Who was Jephthah?

Son of Gilead by a 'strange woman.' Being turned out by his half-brothers he went into the land of Tob, where 'vain men' joined him, and went out with him, apparently as freebooters. But when the Ammonites attacked Israel, the men of Gilead called in the aid of this 'mighty man of valour.' He covenanted with them that if he was successful in the war he should be their head. After vainly seeking to divert the Ammonites from their unjust aggression, by maintaining that the Lord God of Israel had given them the land which Ammon now sought to possess, the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah, and he prepared for the war; but before the battle, he vowed that if the Lord would deliver the Ammonites into his hand he would on returning devote to the Lord whatever should first come out of his house to meet him.

The Ammonites were smitten with very great slaughter: he conquered twenty cities, for the Lord delivered them into his hand. On returning to his house, his daughter, his only child, came out to meet him. He rent his clothes, and was in deep trouble; but said he had opened his mouth to the Lord, and could not go back. His daughter coincided with this view, seeing that the Lord had taken vengeance on their enemies. Two months were occupied by her and her companions bewailing her virginity.

As to his daughter being really offered as a sacrifice, the vow was "I will offer it up for a burnt offering;" and at the end of the two months "she returned to her father, who did with her according to his vow which he had vowed:" which seems to imply that she was offered up as a sacrifice. If so, such a sacrifice would have been contrary to the law, only certain clean beasts and birds being eligible. One of these may have been offered for her in the spirit of Ex. 13:13 and Lev. 26: and she have been devoted to perpetual virginity. This to an Israelite would have been a sufficient calamity to account for Jephthah's grief. Judges 11.

On Tola and Jair (Judges 10) we need not pause; but in Jephthah again we have solemn issues brought out. But here again is found the same brand of what was worthless or untowardly in the instruments that God used in a day of declension "Jephthah the Gileadite," we are told in Judges 11, "was a mighty man of valour, and he was the son of an harlot." Abimelech was no doubt the son of a concubine; but here we descend lower still. Nevertheless he "was a mighty man of valour," who lived a kind of freebooter's life — the chief of a reckless company of outcasts and desperadoes. So low were things now in Israel, that even this man becomes an instrument of God's deliverance; and so evidently in all this was God stamping on the people His moral sentence of their state. He could not in their then condition employ vessels of greater moral worth. He plainly intended to testify to their state by the agents whom He used for their good. (Judges 11)

Nevertheless we learn even from the lowest He deigned to work by that, while doubtless there was a most humiliating condition in Israel, God's rights were maintained for His people. Jephthah takes the greatest pains to prove, when he comes forward, that he has clear right on his side. This is an important principle. It was not merely that the people were unworthily oppressed by the Ammonites, but Jephthah does not venture to go to war, nor does the Spirit of God clothe him with energy for the conflict, until he had the certainty in his soul that the cause was a righteous one, and this founded upon the dealings of God with the children of Israel and with Ammon respectively. This is exceedingly instructive.

Jephthah the judge who delivered Israel from the servitude of Ammon was the offspring of an unholy union "the son of an harlot." Then he became an outcast and had to flee from his brethren. He dwelt in the land of Tob (goodness) and vain, or worthless, men gathered unto him. Yet he was a mighty man of valor. He was therefore an humble instrument, despised and rejected by his own. But finally those who rejected him had to send for Jephthah to be their saviour from the hands of the children of Ammon. They had to own him as their leader, whom they had hated and cast out on account of his lowly birth. He reminds us of our Lord, who was hated by His own and who is yet to be their deliverer.

Jephthah means "he opens." Gilead , to which he belonged, means "witness." The enemy, Ammon, as we stated in the annotations of the previous chapter, typifies for us rationalism and the wicked errors connected with it, which distress the people of God. Here then we have in a simple yet blessed way the deliverance from those evils indicated. It needs "a true witness," one who "opens." The witness of an opened Word, the testimony of the Word of God and with it the Spirit of God, will make an end of error. It is the only true way to combat the wicked departures from the faith so prominent in the last days. How God in this book bears witness in types to the one remedy for all the declensions and backslidings of His people! Othniel has Debir "the Word"; Ehud with his sword, the sword of the Spirit; Shamgar and his oxgoad; Deborah and Lapidoth, the Word and the Spirit; the barley loaf which smote down Midian's tent and Jephthah, the one who opens, the true witness.

