Scripture Reading
OK, you can turn in your Bibles to Judges chapter 11. Judges chapter 11. Judges chapter 11. I'll read the entire chapter and then our focus this evening will be verses 29 to 40, Jephthah's vow.
Judges chapter 11 beginning in verse 1. The Gileadite was a mighty man of valor, but he was the son of a harlot, and Gilead begot Jephthah. Gilead's wife bore sons, and when his wife's sons grew up, they drove Jephthah out and said to him, you shall have no inheritance in our father's house, for you are the son of another woman. Then Jephthah fled from his brothers and dwelt in the land of Tob.
And worthless men banded together with Jephthah and went out raiding with him. It came to pass after a time that the people of Ammon made war against Israel. And so it was when the people of Ammon made war against Israel that the elders of Gilead went to get Jephthah from the land of Tov. And they said to Jephthah, come and be our commander that we may fight against the people of Ammon.
So Jephthah said to the elders of Gilead, did you not hate me and expel me from my father's house? Why have you come to me now when you are in distress? And the elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, that is why we have turned again to you now, that you may go with us and fight against the people of Ammon and be our head over all the inhabitants of Gilead. So Jephthah said to the elders of Gilead, if you take me back home to fight against the people of Ammon and the Lord delivers them to me, shall I be your head.
And the elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, the Lord will be a witness between us if we do not do according to your words. Then Jephthah went with the elders of Gilead, and the people made him head and commander over them. And Jephthah spoke all his words before the Lord in Mizpah. Now Jephthah sent messengers to the king of the people of Ammon, saying, what do you have against me that you have come to fight against me and my land?
And the king of the people of Ammon answered the messengers of Jephthah, because Israel took away my land when they came up out of Egypt from the Arnon as far as the Jabbok and to the Jordan. Now, therefore, restore those lands peaceably. So Jephthah again sent messengers to the king of the people of Ammon. and said to him, thus says Jephthah, Israel did not take away the land of Moab nor the land of the people of Ammon. For when Israel came up from Egypt, they walked through the wilderness as far as the Red Sea and came to Kadesh.
Then Israel sent messengers to the king of Edom saying, please let me pass through your land. But the king of Edom would not heed. And in like manner they sent to the king of Moab, but he would not consent. So Israel remained in Kadesh.
And they went along through the wilderness and bypassed the land of Edom and the land of Moab, came to the east side of the land of Moab and encamped on the other side of the Arnon. But they did not enter the border of Moab, for the Arnon was the border of Moab. Then Israel sent messengers to Sihon, king of the Amorites, king of Heshbon. And Israel said to him, please let us pass through your land into our place.
But Sihon did not trust Israel to pass through his territory. So Sihon gathered all his people together and camped in Jahaz and fought against Israel. And the Lord God of Israel delivered Sihon and all his people into the hand of Israel, and they defeated them. Thus Israel gained possession of all the land of the Amorites who inhabited that country.
They took possession of all the territory of the Amorites from the Arnon to the Jabbok and from the wilderness to the Jordan. And now the Lord God of Israel has dispossessed the Amorites from before his people Israel. Should you then possess it? Will you not possess whatever Chemosh, your God, gives you to possess?
So whatever the Lord our God takes possession of before us, we will possess. And now, are you any better than Balak, the son of Zippor, king of Moab? Did he ever strive against Israel? Did he ever fight against them?
While Israel dwelt in Heshbon and its villages, in Aroer and its villages, and in all the cities along the banks of the Arnon for 300 years, why did you not recover them within that time? Therefore, I have not sinned against you, but you wronged me by fighting against me. May the Lord, the Judge, render judgment this day before the children of Israel and the people of Ammon. However, the king of the people of Ammon did not heed the words which Jephthah sent him.
Then the spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah, and he passed through Gilead and Manasseh, and passed through Mizpah of Gilead, and from Mizpah of Gilead he advanced toward the people of Ammon. And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord and said, if you will indeed deliver the people of Ammon into my hands, Then it will be that whatever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the people of Ammon, shall surely be the Lord's, and I will offer it up as a burnt offering. So Jephthah advanced toward the people of Ammon to fight against them, and the Lord delivered them into his hands. And he defeated them from Aroer as far as Mineth, 20 cities, and to Abel-Karamim, with a very great slaughter.
Thus the people of Ammon were subdued before the children of Israel. When Jephthah came to his house at Mizpah, there was his daughter coming out to meet him with timbrels and dancing, and she was his only child. Besides her, he had neither son nor daughter. And it came to pass when he saw her that he tore his clothes and said, alas, my daughter, you have brought me very low.
You are among those who trouble me. For I have given my word to the Lord, and I cannot go back on it. So she said to him, my father, if you have given your word to the Lord, do to me according to what has gone out of your mouth, because the Lord has avenged you of your enemies, the people of Ammon. And she said to her father, let this thing be done for me.
Let me alone for two months that I may go and wander on the mountains and bewail my virginity, my friends and I. So he said go. And he sent her away for two months. And she went with her friends and bewailed her virginity on the mountains.
