Jephthah`s Daughter
By William L. Hendricks
[Dr. Hendricks is Director of the Baptist Studies Program and Lecturer in Theology at the Brite Divinity School of Texas Christian University in Fort Worth.]
Grace and Peace from our Lord Jesus Christ.
The Old Testament lesson is Judges 11:29-40.
29Then the spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah, and he passed over Gil`-e-ad, and Ma-nas`-seh, and passed over Mizpeh of Gilead, and from Mizpeh of Gilead he passed over unto the children of Ammon. 30And Jephthah vowed a vow unto the Lord, and said, If thou shalt without fail deliver the children of Ammon into mine hands, 31Then it shall be, that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, shall surely be the Lord`s, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering. 32So Jephthah passed over unto the children of Ammon to fight against them; and the Lord delivered them into his hands. 33And he smote them from A-ro`-er, even till thou come to Minnith, even twenty cities, and unto the plain of the vineyards, with a very great slaughter. Thus the children of Ammon were subdued before the children of Israel. 34And Jephthah came to Mizpeh unto his house, and, behold, his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances: and she was his only child; beside her he had neither son nor daughter. 35And it came to pass, when he saw her, that he rent his clothes, and said, Alas, my daughter! thou hast brought me very low, and thou art one of them that trouble me: for I have opened my mouth unto the Lord, and I cannot go back. 36And she said unto him, My father, if thou hast opened thy mouth unto the Lord, do to me according to that which hath proceeded out of thy mouth; forasmuch as the Lord hath taken vengeance for thee of shine enemies, even of the children of Ammon. 37And she said unto her father, Let this thing be done for me: let me alone two months, that I may go up and down upon the mountains, and bewail my virginity, I and my fellows. 38And he said, Go. And he sent her away for two months, and she went with her companions, and bewailed her virginity upon the mountains. 39And it came to pass at the end of two months, that she returned unto her father, who did with her according to his vow which he had vowed: and she knew no man. And it was a custom in Israel, 40That the daughters of Israel went yearly to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gil`-e-ad-ite four days in a year.
The New Testament lesson is Hebrews 11:32-34.
32And what shall I more say? for the time would fail me to tell of Gideon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jeph`-thae of David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets: 33Who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, 34Quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens.
Today we`re reading a passage of Scripture that is perfectly terrible. It`s really ghastly. Why on earth would I choose a text like that? Because it`s in the Bible And the Bible is not a sanitized book. Let me rehearse the story with you with a few embellishments. You remember Jephthah. He was the mighty judge in Israel. He was right after Zair who had thirty sons and a mule for each to ride on. At some point I should speak of the ministry and wealth, but we`ll save that for another time. After Jephthah was Ibzan who had 30 sons and 30 daughters, which seems a bit much. And he married each of them to someone else so that there were 120 of them. But as for Jephthah, he had one daughter. The story didn`t begin well. Jephthah father was a mighty man in Israel, but his mother was a harlot. Does that simply mean that she was not an Israelite? No, I think it means what it says. How`s that for a Seminary professor? I really do think it means what it says and if Jephthah had been a girl, she would have gone with her mother, but since he was the first born son, he stayed with his father. The father went on to marry a decent woman, or several of them according to the custom of the day; and they had sons of their own. Bad news for Jephthah. I can see him trailing after one of his stepmothers when they were going to the village well and the nudgers would say, "There goes that little `you know what`." They never tired of telling him growing up-the village voices, and the brothers and the sisters and the outrageous stepmothers who had to bear with him-"You`ll never amount to anything!" He took them seriously. He turned out to be a real rounder. He was wild, uninhibited. Finally his brothers said to him, "You get out of here. You are an embarrassment to our family. You will not inherit our father`s lands. We want nothing to do with you. Go!" He did and dwelt in a cave with a bunch of riotous folks; and they were real outlaws robbing decent citizens and caravans, and all that sort of thing. Carousing and drunkenness….It was just awful. This was the life of Jephthah and his band.
