such. But where human beings are offered to Jehovah, there the expression is used, as in the case of the firstborn among Israel and of Levi (Num 3:12-13). But in these cases it has never been suggested that there was actual human sacrifice. If the loving daughter had devoted herself to death, it is next to incredible that she should have wished to have spent the two months of her life conceded to her, not with her broken-hearted father, but in the mountains with her companions (A. Edersheim).
Whatever it was, one thing stands out very prominently, the loyalty of Jephthah to Jehovah and the obedience and surrender of the daughter.
Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)
Jephthah: Heb 11:32, called Jephthae
a mighty: Jdg 6:12, 2Ki 5:1
an harlot: Heb. a woman
an harlot: Probably zonah should be rendered as in Jos 2:1, a hostess, or inn-keeper, so Targum of Jonathan, wehoo bar ittetha pundekeetha, “and he was the son of a woman, a tavern-keeper.” She was very probably a Canaanite, as she is called, Jdg 11:2, a strange woman, ishah achereth, “a woman of another race;” and on this account his brethren drove him from the family, as not having a full right to the inheritance.
Reciprocal: Gen 19:38 – children 1Sa 12:11 – Jephthah 1Ki 3:16 – harlots
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
JEPHTHAH
Jephthah the Gileadite.
Jdg 11:1
I. One thing is plain on the surface of the history: Jephthah was neither a godless nor a selfish man.Not godless, for we find in the brief annals of his life more copious recognition of God than in the case of most of the other judges; and not selfish, because, forgetting his private wrongs, he devoted his life to the service of his country, and, overcoming his strongest feelings of natural affection, he did with his daughter according to his vow.
II. We shall be nearer the truth if we regard Jephthah as a good man, sadly misguided; a man roughly trained, poorly educated, and very deficient in enlightened views; wishing to serve God, but in great error as to what would prove an acceptable service; a man in whose religion the ideas of his neighbours of Moab and Amnion had a strong though unknown influence; one who, with the deepest loyalty to God, had unconsciously come under the delusion that Jehovah would accept of such an offering as the neighbouring nations offered to their gods.
We may, perhaps, class him with the woman in the Gospels with the issue of blood, in whom a powerful faith was combined with a miserable superstition; faith in the power of Jesus to heal, with a superstition that fancied that a cure might be snatched from Him before He knew. In this case Jesus, with admirable discrimination, at once rewarded the faith and rebuked the superstition. So in Jephthah a fearless loyalty and complete surrender of himself to God were united with a terrible fanaticisma fanaticism that in the very height of triumph plunged him and his friends into the depth of anguish; that at the moment when his most eager desires were gratified inflicted on him the cruellest loss; that brought on his name a terrible stigma, and has made him from generation to generation an object of horror to almost every reader of the Bible.
III. In trying to estimate Jephthah aright it is necessary that we bear his early history vividly in mind.He had the grievous misfortune to have a wicked mother, a woman of abandoned character: and as in these circumstances his father could not have been much better, his childhood must have been very dreary. No good example, no holy home, no mothers affection, no fathers wise and weighty counsel. It is as true now as then, that children born in such circumstances usually prove the scum of society, furnishing the largest share of dangerous and disorderly men and women. And no wonder, removed as they are from nearly all loving influences; never welcomed into the world as blessings, but regarded as troubles and burdens; the very stigma which attaches to them breaking down their self-respect, and making them an easy prey to those whose interest it is to drag them into the ways of sin. And even when, by Gods great mercy, such unfortunate children are brought under the power of grace, they often come before the world with a deformed or twisted religious character; great faults or flaws remain in it; it wants the roundness or completeness found, for example, in such men as Samuel or Timothy, who not only belonged to the Lord from childhood, but were brought up under the holiest influences, and in an atmosphere warm with all love and goodness.
If Jephthah owed little to his parents, he owed less to his brothers. If he knew little of the sunbeams of parental love, he knew less of the amenities of brotherly affection.
Illustrations
(1) You may be disreputable in birth, but illustrious in faith! You may have entered life by the back door, and in the dark, but you go forth into eternity by the front door amid the regret of hundreds, and be mourned as a hero and a saint. Remember that the sacred writer says: What shall I more say? for time would fail to tell of Gideon, of Barak, of Samson, and of Jephthah. Take heart; men will be quite glad to catch up any brickbat to throw at you, when they find that you are distancing them: but no weapon that is formed against you will prosperby faith you will conquer.
(2) Jephthah the Gileadite was the most ill-used man in all the Old Testament, and he continues to be the most completely misunderstood, misrepresented, and ill-used man down to this day. Jephthahs ill-usage began before he was born, and it was continued down to the last Old Testament Commentary and the last Bible Dictionary that treats of Jephthahs name. The iron had entered Jephthahs soul while yet he lay in his mothers womb; and both his father and his brothers and the elders of Israel helped forward Jephthahs affliction, till the Lord rose up for Jephthah and said, It is enough; took the iron out of His servants soul, and poured oil and wine into the lifelong wound. If at the death of his father Jephthah had got his proper portion of his fathers goods, then Jephthah might have become as great a prodigal as his brothers became. But the loss of earthly inheritance was to Jephthah, as it has been to so many men since his day, the gaining of an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, eternal in the heavens.