And it was so at the end of the two months that she returned to her father. And he carried out his vow with her which he had vowed. She knew no man. And it became a custom in Israel that the daughters of Israel went four days each year to lament the daughter of Jephthah, the Gileadite.
Amen.
Introduction
Well, a very powerful passage of scripture. Certainly what is going on in this chapter is quite serious. There are two views, two ways to take Jephthah's vow. There is the literal way that suggests that what Jephthah swore in terms of offering up his daughter as a burnt offering is precisely what he did.
That is the position I will argue for this evening. And then the second position indicates that rather than her being offered up as a burnt offering, she was consecrated to perpetual virginity in order to fulfill this particular vow. Again, men on either side have grappled with this passage over the years. We need to go with what the text of scripture dictates, what it mandates, and what it specifies.
And God helping us, we can learn some lessons along the way this evening. So the chapter or the section that I read, there are two broad concerns. the victory over the Ammonites in chapter 11 verses 29 to 33 and then the payment of Jephthah's vow in verses 34 to 40.
Victory over the Ammonites
So first, the victory over the Ammonites. Remember the particular setting. Jephthah, when he assumes the position or when he assumes the role as judge, as deliverer, when he has made the head over all the inhabitants of Gilead, and he has made the commander of the armies of Israel, the first thing that he does is he sends out this delegation to contact the king of the people of Ammon. They tried diplomacy.
He tries to reason with the king of the Ammonites. We see or we saw his particular presentation of the historical background in verses 14 to 22. And based on that, he then draws out several arguments. The argument from history, the argument from theology, the argument from precedence, and then the argument from chronology.
So he presents his case very admirably, very well. He knows his stuff. Jephthah, though he was sent off to live in this land of Tob, though he was excluded from his particular family, nevertheless was a mighty man of valor, and he was a man that was skilled, a man that was full of wisdom, and a man that had lots of resources at his disposal. So he presents his case to the king of Ammon, and of course the king of Ammon says no.
Verse 28, however, the king of the people of Ammon did not heed the words which Jephthah sent him. So that's the setting. Now that brings us to battle with the Ammonites. Remember, they are oppressing the children of Israel.
Jephthah's been raised up as the head, as the commander, to crush this opposition, to crush the adversaries of the Lord God Most High. So because they reject the diplomacy, because they reject this particular attempt, now war must be engaged or must be leveled against the Ammonites. So
Jephthah's Empowerment by the Spirit
we see his empowerment, verse 29, and the spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah. We see that with Othniel. We see that with Gideon. We see that at least indirectly with Barak.
Remember that he pleads that Deborah goes with him. That is the presence of the Lord because Deborah is the Lord's prophet. She is a prophetess. So this is God's way God's means of enabling his people so that they can do the task that he has called them to specifically to bring deliverance from their oppressors.
Jephthah then moves through Gilead and Manasseh. He passes through Mizpah of Gilead. And from Mizpah of Gilead, he advanced toward the people of Ammon. So he's got the spirit of the Lord upon him.
He's going to engage the enemy. And all throughout this particular chapter and into the next, it is evident and clear from whom victory comes. It is God, the Spirit of the Lord, who came upon Jephthah to bring deliverance. We see that in verse 32, the Lord delivered them into his hands.
We see it from the mouth of Jephthah's daughter in verse 36, because the Lord has avenged you of your enemies. And then again in chapter 12, verse 3, when there's conflict with Ephraimites, he says, and the Lord delivered them into my hand. So we need to understand that. Whatever happens in terms of Jephthah and his vow, God is sovereign, God is glorious, and he works through these human agents.
No matter how we land on Jephthah's vow, if it was a vow to consecrate her into perpetual virginity, that in and of itself was not a good thing. I mean, either way we go on this particular vow. I mean, all commentators, all Bible students, everybody who comes to Jephthah's vow would agree that it was problematic. And so either way, it's going to have implications as to one way or the other, but the fact is that he made this vow, and it was rash, and I will suggest it was wicked, but nevertheless, God overrules and God works through these particular means.
Something we need to understand and learn is that God accomplishes his purposes in this earth, and at times, all the time, he has to use unsavory means. God isn't like the doctor. When you have a surgery, let's say you had a surgery tomorrow morning, and you go to the hospital there. The doctor takes his instruments, and they have been sterilized.
They have been adequately, or at least they should have been sterilized. I shudder to think if they weren't. But the doctor has sanitized, sterilized instruments by which he performs surgery. Well, God is dealing with sinners.
There is never a completely sanitized and a completely sterilized specimen of a human being. God uses unsavory means at times to accomplish savory things for his glory and for the good of his people. The most unsavory and the most wicked act in the history of mankind was the crucifixion of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Apostle Peter says that this was the predetermined plan of God.
Again, God doesn't operate like the surgeon where he has sterilized instruments. He uses sinners to accomplish his particular purposes. And when we say that, people oftentimes misrepresent and characterize what we are saying. When we talk about the doctrine of sovereignty or we talk about what men commonly call Calvinism, When we talk about the reality of the sovereignty of God, that sovereignty is never divorced from the fact that our God is good.