There was one man whose capacities for leadership stood out above others in Israel, Jephthah a Gileadite, but he was not popular, being the son of a prostitute (v. 1). His father's wife had sons who, when they grew up, refused to own Jephthah as their brother and expelled him from any inheritance in his father's house (v. 2). Of course Jephthah's birth was not his fault, but his father's. But this made no difference to his brothers.

Jephthah went to the land of Tob, evidently east of Gilead, and there his abilities attracted the following of unwholesome characters (v. 3). They "went out" together, likely as a band of marauders, by which means Jephthah evidently made a name for himself.

When Ammon then came to make war against Israel, the elders of Gilead went to Tob to urge Jephthah to consent to be their commander to fight against Ammon (vv. 4-6). Jephthah reminded them that they had shown hatred toward him by expelling him from his father's house, and he asks why then were they coming to him when they were in distress (v. 7). Thy had no real answer except that now they were turning back to him to ask him to be their head in fighting against Ammon (v. 8)

Jephthah and his Daughter (Judges 11)

In verses 1‑11 the deliverer comes on the scene. He bears the stamp of infirmity, so often found throughout this book. Jephthah, the Gileadite, was "a mighty man of valour," but of impure origin, the son of an harlot, the remembrance of which could not fail to fill him with shame. Nevertheless God used him, yea much more than this, presents to us, through him, some of the characteristics of Christ.

The men of Ephraim then gathered themselves together and complained that Jephthah had not called them to the war, beginning a quarrel, which ended with the death of 42,000 of the Ephraimites. Jephthah judged Israel six years. Judges 12:1-7.

The history of Jephthah shows how Israel had fallen in having recourse to the captain of a troop of 'vain men.' Jephthah suffered severely through his rash vow, and he had not wisdom and humility to appease the anger of Ephraim. God did not desert His people, but their low state is very manifest. 1 Sam. 12:11. The faith of Jephthae is spoken of in Heb. 11:32. He maintained the title of God's people to the inheritance God had given them.

Israel, without a leader, have recourse to the captain of a troop of "vain men," and promise to obey him if he will put himself at their head. Jephthah consents. But although this was a deliverance, yet we see in it all how deeply Israel had fallen. Jephthah himself suffers cruelly from his rash vow; and, moreover, when the pride of the Ephraimites led them to complain that they had not been treated with due respect, the calmness and wisdom of one who knew Jehovah as Gideon did, were not found in Jephthah. What a difference between these days and those of Joshua! God multiplies His deliverances; but this has no effect on the unbelief of the people, and their condition continues to grow worse and worse (Judges 11, 12).

We see the bitter grief of a father's heart in Jephthah. He was truly a man of faith, and is listed among the "faithful" in Hebrews 11. But it was his own folly in making a rash and hasty vow that brought such bitter trouble on him, even the loss of his only child.

How often we parents fail as Jephthah failed! How often we utter a rash or impatient word! A word that we would give anything to recall, but it is too late. The damage has been done.

After having thus completely refuted his claim over the land on the ground of its being Ammonite, whereas in point of fact it had been won from them by the Amorite, and as such had passed into Israel's hand, now he gives them a warning from the blows that God had inflicted on a mightier king than himself. "Art thou any thing better than Balak the son of Zippor, king of Moab? did he ever strive against Israel, or did he ever fight against them, while Israel dwelt in Heshbon and her towns, and in Aroer and her towns, and in all the cities that be along by the coasts of Arnon, three hundred years?" Thus it was proved that Israel had, in whatever light regarded, a valid title, not only from long-continued possession, but from a right founded on their conquest of one of the enemies devoted to destruction by God Himself, but an enemy who had wantonly attacked them, when they would have left him unharmed, as they would the Ammonite now. In every point of view therefore the ground taken by Israel was solid, and could not be disputed righteously. The king of Ammon had no just claim whatever.