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
Jephthah was a brave man whose mother was a harlot. The men of Gilead allowed his brethren to drive him away so he could not receive a part of the inheritance of their father. He went to live in the land of Tob where loose men gathered around him and helped conduct raids on those nearby. When Ammon made war with Israel, the men of Gilead began to search for a leader who would be rewarded by being made head over them.
Jephthah recalled the wrong committed against him by the elders allowing his brethren to drive him away. He said he would lead them in battle if they would make him head over them as they said. They all went to Mizpah and formally made this agreement with the Lord as their witness ( Jdg 11:1-11 ).
Fuente: Gary Hampton Commentary on Selected Books
Jdg 11:1. Jephthah the Gileadite So called, either from his father Gilead, or from the mountain, or city of Gilead, the place of his birth. Son of a harlot That is, a bastard. And though such were not ordinarily to enter into the congregation of the Lord, Deu 23:2; yet God can dispense with his own laws, and hath sometimes done honour to base-born persons, so far, that some of them were admitted to be the progenitors of the Lord Jesus Christ. And Gilead begat Jephthah One of the children of that ancient Gilead, Num 32:1.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Jdg 11:1. Jephthahson of a harlot. The Hebrew is the same as in Jos 2:1. The rabbins mostly read here, as Joshua 2., son of a hostess.
Jdg 11:3. Vain men, rogues and rakes. The Hebrews is the same as for those who followed Abimelech: Jdg 9:4.
Jdg 11:5. The land of Tob. Ish-tob is mentioned. 2Sa 10:8. It lay between Syria and Ammon. Here Jephthah led a species of martial life, it would seem, with his men; and being ready to hire himself to any cause, he acquired great fame as a soldier.
Jdg 11:11. Before the Lord. Jephthah, like other good men, began his work with Gods counsel and blessing.
Jdg 11:14. Jephthah sent messengers. This was fair: reason is a better bar of appeal than the sword. Expostulations have often prevented war, which in every nation should be the work of dire necessity only.
Jdg 11:26. While Israel dwelt in Heshbonthree hundred years. Though we cannot find three hundred in the book of Chronicles, yet the possession of that city by the Hebrews is not disputed.
Jdg 11:31. Whatsoever (or that which or whosoever) cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me shall surely be the Lords, and I will offer it up for a burnt-offering. We now tread on controverted ground, ground on which the ancients are very much divided in opinion. The rabbins followed by Josephus, speak as the letter of the text. They make no scruple, no hesitation to say, that Jephthah offered up his daughter a burnt-offering, conformably to his vow. Tertullian, Athanasius, Nazianzen, Jerome, Ambrose, Chrysostom, Augustine, and very many others, all eminent fathers in the primitive church, concur in belief with the rabbins. They severely censure Jephthah as a parricide, and lament the ignorance of the Israelites in those times, especially the priests who did not teach him better. The superstition of the age strongly corroborates the evidence, that their belief was founded on facts. Moloch was the god of the Ammonites, to whom human victims had been largely offered; and to whom in India they are still offered, though not so largely as aforetime. And Jephthah, more than half a heathen in his habits and religion, might wish to engage both the Lord and Moloch in his cause. Besides, nearly the whole of the seventy two clans dispersed from Babel, having Druids for their priests, did in all the nations offer up human victims, when severely pressed by calamities. The polished nations of Greece and Rome indulged, during a succession of ages, in the same abominable devotion. The persons so offered were all young; and the greater dignity they possessed in regard to birth, the more acceptable they were supposed to be to the gods. Idomeneus returning to Crete from the Trojan war, in consequence of a vow to Neptune during a storm, pierced his own son; and was expelled by his subjects for so cruel a deed.
The history also, or fable of Iphigenia, has often been adduced as illustrative of the case of Jephthahs daughter. Agamemnon her father having killed a sacred stag belonging to Diana, the goddess excited the tempests so dreadfully as to obstruct the navigation of Greece. It was resolved, if possible, to appease her. The oracle, on being consulted, answered that this must be done by the blood of him who had offended her. Iphigenia was the victim selected, and conducted to the altar at Aulis by Ulysses, who had the address to steal her away from her mother Clytemnestra. But as she lay extended on the pile, and while the Greeks were busy in preparations for the sacrifices, the goddess, touched with the piety of the princess, surrounded the altar with a cloud and took her away, leaving a hind in her place. The goddess conducted her to mount Taurus, where Thoas the king appointed her priestess to Diana, to whom human victims were immolated, and especially Greek strangers. She remained there till Orestes arrived to purge himself from the blood of his mother, and of others. He was arrested as a stranger; and when about to be offered up to Diana, he was recognized and saved by his sister. Presently after he stole away his sister, and escaped with the image of the goddess into Italy. The image was erected in the Arcynian forests, to which human victims long continued to be offered.