He's merciful. He's kind. He's gracious. He's wise.
He's holy. He is accomplishing holy, wise, and glorious ends through the means that he has ordained. And so it is wrong to say that Calvinists aren't concerned about the things that go on in the world. Most certainly we are.
But we realize that God has a morally sufficient reason for the evil that exists, and he overrules it for his glory and for the good of his people. And so behind the scenes in all of this, God is using Japheth. He's using Samson. He's using these various human judges to accomplish his purposes.
And you'll note the silence of God in terms of this particular chapter. You'll note the silence of the author in terms of commending one way or the other. Remember that the Bible oftentimes reports things without giving us an ethical lesson based on that particular truth. And this happens to be one of them.
Anyways, we see that he's empowered.
The Nature of the Vow
Now notice his vow in verses 30 and 31. Jephthah made a vow to the Lord. Remember that an oath is something that man makes to man before God. A vow is something that man swears directly to God Most High.
And so Japheth made a vow to the Lord and said, if you will indeed deliver the people of Ammon into my hands, then it will be that whatever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the people of Ammon, shall surely be the Lord's, and I will offer it up as a burnt offering. Now, just a couple of observations here. First, he made a vow to the Lord. There's a solemn promise that if God does what he asks, then he will offer up as a burnt sacrifice the first thing that walks out of his house.
Secondly, note why he made this vow. He made the vow in order to secure victory over the Ammonites and to ensure peace for himself. This is what the text says. He made a vow to the Lord and said, if you will indeed deliver the people of Ammon into my hands, it's the first part.
He's treating God in a way that is not consistent with the people of God. God is not to be bargained with. He is not to be manipulated. We don't enter into deal-making with Him.
We are to obey God and walk in faithfulness. We see a problem here with Japheth. He's seeking to manipulate God. It seems he's taken on something of the canonization that is around him.
Because remember that with Moloch or with Baal, with the gods of the Canaanites, they were gods that you manipulated. They were gods that you coerced. They were gods that you tried to get to perform in a particular way for you. But it's not only deliverance from Ammonites, but it's also peace for himself.
Remember that Jephthah does want to be the head in Gilead. This was one of the things that was mentioned at the end of chapter 10. They said that whoever delivers us from the Ammonites, we will make him head over Gilead. And remember, when they come to Jephthah initially, they ask him to be commander over the people.
Jephthah says, wait a minute, I thought it wasn't just being a commander, but it was being head over the people in Gilead as well. There is an ambition going on in Jephthah. He does want to be the head over the Gileadites. He wants to be the one that everybody looks to.
And he not only wants victory over these Ammonites, but he wants peace when he comes home. Notice in verse 31, then it will be that whatever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me when I return in peace from the people of Ammon shall surely be the Lord's and I will offer it up as a burnt offering. Another thing we need to realize is that he vowed as a burnt offering the first person to exit from his house. Now, if Jephthah meant an animal, he was out of his mind.
Jephthah did not mean an animal. Kyle and Dalich, which offered the best argument in my estimation for the non-literal view. In other words, they take the position that what is going on in Jephthah's vow is that she's being consecrated to a life of perpetual virginity. They take that position, and as far as I'm concerned, for several pages they do the best job at arguing for that particular interpretation.
But even they admit that Jephthah did not expect that a calf would walk out the door of his house. Going out the doors of his house to meet him is an expression that does not apply to a herd or flock driven out of the stall just at the moment of his return, or to any animal that might possibly run out to meet him. Moreover, Jephthah no doubt intended to impose a very difficult vow upon himself, and that would not have been the case if he had merely been thinking of a sacrificial animal. Could you imagine a difficult vow when a ruler says, I will sacrifice a calf to the God that gives me victory?
That's not difficult. That's not a hardship. That's not an issue that one would stumble over. When Japheth says, whatever comes out of my house, he's thinking of a human being.
Does he realize it's going to be his daughter? Probably not. However, he is thinking in terms of a human. And in verse 31, he says, and I will offer it up as a burnt offering.
So had it been a man, had it been a male servant, or had it been a son? Because you see, up to this point, we don't know. We don't know that he's only got one daughter until she walks out the door of the house. Up to this point, the reader doesn't understand or doesn't know that he doesn't have 10 sons sitting in the house.
How could he possibly sell them into perpetual virginity in the same sort of way that he does with a daughter? He's expecting a human being to come out from the door. He's expecting a human being to walk out to meet him. I like to think my dog comes out to meet me, but she comes out to meet whoever it is.
She doesn't say, hey, Jim's home. I'm going to go see him. Whoever knocks on that front door, whoever opens that door, she will go to meet them. In this instance, he says specifically, then it shall be that whatever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the people of Ammon, shall surely be the Lord's.
