“Jephthah’s Vow” (Judges 11:29-40) | 3/1/ 20
Judges 11:29-40 | 3/1/20 | Will DuVal
I used to love participating in food challenges. I’ve still got a t-shirt from Barley’s pub in for eating an entire 20” pizza by myself in college. I survived the spiciest wings of my life at the City Tavern in Culver, IN. But the one challenge I still to this day regret backing down from was the 4 lb. hamburger at a restaurant down in FL while I was on vacation. And the reason I balked was not ONLY did this place have a wall of FAME for those who finished the burger and fries and milkshake in under an hour; but they also had a wall of SHAME, with the pictures of all those who had attempted, and failed. And the threat of being immortalized as a failure, was enough to dissuade me.
This morning we continue our sermon series, Tough Texts - we’re down to the 4 most difficult passages in the Bible - including today’s story: Jephthah’s vow, from Judges ch.11. And as we read it together, I want you to consider with me the overarching question we’ve been asking of ALL our tough texts these past 2 months: WHY IS THIS STORY IN THE BIBLE? If all Scripture is God-breathed, and useful for teaching, rebuking, correction and training in righteousness - 2 Timothy 3:16 - then how are we supposed to learn and grow from Judges ch11, vv29-40?
Would you stand with me… Judges 11:29-40
“Then the Spirit of the Lord was upon Jephthah, and he passed through Gilead and Manasseh and passed on to Mizpah of Gilead, and from Mizpah of Gilead he passed on to the Ammonites. 30 And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord and said, “If you will give the Ammonites into my hand, 31 then whatever[a] comes out from the doors of my house to meet me when I return in peace from the Ammonites shall be the Lord's, and I will offer it[b] up for a burnt offering.” 32 So Jephthah crossed over to the Ammonites to fight against them, and the Lord gave them into his hand. 33 And he struck them from Aroer to the neighborhood of Minnith, twenty cities, and as far as Abel-keramim, with a great blow. So the Ammonites were subdued before the people of Israel. 34 Then Jephthah came to his home at Mizpah. And behold, his daughter came out to meet him with tambourines and with dances. She was his only child; besides her he had neither son nor daughter. 35 And as soon as he saw her, he tore his clothes and said, “Alas, my daughter! You have brought me very low, and you have become the cause of great trouble to me. For I have opened my mouth to the Lord, and I cannot take back my vow.” 36 And she said to him, “My father, you have opened your mouth to the Lord; do to me according to what has gone out of your mouth, now that the Lord has avenged you on your enemies, on the Ammonites.” 37 So she said to her father, “Let this thing be done for me: leave me alone two months, that I may go up and down on the mountains and weep for my virginity, I and my companions.” 38 So he said, “Go.” Then he sent her away for two months, and she departed, she and her companions, and wept for her virginity on the mountains. 39 And at the end of two months, she returned to her father, who did with her according to his vow that he had made. She had never known a man, and it became a custom in Israel 40 that the daughters of Israel went year by year to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite four days in the year..” This is word...
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Why is this text is so tough? We’ve outlined 4 reasons a passage of Scripture can be tricky; THIS passage checks all FOUR boxes! Many question its RELEVANCE: what does a story about CHILD SACRIFICE have to do with me today; and make no mistake - that IS what’s going on in this story. Some interpreters go to GREAT lengths to try and soften this story, but the text is very clear: she was sacrificed as a “burnt offering”. How do I PREACH a text like that? How do YOU apply it? This passage seems INCONSISTENT with what we find elsewhere in Scripture - I thought God ABHORRED human sacrifice? As soon as we DO grasp the story’s meaning and importance, we realize how PERSONALLY convicting it is for us; the take-home principles I’m going to give you today ought to thoroughly CHALLENGE you. And finally, it is potentially THEOLOGICALLY problematic: does God condone child sacrifice?
I think it’s clear that God does NOT condone Jephthah’s vow or sacrifice, that this passage IS consistent with what we know of God’s character from the rest of Scripture, and that it is VITALLY relevant, insofar as it serves as a giant picture on the biblical WALL OF SHAME, to dissuade us from EVER following in Jephthah’s footsteps. In fact, I find NINE, count them: NINE different ways in which Jephthah serves as a negative example for us, of what NOT to do. 9 “don’t”s, READY?