I have been the more particular in translating the substance of this history or fable, because some contend that it is merely a fable founded on Jephthahs daughter; and they would vary the orthography from Iphigenia to Jephigenia. They are the more confident in this opinion, because Jephthah was contemporary with Agamemnon. Hence, unless we allow of some force, in the fable of Iphigenias escape from the altar, I think the letter of the text, the wicked and superstitious manners of all the heathen nations, the opinion of the rabbins, in which the fathers of the primitive church have concurred, are decided, that Jephthah made a burnt-offering of his only child to the Lord, according to his vow.
To this many of the moderns object, that he devoted his daughter in perpetual virginity to God. Consequently, she was a nun in his own house. But that sacrifice bears no proportion to the magnitude of his danger before the battle; nor does it relieve the latter part of his vow, that the devoted object should be a burnt-offering. And why should the virgins of Israel meet annually to mourn for Jephthahs daughter? Had she survived to give them an annual feast, surely they would have met, being all virgins, to rejoice, not to weep. Moses affirms that every one of the surrounding nations did burn their sons and daughters to their gods. Deu 12:31. And Jephthah having been exiled among them, it is most likely he would vow according to his habits and education. Besides, the scriptures, which relate every circumstance of Abrahams offering up Isaac, refuse here to narrate the horrors of the scene.
Jdg 11:39. At the end of two months she returned to her father, who did with her according to his vow, as in Jdg 11:31. vehalithhoo lah. I will offer it up, says Montanus, in holocaustum, in burnt-offering. The elders of Israel were so shocked at this deed, as to have enacted a law that no man in future should make a vow of the oblation of human victims; proof sufficient that Jephthah performed his vow.
Those who try various versions of the text, and make it a vow of virginity, forget the uncertainty of Jephthah, whether it might not be a male that might run with joyful salutations to the conquering hero. This was most likely. It was Jonadab who came to meet Jehu; and Melchizedek who came to meet Abraham.
It is said also, that Jephthah was now inspired, and in too good a frame to make such a tragic vow. It is replied, that he was inspired with courage to fight; but the opinion of holy men is, that the catalogue of the worthies mentioned in Hebrews 11., refers to their virtues, not their errors, as models of christian conduct.
REFLECTIONS.
Jephthah, on being elevated to command, seemed to become all at once a better man. He sought the Lord; he expostulated in a dignified way with Ammon; and during the whole of his presidency he protected the true religion. Thus in regard, and solely in regard to his faith and courage, he is proposed as a model to new-testament believers. Heb 11:32.
The rash vow is almost the only thing censurable in his conduct. Vows, if made at all, should be wise and discreet. How vain for a mortal to think that heaven will become an auxiliary for the hire of gifts and offerings! A broken and a contrite heart for sin, is the best oblation which a nation can offer to God in the day of trouble. A rash vow is better repented of than kept. The vow itself was wicked, and the keeping of it was the completion of crime. Israel often broke their vows and covenants, and the Lord required no sacrifice but unfeigned repentance. Jonathan broke the foolish vow of Saul, by eating honey, and the army saved him from death; nor was God angry in any peculiar way on that account. Whoever utters an ill- advised word, a word that will trouble his soul for life, had better cast himself on the divine clemency by unfeigned repentance. Notwithstanding, all holy and lawful vows must be kept, though they be to our own hurt.
The next grand object in this chapter, is the filial piety of Jephthahs daughter. If thou hast opened thy mouth unto the Lord, she said, do with me as thou hast promised. As much as to say, I regret not life. I feel too much honoured in being a victim to the Lord: for I account myself too small a price for so great a victory. I only regret the dying without a son to perpetuate the glorious memory of a father to me, and to his country. What an example of religious obedience; what a preference of rectitude to life itself! Let all young people remember this, whose parents have devoted them to God by a thousand prayers, vows and tears.
Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Jdg 11:1-11. Jephthahs Youth.Jephthah (God opens the womb) is the Othello of Israelitish history, a splendid barbarian, little blessed with the soft phrase of peace, familiar with moving accidents by flood and field, who by his valour delivers his country, and by a mysterious fate sacrifices a life dearer to him than his own. A great warrior, he was handicapped in the race of life, and persecuted by his own flesh and blood, because he came into the world with the cruel stain of illegitimacy. All the greater honour will be his if he can burst his births invidious bar. Tradition did not preserve the real name of the heros father, who is simply called Gilead, which was properly the name of a district or its people (see Jdg 10:3). Like Ishmael, another unwanted son, Jephthah was driven from his home and cast upon a cold world. But he found his way to the land of Tob (good), which proved a good land to him, a land where a brave youth could carve his way to fortune. (It is mentioned again in 2Sa 10:6-8; district unknown.) For a time he was, like young David, a free-booter; he and his comrades went outa well-understood term, meaning went out on raids. In this way he got himself ready to be the deliverer of his countryfrom raiders! He had the chance of his lifetime in his countrys day of peril. The elders (sheikhs) of Gileadsome of his own brothers perhaps among themcame to Tob to beg him to come home. Gilead was in need of a military leader to break the power of the enemy. The hour was come, and Jephthah was the man. Desiring to be sure of his position, he put to the elders some awkward questions, which they evaded. Note their solemnly in consequent therefore, a touch of comedy on the writers part. Jephthah did not think the word of the elders as good as their bond, and would not budge an inch without their adjuration, Yahweh be witness between us.
