Judges 10-12:7

From Tola to Jephthah (10:1-12:7)

Following the death of Abimelech, the cycle of threat and deliverance in Israel's history resumed. This part of the Book of Judges takes up the story of two minor judges, then summarises the apostasy of the people of God, before launching into the major story of Jephthah.

It is important to remind ourselves that the Book of Judges is not so much about Israel as about Israel's God. This is a theology, not just a history. It is a revelation of sin, rebellion and misery; but it is also a story of response on the part of God who works to liberate his people and preserve his own cause.

That is why I want to look at this section from an explicitly theological point of view. They are linked by their insights into the being and the character of God. There is also, however, another link -- the name 'Gilead', which is where both Jair and Jephthah were from (10:3 and 11:1, and it was where Israel was troubled (10:8) and where Jephthah was buried (12:7). Gilead was the name of a territory occupied by the tribes of Reuben, Gad and half the tribe of Manasseh. It was important in Israel's history: it was in Gilead that Jacob sought refuge from Laban (Genesis 31) and where David sought refuge from Absalom (2 Samuel 17). The balm of Gilead was proverbial (Jeremiah 8). But Gilead was also the name of Jephthah's father (11:1), called after the son of Manasseh who gave his name to the Gileadites (Numbers 26:28ff).

These literary, verbal links are important, and weave the story together; this is not just a collection of reports of deliverance: this is part of a larger story of God's work among his people. The theology is woven into the history: this is the history of redemption, and it is a redemption enacted in particular places and at particular times in the history of a particular people. What, then, do these chapters tell us about the God of Israel?

First, They Speak of His Covenant Faithfulness.

This is evident in the brief record we have of the two judges, Tola and Jair. They are referred to only in 10:1-5, yet between them they fulfilled the role of judge for 45 years. Further, we are reminded of several incidentals -- there is the phrase 'after Abimelech', for example, in 10:1. The rot that had set in with Abimelech was checked. Abimelech ('my father is king') was gone, and the true king of Israel was raising up those who would deliver his people. Having come through fire and water, Israel is now brought to a wealthy place.

Then there is the fact that after the deaths of Tola and Jair, the people served idols again -- obviously, therefore, the judgeship of these two individuals was sufficient to keep Israel on the path of obedience and truth. That was no mean feat, and speaks volumes of their faithfulness.

There is also the hint that their judgeship -- particularly that of Jair -- marked a period of peace in Israel. Jair had thirty sons who rode on thirty donkeys, or asses, and they had thirty cities (there is an interesting wordplay in the Hebrew text where the words for 'asses' and 'cities' are similar). One commentator points out that the donkey was the animal used in times of peace, whereas the horse was the animal used in time of war, and was particularly associated with Egypt. In Deuteronomy 17:16 the kings of Israel were forbidden to return to Egypt to acquire horses for themselves. They are mentioned in the song of Deborah and Barak in 5:22.

Jair's sons, however, rode on donkeys, symbolising the peace which God secured for his people. Yet the fact that Jair had thirty sons with such far-reaching influence is perhaps a sign that not everything was according to God's mind and will: a sign that the flesh still had a hold on the judge. Nonetheless, God was faithful, in looking after his people.

Second, These Passages Speak of God's Righteous Anger.

Following the death of Jair, the people again turned to Idols. Several things are worth noting here. First, we see the extent of their idolatry: 'they served the Baals and the Ashtaroth, the gods of Syria, the gods of Moab, the gods of the Ammonites and the gods of the Philistines' (10:6). All these deities -- so many idols. You would think it would be easier -- less exhausting and demanding just to serve one God. But here is the madness of sin -- they forsook the one for the many, and multiplied idols for themselves.

Nineteenth century commentator Andrew Faussett makes an interesting point when he compares the sevenfold apostasy mentioned in verse 6 with the sevenfold deliverance God speaks of in verses 11-12 -- God took his people from the Egyptians, the Amorites, the Ammonites, the Philistines, the Sidonians, the Amalekites and the Maonites. Seven heathen nations, out of which God took his people; and they repaid by serving the gods of seven other lands -- 'Israel had repaid the sevenfold divine deliverance with sevenfold idolatry' (Fausett, p181).