“Don’t” #1: Don’t minimize your PERSISTENT SIN. (v29)
Some readers get tripped up by v29, where we hear “the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah”, and then the VERY NEXT VERSE, v30, he utters his infamous vow. But notice two things: first of all, a LOT of time passes in the SECOND half of v29. He “ passed through Gilead and Manasseh... to Mizpah… and on to the Ammonites.” So the purpose of Jephthah’s being filled with the spirit of the Lord was to lead him into battle against the Ammonites; NOT to inspire his vow in v30. But second and more important, please realize that the presence of the spirit of the Lord does NOT insulate you from the ever-present threat of sin that always lurks in your heart. The lingering sin that remains in the heart of every fallen human, this side of eternity. What’s true for Jephthah here is true of ALL of us, who have repented and trusted in Christ for our salvation, and thus been sealed with His promised Holy Spirit until our faith becomes sight: the spirit of the living God now lives INSIDE you!
...AND... so too does your SIN. Paul wrestles with his own persistent sin in Romans ch.7: “For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate… It is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me… For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.” (vv15-23)
For those of us who have truly repented and trusted in Jesus as Lord and Savior, God dealt with the PENALTY of our sin instantaneously upon conversion. 1 Peter 2:24 - Christ bore the just PENALTY for your sins in his body on the cross; and from the very MOMENT of your salvation, you now no longer stand under the righteous WRATH of God you deserved, but instead, 2 Corinthians 5:21, when God looks at you now He sees you as clothed in all the righteousness of Christ. That is MOST important, friends. That is the GOSPEL. The good news that sinners like you and me, otherwise separated from a holy, perfect God, can be RECONCILED back into relationship WITH him simply by FAITH in Jesus, in His atoning sacrifice in our place.
But the good news is even BETTER than that. Because Jesus didn’t just DIE to save us from the PENALTY of our sin; he ROSE to free us from the POWER of sin as well. Romans 6: “Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? ...We were buried with [Christ] by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” So if you’re a Christian, you can… you WILL, necessarily, spend the rest of your remaining 10, 30, 50 years, post-conversion, on this earth, being progressively freed from the POWER of sin, the grip it holds on your heart. We call that sanctification; 2 Cor 3:18 - “being transformed into the same image [the image of CHRIST! We’re becoming more like Jesus, the one who KNEW no sin…] from one degree of glory to another [little by little, each day; and how is this ACCOMPLISHED?!].[f] For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.” God’s indwelling Holy Spirit, gradually over time transforming your heart of stone, calcified by years and years of sin, into a heart of flesh.
And the good news gets even better than THAT. Because God not only promises to deal with the PENALTY of sin… not ONLY the POWER of sin… but He promises to free you, ONE day, from the very PRESENCE of sin, when you finally see Him face to face in Paradise. Where Revelation 21 - there will be no CRYING, nor pain, nor death, because those are all the effects of sin, and v27: “nothing unclean will ever enter heaven”. There is NO sin in Heaven; oh - anybody else ready to go HOME?!
Praise GOD that is our blessed future. But don’t forget: it is not our present reality. So do not fool yourself into believing that God’s indwelling spirit, OR his abundant grace, excuses or insulates you from your sin in the here and now. We are called to HATE our sin - Romans 12:9 - and to KILL it - Colossians 3:5. This is God’s will for you: 1 Thessalonians 4:3 - your sanctification. Killing sin, and growing in Christlikeness.
“Don’t” #2: Don’t misuse your WORDS. (vv30-31)
One of the SIMPLEST lessons we can learn from this story is the danger of foot-in-mouth disease. Jephthah is a “speak first, think later” kind of guy. Kenneth Way exposits: “Jephthah’s words are manipulative (Judges 11:7, 9, 11, 30-31), confused (11:24, 31), ignorant (11:24, 31, 35), judgmental (11:35), and possibly dishonest (12:2-3)... This story offers a sobering reminder about the power of words” (Kenneth Way: TTTCS: Judges and Ruth, p106). Based on the masculine Hebrew pronoun he uses, and the fact that “the typical ‘four-room home’ of this period contained a room for animals” (TNIVAC: Judges, Ruth, p.263) - Jephthah likely expected a sheep or a goat to come out to greet him. And we’ll come back to WHY he made such a bizarre, RASH vow at ALL in point #4 - But for now, let’s just let his picture on the wall warn us against misusing our words. Scripture is CLEAR:
-Proverbs 18:21 “Death and life are in the power of the tongue”; forget sticks and stones will break my bones… DEATH and LIFE are in the power, of our words.