Jdg 11:11 b scarcely makes sense here, and many scholars think its right place is after Jdg 11:31. Such errors frequently occurred in the copying of MSS.
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
The choice of Jephthah as Gilead’s leader 11:1-11
Jdg 11:1-3 provide information about Jephthah’s personal background. His name means "He [an unspecified deity] has opened [the womb]." Jephthah lived on the east side of the Jordan River. Unlike Gideon, he was a courageous and valiant warrior. He was, however, the product of his father’s sexual liaison with a prostitute, another clue to the moral level in Israel. Evidently Jephthah’s grandparents named his father in honor of an ancestor named Gilead, perhaps the man from whom the region of Gilead derived its name.
Today we would say that Jephthah was an abused child (Jdg 11:2). His half-brothers rejected him in violation of the Mosaic Law that commanded the Israelites to love one another, their neighbors, and outcasts (Lev 19:33-34; Deu 10:12-22). David may have suffered the same kind of hostility in his family (cf. Psa 27:10). One also recalls Jesus’ rejection (cf. Isa 53:3), though we have no reason to believe His parents abused Him.
Jephthah fled to Israel’s frontier on the edge of civilization. Tob (Jdg 11:3) stood between Ammon and Syria northeast of Gilead (cf. 2Sa 10:6; 2Sa 10:8). The Hebrew term translated "worthless fellows" in the NASB is more accurately "adventurers," as in the NIV. These men were not necessarily evil, but they were wild. Jephthah evidently lived a Robin Hood style of existence. One writer likened him to a guerrilla fighter or terrorist. [Note: McCann, p. 80.]
Jephthah’s personal background was quite similar to Abimelech’s (Jdg 8:31 to Jdg 9:4). His character, though, seems to have been considerably purer in view of what follows. Unlike Abimelech, he was more sensitive and submissive to Yahweh.
Jephthah was such a gifted warrior that when the Ammonites threatened Gilead, the elders of that region overcame their personal dislike for Jephthah, humbled themselves, and begged him to defend them (Jdg 11:4-6). This story reminds me of a theme that is common in western movies. The townsfolk drive the young misfit who has grown up among them away because his love of violence makes them uneasy. However when a gang of outlaws threatens the town they send for the gunslinger to save them.
Jephthah’s complaint about being appealed to as a last resort reminds us of God’s similar words in Jdg 10:14. To persuade Jephthah to accept their invitation, the elders promised that he would be their leader (sheriff?) and that they would follow his directions in the battle (Jdg 11:8). He acknowledged that if he defeated the Ammonites it would be because the Lord gave them over to him (Jdg 11:9). Interestingly, Jephthah used the name of Yahweh more frequently than any other person in Judges. He was a man of faith even though he was a rough character.
The elders of Gilead made a formal public agreement with Jephthah at Mizpah in northern Gilead, contracting the conditions of his leading Israel in battle (Jdg 11:10-11). They pinned the sheriff’s badge on him. Evidently Jephthah told the Lord about this covenant in prayer.
Notice how the writer of Judges constructed these first 11 verses parallel to Jdg 10:6-16. The elders of Gilead had treated Jephthah exactly as Israel had treated Yahweh.
|
"Theme |
Chapter 10 |
Chapter 11 |
|
Rejection |
Jdg 11:6 |
Jdg 11:1-3 |
|
Distress |
Jdg 11:7-9 |
Jdg 11:4 |
|
Repentance |
Jdg 11:10 |
Jdg 11:5-6 |
|
Objection |
Jdg 11:11-14 |
Jdg 11:7 |
|
Appeal |
Jdg 11:15-16 a |
Jdg 11:8 |
|
Acquiescence |
Jdg 11:16 b |
Jdg 11:9-11" [Note: Davis, p. 141.] |
". . . where is God in this complex process of engaging Jephthah? Far from playing the decisive role, as he had in the provision of all the other judges, God is relegated to the role of silent witness to a purely human contract between a desperate people and an ambitious candidate." [Note: Block, Judges . . ., p. 356.]
