During the period after Israel's conquest of Canaan, the Israelites failed to completely drive the Canaanites out of the land and ended up becoming much like their Canaanite neighbors. In the words of commentator Daniel Block, the book of Judges, which chronicles this period of Israel's history, describes the "Canaanization of Israel." We read several examples of Israel's descent into sin. We also read of God's grace and faithfulness to his people, as he repeatedly rescues them despite their serious problems.
Judges 11 describes a time when the Israelites who lived east of the Jordan River were threatened with a military invasion by the Ammonites. Looking for a deliverer, the people in Gilead called upon Jephthah, whose family had previously driven him away. Jephthah agreed to help them if they would make him their leader (vv 1-11).
After being appointed leader, Jephthah carried on a negotiation with the Ammonites. When the Ammonites complained that the Israelites had taken land from them, Jephthah responded quite rightly that the Israelites had done no such thing. Rehearsing the history recorded in Num 21, Jephthah asserted that God had given the Israelites their territory east of the Jordan.
The statement of Jephthah recorded in Judges 11:24 is interesting. Jephthah says to the Ammonite leader, "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."
These words raise a couple of questions. First, Chemosh was the god of the Moabites, not the Ammonites. The Ammonite god was Milcom. In getting the name of their god wrong, was Jephthah showing deliberate disrespect to the Ammonites by implying that the name of their god really didn't matter? It could have been like referring to their god as "Whatshisname".
Also, Jephthah's theology is incorrect in saying that the Moabite or Ammonite god would give the Ammonites land, since it is Yahweh who allotted the nations their territories and their gods, who were angelic beings that he had created (Deut 32:8-9). In making his statement, was Jephthah simply speaking the language of the Ammonite king, or did he believe his incorrect statement? The answer may have some bearing on how we interpret what happened later.
The Ammonite king did not back down, and so war ensued. Jephthah, who was used to relating to others through tough negotiation, made a vow to God: "If you will give the Ammonites into my hand, then whatever 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 up for a burnt offering" (vv 30-31).
This wasn't a promise that Jephthah needed to make. For Israel's sake, God empowered him to win the battle against Ammon.
It's not completely clear what Jephthah was promising. We know that when he returned home after the campaign and his daughter greeted him at the door, he was disheartened. We also know that his daughter died without having the opportunity to marry or have children. The usual interpretation (and apparently the only one before medieval times) is that he made his daughter a human sacrifice, but the text doesn't say explicitly. It just says that he carried out his vow (v 39).
Whatever the nature of Jephthah's vow, there was no need for him to carry it out. It would have been better for him to substitute the payment called for in Lev 27, or to have broken the vow and taken the consequences. God certainly did not want him to sacrifice his daughter.
As a whole, the book of Judges highlights incidents that show Israel's depravity during this era of its history. God by his grace continually delivered his people despite their fall into immorality. One message of Judges is the absence of spiritual instruction and influence from the priests and Levites. Jephthah was a fine negotiator, but he does not seem to have known God or understood what God really required of him.
In a sermon at Church of the Messiah on April 30, 2022, Kyle Kettering discussed this puzzling account and stimulated us to think about what we might learn from it.
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