God Wants Trust Not Transactions (Judges 11-12)

A Few Thoughts to Consider

Have you ever made God a promise you lived to regret?

The ninth judge of Israel, Jephthah, certainly did. Jephthah was the son of Gilead and a prostitute. Due to his mother’s profession and his illegitimate birth, Jephthah faced rejection and was driven away by his half-brothers, who refused to share their inheritance with him. Jephthah fled to the land of Tob, where he became a great warrior and gathered a band of adventurers around him. Despite his difficult upbringing, he became known as a mighty warrior. Later, when the people of Gilead were threatened by the Ammonites, they sought Jephthah’s leadership in battle. Despite his initial reluctance, Jephthah agreed on the condition that he would become the ruler if victorious.

There are several critical points of this story to note. First, the dispute the Amorites had with Israel was illegitimate. After Jephthah reached out to the King of Ammon with the desire to merely pass through his land, “the Ammonite king’s reply to Jephthah is a typical political speech, claiming land that his people have never owned but basing his claim on history.”^[1] The second part is that, as Judges 11:29 says, “The Spirit of the Lord came on Jephthah.” This is significant, given what follows next.

Third, despite this divine blessing, Jephthah makes a horrendous vow. In verses 30-31, ³⁰ “Jephthah made this vow to the Lord: ‘If you in fact hand over the Ammonites to me, ³¹ whoever comes out the doors of my house to greet me when I return safely from the Ammonites will belong to the Lord, and I will offer that person as a burnt offering.’”

Jephthah is a complicated figure, and he represents the depravity of his time. It’s clear that despite Jephthah’s allegiance to God, his prayers are rooted in paganism. Strengthening this argument is that when Jephthah addresses the King of Ammon, he almost equates the Ammonite god Chemosh with Yahweh. Daniel Block writes, “He is the sort of man whom we wonder if God will use but who has no reservations about manipulating God for his own use.”^[2]

Block notes that “Jephthah’s vow conforms structurally to four other vows in the Old Testament: Jacob’s vow in Gen 28:20–22; Israel’s vow in Num 21:2; Hannah’s vow in 1 Sam 1:11; and Absalom’s vow in 2 Sam 15:7–8.”^[3] However, Jephthah’s vow is also unlike any other vow we see in Scripture. Block states this of Jephthah:

Having successfully negotiated favorable terms for his leadership over Gilead, but having unsuccessfully avoided confrontation with the Ammonites through negotiation, he sought to secure victory from God with words. But he was still negotiating—manipulating God and seeking to wrest concessions and favors from him like he had from the Gileadites and Ammonites. But in this three-linked chain of haggling one may recognize an obvious and intentional decline in his effectiveness. With the Gileadites he achieved all that he wanted (vv. 4–11); with the Ammonites he received a verbal if negative response (vv. 12–28); with Yahweh there would be only silence.^[4]

This silence is telling, and after defeating the Ammonites, Scripture tells us Jephthah sacrificed his daughter. But is this actually what happened? Some have speculated that since his daughter goes to mourn her virginity, this is a sign Jephthah committed her life as a servant in the temple. But then again, Judges 11:39 indicates he did indeed sacrifice her as a burnt offering. Further complicating this matter is that Jephthah’s name is mentioned in the “Hall of Faith” chapter in Hebrews 11:32.