EXPOSITORY ARTICLE | Jeremy Diestelkamp | Toronto, Ontario
The Misunderstood Judge, Hebrews 11:32
It is not too difficult to understand why the writer of Hebrews, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, selected who he did as men of faith in the first 31 verses of Hebrews eleven. Abel and Enoch were exemplary men who believed in and obeyed God before the flood. Noah and his family were the only ones saved by God’s grace from the flood when Noah obeyed God by building an ark. Abraham and Sarah were faithful by leaving their own country and moving to a strange country that they were told would become an inheritance to their descendants, despite having no children and Sarah being past child-bearing years at the time. Moses was faithful by deciding to suffer with his people and lead them out of Egypt rather than enjoying the pleasures of sin for a season. Rahab was a faithful woman by hiding the spies, and then sending them out another way (though lying to do so was not justified). These were all men and women of old that we would have selected as those whose faith we should emulate.
And then you come to verse thirty-two and get to men like Gideon, Samson, Barak and Jephthah. All of these were are described as men of faith, and yet all of them are extremely flawed. Gideon and Barak lived around the same time, when the men in Israel had a lack of courage to do what must be done. Gideon had to be thoroughly convinced by God that God would deliver Israel, while Barak needed the encouragement of Deborah before he led Israel into battle. Samson was a man with a violent temper who had a weakness with women which led to the source of his physical strength being discovered by the enemy, resulting in his capture and death. These specific traits are not ones that Christians should copy, and the Hebrew writer isn’t suggesting that we do. Why are these men held up as men of faith? Because in the end, they believed in God, and they believed that God is a rewarder of them that diligently seek them (Hebrews 11:6). All three of these men, in spite of their flaws, did obey God’s commands, and did defeat Israel’s enemies with God’s help. That kind of attitude is what we are called on to follow.
What then of Jephthah? Perhaps what Jephthah is most remembered for is his foolish vow, and while that vow I believe is largely misunderstood (something we will discuss later), there’s more to Jephthah than his vow, and that something more, is the reason he is included here in Hebrews 11. If you were to look at Jephthah and judge him by his appearance and backstory, let’s just say, he is not likely a man that we would want our daughters to date. He was the son of a prostitute, who was kicked out of the house by his brothers because they didn’t want to share their inheritance with him (Judges 11:1-2). This caused him to make his living as a pirate, where he along with some other men raided the surrounding villages (Judges 11:3). Judging by appearances would lead us to condemn a man like Jephthah, and maybe even not see him as likely to obey the Gospel. And yet, God lifted this man up to be a judge in Israel. Why? Well, it wasn’t because he was a pirate, for the ten commandments told Israel that they were not to steal. It was because of his faith in God.
The reason that Israel needed a judge in the first place is because of a land dispute between the eastern tribes of Israel and people of Ammon. Back in the days of Moses, Israel had come up after their forty years of wilderness wandering and sought passage through Amorite land bordering the Ammonite territory to the west. Sihon of the Amorites refused and was subsequently defeated, with Israel taking control of this Amorite land. The tribe of Reuben would later inherit much of this land. Fast forward about three hundred years, and the Ammonites decided that Israel didn’t deserve to be controlling land east of the Jordan, for that land should belong to them. Now of course, the Ammonites didn’t control the land Israel had won in battle, but little things like facts have never stopped countries before if they really want something. In rebuffing the advances of the Ammonites, listen to how Jephthah described the past Israelite victory:
“And the Lord God of Israel delivered Sihon and all his people into the hand of Israel, and they defeated them. Thus Israel gained possession of all the land of the Amorites, who inhabited that country. They took possession of all the territory of the Amorites, from the Arnon to the Jabbok and from the wilderness to the Jordan. ‘And now the Lord God of Israel has dispossessed the Amorites from before His people Israel; should you then possess it? Will you not possess whatever Chemosh your god gives you to possess? So whatever the Lord our God takes possession of before us, we will possess.” (Judges 11:21-24).
