God's Role in the Story of Jephthah

Hoo-boy. Jephthah. I guess I'm doing this. Let's see what happens. It's gonna be a long one, so I hope you've got some time set aside.

Once you start getting deeper into the Bible than the typical Sunday School curriculum (complete with feltboard and fill-in-the-blank workbooks), you start to come across some stories that really don't get brought up very often from the pulpit. Some parts of the Bible just aren't used in youth group devotionals. Some Bible verses won't ever get a t-shirt, not even the really cool ones from the KJV.

Sometimes there are parts of the Bible that are brought up as accusations against the Christian faith, or against God Himself. The objection seems to be that since God allowed horrible things to happen, even within the confines of the Israelites, God's chosen people, then He's obviously no God worth following. It's an extension of the entire "problem of evil" or "the problem of pain." If God is all-powerful, all-loving, and all-benevolent, how can evil or pain exist? Why isn't life just a flawless paradise already?

I'd like to take a moment here to say that I'm not really sure if I'm stating the case for objection correctly, because it's never really made sense to me. My own personal objections to God didn't have much to do with how He treated people 5,000 years ago on the opposite side of the planet. So I realize that if I'm way off base with the objection, my defense won't necessarily work.

In this post, I'm going to be talking about the story of Jephthah, found in Judges 10:6-12:7. I realize that this is not the only problem people have with the Bible. A lot of people have a hard time reconciling the Jealous "I AM" of the First Testament to the Father God of the New Testament, especially in light of the Mosaic law's tendency towards capital punishment for seemingly minor offenses, implied acceptance of slavery, and marginalization of women, as well as the brutal nature of the conquest of Canaan as recorded in Joshua and Judges.

Rest assured, I'll get to that. Just not in this post.

For now, though... Jephthah.

I'm not going to put the whole story of Jephthah here. If you'd like to read it all, go to Judges 10:6-12:7. I will post the most troublesome part, though - this is where the objection comes in for a lot of people.

And Jephthah made a vow to the LORD : "If you give the Ammonites into my hands, whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites will be the LORD's, and I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering."

Then Jephthah went over to fight the Ammonites, and the LORD gave them into his hands. He devastated twenty towns from Aroer to the vicinity of Minnith, as far as Abel Keramim. Thus Israel subdued Ammon.

When Jephthah returned to his home in Mizpah, who should come out to meet him but his daughter, dancing to the sound of tambourines! She was an only child. Except for her he had neither son nor daughter. When he saw her, he tore his clothes and cried, "Oh! My daughter! You have made me miserable and wretched, because I have made a vow to the LORD that I cannot break."

"My father," she replied, "you have given your word to the LORD. Do to me just as you promised, now that the LORD has avenged you of your enemies, the Ammonites. But grant me this one request," she said. "Give me two months to roam the hills and weep with my friends, because I will never marry."

"You may go," he said. And he let her go for two months. She and the girls went into the hills and wept because she would never marry. After the two months, she returned to her father and he did to her as he had vowed. And she was a virgin.

From this comes the Israelite custom that each year the young women of Israel go out for four days to commemorate the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite.

- Judges 11:30-40

That's pretty awful.

From a purely humanistic point of view - not even bringing questions of religion into play - this is pretty appalling. A very young girl - remember that in ancient cultures, marriage usually came pretty close to puberty - is sacrificed as a burnt offering, dying a horrifying death as a result of the religious folly of her father.

It's heartbreaking. It's absolutely terrible.

And yet it is in the Bible. And it would seem, after a surface reading, that God condoned the action, accepting the sacrifice of Jephthah's daughter. It is this specific point - that God allowed the sacrifice to happen - that seems to be the most prominent problem presented in this story.

So how do we reconcile this event to the story of a holy and loving God? How can we possibly accept this story as the will of God?

Well... I don't actually think we can. I don't think we should.

I think there's a really important clue as to how we're supposed to take this story - as well as the rest of the book of Judges - in chapter 2. In Judges 2, Joshua has died, and the Israelites have begun their long-standing and oft-repeated cycle of abandoning their covenant with God. When Israel turns away from God, God allows Israel to be overtaken by one of the remaining Canaanite nations. After a while, Israel gets its mind right and calls out to God once again, and God sends a judge to deliver Israel. But as soon as the judge dies, Israel falls away again, and the cycle is repeated. That's what leads to God's decision at the end of the chapter, and a really important lesson about the educational philosophy of God.

Therefore the LORD was very angry with Israel and said, "Because this nation has violated the covenant that I laid down for their forefathers and has not listened to me, I will no longer drive out before them any of the nations Joshua left when he died. I will use them to test Israel and see whether they will keep the way of the LORD and walk in it as their forefathers did."

- Judges 2:20-22, emphasis added

I believe that the story of Jephthah is an example of Israel failing that test.