-So we are COMMANDED, James 1:19 to “be quick to hear, slow to speak”.
-Because we recognize, James 3, “How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire! 6 And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness… setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell… No human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. 9 With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God.” (vv5-9)
Jephthah certainly curses his own daughter here, by failing to think through and weigh his words. But let’s look in the mirror this morning. James says NO human being has tamed the tongue. Anyone here NOT say something in the past WEEK that you wish you could take back? We sing songs and bless our Lord and Father with our tongues; anyone NOT curse, slander, gossip, malign, impugn, insult or otherwise TEAR DOWN a fellow “made in the image of God” person this week? Either to their face or worse, behind their back? Ephesians 4:29 says “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up… that it may give grace to those who hear.” Anyone speak NO corrosive words this week; EXCLUSIVELY edifying, uplifting, grace-giving words?
Sometimes that’s hardest with those closest to us, isn’t it? Whether we speak to them that way because we know they’ll TAKE it - anyone else NOT married to you would break your JAW or walk out of your LIFE for saying something like that; but she’s stuck with you, for better or for worse - or simply because we just WEAR on each other’s nerves over time… the reason is immaterial. We’ve got an epidemic on our hands, of self-professing Christians HURTING one another with their words in our homes today. And I am NOT so naive as to think this isn’t a West Hills problem. Listen: I know, because I did it, myself, for years, and I’ve heard the way some of y’all talk to your spouses, your kids, and I can’t help but think: “if she treats him like that in front of the PASTOR, then what’s it like when they’re alone back home?!”
Brother, sister: I want to CHALLENGE you this week, to speak nothing but GOOD of your spouse, of your children, your parents, your annoying co-workers, to carefully WEIGH your words and use them ONLY to build up and give grace this week. I’m not encouraging you to LIE - they’re NOT perfect. But if you’ve got a problem, go to them in love and seek to be reconciled. Your passive-aggressive, back-handed jabs are not helping anyone; they are destructive FIRE from the pit of Hell!
#3: Don’t overlook God’s GRACE. (vv32-33)
We read in vv32-33: “Jephthah crossed over to the Ammonites to fight against them, and the Lord gave them into his hand… the Ammonites were subdued before the people of Israel.” God gave them victory not BECAUSE of Jephthah’s vow, but IN SPITE OF it. How do we know that? Because 1 John 1:5 reminds us “God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all”. God takes NO part in sin - James 1:13 “Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one.” And there can be NO doubt that Jephthah’s vow, and his enacting OF it, was evil. We expect, from elsewhere in Scripture, to hear when God accepts an offering - we’ll hear “it arose as a pleasing aroma to the Lord” - but here in Judges 11, God’s silence is DEAFENING.
Moreover, God is explicit in Deuteronomy 12:31 - “You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way, for every abominable thing that the Lord hates they [pagan nations] have done for their gods, for they even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods.” Throughout the OT, God treats child sacrifice as the most abhorrent of all sins.
And yet, in SPITE of Jephthah’s careless and detestable oath, in His undeserved MERCY, God resolves to spare the nation of Israel anyway. Someone might ask, “Why didn’t God just let them LOSE the battle, if he knew Jephthah was going to follow through on his pledge?” And spare 1 life at the cost of THOUSANDS, possibly His entire chosen PEOPLE? How would THAT have been gracious? Again, James 1 - we cannot blame GOD for Jephthah’s sin.
Likewise, friends, do not overlook God’s grace in your OWN life. Hear the gospel prophesied back in Psalm 103:10 “God does not deal with us according to our sins,
nor repay us according to our iniquities.” And here especially God’s just fulfillment of that promise, in 2 Corinthians 5:19 “in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them”. We ought to remind ourselves and joyfully CELEBRATE, daily, that we don’t get what we deserve. Praise God! That like Jephthah, in SPITE of our sin, God has delivered us, rescued us, bailed us out, and He pours out His undeserved FAVOR on us, time and time again. That though our sins they are many, HIS mercy is more. This is “Grace, grace, God’s grace - Grace that is greater than ALL our sin”. Don’t MISS it, in this passage; and don’t FORGET it, in YOUR life.