Then Israel got in trouble with the Ammonites. The Israelites had forgotten how to fight, so they said, "Let`s hire some mercenaries." They asked, "Where can we find mercenaries?" Finally, in the City Council meeting where all of Jephthah`s stepbrothers were, a voice suggested, "Why don`t we go hire Jephthah?" What an awful idea, yet halitosis is better than no breath at allso they went out, a group of them, including, I suspect, his stepbrothers, the good folk of earth.
Now Hollywood has done some awful things with the Bible, but they really missed it with this one. They ought to have done Jephthah. I can see the young Charlton Heston up in his caves when one of his henchmen came back to say, "Guess who`s coming to dinner?" The negotiating committee marched in somewhat suspiciously drawing their robes around them and said, "We have a business proposition for you." Jephthah said, "What can I do for you, gentlemen? I`m sorry there are not enough places to sit down." And they said, "We`re not going to stay that long. We want to hire you to fight the Ammonites." And Jephthah said, "OK, on one condition. That when I return home triumphant, that I will get to be mayor." Oh, my soul! There was a quaint custom in ancient Israelwhen you were grieving or displeased, you would actually tear your robes. There was much ripping of the threads. It`s one thing to ask somebody like that to work for you. It`s another to tell him he can be mayor when he comes home.
So, he took the assignment. And then on the night before the battle, he prayed. May I reconstruct that scene? "Yahweh, Holy One. This is Jephthah." "Who?" replied God. "Jephthah. I need your help. If you will help me with the battle, when I come back to my house in townhe hadn`t given up all of his possessionsI will give you whoever comes out of my door first as a burnt offering."
So, he went on and fought the battle. And he won. And he came home. He would have expected his farm superintendentthey`re not easy to come byto have come out of his house first with his robe and his symbols of honor. But around his superintendent, who should have been first, skipped out Jephthah`s lovely, lithesome, charming daughter. And Jephthah said, "Oh, do you know what you`ve done to me?" Small potatoes as to what he would do to her. "Do you know what you have done to me?"the typical parental response! And he said, "I made a vow to God and I cannot go back on it." Most of us would have said Kings X…I didn`t mean it…not this one. And she said, "OK, Dad. But first let me go up into the mountains to meditate and to mourn what life could have been." And so she did, and she came back. That was her first mistake. We would have kept on going. And she said if that`s what you vowed, that`s what you`ve got to do. And he burned the girl. And it was terrible.
Now the commentators are always trying to spare God. Some of them suggest that this is a story to account for why the ancient Israelites had a four-day maiden festival in the spring. They assume, therefore, that the story was contrived, made up. Well, the problem with that is none of the other stories in Judges seem to be made up. I really think this is a horrific experience. And by this time, having rehearsed the story for you, you are saying, "What`s that doing in the Bible?"
Well, there are some things we could learn from this account on a Father`s Day. You say, "What, for Heaven`s sake?" The first lesson is about child rearing. `Tisn`t easy. Do not tell children they will not amount to anything. They will take you seriously and they will not disappoint you. If that`s what you load them with all of the time, "You`re no good for this and you`re no good for that," they`ll hear you and they`ll begin to believe you. And that`s tragic. Jephthah is a horrible example of this having been constantly put down. A second lesson we may learn from this passage is that people who don`t know God and are not very close to God, often tend to take God very seriously. I`ve seen a lot of these people. The sons and daughters of men who, not having been to the altar so much as good folks tend to think that they should have been, actually do for God what they say they will do. They tend to think God will help them. For example, they tend to think that when they request prayer for the sick, that we will offer prayers which will make a difference. The good folk of earth often do not tend to take God very seriously. The ungodly often take God more seriously than believers. That`s an indictment to those of us who build the fire on the altar and hover over the weak flames.
The major question rising from this passage is: Why did God tell Jephthah to burn his daughter? And my response is, you weren`t listening to the text. Like some of my students, you get your exercise jumping at conclusions. If you read your text very carefully, God didn`t have anything to do with it. There`s the awesome silence of Heaven. This was Jephthah`s hasty vow and God was not in it. So there! This story can teach us to wait upon the Lord and let God`s conditions, which are always more gracious than our own, be our pattern of action.