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
3. Deliverance through Jephthah 11:1-12:7
To prepare for the recital of Israel’s victory over the Ammonites the writer provided the reader with some background information concerning the man God raised up to lead this deliverance. Like Gideon, Jephthah was an unlikely hero who got off to a good start but ended poorly.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
GILEAD AND ITS CHIEF
Jdg 10:1-18; Jdg 11:1-11
THE scene of the history shifts now to the east of Jordan, and we learn first of the influence which the region called Gilead was coming to have in Hebrew development from the brief notice of a chief named Jair, who held the position of judge for twenty-two years. Tola, a man of Issachar, succeeded Abimelech, and Jair followed Tola. In the Book of Numbers we are informed that the children of Machir son of Manasseh went to Gilead and took it and dispossessed the Amorites which were therein; and Moses gave Gilead unto Machir the son of Manasseh. It is added that Jair, the son or descendant of Manasseh, went and took the towns of Gilead and called them Havvoth-jair; and in this statement the Book of Numbers anticipates the history of the judges.
Gilead is described by modern travellers as one of the most varied districts of Palestine. The region is mountainous and its peaks rise to three and even four thousand feet above the trough of the Jordan. The southern part is beautiful and fertile, watered by the Jabbok and other streams that flow westward from the hills. “The valleys green Kith corn, the streams fringed with oleander, the magnificent screens of yellow-green and russet foliage which cover the steep slopes present a scene of quiet beauty, of chequered light and shade of uneastern aspect which makes Mount Gilead a veritable land of promise.” “No one,” says another writer, “can fairly judge of Israels heritage who has not seen the exuberance of Gilead as well as the hard rocks of Judaea, which only yield their abundance to reward constant toil and care.” In Gilead the rivers flow in summer as well as in winter, and they are filled with fishes and fresh-water shells. While in Western Palestine the soil is insufficient now to support a large population, beyond Jordan improved cultivation alone is needed to make the whole district a garden.
To the north and east of Gilead lie Bashan and that extraordinary volcanic region called the Argob or the Lejah, where the Havvoth-jair or towns of Jair were situated. The traveller who approaches this singular district from the north sees it rising abruptly from the plain, the edge of it like a rampart about twenty feet high. It is of a rude oval shape, some twenty miles long from north to south, and fifteen in breadth, and is simply a mass of dark jagged rocks, with clefts between in which were built not a few cities and villages. The whole of this Argob or Stony Land, Jephthahs land of Tob, is a natural fortification, a sanctuary open only to those who have the secret of the perilous paths that wind along savage cliff and deep defile. One who established himself here might soon acquire the fame and authority of a chief, and Jair, acknowledged by the Manassites as their judge, extended his power and influence among the Gadites and Reubenites farther south.
But plenty of corn and wine and oil and the advantage of a natural fortress which might have been held against any foe did not avail the Hebrews when they were corrupted by idolatry. In the land of Gilead and Bashan they became a hardy and vigorous race, and yet when they gave themselves up to the influence of the Syrians, Sidonians, Ammonites, and Moabites, forsaking the Lord and serving the gods of these peoples, disaster overtook them. The Ammonites were ever on the watch, and now, stronger than for centuries in consequence of the defeat of Midian and Amalek by Gideon, they fell on the Hebrews of the east, subdued them and even crossed Jordan and fought with the southern tribes, so that Israel was sore distressed.
We have found reason to suppose that during the many turmoils of the north the tribes of Judah and Simeon and to some extent Ephraim were pleased to dwell secure in their own domains, giving little help to their kinsfolk. Deborah and Barak got no troops from the south, and it was with a grudge Ephraim joined in the pursuit of Midian. Now the time has come for the harvest of selfish content. Supposing the people of Judah to have been specially engaged with religion and the arranging of worship that did not justify their neglect of the political troubles of the north. It was a poor religion then, as it is a poor religion now, that could exist apart from national well being and patriotic duty. Brotherhood must be realised in the nation as well as in the church, and piety must fulfil itself through patriotism as well as in other ways.
No doubt the duties we owe to each other and to the nation of which we form a part are imposed by natural conditions which have arisen in the course of history, and some may think that the natural should give way to the spiritual. They may see the interests of a kingdom of this world as actually opposed to the interests of the kingdom of God. The apostles of Christ, however, did not set the human and divine in contrast, as if God in His providence had nothing to do with the making of a nation. “The powers that be are ordained of God,” says St. Paul in writing to the Romans; and again in his First Epistle to Timothy, “I exhort that supplications, prayers, intercessions, thanksgivings be made for all men: for kings and all that are in high place, that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and gravity.” To the same effect St. Peter says, “Be subject to every ordinance of man for the Lords sake.” Natural and secular enough were the authorities to which submission was thus enjoined. The policy of Rome was of the earth earthy. The wars it waged, the intrigues that went on for power savoured of the most carnal ambition. Yet as members of the commonwealth Christians were to submit to the Roman magistrates and intercede with God on their behalf, observing closely and intelligently all that went on, taking due part in affairs. No room was to be given for the notion that the Christian society meant a new political centre. In our own times there is a duty which many never understand, or which they easily imagine is being fulfilled for them. Let religious people be assured that generous and intelligent patriotism is demanded of them and attention to the political business of the time. Those who are careless will find, as did the people of Judah, that in neglecting the purity of government and turning a deaf ear to cries for justice, they are exposing their country to disaster and their religion to reproach.