Some translations offer a gloss here. Instead of the translating, and I will offer it up as a burnt offering, they read it this way. I return in peace from the people of Ammon, shall surely be the Lord's, or I will offer it up as a burnt offering. It's not correct.
He's talking about the same thing. It will be offered up, it will surely be the Lord's, and I will offer it up as a burnt offering. Now, you all know what a burnt offering is. Leviticus chapter 1.
You wouldn't need to be a Bible scholar or a PhD to know what a burnt offering is. A burnt offering means something that's Burned, right? You kill it and then you burn it onto the Lord God Most High. Now let's just suppose for a moment, and maybe this is a bit of rhetoric just to bolster my case, but let's just suppose for a moment that 32 to 38 weren't in the Bible.
Let's just suppose that we go from 31 where he says, whatever walks out the front door of my house, I will offer it up as a burnt offering to the Lord. And then in the end of verse 39, he says, and he carried out his vow with her, which he had vowed. There'd be any indication that he didn't do what he said he was going to do. Of course not.
He offers up this vow to offer up the first person or whoever comes out to meet him. He says that he will offer it up as a burnt offering. And then notice. Terms of the problem with this vow.
Again, if you take the non-literal position that he's consecrating her to a life of perpetual virginity, there's still problems with this vow. First, it was unnecessary. There's nothing prescriptive in the Old Testament that says you make a deal with God and then you get what you want. Jephthah's out of his element here.
He looks more like Canaanite leaders than he does a leader in Israel. And this is something that I think is the case with him. I think he knew Yahweh. I think in his own way he feared Yahweh.
I think he made a grievous sin and a grievous error and sinned against the Lord God Most High in a terrible way. But this was an unnecessary act on his part. Secondly, it was manipulative. It was manipulative to His God.
If you do this, then I will do this. We cannot live that way, brethren. The Bible says we are to walk in obedience to the Lord. We don't walk based on, God, if you do this, then I'll obey.
God, if you make sure everything goes my way, if you give me this job, or you give me this girl, or you give me this guy, then I'll be a good Christian. No, you fear God and obey Him. and you walk faithfully before him. Jephthah's vow was unnecessary. It was manipulative.
Thirdly, it was presumptuous. Don't you ever vow to the Lord God Most High what concerns another human being. You do not have that right without their permission. You do not have that prerogative.
There is not a one of us in this room who has the right to say to God, Lord, if you do such and such, you can have my little junior to be a minister or a missionary. How many people have been thrown into a particular field that they have no part in being because Aunt Bessie made a vow to the Lord? That is presumptuous. And then, I would argue, it was wicked.
The vow came as a result, ultimately, because of his determination to gain victory and be the head over Gilead. If he consecrated her to perpetual virginity, it was a wicked means to gain victory over the Ammonites and be the head in Israel. Right? I mean, even if the lesser of the two, he's still not off the hook, there's no vindication for Jephthah if this is all that's at stake.
If it was in fact that he offered her up, killed her, and then burned her as a sacrifice to the Lord, it was wicked because he did this to gain victory over the Ammonites, and the place as the head in Gilead. Either way, Jephthah was determined to secure victory over the Ammonites. His was not a rash vow. Remember, this is no dummy.
When he sends the delegation to negotiate this treaty with the king of the people of the Ammonites, he knows history. He knows theology. He knows precedence. He puts together a beautiful argument.
This isn't some country bumpkin. This isn't, you know, boss hog falling out with a, you know, with a piece of straw hanging out of his mouth. He knows what he's doing. He's calculated, and he's put this together.
He's not a dummy, and he engaged in a wicked vow. Again, one way or the other, however you interpret this. Now,
The Battle and Its Brevity
note the battle. And note the brevity by which the battle is reported. Where's the emphasis in the narrative? It's on Jephthah's vow.
It's not on the battle. Look at verses 32 and 33. So Jephthah advanced toward the people of Ammon to fight against them, and the Lord delivered them into his hands. And he defeated them from Aroer as far as Mineth, 20 cities, and to Abel-Karamim with a very great slaughter.
Thus the people of Ammon were subdued before the children of Israel." Now before you say, well obviously the Lord approved of this particular vow because He gave them victory. The Lord already promised to give them victory. The Lord already raised Him up to bring victory. The Lord already said that He was going to deliver. the Israelites from Ammonite oppression.
He was not manipulated. He was not bargained with. He was not the cosmic slot machine that spit out the three cherries and this man got what he wanted. That is simply not the case.
Again, when the Bible reports certain things, it doesn't always give us the ethical lessons that we ought to conclude later in reflection.
Payment of Jephthah's Vow
Now notice, The payment of Jephthah's vow. We'll just run through the narrative and then we'll look at the two main ways of interpreting.
The Daughter's Coming Out
First, the celebration. Verse 34, when Jephthah came to his house at Mizpah, there was his daughter coming out to meet him with timbrels and dancing, and she was his only child. Besides her, he had neither son nor daughter. Now, other Gileadites would have come out praising Jephthah for his military prowess.
