Straight Dope on Medicine: Jephthah

Author

Scott Ganser
March 25, 2024

Tola and Jair

10 1After Abimelech there arose to save Israel Tola the son of Puah, son of Dodo, a man of Issachar, and he lived at Shamir in the hill country of Ephraim. 2 And he judged Israel twenty-three years. Then he died and was buried at Shamir.

3 After him arose Jair the Gileadite, who judged Israel twenty-two years. 4 And he had thirty sons who rode on thirty donkeys, and they had thirty cities, called Havvoth-jair to this day, which are in the land of Gilead. 5 And Jair died and was buried in Kamon.

Further Disobedience and Oppression

6 The people of Israel again did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals and the Ashtaroth, the gods of Syria, the gods of Sidon, the gods of Moab, the gods of the Ammonites, and the gods of the Philistines. And they forsook the Lord and did not serve him. 7  So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he sold them into the hand of the Philistines and into the hand of the Ammonites, 8  and they crushed and oppressed the people of Israel that year. For eighteen years they oppressed all the people of Israel who were beyond the Jordan in the land of the Amorites, which is in Gilead. 9  And the Ammonites crossed the Jordan to fight also against Judah and against Benjamin and against the house of Ephraim, so that Israel was severely distressed.

The Ammonites were Semitic people who were strongly associated with the Hebrews by lineage and language. They dwelt in the country of Ammon driving out the Zamzummims or Zuzims who inhabited the land until their arrival.

Their chief god was Ammi or Ammon. The Bible mentions Milcom and Molech as the national gods of Ammon to whom they were offering human sacrifices.[i]

Its ancient capital city was Rabbah or Rabbath-Ammon which is now the capital of Jordan

Jordan’s capital city of Amman, which was referred to as "Ammon" and "Philadelphia" in the holy Bible, has had immense importance throughout history. During the Iron Age, present day Amman was known as “Rabbath-Ammon” and it was the capital city of the ancient Ammonite people.

(Present day Amman)[ii]

(Citadel, Amman)

Today, the historic site of the Citadel that is located on a hill in Amman’s downtown area is home to the remains and incredible creations of these past civilizations that occupied Jordan’s capital city. At the site, visitors can explore remains of the Temple of Hercules which was built by the Romans as well as buildings that formed part of the Umayyad Palace and ruins of a sixth century Byzantine church.

Deuteronomy 21:24. Ammonites as the descendants of Lot.

Deuteronomy 2:20-21. The Ammonites expelled the Rephaites or the Zamzummites who dwelt in the land before them.

Deuteronomy 23:3. The people of Ammon and Moab could not enter the assembly of God to the tenth generation.

Who were the Philistines?

The Philistines originated from the island of Crete in the Aegean Sea. They were a civilization known for being voyagers who then migrated to the Holy Land sometime during the twelfth century BC, during the collapse of the Late Bronze Age and the start of the Iron Age.

10 And the people of Israel cried out to the Lord, saying, “We have sinned against you, because we have forsaken our God and have served the Baals.” 11  And the Lord said to the people of Israel, “Did I not save you from the Egyptians and from the Amorites, from the Ammonites and from the Philistines? 12  The Sidonians also, and the Amalekites and the Maonites oppressed you, and you cried out to me, and I saved you out of their hand. 13  Yet you have forsaken me and served other gods; therefore I will save you no more. 14  Go and cry out to the gods whom you have chosen; let them save you in the time of your distress.” 15  And the people of Israel said to the Lord, “We have sinned; do to us whatever seems good to you. Only please deliver us this day.” 16  So they put away the foreign gods from among them and served the Lord, and he became impatient over the misery of Israel.

17 Then the Ammonites were called to arms, and they encamped in Gilead. And the people of Israel came together, and they encamped at Mizpah. 18 And the people, the leaders of Gilead, said one to another, “Who is the man who will begin to fight against the Ammonites? He shall be head over all the inhabitants of Gilead.”

Jephthah Delivers Israel

11 Now Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty warrior, but he was the son of a prostitute. Gilead was the father of Jephthah. 2 And Gilead's wife also bore him sons. And when his wife's sons grew up, they drove Jephthah out and said to him, “You shall not have an inheritance in our father's house, for you are the son of another woman.” 3 Then Jephthah fled from his brothers and lived in the land of Tob, and worthless fellows collected around Jephthah and went out with him.