We are told that the Israelites of Gilead worshipped the gods of the Phoenicians and Syrians, of the Moabites and of the Ammonites. Whatever religious rites took their fancy they were ready to adopt. This will be to their credit in some quarters as a mark of openness of mind, intelligence, and taste. They were not bigoted; other mens ways in religion and civilisation were not rejected as beneath their regard. The argument is too familiar to be traced more fully. Briefly it may be said that if catholicity could save a race Israel should rarely have been in trouble, and certainly not at this time. One name by which the Hebrews knew God was El or Elohim. When they found among the gods of the Sidonians one called El, the careless minded supposed that there could be no harm in joining in his worship. Then came the notion that the other divinities of the Phoenician Pantheon, such as Melcarth, Dagon, Derketo, might be adored as well. Very likely they found zeal and excitement in the alien religious gatherings which their own had lost. So they slipped into practical heathenism.
And the process goes on among ourselves. Through the principles that culture means artistic freedom and that worship is a form of art we arrive at taste or liking as the chief test. Intensity of feeling is craved and religion must satisfy that or be despised. It is the very error that led Hebrews to the feasts of Astarte and Adonis, and whither it tends we can see in the old history. Turning from the strong earnest gospel which grasps intellect and will to shows and ceremonies that please the eye, or even to music refined and devotional that stirs and thrills the feelings, we decline from the reality of religion. Moreover a serious danger threatens us in the far too common teaching which makes little of truth, everything of charity. Christ was most charitable, but it is through the knowledge and practice of truth He offers freedom. He is our King by His witness bearing not to charity but to truth. Those who are anxious to keep us from bigotry and tell us that meekness, gentleness, and love are more than doctrine mislead the mind of the ago. Truth in regard to God and His covenant is the only foundation on which life can be securely built, and without right thinking there cannot be right living. A man may be amiable, humble, patient, and kind though he has no doctrinal belief and his religion is of the purely emotional sort; but it is the truth believed by previous generations, fought and suffered for by stronger men, not his own gratification of taste, that keeps him in the right way. And when the influence of that truth decays there will remain no anchorage, neither compass nor chart for the voyage. He will be like a wave of the sea driven of the wind and tossed.
Again, the religious so far as they have wisdom and strength are required to be pioneers, which they can never be in following fancy or taste, Here nothing but strenuous thought, patient faithful obedience can avail. Hebrew history is the story of a pioneer people and every lapse from fidelity was serious, the future of humanity being at stake. Each Christian society and believer has work of the same kind not less important, and failures due to intellectual sloth and moral levity are as dishonourable as they are hurtful to the human race. Some of our heretics now are more serious than Christians, and they give thought and will more earnestly to the opinions they try to propagate. While the professed servants of Christ, who should be marching in the van, are amusing themselves with the accessories of religion, the resolute socialist or nihilist, reasoning and speaking with the heat of conviction, leads the masses where he will.
The Ammonite oppression made the Hebrews feel keenly the uselessness of heathenism. Baal and Melcarth had been thought of as real divinities, exercising power in some region or other of earth or heaven, and Israels had been an easy backsliding. Idolatry did not appear as darkness to people who had never been fully in the light. But when trouble came and help was sorely needed they began to see that the Baalim were nothing. What could these idols do for men oppressed and at their wits end? Religion was of no avail unless it brought an assurance of One Whose strong hand could reach from land to land, Whose grace and favour could revive sad and troubled souls. Heathenism was found utterly barren, and Israel turned to Jehovah the God of its fathers. “We have sinned against Thee even because we have forsaken our God and have served the Baalim.”
Those who now fall away from faith are in worse case by far than Israel. They have no thought of a real power that can befriend them. It is to mere abstractions they have given the Divine name. In sin and sorrow alike they remain with ideas only, with bare terms of speculation in which there is no life, no strength, no hope for the moral nature. They are men and have to live; but with the living God they have entirely broken. In trouble they can only call on the Abyss or the Immensities, and there is no way of repentance though they seek it carefully with tears. At heart therefore they are pessimists without resource. Sadness deep and deadly ever waits upon such unbelief, and our religion today suffers from gloom because it is infected by the uncertainties and denials of an agnosticism at once positive and confused.