Jephthah was a man who believed in God. He believed that God led Israel out of Egypt. He believed that God protected Israel from her enemies. And he believed that God gave Israel the promised land, and if God gave it to Israel, who were the Ammonites to think that they could simply take away that which God gave? This faith also caused Jephthah to trust that if the Lord had rewarded Israel in the past for diligently seeking Him that he would reward her again, if they diligently sought Him and trusted in Him for victory (Judges 11:30). Jephthah was even willing to give God all the credit for the victory, for he knew that God was able to deliver them. It is this type of faith that the Hebrew writer is telling us to emulate. A faith that trusts in God even when things look bleak. A faith that trusts in God in spite of long odds. And a faith that trusts in God to keep the promises that God has made. For the Christian, God has promised us salvation in Christ. He has promised us the forgiveness of sins made possible through the blood of Christ. And he has promised us eternal life with Him in Heaven. None of these were made possible by following after the Law of Moses, just as none of these men and women of faith were justified by the Law of Moses either. Salvation was only made possible by obeying God in faith, meaning that we believe in God and we do what God says (James 2:14-26).
What then are we to make of Jephthah’s vow? The vow itself was that if the Lord would deliver the people of Ammon into Jephthah’s hands, that whatever came out of the doors of his house to greet him when he returned in peace, would be the Lord’s and would be offered up as a burnt offering. The first thing we can say is that this vow was a foolish one. Why? Well first of all, vowing something to the Lord was not going to change whether or not the Lord was with Jephthah. Either God was with Jephthah or he wasn’t. No amount of bargaining or sacrifice would change that. So this vow was unnecessary in order to secure victory. But the second reason that this vow was foolish, is because Jephthah didn’t know what he was actually vowing. And since Jephthah didn’t know what he was vowing, when time came to pay that vow, chances were high that he would be disappointed.
We do not get the Lord’s response to this vow, but what we do know is that the Lord gave Jephthah the victory. And after this victory, Jephthah returned home from war, excited, ready to offer to God that which he vowed. The problem was: his daughter, who was his only child, was the first to greet him upon his return. Jephthah’s demeanor immediately changed, for he tore his clothes in sorrow. He told his daughter about his vow, and she told him that he must fulfil his vow. The only thing she requested was that he give her two months so that she could go with her friends into the mountains and bewail (or sorrow) her virginity, for she was not married and had never had sexual relations with a man (nor would she because of this vow). Jephthah agreed, and upon her return the passage says that he carried out his vow with her which he had vowed and that after that, for four days every year the daughters of Israel went and lamented the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite.
The question that everyone has is did Jephthah really offer his daughter as a sacrifice on an altar to God? And a cursory reading of the text could very well lead us to conclude that Jephthah did. Wouldn’t that be against God’s law? Most certainly it would have for Leviticus 18:21 is where God condemns human sacrifice as an abomination to him under the Law of Moses. So if Jephthah did this, Jephthah would have sinned and incurred God’s wrath. And yet we don’t read of God’s wrath. We don’t read of the author of Judges commenting on the evil of Jephthah’s actions (like he spoke about the evils of Israel’s idolatry constantly throughout the book). Chapter 12 will continue with the story of Jephthah telling us that Jephthah would judge Israel 6 more years after this with nothing more said about this incident. And then in Hebrews 11, Jephthah is referred to as a man of faith, in the same chapter as Abraham and David and Moses. How could Jephthah be referred to this way, if he offered his daughter on an altar to God, something that is an abomination to God and is worthy of death?
One answer to this is to say that Jephthah could have repented and God forgiven him, something that is true, but something we don’t read of either (like we did with David when he sinned). Whenever we’re faced with a tough scripture like this, it is best to go back and examine if our conclusions are correct. Judges 11 does say that Jephthah vowed to offer a burnt offering the first thing that came out of his house, but does the passage say that Jephthah sacrificed his daughter on an altar to God? No, it does not. If Jephthah’s daughter was to be a burnt sacrifice though, how is it possible that Jephthah fulfilled his vow without offering her up on an altar to God? For that, we need to recall a few things about sacrifices under the Law of Moses.