Jephthah Was a Warrior and Judge, But a Tragic Figure

Profile of Jephthah, A Reject Who Became a Leader[iii]

4 After a time the Ammonites made war against Israel. 5 And when the Ammonites made war against Israel, the elders of Gilead went to bring Jephthah from the land of Tob. 6 And they said to Jephthah, “Come and be our leader, that we may fight against the Ammonites.” 7 But Jephthah said to the elders of Gilead, “Did you not hate me and drive me out of my father's house? Why have you come to me now when you are in distress?” 8 And the elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, “That is why we have turned to you now, that you may go with us and fight against the Ammonites and be our head over all the inhabitants of Gilead.” 9 Jephthah said to the elders of Gilead, “If you bring me home again to fight against the Ammonites, and the Lord gives them over to me, I will be your head.” 10  And the elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, “The Lord will be witness between us, if we do not do as you say.” 11  So Jephthah went with the elders of Gilead, and the people made him head and leader over them. And Jephthah spoke all his words before the Lord at Mizpah.

Rescue us and you have the right to lead us. God deserves to be Lord.

12 Then Jephthah sent messengers to the king of the Ammonites and said, “What do you have against me, that you have come to me to fight against my land?” 13 And the king of the Ammonites answered the messengers of Jephthah, “Because Israel on coming up from Egypt took away my land, from the Arnon to the Jabbok and to the Jordan; now therefore restore it peaceably.” 14 Jephthah again sent messengers to the king of the Ammonites 15 and said to him, “Thus says Jephthah: Israel did not take away the land of Moab or the land of the Ammonites, 16 but when they came up from Egypt, Israel went through the wilderness to the Red Sea and came to Kadesh.

17 Israel then sent messengers to the king of Edom, saying, ‘Please let us pass through your land,’ but the king of Edom would not listen. And they sent also to the king of Moab, but he would not consent. So Israel remained at Kadesh.

18 “Then they journeyed through the wilderness and went around the land of Edom and the land of Moab and arrived on the east side of the land of Moab and camped on the other side of the Arnon. But they did not enter the territory of Moab, for the Arnon was the boundary of Moab. 19 Israel then sent messengers to Sihon king of the Amorites, king of Heshbon, and Israel said to him, ‘Please let us pass through your land to our country,’ 20 but Sihon did not trust Israel to pass through his territory, so Sihon gathered all his people together and encamped at Jahaz and fought with Israel. 21 And the Lord, the God of Israel, gave Sihon and all his people into the hand of Israel, and they defeated them. So Israel took possession of all the land of the Amorites, who inhabited that country. 22  And they took possession of all the territory of the Amorites from the Arnon to the Jabbok and from the wilderness to the Jordan. 23  So then the Lord, the God of Israel, dispossessed the Amorites from before his people Israel; and are you to take possession of them? 24  Will you not possess what Chemosh your god gives you to possess? And all that the Lord our God has dispossessed before us, we will possess.

Jephthah's Tragic Vow

29 Then the Spirit of the Lord was upon Jephthah, and he passed through Gilead and Manasseh and passed on to Mizpah of Gilead, and from Mizpah of Gilead he passed on to the Ammonites. 30 And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord and said, “If you will give the Ammonites into my hand, 31  then whatever[a] comes out from the doors of my house to meet me when I return in peace from the Ammonites shall be the Lord's, and I will offer it[b] up for a burnt offering.” 32 So Jephthah crossed over to the Ammonites to fight against them, and the Lord gave them into his hand. 33  And he struck them from Aroer to the neighborhood of Minnith, twenty cities, and as far as Abel-keramim, with a great blow. So the Ammonites were subdued before the people of Israel.

Before going into battle, Jephthah made a vow to God that if the Lord gave him victory over the Ammonites, Jephthah would make a burnt offering of the first thing he saw coming out of his house after the war. In those times, the Jews often kept animals stabled in a ground-floor enclosure, while the family lived on the second floor.

 He led the Gileadite army to destroy 20 Ammonite towns.

34 Then Jephthah came to his home at Mizpah. And behold, his daughter came out to meet him with tambourines and with dances. She was his only child; besides her he had neither son nor daughter. 35 And as soon as he saw her, he tore his clothes and said, “Alas, my daughter! You have brought me very low, and you have become the cause of great trouble to me. For I have opened my mouth to the Lord, and I cannot take back my vow.”

Did Jephthah kill his daughter?