Another paganism, that of gathering and doing in the world sphere, is constantly beside us, drawing multitudes from fidelity to Christ as Baal worship drew Israel from Jehovah, and it is equally barren in the sharp experiences of humanity. Earthly things venerated in the ardour of business and the pursuit of social distinction appear as impressive realities only while the soul sleeps. Let it be aroused by some overturn of the usual, one of those floods that sweep suddenly down on the cities which fill the valley of life, and there is a quick pathetic confession of the truth. The soul needs help now, and its help must come from the Eternal Spirit. We must have done with mere saying of prayers and begin to pray. We must find access, if access is to be had, to the secret place of the Most High on Whose mercy we depend to redeem us from bondage and fear. Sad therefore is it for those who having never learned to seek the throne of divine succour are swept by the wild deluge from their temples and their gods. It is a cry of despair they raise amid the swelling torrent. You who now by the sacred oracles and the mediation of Christ can come into the fellowship of eternal life, be earnest and eager in the cultivation of your faith. The true religion of God which avails the soul in its extremity is not to be had in a moment, when suddenly its help is needed. That confidence which has been established in the mind by serious thought, by the habit of prayer and reliance on divine wisdom can alone bring help when the foundations of the earthly are destroyed.
To Israel troubled and contrite came as on previous occasions a prophetic message; and it was spoken by one of those incisive ironic preachers who were born from time to time among this strangely heathen, strangely believing people. It is in terms of earnest remonstrance he speaks, at first almost going the length of declaring that there is no hope for the rebellious and ungrateful tribes. They found it an easy thing to turn from their Divine King to the gods they chose to worship. Now they perhaps expect as easy a recovery of His favour. But healing must begin with deeper wounding, and salvation with much keener anxiety. This prophet knows the need for utter seriousness of soul. As he loves and yearns over his country folk he must so deal with them; it is Gods way, the only way to save. Most irrationally, against all sound principles of judgment they had abandoned the Living One, the Eternal to worship hideous idols like Moloch and Dagon. It was wicked because it was wilfully stupid and perverse. And Jehovah says, “I will save you no more, Go and cry unto the gods which ye have chosen; let them save you in the day of your distress.” The rebuke is stinging. The preacher makes the people feel the wretched insufficiency of their hope in the false, and the great strong pressure upon them of the Almighty, Whom, even in neglect, they cannot escape. We are pointed forward to the terrible pathos of Jeremiah:-“Who shall have pity upon thee, O Jerusalem? or who shall bemoan thee? or who shall turn aside to ask of thy welfare? Thou hast rejected me, saith the Lord, thou art gone backward: therefore have I stretched out my hand against thee, and destroyed thee: I am weary with repenting.”
And notice to what state of mind the Hebrews were brought. Renewing their confession they said, “Do thou unto us whatsoever seemeth good unto Thee.” They would be content to suffer now at the hand of God whatever He chose to inflict on them. They themselves would have exacted heavy tribute of a subject people that had rebelled and came suing for pardon. Perhaps they would have slain every tenth man. Jehovah might appoint retribution of the same kind; He might afflict them with pestilence; He might require them to offer a multitude of sacrifices. Men who traffic with idolatry and adopt gross notions of revengeful gods are certain to carry back with them when they return to the better faith many of the false ideas they have gathered. And it is just possible that a demand for human sacrifices was at this time attributed to God, the general feeling that they might be necessary connecting itself with Jephthahs vow.
It is idle to suppose that Israelites who persistently lapsed into paganism could at any time, because they repented, find the spiritual thoughts they had lost. True those thoughts were at the heart of the national life, there always even when least felt. But thousands of Hebrews even in a generation of reviving faith died with but a faint and shadowy personal understanding of Jehovah. Everything in the Book of Judges goes to show that the mass of the people were nearer the level of their neighbours the Moabites and Ammonites than the piety of the Psalms. A remarkable ebb and flow are observable in the history of the race. Look at some facts and there seems to be decline. Samson is below Gideon, and Gideon below Deborah; no man of leading until Isaiah can be named with Moses. Yet ever and anon there are prophetic calls and voices out of a spiritual region into which the people as a whole do not enter, voices to which they listen only when distressed and overborne. Worldliness increases, for the world opens to the Hebrew; but it often disappoints, and still there are some to whom the heavenly secret is told. The race as a whole is not becoming more devout and holy, but the few are gaining a clearer vision as one experience after another is recorded. The antithesis is the same we see in the Christian centuries. Is the multitude more pious now than in the ago when a king had to do penance for rash words spoken against an ecclesiastic? Are the churches less worldly than they were a hundred years ago? Scarcely may we affirm it. Yet there never was an age so rich as ours in the finest spirituality, the noblest Christian thought. Our van presses up to the Simplon height and is in constant touch with those who follow; but the rear is still chaffering and idling in the streets of Milan. It is in truth always by the fidelity of the remnant that humanity is saved for God.
We cannot say that when Israel repented it was in the love of holiness so much as in the desire for liberty. The ways of the heathen were followed readily, but the supremacy of the heathen was ever abominable to the vigorous Israelite. By this national spirit however God could find the tribes, and a special feature of the deliverance from Ammon is marked where we read: “The people, the princes of Gilead said one to the other, What man is he that will begin to fight against the children of Ammon? he shall be head over all the inhabitants of Gilead.” Looking around for the fit leader they found Jephthah and agreed to invite him.
