Judges 11:29-40.  Oh, this story.  So yesterday the Gileadites get tired of waiting for God to bring a deliverer to them.  They take matters into their own hands and go find their own guy, Jephthah.  Yesterday mentioned how both Gideon and Jepthah are called valiant warriors.  I also pointed out that it was God who called Gideon that but it was the people who saw Jephthah that way.  To the people Gideon must have seemed like anything but a valiant warrior.  Judges 6:34-40 tells us that after the Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon that he gathered all the troops together and then tested God’s orders, twice, to see if he was really supposed to go to war.  In Judges 7:9-15 he was still afraid as he faced 135,000 enemy troops with just 300 men on his side.  So he got one more signs from God and then went to battle.   Again, in today’s story there seems to be some comparison between Gideon and Jephthah.  The first verse of our reading today indicates that the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah.   Then Jephthah goes around and gathers the troops.  Or at least I think he did.  The rest of verse 29 sounds kind of like a trip a politician takes around his territory, shaking hands and meeting people, but in verse 33 it says that the sons of Ammon (that means the Ammonite army) were defeated by the sons of Israel.  So it looks like Jephthah had help, although the rest of the battle description only mentions him.   Anyway the Spirit of the Lord came upon him (like Gideon), he gets the troops together (like Gideon), then he prays (like Gideon).  But Jephthah is nothing like  Gideon.  Gideon (at lest at first) was afraid and he totally needed to rely on God.  He was a “worm” like Tola (Check out the post from Friday on Judges 10:1-18)(at least at first).  Jephthah doesn’t seem afraid.  He does pray to God for a victory.  But his prayer is more about what he will do for God if he gets the win rather than asking God for help.  Gideon prayed, “If you are going to work through me give me a sign.”  Jephthah said, “If you let my hand win I will give you…”   That … is where the story becomes “Oh this story”.

What Jephthah promises to give to God is the first thing that comes out of his house if he returns from the battle a winner.  Not just give it to God but offer it up as a burnt offering.  What was he thinking?  First of all it had to be something living because it would me “coming out of his house”.  Sheep, goats, doves, bulls, rams those are the kinds of living things we see being used in the Bible as burnt offerings.  If we get very literal here we can only wonder was Jephthah’s house some sort of zoo?  Or was Jephthah ready to offer up the family dog? Or cat?  (Hmmmm)  Of course by “house” he probably means comes out from his property to meet him on the road.  House is used that way in the Bible.  So we’re back to the family dog at least.  I am self-employed and my office is in my house.  I leave my house to go to work and go back there at night.  When I get home our dog is usually right there at the door or sometimes the gate by the porch whining and waiting for me to come in and pet her.  So the family dog definitely could have been what he had in mind.  But I also have 5 children and when they were little I would often come up and here, Daddy!”  Well that is what Jephthah heard first as he got close to home.   What was he thinking?  Himself no doubt.  “How can I impress God?  What can I do to prove to God that I am serious?”

Jephthah’s one and only daughter comes out to meet him.  And he is very upset.  You may think, “Well Duh!”  But he is probably more upset for himself than for her.  This self made man, this valiant warrior, was about to lose his one and only chance for his name to continue.  His family would end with the sacrifice of his daughter.  Some scholars think that after the two month delay that he just sent his daughter away to be a perpetual virgin in the local shrine.  They cannot believe that he would actually sacrifice his daughter.  In Judges 10:10 at the beginning of the story we saw that the Israelites were serving the Canaanite gods, the Baals.  Canaanaites were well known for offering their children as sacrifices to the Baals.  Aside from his prayer to God there is no hint that he knew God at all.  He knew about gods and was sort of religious but he did not know God.  Leviticus 17 gives options for buying back things that have been given to God.  It seems that Jephthah did not know God had made these provisions.  He had made a reputation for himself, he was a well known valiant warrior, and now by his own hand he would become unknown and unremembered, the end of his family.

His daughter on the other hand is a picture of faith and trust.  Although she was clearly upset she felt that God must be honored above all else, even her own life.  After a time of mourning, she was executed by her father.  It seems kind of interesting that she mourned for her “virginity”.  I don’t think she was sad that she had never been with a man.  Being dead seems a little more important to me than being a virgin.  Maybe she realized that this was more than the end of her it was the end of her family and that was why she mourned.  In a way though it wasn’t the end of her.  The Israelite women set aside four days each year to remember her.

“Oh this story”.  This story is a mess.  You might notice that it’s almost all about Jephthah.  He does this and he does that.  Now God did give the victory, that was God’s plan, He was answering the prayers of the Israelites.  The rest was all Jephthah and the losers (Judges 11:3) he surrounded himself with.  He was “the man” and he was his own undoing; the end of his own family.   That’s what happens when we run ahead of God.  When we tell God to honor our plans instead of asking Him what his plans are.  It’s destructive in our own lives and the lives of those around us.  God’s plan goes on but there are consequences.  There is always a way out though (1 Corinthians 10:13).  After cheating with other gods, the Baals, God allowed the people to turn around and come back.  There is no road you can go so far down that God will not let you come back from, as long as you live there is alway a chance to return to Him (But see Hebrew 9:27).  Some say God is the God of second chances.  I say God is the God of hundreds of chances.  Once a man asked Jesus how many times he needed to forgive someone who acted wrong toward him, “Seven times?”  Jesus reply was, “70 times 7.”  490 times and I don’t think God would ever do less than he asks of us.  We need to be careful to ask God what he wants us to do, even when we are pretty sure we are on His path.

Lord, help me remember to ask You want your plans are.  Help me see and understand.  Help me see the way out when life or my own feelings tempt me.  I know I will fail.  Protect others from my own selfishness and stupidity.  Help me alway return to you.  Thank you for being the God of many chances.