When [Jephtha] realized who it was, he ripped his clothes, saying, "Ah, dearest daughter—I'm dirt. I'm despicable. My heart is torn to shreds. I made a vow to God and I can't take it back!" Judges 11:35 (MSG)
The story in today's chapter is a horribly tragic event that is incredibly confusing in today's world. It's easy to walk away from the story scratching our heads and throwing our hands up in the air. Yet, God's message is like Aesop's stories. There is generally a reason the story has been told. We just have to find the clues.
The first clue is a theme that has been running throughout the book of Judges. The people of Israel have been in a continuous cycle of idolatry. Try as they may, they keep mingling God, Jehovah, with the gods and idols of the people around them. They keep falling into idolatry despite God's numero uno command in the Top Ten List of commands God gave them through Moses. At the beginning of Judges, the theme is announced and highlighted when God warns Israel not to get mixed up with foreign gods or "their gods will become a trap" (Judges 2:3).
In the midst of Jepthah's parley with the Amomnites (vss 14-27), he mentions their god, Chemosh and he sets up the battle as a clash of between Jehovah and Chemosh. Here, the second clue is revealed. One of the things scholars know about the ancient god Chemosh is that human sacrifice was used on special occasions to secure the god's favor. If bowing before idols is against the rules, then sacrificing humans to those gods is a downright abomination.
As soon as Jepthah's victory on behalf of Jehovah is complete, however, he makes a silly vow and ends up sacrificing his own daughter in a despicable, senseless act. Jepthah sacrifices his daughter to God the way the Ammonites would sacrifice someone to Chemosh (a.k.a Molech, pictured above). For all of Jepthah's high spirited talk, his actions reveal that his faith has gotten mixed up with the gods of the Ammonites. It' reminds us of what Jesus said of the people of Israel: "These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me." The moral of the story is revealed and points back to God's ominous warning at the beginning of the book: "don't get mixed up with other gods, or the consequences will be tragic."
Today, I'm thinking about the gods of this age and culture. I'm thinking about the god of sex, the god of money, the god of materialism, the god of convenience, and the god of self. I'm wondering how these gods have affected my relationship with God. How do my own actions reveal that my heart is incongruent with the words from my lips (and the words from my qwerty keyboard).
Maybe I'm more like Jepthah than I care to admit.
hm I disagree with this take of Judges 11:34-40, here’s commentary from David Guzik’s study Bible:
“She went with her friends, and bewailed her virginity… She knew no man”: These words indicate that it is more likely that Jephthah set his daughter aside for the tabernacle service according to the principle of Leviticus 27:2-4, where persons set apart to God in a vow were not required to be sacrificed (as animals were) but were “given” to the tabernacle in monetary value.
i. We know that there were women who were set apart for the tabernacle service; they were called the women who assembled at the door of the tabernacle of meeting (Exodus 38:8; 1 Samuel 2:22). It is likely that Jephthah’s daughter became one of these women who served at the tabernacle.
His daughter and her friends were rightly grieved that she was given to the tabernacle service before she was ever married. Probably most of the women who assembled at the door of the tabernacle were older widows.
iii. By sending his unmarried, only daughter to the service of the tabernacle for the rest of her life, it shows how seriously both Jephthah and his daughter took his promise to God.
v. Yet her committal to be one of the women who assembled at the tabernacle still seems like the best explanation because Jephthah is listed as a hero of the faith (Hebrews 11:32). It is hard to think of him as doing something so contrary to God’s ways as offering his daughter as a human sacrifice and still being mentioned as a man of faith in Hebrews 11.
I appreciate your commentary, Tom. It helped me understand how such a bizarre story can still be meaningful today. I appreciate your insight and historical connection.