#4 - Don’t presume you CALL THE SHOTS. (v34)
THAT is what Jephthah is trying to do here; THAT is why he makes this vow. Younger explains: “Jephthah is negotiating with Yahweh as he had with the Gileadite leaders and with the king of Ammon [earlier in ch11], seeking to acquire concessions and favors from God as he had from others in the past... It is an attempt to exert control over God - a practice familiar to pagans, who believed in the manipulation of the gods for human purposes.” (261) And in so doing, Jephthah turns what SHOULD have been a story about God’s salvation and victory into a TRAGEDY, where God’s gracious deliverance gets overshadowed by NINE verses focused on Jephthah’s tragic vow.
And friends, that is EXACTLY what happens when we assert ourselves and OUR desires and OUR will over God’s. When we presume to call the shots, to be in charge, and we USE God, like some sort of magic rabbit foot or talisman, to get what WE want, instead of surrendering to HIS leading, and following HIM, letting GOD be God, then we ROB him of the glory due His name, the glory we were CREATED to give him, Isaiah 43:7. You and I need to hear this as much today as Jephthah did, friends: God is not our VENDING MACHINE. If that is what your prayer life has devolved into, you need to go back to the book:
-We are called to pray “THY kingdom come; THY will be done”! (Matt 6:10)
-To pray “NOT my will, but yours be done, Father” (Lk 22:42)
That’s how JESUS prayed; even JESUS wasn’t so presumptuous as to try and call the shots. HE submitted to the Father. So brothers and sisters, I ask YOU: Who’s in charge? You or God?
May we not treat God as merely a MEANS to our own end. For starters, He won’t ALLOW it. Psalm 115:3 - “Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases.”
Prov 16:9 “The heart of man plans his way,
but the Lord establishes his steps.”
God’s will WILL prevail anyway, so you and I are better off TRUSTING Him, because he is WAAAY better at being God than we are. Do you know that you make a pathetic god, when you try and run your OWN life? He is sovereign, He is good. Trust HIM to be in control.
#5 - Don’t BLAME OTHERS for your mistakes.
Jephthah exclaims in v35: “My daughter! You have brought me very low, and you have become the cause of great trouble to me.”
It’s not bad enough he’s doomed her to a gruesome death; now he’s blaming HER for it! And we can trace this blame-shifting all the way back to the very ORIGINS of sin in the Garden. What’s the first thing Adam and Eve do when God shows up and starts asking questions?
-Genesis 3: “The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” 13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”” (vv12-13) Adam says, “It’s HER fault (and kinda yours TOO, God); Eve says, “it’s the SNAKE’S fault!”
Paul exhorts us in Galatians 6: “Let each one test his own work… for each will have to bear his own load.” (vv4-5) Take responsibility for your own actions, friends. We need to hear this one more today than EVER. Everybody wants to blame somebody else today. It’s my boss’s fault. My employee’s fault. It’s President Trump’s fault; Nancy Pelosi’s fault. It’s the media’s fault. Culture’s fault. Public education’s fault. The church’s fault. My spouse’s fault.
Meanwhile, God says, “Why don’t you worry about yourself, and let me take care of everyone else. Don’t worry - I’m gonna hold them responsible for THEIR actions. But guess what, Romans 14:12 - I’m holding YOU accountable too. And trust me, you got PLENTY of your OWN to worry about. So quit blaming everybody else, and just take responsibility for the little domain God HAS given you, and let Him handle the rest.
#6 - Don’t run from YOUR PAST. (vv36-38)
We don’t have time for an in-depth character analysis of Jephthah. But Younger summarizes for us: “Jephthah came from a dysfunctional background. He was an illegitimate son, born of a prostitute, rejected and disinherited by his family, leader of a gang. He became a man who was hurt, angry, bitter, ambition-driven, ready to fight, manipulative, ignorant of God’s Law, abusive of his daughter, lacking boundaries, contentious, emotionally reactionary, revengeful, and doing what is right in his own eyes for his own gain” (269). And we get ALL that from just chapter 11; he is a rich, complex person. And I think we get a glimpse here in vv36-38 of how those personal defects trickle down relationally into his FAMILY dysfunctions as well. It’s pretty telling that his daughter’s reaction is: “ leave me alone for two months”. I guess I wouldn’t want anything to do with a father who was planning to kill me either!