I've mentioned before that sometimes loving parents have to deny their children something they want - or at least think they want - because the consequences, whether immediate or delayed, are detrimental to the overall health and happiness of that child more than the benefits of gratification would be a positive in that child's life. To reuse my original example: letting a child eat an entire bag of Oreos may result in temporary happiness - because, hey, Oreos are delicious - but it will also result in at least a stomachache for the night, and possibly, if the Oreo buffet continues and becomes a regular thing, cavities and Type II Diabetes.

But on the other hand, sometimes loving parents have to allow their children to make the poor choices that lead to negative consequences in hopes that the negative outcome will serve as its own deterrent punishment and will allow the children to learn from their own mistakes. And sometimes, even if their children aren't actually making the mistakes themselves, parents have to allow their children to see the consequences - gruesome as they may sometimes be - when someone else chooses poorly. (By the way - my own parents were pretty big fans of both of those ideas. Remind me to tell you the story of our cat, Oatmeal, and how I learned at three years old not to play in the road...)

That's what's going on here. God is allowing Jephthah to make a horrific mistake so Israel can learn from it. It's a hard lesson for Israel to learn, but it seems that it was a necessary one.

I want to point out a passage from Leviticus that sheds some interesting light on this event.

The LORD said to Moses, "Speak to the Israelites and say to them: 'I am the LORD your God. You must not do as they do in Egypt, where you used to live, and you must not do as they do in the land of Canaan, where I am bringing you. Do not follow their practices. You must obey my laws and be careful to follow my decrees. I am the LORD your God. Keep my decrees and laws, for the man who obeys them will live by them. I am the LORD.

"'No one is to approach any close relative to have sexual relations. I am the LORD.

"'Do not dishonor your father by having sexual relations with your mother. She is your mother; do not have relations with her.

"'Do not have sexual relations with your father's wife; that would dishonor your father.

"'Do not have sexual relations with your sister, either your father's daughter or your mother's daughter, whether she was born in the same home or elsewhere.

"'Do not have sexual relations with your son's daughter or your daughter's daughter; that would dishonor you.

"'Do not have sexual relations with the daughter of your father's wife, born to your father; she is your sister.

"'Do not have sexual relations with your father's sister; she is your father's close relative.

"'Do not have sexual relations with your mother's sister, because she is your mother's close relative.

"'Do not dishonor your father's brother by approaching his wife to have sexual relations; she is your aunt.

"'Do not have sexual relations with your daughter-in-law. She is your son's wife; do not have relations with her.

"'Do not have sexual relations with your brother's wife; that would dishonor your brother.

"'Do not have sexual relations with both a woman and her daughter. Do not have sexual relations with either her son's daughter or her daughter's daughter; they are her close relatives. That is wickedness.

"'Do not take your wife's sister as a rival wife and have sexual relations with her while your wife is living.

"'Do not approach a woman to have sexual relations during the uncleanness of her monthly period.

"'Do not have sexual relations with your neighbor's wife and defile yourself with her.

"'Do not give any of your children to be sacrificed to Molech, for you must not profane the name of your God. I am the LORD.

"'Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable.

"'Do not have sexual relations with an animal and defile yourself with it. A woman must not present herself to an animal to have sexual relations with it; that is a perversion.

"'Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways, because this is how the nations that I am going to drive out before you became defiled. Even the land was defiled; so I punished it for its sin, and the land vomited out its inhabitants. But you must keep my decrees and my laws. The native-born and the aliens living among you must not do any of these detestable things, for all these things were done by the people who lived in the land before you, and the land became defiled. And if you defile the land, it will vomit you out as it vomited out the nations that were before you.

"'Everyone who does any of these detestable things—such persons must be cut off from their people. Keep my requirements and do not follow any of the detestable customs that were practiced before you came and do not defile yourselves with them. I am the LORD your God.' "

- Leviticus 18, emphasis added

I used to be kinda confused by this chapter. I always thought there was just something strange about the way it flowed: "Here's a big list of all the people you can't have sex with. And while we're at it, don't sacrifice your kids. Also, here are more people you can't have sex with."

But the thing is, it really makes sense once you recognize the conditional aspects of the morality being prescribed here. God is telling Israel not only that there are certain things that they, as the chosen people of a Holy God, cannot do, but He is also laying down a conditional aspect, telling Israel that the nations who were in Canaan before their arrival had been completely depraved people, sleeping with animals, having sex with their parents or children or even grandchildren, and sacrificing their children to Molech.

So Canaan has already become a place where the sacrifice of children is acceptable. Israel, now living among these Canaanite nations, has been seduced by the false gods of the surrounding nations (quite probably because they were also seduced by the temple prostitutes of those false gods). As time goes by, as the connection to the Mosaic covenant weakens in the hearts and minds of the Israelites, they begin to absorb the theology of the Canaanites on a cultural level, which replaced the cultural understanding of God that had been established during the time under Moses and Joshua.