Moreoverthis one is for the ladieswe`re always finding types of Christ in the Old Testament and we`re always looking to Isaac whom Abraham was going to sacrifice. I would point out that if you are really looking for a type of Christ in the Old Testament, it`s Jephthah`s daughter. Isaac didn`t feel the knife. We need to reflect upon the fact that some people take God seriously and do atrocious things in God`s name. We are outraged about this text being in the Bible. Have you spared a little of your outrage for the morning newspapers? Week after week after week, we are pushing down upon the childrenthe quotient of violence, and in turn, children and young people are returning violence to the adult community in unprecedented numbers. It is the violence to the young and from the young that I would speak about today especially.
Do not sow a climate of violence, verbal or physical, in the home. It only breeds more violence. It is a particularly tragic thing that I should mention it in as tasteful a way as possible that one of the major crimes of the modern world is the abuse of daughters. How tragic. How awful. There must be a special relationship between fathers and daughters; and when that is abused in any way, it bears terrible fruit. I would beseech you to guard your children`s lives carefully. Jephthah`s daughter is an overly dramatic case of parental violence. But there have been other instances in which the lives of daughters have been permanently ruined by male parents or grandfathers. There is currently a novel, The Rapture of Cannan, among those who are reading widely in modern literature that draws out the awful implications of what happens when you have bad religion in men who think they are God. And quite candidly, I want to say to you today, Jephthah`s story can sensitize us to the teachings of being good to our children. Of wanting the best for them, although, we can in some ways, by our own ambitions, put them upon a fire of misconception all their lives. Some people never get over trying to please their parents. I saw such a man in his mid-thirties. His pastor said to me, "Did you see the scars on his wrist?" I said "No." He said, "His father put those there." I said, "His father must be a big man. He`s quite a good sized fellow himself." He said, "Oh, no, it`s just that he was Junior and he`ll always be Junior and he came to believe he would never amount to anything; and in his despair of trying to please his father, he himself in an attempted suicide put those scars on his wrists." It is not easy parenting today. And young people, have a little sympathy. Let up a little, will you?
We, as parents, should know that we can sacrifice our children on the altar of our own ambitions. We push our sons and daughters wanting so much success in this measure or that measure or the other measure. We work so hard pushing our children to become something young persons are not intended to be. A kind word for fathers; most of you have tried very hard. Good for you. But be sure you let the twig grow the way it is inclined to grow.
Now the beautiful lesson is that in the New Testament, we find a remarkable word that Jephthah is one of the heroes of faith. How interesting. He died about six years after this incident, whereas judges on either side of him judged Israel for many years, but Jephthah lived only six more years.
This is a passage from Israel`s adolescence. Israel and the nations were doing living sacrifices and victims at every point. This immolation would not have been so unusual for that day. But, what I would like for us to see is that the parallels of our own time do not have to do often with such a dramatic outcome. We simply bend and turn and manipulate our children so that the rest of their lives, they`re on an altar of our making.
Now the most beautiful and redeeming factor is, Jephthah does show up in the New Testament. It is a great word of grace. Jephthah is honored for his military conquest in Israel and known for his unfortunate home life. But in Jesus Christ, we find the final sacrifice dealing with a father and a son. In the New Testament we`re dealing with a unique relationship, for both God and Jesus are involved with the power of the Spirit enduring the deed which is Jesus` redemptive act on our behalf. We don`t have to worry about sacrificing things anymore. The perfect pattern has come with love and forgiveness. My last word is if Jephthah can make it into the New Testament, maybe we serve a God who forgives our mistakes, who does not require from us some of the fantastic things that people say God told me to do. God doesn`t tell parents to do this kind of thing. So, on Father`s Day, rejoice. If your father made mistakes, it`s human, forgive him. If your father did many fine and good things for you, remember him. I would use the patriarchal term today, remember that all of us have been graced with the Heavenly Father whose love and kindness and consideration, will often let us burn ourselves on the altars of our own lust, but in reality will never let go of us and never cease to love us and never ask us for the ultimate sacrifice which God`s own self through Jesus Christ has given to us.
Wishing you a happy Father`s Day, this is a word from the Lord.
