Don’t trap yourself by making a rash promise to God and only later counting the cost. [Proverbs 20:25 (NLT)]
One of the most disturbing stories in the Bible is found in Judges 11. Before leading the army into battle with the Ammonites, Jephthah made a rash vow to the Lord—if given victory, he’d make a burnt sacrifice of the first thing to come out of his house to meet him upon his return. God granted Israel victory but, when Jephthah returned home, it was his daughter who came out to greet him. When the anguished Jephthah told her of his vow, the girl willingly accepted her fate. She only asked for one thing—to go into the hills with her friends to mourn that she’d never marry or know the joy of motherhood. When she returned, “her father kept the vow he had made and she died a virgin.”
Vows before a battle were not unusual, but Jephthah’s wasn’t typical. First, his motive was selfish. A victory meant personal power for this man. Having been denied his rightful inheritance and banished from the land, Jephthah only agreed to lead the army after the elders promised that he’d rule over Gilead if victorious. Although Jephthah’s reckless vow specified a burnt offering, it didn’t specify what it would be. In their Midrash commentaries, the rabbis asked what he would have done had it been an unclean animal like a camel, ass, or dog. Moreover, although his house included rooms for the animals, livestock usually didn’t greet people coming back from war, people did! Either the impulsive man didn’t consider the possibility it could be a person or that didn’t bother him.
Although a vow could be a sign of surrender to God in faith, Jephthah’s was abhorrent to the Lord. Rather than surrendering his fate to God, Jephthah was making a bargain with Him. Like Jephthah, do we ever bargain with God? Promising that if He does His part then we’ll do ours isn’t submission to Him—it’s manipulation and God can’t be manipulated. Moreover, there’s nothing we could offer God that could obligate Him to us in any way. By putting a price tag on His grace, we’ve insulted him by cheapening that grace. This appalling story reminds us that there are tragic consequences when religion is reduced to deal-making with God.
Offerings were supposed to be made joyfully but Jephthah’s vow meant he was willing to suffer if the Lord gave him victory. Although God firmly rejected human sacrifice in both Leviticus and Deuteronomy, Jephthah had a pagan’s understanding of Jehovah and was willing to do anything to guarantee Israel’s victory. During this time, when “all the people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes,” the Israelites were worshipping more than the Lord. They also were serving the pagan gods of the Canaanites. Human sacrifices to those gods were routine and Jephthah’s rash vow indicates his willingness to make a human sacrifice to become Gilead’s ruler.
Starting in Judges first chapter, when the people fail to drive the Canaanites from the land, the book describes Israel’s failures. By the second chapter, they’re already serving Baal and Ashtoreth. Although Deborah was the best of the bunch, the character of the judges deteriorates bit by bit until their story ends with rape, murder, and civil war! The entire book suggests that, rather than rejecting the idolatry and practices of the pagan people surrounding them, Israel adopted them. The story of Jephthah’s sacrifice of his daughter is meant to be horrible and shocking because it is the quintessential example of what happens if we do what’s right in our own eyes. When we do whatever seems right in our own eyes, we soon end up doing what is evil in the eyes of God—with nothing but tragic consequences!
Devotions of the Heart 