So let's see who's been paying attention... In Judges 10, Israel has turned away from God, and has been conquered by the Ammonites. Take a guess at who the chief god of the Ammonites was.

On a hill east of Jerusalem, Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the detestable god of Moab, and for Molech the detestable god of the Ammonites.

- I Kings 11:7, emphasis added

So here we see that Israel is surrounded by a culture (the Ammonites) that practices the worship of a false god (Molech) which requires the sacrifice of children (which is completely horrible, and specifically forbidden by God on pain of land-vomit). We also see that God is allowing Israel to find their own way, testing them, to see if they will "keep the way of the LORD" or not.

Jephthah's view of how God works had been distorted by the culture he lived in. Jephthah believed that God, like Molech, was bound to the invocation of a worshiper. When someone made a sacrifice to Molech - or Ba'al, or Ashteroth, or Chemosh, or any of the other gods - it was with a sort of "payment" idea in mind. "If I slaughter this calf for Ba'al, that means that Ba'al is obligated to bless me with fertile crops this coming season." God didn't - and doesn't - work like that. Sacrifices were made to God in thanks for everything He had already done - like delivering the Israelites out of Egypt, bringing in good crops, or, you know, creating the universe - as well as sacrifices made for atonement of sins and sacrifices made just in praise and worship of the one true holy God.

So what happened? Israel fell away from God, embraced the culture of idol worship they were surrounded by, which in turn distorted their view of God when they tried to return to Him. Jephthah, operating under that distorted view, sacrifices his daughter. God does not stop Him, but allows Jephthah's truly awful sin to take place.

Jephthah's sin is so heinous, so abominable, so detestable, that the writer of Judges cannot even bring himself to write down what actually happened to Jephthah's daughter. Notice that in verse 39 it simply says that "he did to her as he had vowed."

BUT! There is something VERY important to notice here! Notice the last phrase of verse 39, and then verse 40.

From this comes the Israelite custom that each year the young women of Israel go out for four days to commemorate the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite.

What is this commemoration about? Is it a thankful celebration to the God who delivered Israel from her captors, taking only a young girl as His payment? Or is it a somber memorial of how far Israel had fallen away from God? Is it a ritual to help remind Israel of their own past sin? Is it a wake-up cry for the people of God to remember that not only have they been delivered from a life of slavery in Egypt, but that they have also been delivered out of a life of slavery to sin?

God called the Israelites to live as a holy and righteous people. Several times in Leviticus, God says, "I am the LORD your God; consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am holy." Their ethical behavior, specifically prescribed by God, was to be in pursuit of the holiness of God. The sacrifice of an innocent young girl was enough of a shock to wake Israel up, shake her out of her theological confusion, and bring her back closer to God.

Did God allow the sacrifice of Jephthah's daughter to happen? Well... He didn't stop it, so I guess that counts as "allowing" it, yeah... But God also allowed Eve to listen to the serpent, and Adam to listen to Eve - but they learned from it. God also allowed me to make all the many, many, many mistakes I've made in my life - but I've learned from them. So did God allow Israel - through Jephthah - to make a mistake? Yes. But they learned from that mistake.

Did God accept Jephthah's sacrifice? There's nothing in the story that suggests He did. In Judges 11:29, the "spirit of the LORD" has already come over Jephthah when he makes his foolish, rash vow. This vow, by the way, was already going to get Jephthah in trouble no matter what happened. By vowing to sacrifice "whatever," Jephthah is violating Levitical code, which specifically listed the requirements for what could and could not be sacrificed to God, as well as how the sacrifices were to be made. He's also violating the very spirit of sacrifice. God wants our sacrifice to be intentional, planned out, and deliberate... not just "Well, I'll give God whatever I've got laying around when I think of it."

We also see here the danger of allowing the mindset of the world to become intermingled with our faith. Are we as Christians today in danger of sacrificing our children as burnt offerings to God if we aren't listening to the pure truth of the Gospel? Well... Probably not.

But are we in danger of leading our children down paths that aren't where God intended for us to go? Very much so.

Joel Osteen has made a bajillion dollars telling people that a life of good Christian piety leads to worldly success. The Prayer of Jabez put forth the idea that if you just pray like a guy mentioned exactly one time ever in the entire Bible, you'll be able to have an enormous stock portfolio and 3 BMWs in the garage. And of course there is always just the idea that "God wants me to be happy!"

That's the world talking. That's not God.

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

- James 1:27, emphasis added

Make sure you know what you believe. Make sure you believe what you say you believe. Make sure you live what you believe. Love God, love others, and do it in that order. Anything else just slows you down.

I would like to extend very heartfelt and sincere thanks to my dear friend Peggy Thomas for all of her help on this one. I could not have written this without her. (Well, at least not the coherent and sensible parts - I got stupid covered just fine on my own, thanks.)