Now this shows distinct progress in the growth of the nation. There is, if nothing more, a growth in practical power. Abimelech had thrust himself upon the men of Shechem. Jephthah is chosen apart from any ambition of his own. The movement which made him judge arose out of the consciousness of the Gileadites that they could act for themselves and were bound to act for themselves. Providence indicated the chief, but they had to be instruments of providence in making him chief. The vigour and robust intelligence of the men of Eastern Palestine come out here. They lead in the direction of true national life. While on the west of Jordan there is a fatalistic disposition, these men move. Gilead, the separated country, with the still ruder Bashan behind it and the Argob a resort of outlaws, is beneath some other regions in manners and in thought, but ahead of them in point of energy. We need not look for refinement, but we shall see power; and the chosen leader, while he is something of the barbarian, will be a man to leave his mark on history.
At the start we are not prepossessed in favour of Jephthah. There is some confusion in the narrative which has led to the supposition that he was a foundling of the clan. But taking Gilead as the actual name of his father, he appears as the son of a harlot, brought up in the paternal home and banished from it when there were legitimate sons able to contend with him. We get thus a brief glance at a certain rough standard of morals and see that even polygamy made sharp exclusions. Jephthah, cast out, betakes himself to the land of Tob and getting about him a band of vain fellows or freebooter, becomes the Robin Hood or Rob Roy of his time. There are natural suspicions of a man who takes to a life of this kind, and yet the progress of events shows that though Jephthah was a sort of outlaw his character as well as his courage must have commended him. He and his men might occasionally seize for their own use the cattle and corn of Israelites when they were hard pressed for food. But it was generally against the Ammonites and other enemies their raids were directed, and the modern instances already cited show that no little magnanimity and even patriotism may go along with a life of lawless adventure. If this robber chief, as some might call him, now and again levied contributions from a wealthy flock master, the poorer Hebrews were no doubt indebted to him for timely help when bands of Ammonites swept through the land. Something of this we must read into the narrative, otherwise the elders of Gilead would not so unanimously and urgently have invited him to become their head.
Jephthah was not at first disposed to believe in the good faith of those who gave him the invitation. Among the heads of households who came he saw his own brothers who had driven him to the hills. He must have more than suspected that they only wished to make use of him in their emergency and, the fighting over, would set him aside. He therefore required an oath of the men that they would really accept him as chief and obey him. That given, he assumed the command.
And here the religious character of the man begins to appear. At Mizpah on the verge of the wilderness where the Israelites, driven northward by the victories of Ammon, had their camp there stood an ancient cairn or heap of stones which preserved the tradition of a sacred covenant and still retained the savour of sanctity. There it was that Jacob, fleeing from Padanaram on his way back to Canaan, was overtaken by Laban, and there raising the Cairn of Witness they swore in the sight of Jehovah to be faithful to each other. The belief still lingered that the old monument was a place of meeting between man and God. To it Jephthah repaired at this new point in his life. No more an adventurer, no more an outlaw, but the chosen leader of eastern Israel, “he spake all his words before Jehovah in Mizpah.” He had his life. to review there, and that could not be done without serious thought. He had a new and strenuous future opened to him. Jephthah the outcast, the unnamed, was to be leader in a tremendous national struggle. The bold Gileadite feels the burden of the task. He has to question himself, to think of Jehovah. Hitherto he has been doing his own business and to that he has felt quite equal; now with large responsibility comes a sense of need. For a fight with society he has been strong enough; but can he be sure of himself as God’s man, fighting against Ammon? Not a few words but many would he have to utter as on the hilltop in the silence he lifted up his soul to God and girt himself in holy resolution, as a father and a Hebrew, to do his duty in the day of battle. Thus we pass from doubt of Jephthah to the hope that the banished man, the freebooter, will yet prove to be an Israelite indeed, of sterling character, whose religion, very rude perhaps, has a deep strain of reality and power. Jephthah at the cairn of Mizpah lifting up his hands in solemn invocation of the God of Jacob reminds us that there are great traditions of the past of our nation and of our most holy faith to which we are bound to be true, that there is a God, our witness and our judge, in Whose strength alone we can live and do nobly. For the service of humanity and the maintenance of faith we need to be in close touch with the brave and good of other days and in the story of their lives find quickening, for our own. Along the same line and succession we are to bear our testimony, and no link of connection with the Divine Power is to be missed which the history of the men of faith supplies. Yet as our personal Helper especially we must know God. Hearing His call to ourselves we must lift the standard and go forth to the battle of life. Who can serve his family and friends, who can advance the well being of the world, unless he has entered into that covenant with the Living God which raises mortal insufficiency to power and makes weak and ignorant men instruments of a divine redemption?