DIGGING DEEP NO. 935 – May 17, 2022 A FATHER IN DESPAIR Judges 11: 30- 40

A vow is a serious promise made to God. For example, a person may promise God that he will perform some act, offer some gift, enter some type of service, or abstain from certain things. Vows are made by choice, using free will. Nobody is forced to make a vow. But when a person chooses to do so, God views his vow as a serious promise that must be respected and kept. In the Bible, a vow is as important as an oath.

A vow is a powerful weapon of warfare. When we tell God that if he grants us victory, we shall perform certain acts, it is almost certain that God may answer us. After He has answered us, we should fulfill our vows. Vows are completely voluntary, but the Lord expected His people to fulfill them Deut.23: 21- 23; Eccl.5: 1- 6.

Examples of some who fulfilled their vows to God

Hannah told God that she will give her son to the house of God if He gives her a child and she fulfilled her vow 1Sam.1: 9- 11; 1Sam.1: 24- 28

Jacob made a vow to God concerning his journey and made it a success, he never forgets his vow and he fulfilled it. Gen.28: 16- 22; Gen.35: 3- 15.

Jephthah made a vow to the Lord. The questions we have today are (1) What was Jephthah’s vow, and how did he keep it? (2) What actually happened to Jephthah’s daughter, his only child.

The vow – “If you indeed deliver the people of Ammon into my hands, then it will be that whatever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me when I return in peace from the people of Ammon, shall surely be the LORD’s, and I will offer it up as a burnt offering”.

The questions – The more you study Jephthah’s vow, the more puzzling it becomes. He simply could have said, “Lord, if you help me defeat the enemy, when I get home, I will offer you a generous burnt offering.” But he couched his vow in ambiguous terms. How did he know who or what would come out of the door of his house?

What if the first thing to greet him was an unclean animal that was unacceptable to God? Then he couldn’t fulfill his vow.

What if that person turned out to be a neighbor’s child or a total stranger? Furthermore, Jephthah knew that Jehovah God didn’t approve of or accept human sacrifices Deut.12: 29- 31. And where would Jephthah offer his daughter as a sacrifice? Surely, he knew that the Lord accepted sacrifices only at the tabernacle altar and that they had to be offered by the Levitical priests Lev.17: 1- 9.  It is doubtful that any priest would offer a human sacrifice on God’s sanctified altar.

Jephthah could have learned from any priest that paying the proper amount of money could have redeemed his daughter Lev.27: 1- 8. As a successful soldier returning from war, Jephthah could easily have paid the redemption price.

Solutions – more than one Bible expositor has pointed out that the little word “and” in the phrase “and I will offer it up” Judg.11: 31 can be translated as “or.” If we take this approach, then the vow was twofold; Whatever met him when he returned home would be dedicated to the Lord (if a person) or sacrificed to the Lord (if an animal). Since he was met by his daughter, Jephthah gave her to the Lord to serve Him at the tabernacle Ex.38: 8; 1Sam.2: 22. She remained a virgin, which meant that she would not know the joy of motherhood and perpetuate her father’s inheritance in Israel. This would be reason enough for her and her friends to spend two months grieving, for every daughter wanted a family and every father wanted grandchildren to maintain the family inheritance. Nowhere in the text are we told that Jephthah actually killed his daughter, nor do we find anybody bewailing the girl’s death. The emphasis in Judg.11: 37- 40 is the fact that she remained a virgin.

She deserves to stand with Isaac as a faithful child, who was willing to obey both father and God, no matter the cost.