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Jephthah's Rash Vow
(Judges 11:21-40)
Dennis Bratcher
There are some stories in Scripture that present us with challenging
questions, often because they come from a world and a culture far removed
from our own, and because we have certain ideas about Scripture that prevent
us from hearing the stories in that context. One of those Old Testament
stories is the story of Jephthah and a foolish vow he made that cost his
young daughter's life (Jud.11:36-40). With our modern sensibilities,
we recoil from the story. Why did Jephthah sacrifice his daughter?
Since God would never receive a human sacrifice, does that mean that if we
say stupid things we should do them even if it is against what we understand
about God?
In this case, an unfamiliarity with the nature of Scripture and how the
Israelites used narrative to communicate theology causes us problems in
hearing this story. There are many things in Scripture that recount past
events that are not meant to be presented as positive or as models for our
actions today. The book of Judges is an especially good example of that. The
entire book of Judges is basically a negative book to show how Israel failed
to live up to what they were called to be as God’s people. It is the
negative counterpart to the book of Joshua in which the Israelites did
respond faithfully to God. In Joshua, they were faithful and gained
possession of the land. In Judges they blended the worship of God with the
worship Ba’al and began to lose the land as well as fall under the
oppression of surrounding people. Recall, the summary statement of the book
of Judges (21:25): "all the people did what was right
in their own eyes." For most of the stories in Judges, the point of
the story is not made with a single verse summary. We are left to conclude
the message of the individual story from the whole context of the book, read
in light of this concluding theological statement at the end of the book.
Throughout Judges, most of the leaders (called a shophet, a
"judge" or tribal military chieftain) that emerge are seriously flawed. They
were only able to accomplish anything because God worked in spite of their
failures. For example, Gideon, who is often presented as a hero, was most
likely a Ba'al worshipper, was certainly a coward, was greedy, and finally
led his entire family into the worship of Ba'al with the result that his
entire family was killed. Samson, who is often the subject of heroic
children’s stories, was a weak womanizer, and too often drunk, who simply
could not control his sexual impulses (Ba'al worship was a fertility
religion; see Ba’al Worship in the Old Testament).
He ended up a pitiful slave whose final act was suicide. The most positively
portrayed of the judges was Deborah, with the deliberate irony that the best
of leaders during this period was a woman!
We are supposed to recoil from the
monstrosity of Jephthah’s actions. The later community of Israel who
included this story in the biblical traditions knew how wrong child
sacrifice was, so there would be no mistaking this for a model of right
behavior. It would be another example of what happens when God’s people
become confused in their thinking about who is really God and how God works
in the world. This becomes another lesson for Israel that God will not be
manipulated by magical incantations or bargains that we strike with him on
our own terms. That is precisely what Jephthah tried to do in making his vow
to sacrifice the first thing that met him on his return home, if only God
would help him win a battle. God did not need that bargain to aid Jephthah.
Jephthah was yet another tragic figure in Judges who had not yet learned
enough about God to know that God does not respond to magic or bargains,
which lay at the heart of Ba’al worship. Jephthah’s battle against the
Ammonites was not won because of his vow, but because of God’s presence
(11:32). His lack of faith in God, and understanding of who God is, cost him
his daughter.
The biblical traditions recall that as a great tragedy (11:39-40):
So there arose an
Israelite custom that for four days every year the daughters of
Israel would go out to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite.
There is nothing positive about the story of Jephthah. Except
that it is a
heartrending model of what not
to do.
-Dennis Bratcher, Copyright ©
2018, Dennis
Bratcher, All Rights Reserved
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Related pages
Judges of Israel
Bible in the Church |