This girl comes out praising her dad. This is her father. He's come back from this particular battle and he's victorious. Now, those who reject the idea that Jephthah actually offered her up as a burnt offering say, well, doesn't he know the law?
Of course he knows the law. He knows that child sacrifice and human sacrifice are prohibited by God. The question being, with reference to Jephthah, is how much of his Old Testament did he actually know? There's an interesting instance when the children of Israel return victorious with reference to the Egyptians, that Miriam and friends come out celebrating with Timbrel and rejoicing over the victory of the Lord.
If he had that in his mind, he had to expect something like that when he returned home after his particular battle. Anyways, it's a cause for celebration. His young daughter comes out and she's dancing. And then notice it's underscored, and she was his only child.
Besides her, he had neither son nor daughter. Now that doesn't preclude that perhaps his wife had other children from other husbands. But in terms of his seat, in terms of he and his wife, this was it. And again, this is the first we hear of this.
See, we operate knowing already a whole bunch of stuff. But up to this point, we don't know that he doesn't have 10 kids. Remember, the minor judges before and the minor judges after have like 30 kids. I mean, these are, you know, men with big tribes, basically.
So we would conclude that he also has a whole bunch of people in his house. But it's this one lone daughter. And the statement here invites comparison with Genesis 22. We don't have time to sort of compare that.
But take thine son, thine only son, when God calls upon Abraham to take Isaac up and to offer him at Moriah, there are some parallels going on between this section and that as well. Anyway, she's celebrating, she comes out.
Jephthah's Grief
Notice in verse 35 is grief. And it came to pass when he saw her that he tore his clothes and said, Alas, my daughter, you have brought me very low, for you are among those who trouble me, for I have given my word to the Lord and I cannot go back on it. Now, I do not doubt that this was a time of grief for this man. I'll call him a brother.
He's in Hebrews 11. I believe he's a saved man. Again, I believe he does something incredibly sinful. He's grieving.
But note where the emphasis lies. Look at what he says. Alas, my daughter, you have brought me very low. You are among those who trouble me.
Where's the concern for her? Whether she's going to be a burnt sacrifice, or she's going to be a perpetual virgin in Israel, where this would be considered a shameful thing, a woman who doesn't have children. Where's his love expressed to her? Oh honey, I'm sorry, I made this rash.
Wow, it's you I'm concerned, that's not it. The emphasis in the spotlight's always on Jephthah. It's all about him. He does conclude rightly, For I have given my word to the Lord, and I cannot go back on it." Now that is not strictly the case.
He could have broken this vow. Never forget that. No matter which position we pick, whether she's a burnt sacrifice or whether she's a perpetual virgin, he could have broken his vow. He could have invoked the displeasure of God upon his own head.
But you see, he wanted peace. He doesn't want the absence of peace. He certainly doesn't want Yahweh upset with him. He certainly doesn't want to provoke the living and true God.
I mean, he learned that from the Canaanites. If you barter a deal with Baal or Molech, and you don't pay up, then something bad could happen to your particular land. He doesn't want that to happen. So he's a covenant keeper when it comes to this particular statement.
For I have given my word to the Lord, and I cannot go back on it." And then the fulfillment.
The Daughter's Submission
Notice verses 36 to 40. The daughter submits to her father's decision. Again, just like Isaac. Isaac just marches dutifully right alongside of Abraham, doesn't he?
I mean, we're reading it going, Isaac, don't you know what's going on? Don't you understand what's happening? Isaac's old enough to conclude, you've got the fire, you've got this, but you don't have a sacrifice. Isaac's probably in his late teens.
He's trafficking, he's cognizant, he's knowledgeable. The same sort of thing here. She says, my father, if you have given your word to the Lord, do to me according to what has gone out of your mouth, because the Lord has avenged you of your enemies, the people of Amnon. Then, verse 37, she said to her father, let this thing be done for me.
Let me alone for two months that I may go and wander on the mountains and bewail my virginity, my friends and I. Give me two months. Give me two months to go and bewail my virginity with my friends. Just give me this before you execute your vow.
Verse 38, so he said go and he sent her away for two months and she went with her friends and bewailed her virginity on the mountains and it was so at the end of the two months Sorry. And it was so at the end of two months that she returned to her father and he carried out his vow with her which he had vowed. She knew no man. And it became a custom in Israel that the daughters of Israel went four days each year to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite.
Now you got to be careful in some of the literature. The people that take the non-literal view suggests they're lamenting the virginity of the daughter. But it doesn't say that. They lament the daughter of Jephthah, the Gileadite.
So that's the rub. That's the situation.
Two Interpretive Views Examined
Let's look at the nature of the vow. As I said, there's probably other contenders for how we should interpret it. But the two main positions, the consecration to perpetual virginity, and then the literal view. Now, I just indicated what commentators hold which in my library.