The forsaking of God led Israel to serve the idols of the very nations that had oppressed them. Sin is folly and madness. And God is angry; he is personally affronted and offended. He does not remain unmoved. He allows the Philistines and Ammonites to crush and oppress the people for eighteen years, so that 'Israel was severely distressed' (10:9).

There are times of distress in the Christian life. They are not always indications of chastisement for sin. But sometimes they are. Sometimes the distress ought to make us look behind it, to the spiritual condition of our hearts and lives, to question our faithfulness. Perhaps the Lord ordained the distress for a reason directly related to our own lack of obedience, so that we can say 'before I was afflicted I went astray; but now I keep your word' (Psalm 119:67).

Third, We Note God's Glorious Compassion.

He is angry with his people, but not forever. Indeed, the text here says something wonderful. Bringing his people to a point of repentance and acknowledgement of their sin, God listens to their cry. Then we read that 'God became impatient over the misery of his Israel' (10:16). He could bear their suffering no more.

Paul asks us to behold the kindness and the severity of God (Romans 11:22); and they are evident here. His anger against the sins of his people is laid before us side by side with the reference to his love for them. We may struggle to reconcile these conflicting emotional aspects of the nature of God; but there is no conflict. He is in covenant with his people, angry with them when they sin, but loving them with a love that sets bounds on his wrath -- just like any father.

So Israel camps at Mizpeh, and the leaders of Gilead ask: 'who is the man who will begin to fight against the Ammonites?' The scene is set for the entrance of Jephthah.

Fourth, the Sovereign Power of God Is Evident Here.

Jephthah is going to deliver Israel from the threat of the Ammonites. To the extent that Jephthah is God's instrument of deliverance, we see God's power at work here; but it is sovereign power, because Jephthah seems so unlikely a candidate for judging Israel.

First, Jephthah was rejected by his own people. His father, Gilead, was a mighty warrior, but his mother was a prostitute. His half-brothers rejected him, driving him out of the land and into forced exile. He became an outcast in the land of Tob. Yet this was the man by whom God was going to deliver his people.

There was something remarkable here. In chapter 10, Israel had rejected God, yet God delivered his people. This is now echoed and illustrated by the fact that the Gileadites reject Jephthah, yet Jephthah is to deliver them. Ultimately, that pattern is seen in the way in which Christ is despised and rejected, yet he is the divinely appointed means of salvation, deliverance and peace. God's power is sovereign in his choice of instruments, by which he chooses the weak to shame the strong: 'God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God' (1 Corinthians 1:27-28).

Second, Jephthah tried to resolve the conflict with Ammon by argument. He sends messengers to the king of the Ammonites arguing the case of Israel. An exchange goes on, in which the history of redemption from Egypt is rehearsed. Jephthah's case is built on two arguments: first, that Israel did not provoke Ammon, but settled in a different part of Canaan (11:15-18), and, second, that God gave the land of the Ammonites to Israel following their refusal to allow safe passage through their land (11:19-24).

This history is recounted in Numbers 20 and 21. It is a theological argument, with a strange twist, because in 11:24 Jephthah urges the Ammonites to accept what Chemosh, their god, gave to them. The twist is that Chemosh was the god of Moab, whereas Milchom (= Molech) is known to have been the god of the Ammonites. But the argument is that the right of possession is the Israelites', against all the rival gods of Canaan.

However, the words are powerless. The argument is long, well-reasoned, and well-presented. But it throws us back on the need for God's sovereign power to intervene. Jephthah understands as much when he leaves the case at last with God:

The Lord, the Judge, decide this day between the people of Israel and the people of Ammon (11:27).

This verse, which identifies the God of Israel as the supreme Judge of Israel, reminds us that God's sovereign power is at last the only effective weapon against our enemies. To be sure, he asks us to use words, to proclaim his redemptive acts, to preach the Gospel. But it is not by might, nor by power, but by the Spirit of the Lord.

Which brings us to the third consideration here: 'the Spirit of the Lord was upon Jephthah' (11:29). This measure needed a baptism of power from on high. So Ammon is defeated, not through Jephthah's wisdom or reasoning, but by the Spirit empowering him to travel through the land and strike them, 'twenty cities ... with a great blow. So the Ammonites were subdued before the people of Israel' (11:33).