Answer: We don’t know.

Jephthah’s daughter is the victim of her father’s vow to sacrifice a person in return for victory in battle, although the text does not explicitly state that he killed her.[iv]

Another take on the indiscreet vow is that she sacrificed herself by remaining unmarried and a virgin.

A third take, a non-killing one, is that Jephthah dedicated his daughter to the Lord.[v] This is the nice option. He definitely would have satisfied “shall be the Lord’s” without taking her life.

Some biblical characters are savage, and killing was not a peculiar thing.

Judges 9 ESV

 5 And he (Abimelech) went to his father's house at Ophrah and killed his brothers the sons of Jerubbaal, seventy men, on one stone. But Jotham the youngest son of Jerubbaal was left, for he hid himself. 6 And all the leaders of Shechem came together, and all Beth-millo, and they went and made Abimelech king, by the oak of the pillar at Shechem.

1 Samuel 22 ESV

17 And the king (Saul) said to the guard who stood about him, “Turn and kill the priests of the Lord, because their hand also is with David, and they knew that he fled and did not disclose it to me.” But the servants of the king would not put out their hand to strike the priests of the Lord. 18 Then the king said to Doeg, “You turn and strike the priests.” And Doeg the Edomite turned and struck down the priests, and he killed on that day eighty-five persons who wore the linen ephod. 19 And Nob, the city of the priests, he put to the sword; both man and woman, child and infant, ox, donkey and sheep, he put to the sword.

Numbers 30 tells us about the gravity of taking vows, especially taking them to the Lord.

If a man makes a vow to the Lord, or takes an oath to bind himself with a binding obligation, he shall not violate his word; he shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth.

Release from vows.

There are instances when people are released from vows. These explicitly involve women who make rash vows, and either their husbands or fathers have to nullify them.

Also if a woman makes a vow to the Lord, and binds herself by an obligation in her father’s house in her youth, and her father hears her vow and her obligation by which she has bound herself, and her father says nothing to her, then all her vows shall stand and every obligation by which she has bound herself shall stand. But if her father should forbid her on the day he hears of it, none of her vows or her obligations by which she has bound herself shall stand; and the Lord will forgive her because her father had forbidden her.

But if on the day her husband hears of it, he forbids her, then he shall annul her vow which she is under and the rash statement of her lips by which she has bound herself; and the Lord will forgive her.

No such out is spelled out for men.

It might be the case that some spiritual authority like a rabbi or pastor could nullify the rash vow of a man, but this is a bit contrived. No direct supporting proof text exists for it, it would be by extension. At the very least, two of God’s precepts are in conflict: 1) Don’t break your vows to the Lord 2) God forbids child sacrifice. In Jepthah’s vow, he would necessarily be breaking one of those, no matter what he chose.

In such a case, I would argue to opt for what God prefers. The stupid vow violates God’s principles on its face. God never called for anyone to make a human sacrifice, ever. And the proof of that is Abram and Isaac. God provided a substitute.

Kol Nidrei (all vows in Hebrew) is a mass culling of vows taken by Jews.[vi]

All vows, prohibitions, oaths, consecrations, restrictions, interdictions or equivalent expressions of vows, which I may vow, swear, dedicate, or which I may proscribe for myself or for others... Let our vows not be considered vows...

What is the context?

The words of the Kol Nidre prayer refer to cancelling vows. In medieval Spain, Jews were forced at sword-point to swear that they will abandon Judaism. It is said that on Yom Kippur they would gather together and formally cancel any such vows, past or future. They could then pray on the Sacred Day with a clear conscience.

Conclusion:

The time of the Judges, about 410 years, sandwiched between the Exodus and the first king of Isael, Saul, was the ancient equivalent of the wild, wild west.

Judges 21:25

 In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

Typically, what was “right in his own eyes” was profound wickedness in the eyes of God.

 

Still, God was faithful through it all, and brought a new nation into being- Israel.

Sometimes He worked with pusillanimous individuals like Gideon and Barak, but then he also utilized Jephthah and Samson.

It’s not a good idea to try and manipulate God, or bribe Him. Trying to be pious by making it a vow does not clean it up or make it better. It might even make it worse. Don’t do it. Let your yes be yes and your no, no. When choosing between a vow and the explicit word of God, go with the word of God. God wants us to preserve life and not murder. He put it into a commandment. God did not say offer vows to try to get on My good side.

All sides of God are good.