I don't have an extensive library on the Book of Judges, but in my library, those who hold to the consecration of the perpetual virginity, Gordon Caddy, perhaps you've never heard of him, John Gill, Always troubles me when I go against dear brother John Gill, but such is the case. And then as I said, Kyle and Dalich actually, in my mind, they argue the best for this consecration to perpetual virginity. In my library, the literal view, Matthew Henry, Ralph Davis, F.F. Bruce, Daniel Block, Keddie says older Jewish commentators and the early church fathers, perhaps not all of them, but the early church fathers took the literal view in terms of Jephthah's vow.
So that's just the scorecard. Again, it's not a test of orthodoxy. I like what Matthew Henry says after the whole thing is over. He says, and he takes the position that it was literal, that he actually did put his daughter to death.
At the end of his discussion, Matthew Henry says, thankfully, what is necessary in terms of salvation is crystal clear in the Bible. Good men do differ on their interpretation of Jephthah's vow. And while it may be somewhat difficult to get it, you know, absolutely clear, he says, in the matter of salvation, those things that are set forth in terms of redemption by Christ are absolutely crystal clear. And he made a statement concerning praise to God for that.
So
The Perpetual Virginity View Assessed
let's just look first at the consecration to perpetual virginity view. And I'm going to give three statements here as to what these proponents say and then seek to diffuse them. The first is the heinousness of human sacrifice could never have been carried out in Israel. In other words, this was such a horrific crime, such a horrific sin, that it was unthinkable that it would have been conducted by Jephthah in this setting.
Now, child sacrifice did formally enter into Israel under the reigns of Ahaz and Manasseh. Is it unthinkable that there was an informal foray at this dark period in the time of the judges? I mean, haven't we seen, in Judges chapter 2, these cycles? And then they reverted to more corruption after the judge died.
In many respects, it almost seems to follow that they just keep getting worse and worse. If the people of Israel are increasingly being canonized, could it be the case that Jephthah is taking on something of that canonization as well and he makes truck with Yahweh the way a pagan would with Molech or with Baal? So I don't know that that can carry the day. the consecration of women to sanctuary service. See, the argument sort of goes like this, that what's happening is that he makes this particular vow.
But what in reality he is vowing is that she is a perpetual virgin and that she is set apart to serve in the sanctuary of the Lord. Exodus chapter 38, verse 8. We might call this the Judaic nunnery view. Nuns being those who don't have relations with men.
Judaic nunnery. I thought that was funny. Good. At least somebody got it there.
Judaic nunnery. Exodus 38, 8. Women were connected with some sort of service to the sanctuary of the Lord. First Samuel chapter 2.
Remember the sons of Eli lie with women who are at the sanctuary. They had some involvement in terms of the house of God. But neither of those texts indicate that they were there by vow, and they certainly weren't necessitated to be virgins. It doesn't say that in the passage.
Another text that is marshaled is Leviticus 27. Leviticus 27, 1 to 8, is the price, the redemption price, for somebody that is consecrated to the Lord. The redemption of persons or property dedicated to God. Again, not in terms of a sacrifice, but there were persons set apart unto service of the Lord.
Well, there was a monetary price one could pay to get out of that particular consecration. Leviticus 27, 1 to 8, deals with that particularly. Each person had a value assigned to him or her which the person who made the vow paid to the priest, thus no doubt redeeming that person. So if you made a vow to the Lord and then it turns out you couldn't fulfill it, you'd pay a certain amount of money to the priest so that he could release you from that.
The money would then go into the coffers and you would be freed from that particular vow. You see, Judges 11 never mentions that whatsoever. That is to take a passage and to read it into it. When we move from verse 31 and the promise that I will offer it up as a burnt offering, and to the end of verse 39, he carried out his vow with her, which he had vowed.
There's no suggestion whatsoever that he paid a price to redeem her and get her off the hook from this vow he made in terms of a burnt sacrifice. I hope you're following. I think these things are strong. Some infer that Jephthah vowed his daughter to Yahweh and that he fulfilled that vow through her lifelong celibate service at the sanctuary.
Again, Leviticus 27, 1 to 8 is not concerned about lifelong service at the sanctuary. And it certainly doesn't say one whit about virginity. So several texts that are used to get Jephthah off the hook and to this other sort of better position are really not relative or not relevant to the passage at hand. It has no bearing on Exodus 38, none whatsoever on 1 Samuel chapter 2.
And with reference to Leviticus 27, he's not paying a price to keep her from being consecrated to the Lord. Because you see, the argument is, is that she is consecrated to the Lord. She's going to serve as a virgin in the house of the Lord. How is that not consecration?
If he paid a price, she would be freed from that and she could go and engage in relations and have children. It just doesn't make sense whatsoever of the text. And then the third element, with reference to the consecration to perpetual virginity view, is the repeated emphasis on her virginity. Why does the author keep telling us this?
Do you know why I think? I think it's because that when we are about to die, we say things like, I never got to skydive. I never got to go to Costco with a credit card. I never got to fly in a plane.
What's the chief benefit and blessing to a young woman in Israel? I never got to have a child. I think that's why the repeated emphasis. Listen to Matthew Henry's statement concerning verse 37.