Being thus proved to be in arms without right, the king of Ammon was only so much the more fierce, as is usual with people when convicted of a wrong to which their will is engaged. "Then the Spirit of Jehovah came upon Jephthah, and he passed over Gilead, and Manasseh, and passed over Mizpeh of Gilead, and from Mizpeh of Gilead he passed over to the children of Ammon. And Jephthah vowed a vow to Jehovah." Here the rashness of the man enters the scene, the consequence of which is a display of what was painful in the extreme. We have had the power of God acting in deliverance, but man alone is incapable even of a safe vow to Jehovah; and who could fail to foresee the bitter fruit of rashness here? Man is as weak and erring as God is mighty and good: these two things characterise the book from beginning to end. So in this rash vow says Jephthah, "it shall be that whatsoever," etc. The same word means whosoever. There is no difference as to form. I do not myself doubt that it was put in the broadest way. "It shall be that whatsoever comes forth of the doors of my house to meet me." He could, if he had reflected, hardly expect an ox or a sheep to walk out of the house. It was quite evident therefore that Jephthah was guilty of the greatest rashness in his vow. "Whatsoever comes forth of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, shall surely be Jehovah's, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering." What came out we know too well. It was his daughter and I do not doubt that he, in his determined unbending spirit, fulfilled his vow.

All are aware there are a great many who try to explain the difficulty away or soften it down. They need not be at the trouble. Scripture does not in any way vouch for the immaculateness of those even who wrought in faith. It does not throw a veil, as man loves to do, over that which is uncomely and distressing in those that bear the name of the Lord; especially as the very object the Spirit of God has here in view is to show the frightful results of a vow so little weighed before God, not at all drawn from His guidance. On the other hand, is there not real beauty in the obscurity in which Scripture treats a matter so painful? We know that men make it a question for ingenious minds to speculate on. The spiritual man understands how it was. As the vow was without God, so an issue was permitted most offensive to the Holy Spirit. We can easily therefore comprehend how the holy wisdom of Scripture avoids details on a fact so contrary to the mind of God, as a man dealing thus with a human being, yea, with his own daughter. It seems to me then that the reserve of the Holy Spirit is as strikingly according to God as the rashness of Jephthah is a solemn warning to man.

(4) As to Jephthah's vow, there seem haste and failure in it, but surely not the human sacrifice that many have imagined. Most recent commentators agree in this, and believe that his daughter was simply consecrated to God, to live an unmarried life, as verses 37-39 seem plainly to show. There is not a word about death in her case, save what is supposed to be involved in the 31st verse, "I will offer it up a burnt-offering." But Jephthah's words to the king of Ammon show him to be acquainted with the law; and by the law such an offering was forbidden as an abomination. (Lev. 18:21, etc.) No altar could have been found for it; no priest would have performed it; and the two months of mourning on the mountains would have given ample time for the news of the contemplated sacrifice to have spread far in Israel. To suppose that under the circumstances he could have been ignorant of the law, or that, knowing it, he could have had such a passion to sacrifice the daughter he loved, as in the face of it to persevere in offering to Jehovah an abomination that He hated, seems incredible enough. Everything is against the perpetration of such a crime; and the Hebrew certainly allows the translation of or "instead of" and I will offer it." "The great Jewish commentators of the Middle Ages," says Edersheim, "have, in opposition to the Talmud, pointed out that these two last clauses are not identical. It is never said of an animal burnt-offering that it should be to Jehovah, — for the simple reason that as a burnt-offering it is such. But where human beings are offered to Jehovah, there the expression is used, as in the case of the first-born among Israel and of Levi (Num. 3:12-13). But in these cases it has never been suggested that there was actual human sacrifice." He urges, as do others: "If the loving daughter had devoted herself to death, it is next to incredible that she should have wished to have spent the two months of life conceded to her, not with her broken-hearted father, but in the mountains with her companions."

After all, the word does not actually mean, in Hebrew, "burnt-offering," but simply an "offering that ascends" — all ascends — to God. And this makes a great difference. Jephthah did not pledge himself that the offering should be burnt, though that were the way in which an animal sacrifice would "ascend." I have felt a necessity, therefore, of omitting this word from the translation. It is probably all that is really needed to avoid the difficulty.