First of all, Leviticus 27 made provision that anything vowed to the Lord could be redeemed. This included persons according to verses 1-5 of that chapter. With this being the case, why couldn’t Jephthah simply redeem his daughter? Because of the fact that she was his firstborn, and as such Exodus 13:1 says that she was dedicated to the Lord and was considered His already. Had she been a son, she would have been redeemed from serving in the tabernacle on account that the Levites did that, but it wouldn’t have changed the fact that as the firstborn, she would have been considered dedicated to the Lord already. Thus, if she was vowed to the Lord in a separate vow, the person who made the vow, could not redeem her from the vow according to Leviticus 27:28, for she already belonged to the Lord and that which belonged to the Lord could not be redeemed. So, we now understand why she couldn’t be redeemed, but that doesn’t mean that she wasn’t sacrificed on an altar, for she was to be a burnt offering.
Which brings us to the second point, which is not all burnt offerings were actually burnt on an altar. Numbers 15:3 tells us that freewill offerings were referred to as burnt offerings, and yet 2 Chronicles 31:14 and Ezra 8:28 makes clear that freewill offerings included things that could be distributed, such as money, and would thus, not be burnt on an altar, but still be considered a burnt offering. Lost on us sometimes is the meaning and purpose of a burnt offering: it was an offering given wholly over to God. The meat of the animal of a burnt offering according to Leviticus 1 was not eaten as was proscribed with some of the other sacrifices, but wholly burnt on the altar. Therefore, if something was being wholly given over to God, it could be described as a burnt offering, even though it might not be burnt on an altar. This is almost certainly what Paul has in mind in Romans 12:1-2 when he says that Christians are to present our bodies as living sacrifices, meaning we’re to devote our lives wholly to God and his service. He is harkening us back to what the burnt offering was to be.
So, coming back to Judges 11, are there signs in the chapter, which would tell us that Jephthah’s daughter was a burnt offering to God but not physically burnt on an altar? Yes! To begin with, when she asked for two months, what was the purpose? To bewail her virginity, not her shortened life. Someone who was destined to die, would certainly bewail their death too, not simply the fact that they would shortly die as a virgin. Next, Judges 11:39 says that Jephthah carried out his vow, and his daughter knew no man. If the daughter was dead, of course she knew no man, for she was dead. But if Jephthah carried out his vow, but his daughter was not dead, only devoted to the service of the Lord in the tabernacle, then such a statement would make sense for she would have remained a virgin all of her life because of that service in the tabernacle. And then finally, you have a lack of condemnation for such an egregious act, either here in Judges, or anywhere else that Jephthah is mentioned. It should be said that silence alone does not prove anything, however, in this case that silence does speak volumes. David’s sin with Bathsheba is called out and remembered. Abraham’s lie to Pharaoh is called out and remembered. Moses striking the rock instead of speaking to it is called out and remembered. Men of faith do sin, but their sin is pointed out as wrong by God, and when it is repented of, only then is it forgiven. Sin is never overlooked and then later celebrated. Jephthah’s vow, though foolish, and though costly in that he would not have any heirs, is not condemned as sinful when it is completed, and since it isn’t, we should be careful to call it out as such when there are other options that would be perfectly in line with what the scriptures do say.
Jephthah is a complicated man and a misunderstood man, not only during his time, but in our time as well. He was not a perfect man, but he was a man of faith because he believed in God, and trusted in God to deliver him. And he was a man that would need to be forgiven of his sins, something that God has promised to do in Christ for those who obey Him in faith. May we seek to emulate the faith of Jephthah and obey Jesus Christ fully today.
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