Note verse 37, then she said to her father, let this thing be done for me, let me alone for two months, that I may go and wander on the mountains and bewail my virginity, my friends and I. Matthew Henry says, besides, had she only been confined to a single life, the perpetual virginity view, she needed not to have desired these two months to bewail it in. She had her whole life before her to do that. Why take two months when you're going to live another 30 years?
You can cry every day about your virginity. And then he goes on to say this concerning her. Nor needed she to take such a sad leave of her companions. Because after the two months, if this is the correct position, she wouldn't be stripped of her friends.
She wouldn't be without friends in Gilead. Service at the Lord's house didn't mean isolation. This wasn't prison, was it? I think Matthew Henry is on the right.
Right way there. And then notice in verse 39, the very end, she knew no man. Why the emphasis? Bloch says this, with his vow, Jephthah had tried to secure his present, but through it, he ends up sacrificing his future.
This is brilliant. Jephthah sought something. And it was probably the judgment of God that this transpired the way that it did. I mean, what better for a judge in Israel than to have grandsons?
He's trying to secure his present by sacrificing his future. I think that's beautiful. How many times do the people of God sacrifice their future for something in the present? Be faithful.
Be consistent. Don't make rash vows. Don't make promises that you can't keep. Do what you're supposed to do each and every day.
He goes on to say, accompanied by her friends, she spends the last days of her life in the mountains lamenting the fact that she will die a virgin, never having known the joy of sexual intimacy and, more importantly, failing to carry on the family line. With her death, the family dies. She knew no man is as much a statement about Japheth as it is about her. Because she knew no man, there was no grandson, there was no issue, there was no seed, there was no heritage, there was no legacy for this man Japheth.
Here he makes this vow before God, his daughter walks through the door, he carries out the vow, he's got to put her to death. He goes on to say, with her death, the family dies. And then he makes this statement, the narrator deliberately softens the horror of her end and spares the reader the horrific details. He carried out his vow with her which he had vowed.
Bloch suggests we think of Genesis 22. when Abraham ties Isaac to the altar, when he readies the knife to bury it into his son. That's what he would have had to do. Some commentators said that would have shown the absolute corruption of the priesthood if they actually facilitated the death of this girl. Again, at the time of the judges, are we expecting nobility?
Are we expecting a priesthood that functions and operates in consistent obedience to the law of God? In the best days of Israel's monarchy, when Solomon is on the throne, do we find perfection, consistency? When David is on the throne, arguably the best king ever. We see murder and adultery in the king's palace.
We ought to be careful as to what we expect from the human players on the pages of Holy Scripture. He says, the narrator deliberately softens the horror of her end and spares the reader the horrific details. And then verse 40, became a custom in Israel that the daughters of Israel went four days each year to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite. Why would they do that if she was alive?
You have to suggest, you have to imply, and you have to bring in there that they lamented her virginity. That's not what the text says. It says they lamented her. Why do you lament somebody?
Because their dad put a knife in their heart and killed them in order to sacrifice them unto the Lord.
The Literal View Defended
Now the literal view. First, the plain meaning of the vow in verse 31. What do we expect when we read verse 31? And I will offer it up as a burnt offering.
What does that mean in the orbit of biblical interpretation? It means you tie the victim down and you cut their throat and then you offer them up and fire to the Lord. That's what a burnt offering is. You see, atonement and sacrifice is a messy, bloody, gory business.
And when this man says, I will offer it up as a burnt offering, you cannot tell me for a moment he didn't know what he was saying. This man repeated the history of Israel. This man knew theology. This man knew the gods of the regions.
This man argues from precedent. He knew who Balak was. He knew who the son of Zippor was. He knew that they had been there for 300 years, and now you're trying to lay claim to this?
This was no dummy. When Japheth says, I will offer it up as a burnt offering unto the Lord, He knows what he's talking about, brethren. He is not a fool. Again, if we drop from 31 to 39, what would we conclude if 32 to 38 weren't there?
He carried out his vow with which he had vowed. We would think that was the vow of verse 31 that he offered up her as a burnt offering. Secondly, the realization that a person would exit the house, not an animal. He knew the burnt offering he vowed in verse 31 would be a human being.
Would it soften the blow for you if it was his wife? Would it be better if it was a servant? If he had sons, would that be more commendatory? He knew that a human being would walk out of that house to meet him, right?
So whether it was Jephthah's daughter or somebody else who had the unfortunate prerogative to dwell with this particular man, somebody was going to be offered up as a burnt sacrifice to the Lord. Third, the extent of his grief in verse 35. Now, I do not doubt for a moment that it would be a grieving thing to consecrate a daughter into perpetual virginity. But it wouldn't be nearly as bad as killing her.
And let's just assume for a moment that she's consecrated into perpetual virginity so that she may serve at the sanctuary of the Lord. There's something redemptive there. There's a remedial end there. There's something beneficial at the thought that my daughter, though she's not going to have a man and she's not going to have grandsons, she's doing a noble cause.