But it is precisely here that we find the biggest problem of the story of Jephthah. In going out in the Lord's power, this judge makes a vow that he will offer to the Lord whatever comes out of the door of his house to meet him (11:31). When he returned home to Mizpah, the first person to meet him was his daughter, 'his only child' (11:34) -- a phrase, incidentally, which echoes the description of Isaac prior to his sacrifice in Genesis 22.

Bewailing his rash promise to God, Jephthah says that he cannot go back on it. His daughter concurs, and only requests that she be allowed two months to bewail her celibacy and virginity. The text simply says that after that period her father fulfilled the vow, and that annually the daughters of Israel lamented the daughter of Jephthah.

Clearly this passages poses some problems. The most obvious problem is to decide on what happened to Jephthah's daughter. Two answers have been advanced. First, Dale Ralph Davis, in his commentary on Judges, argues strongly that the most natural reading of the text is that she was sacrificed. Yes, argues Davis, Jephthah knew God's law; but that does not mean he observed the law he knew: 'is it not just as conceivable that, in spite of what knowledge he had, he convinced himself that such a sacrifice, given the emergency, might be not only entirely proper, but also deeply pious?' (p148).

On the other hand, Gleason Archer, in the Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties (pp164-5), argues that there is no way that Jephthah could have sacrificed his daughter. He was a God-fearing man, and passages like Deuteronomy 12:31-32 and 18:10-12 prohibit offering human sacrifice to the Lord.

Instead, Archer argues, Jephthah dedicated his daughter to a life of divine service at the sanctuary, so that she became a consecrated virgin, effectively cut off from her father's line. Otherwise, Jephthah could never have been included as one of the heroes of the faith in Hebrews 11:32.

Was she sacrificed, or was she committed to a life of perpetual celibacy? I think the stronger are on the side of her having been sacrificed. After all, that was what Jephthah had vowed; had she been devoted to the Lord in perpetual virginity she would have had more than two months to bewail her condition. I think we can assume that she was offered as a burnt offering, in fulfillment of the vow.

That raises the subsequent question of whether Jephthah ought to have gone ahead with his vow. Or, to put it otherwise -- given that we are considering sovereign power -- why did God allow the vow to run its course?

Here we need to appreciate the nature of a biblical vow. In the Bible, an oath is horizontal, a kind of abbreviated covenant between two people, in which the name of God is invoked. But a vow is vertical, it is a solemn promise a person makes to God. In both cases, the ethic lying behind oath-taking and vow-making was the ethic of the third commandment: 'you shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain' (Exodus 20:7). As the Larger Catechism (Q113) reminds us, this prohibits the taking of sinful vows, that is, vowing things that are contrary to the mind of God in Scripture. It is arguable that 'when a person realises that he has entangled himself in an unlawful oath or vow, it is not only his right but his God-given duty to repudiate it immediately' (Vos, p309), which Jephthah ought to have done.

But isn't it interesting that this man, who could string words together in such a powerful argument, as he does in chapter 11, should now use words so rashly, as to embroil himself further in sin. Once again, we are reminded of the fact that Israel's problem was always Israel, not Ammon. That is why sovereign power is so remarkable and so wonderful. In spite of all our errors, God does his work for his people.

Fifth, His Matchless Grace.

The final episode is over Ephraim, whose pride was hurt that Jephthah had not asked them to help him. He quickly reminds them that he had (12:2) but Ephraim had not come to their aid. A battle ensued, at which the Ephraimites were trapped, and were recognised by their accent in the way they pronounced 'Shibboleth' wrongly.

Let me quote from Ralph Davis:

Ammon is subdued. But there is the grave of Jephthah's only child. And there are the lifeless forms of once-cocky Ephraimite militia. Whether from excessive zeal or stubborn pride tragedy overshadows the salvation Yahweh gave. I would wager that the writer meant to paint it so; I think he wants us to see Yahweh's deliverance tinctured by human foolishness and human arrogance. It is as if even the winners can't have a clean win. We have salvation here but a marred salvation. The writer is suggesting that if we seek a perfect salvation we will have to look to One greater than Jephthah (p151).

That is why I suggest that this passage shows us God's matchless grace, delivering his people even from the internal pride and sin that threatens to engulf them; but ultimately, paving the way for the One in whom God's salvation comes to us in its perfection and completeness.