Jephthah was reacting out of woundedness over his own broken past. What kind of guy has such LITTLE regard for others, for human life, even his own FAMILY, that he would make and carry out such a vow? A bastard step-son who was cast out of his home by his own family, v2. Who surrounds himself with “worthless fellows”, v3, so he doesn’t have to actually CARE about people and risk getting hurt again. The guy who refuses to DEAL with his past, and therefore DOOMS his future to be DICTATED BY it. Jephthah lives the rest of his life, v9, seeking revenge.
And in his anger, his insecurity, his irrational vengeful ambition, Jephthah exemplifies for us a sad but critical psychological principle: Hurt people hurt people. Hurt people, who don’t DEAL with their hurts, work through them and learn to accept and forgive and move on, will always, inevitably, continue the cycle and hurt other people.
So I ask you this morning: is there anything YOU’RE running from? Trying to sweep under the proverbial rug, but it’s continuing to affect your life in more ways than you’d like to admit, probably more than you even REALIZE. Friends, we’ve ALL got baggage. Can we just drop the perfect West County facade and admit that. It’s not a question of IF you’ve got issues - YA DO; the question is what ARE they, and what are you DOING about them? Come talk to Taylor, our church counselor. Talk to ME; hey, I’m FREE. I’m not just a preacher; I’m a PASTOR. That’s what I’m HERE for. To shepherd. I CARE about you. But WHOEVER you talk with, HOWEVER you work through your junk, don’t run from it. You can’t outrun your past.
#7 - Don’t be IGNORANT of God and His word. (v39)
Jephthah ironically and tragically confuses Israel’s God, the TRUE God, Yahweh with Chemosh, the god of the same Ammonites he’s trying to DEFEAT, and thus, he ignores God’s CLEAR DISGUST toward human sacrifice - Deuteronomy 12:31. But a faithful student of God’s Law would have ALSO known that God provided in Leviticus 27, vv1-8, for the redemption of vows made too hastily. The saddest part about all this, is not ONLY was the vow unnecessary in the first place, but its execution was AVOIDABLE as well. For a mere 10 shekels, Jephthah could have redeemed his vow and saved his daughter’s life. Go read 1 Samuel 14.
Here’s the point: “Christians must take note that accurate knowledge of God through Scripture is essential for life and growth (Deut 8:3; 30:15-16, 19-20; Ps 1:2-3; Prov 8:35; 9:11; Matt 4:4; 1 Tim 4:8, 16), that ignorance can lead to death and disaster (Deut 30:15, 17-19; Ps 1:6; Prov 8:36; 9:18; Hos 4:1-6; Rom 1:18-32), and that perseverance in theology will save both yourself and your hearers” (1 Tim 4:16; cf. 1 Tim 6:20; 2 Tim 1:13-14; 3:14-15; Titus 1:9)” (Way, p105) Do yourself a favor and take a picture of that slide and go home and look up all those references; and let them motivate you to hunger and thirst for a deeper knowledge of God as He has revealed himself to us in His word.
#8 - Don’t underestimate God’s REDEMPTION. (v40)
You wanna know the craziest part of the whole Jephthah story? Not only does God give us a glimpse of His redemptive purpose in v40, with the “daughters of Israel lamenting the daughter of Jephthah four days each year”, again, a picture on the wall, to all of Israel: let’s don’t EVER make Jephthah’s mistake again. But did you know Jephthah also made it into the book of Hebrews’ “Hall of Faith”? “Time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets— 33 who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises...” (11:32-33) Jephthah gets a pat on the BACK, in the NT! Not for killing his daughter. But for saving the nation of Israel, in SPITE of his sinfulness. Friends THAT is redemption. That is a God who can take our very worst, and use it for HIS very best. Who refuses to let us be defined by even our WORST deeds. In Christ, God chooses to see our picture on the Wall of Fame, NOT the wall of shame.
And finally: Don’t miss the POINT! (Luke 24:27)
Jesus makes the radical claim in the Gospels, in John 5:39, on the road to Emmaus in Luke 24:27, that ALL of the OT points to HIM. ALL of it - Jephthah included!
Friends, don’t miss the point; this story is here, ultimately, MOST importantly, to point us to the better only child, who was sacrificed by a better Father, to fulfill a better vow, and accomplish a better purpose. This story is a shadow, a prefiguring, of a better story to come. Because Jephthah’s sacrifice accomplished NOTHING. It WAS careless, manipulative, ignorant, and avoidable. But it points us to a sacrifice that was necessary, self-less, ETERNALLY costly, yet eternally REWARDING. A sacrifice that accomplished EVERYTHING, for you and for me...