She's doing a noble task. Imagine for a moment if you had a daughter that instead of getting married, she went to the Sudan and she dealt with starving children. You would be proud of that girl, wouldn't you? It betrays the sort of grief that is evidenced here if she's only being sold into or consecrated unto sanctuary service.
Really? Is that that bad of a punishment? I mean, yeah. Arguably, you don't want that, especially as a Jephthah.
You want to have little grandson Jephthahs running around and doing their thing. That's to be sure. The grief doesn't seem to indicate this. And then notice, fourthly, the execution of the vow following the two-month period.
If we take the consecrated to perpetual virginity view, that two-month period, she's already a virgin. She already is bewailing it. She's already entered in. But it's after the two-month period, after this lamentation period, then the vow is executed at that particular point.
And then fifth, the gross violation of the law of God. Can we possibly conceive that people who fear the Lord do these sorts of things? Again, I already mentioned King David of Israel. This isn't going to be a who's who of how bad you can be and still fall into heaven.
But remember, the canonization of Israel. There were corrupting influences all around them. Remember that Jephthah was the son of a harlot and he was excluded from his family. Who did he hang out with?
He wasn't hanging out with his brothers. learning the catechism. He wasn't under the tutelage of godly parentage. He was influenced by those around him. He certainly knew who Yahweh was.
He certainly feared Yahweh. He certainly would have had an understanding of these child sacrifice things. But even a man as great as Solomon, how does he end? You know what the Bible says concerning Solomon?
What does it say? It says these wives led him away to other gods. Brethren, the moment you think that these things could never happen to your hero or to yourself, you need to be very careful. There ought to be a holy distrust in all of our hearts about our hearts.
There ought to be the realization, I think it was Uncle Johnny who said, the seeds of apostasy are in every man's heart. We need to understand that. Davis comments concerning those who reject the literal view. He says, I have a problem with those who claim that Jephthah would never have sacrificed his daughter because that would have been against Yahweh's law.
He says, they automatically assume that Jephthah was consistent with what he knew. We're not consistent with what we know. We don't function with what we know. We're not obedient to the things that are revealed.
He says, but how do we know that Jephthah was consistently consistent? Is it not just as conceivable that in spite of what knowledge he had, he convinced himself that such a sacrifice, given the emergency, might be not only entirely proper, but also deeply pious? There could have ran in his veins the thought that what he was doing was actually a good thing for Gilead, for Israel, for the suppression of these pesky Ammonites. If a little blood, friendly fire, needs to occur along the way, well then the greater good is served.
Brethren, I think I'm more convinced now than I was earlier today that Jephthah did what the text tells us he did. And that to bring in this idea that it was a consecration to perpetual virginity reads into the text what is not there. It is a noble, it is a valiant attempt to try and sanitize a particular passage of scripture, but we are not called to sanitize particular passages of scripture. Our task is to interpret what is there, not what we think should be there, not what makes better sense in our mind, but to realize that God uses muck and grime and filth and dirt, and he brings good out of it.
I think it extols again the glory and the majesty of God most high. The episode further highlights the canonization of Israel and the mercy of God. He delivers his people even though human agents are less than perfect and it serves as we've seen with every judge and we'll see when we get to Samson. that these types, these men whom the Lord raises up to deliver Israel, point us forward to the one who is perfect, who doesn't make rash vows, who doesn't try to negotiate with his father, who when he's in the Garden of Gethsemane, he says, if it is possible, Father, let this cut pass. Even so, not my will, but thine be done.
There's no bargaining. There's no manipulation. There's no technique. Jephthah points us to Jesus to appreciate what perfection looks like in terms of the deliverer that God would send to ultimately rescue Israel from her sins.
In conclusion, the Geneva Bible, I think, nails it. The Geneva Bible, their study note on this particular section says this. As the apostle commends Jephthah for his worthy enterprise in delivering the people, Hebrews 11.32, they say, so by his rash vow and wicked performance of the same, his victory was defaced. And then they say this.
And here we see that the sins of the godly Do not utterly extinguish their faith. I think that's what's going on in the passage. Jephthah did an incredibly horrible thing, but he's still in Hebrews 11. It's by faith.
You see, Hebrews 11 doesn't say, by works, Jephthah, by works, Samson, by works, Barak, by works, Samuel, by works, David, by works, Abraham, by works. It's by faith. It is Christ who saves His people from their sins. And I think that Jephthah illustrates that all too clearly when we consider Judges chapter 11.
Well, let us pray.
Closing Prayer
Our Father, we thank You for Your Word, and we thank You, God, that You have given us the entirety of the Bible. And Lord, I pray that You would help us as we come to passages like these to have our Our minds, affected by the truth that we read, help us to see again Your majesty and Your glory and Your holiness. Help us to see Your sovereignty, that You'd raise up a jephthah to accomplish Your will, to accomplish Your purposes. And God, help us to learn from a jephthah, not to swear rashly, not to engage in things that are that are wicked or presumptuous or unnecessary.
Help us to derive from these things the lessons that you would have for us and help us to live in a manner that is consistent with your revealed will. And we pray this through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.