April 3: Judges 10-12

April 3, Judges 10-12

Judges 10 We learn little about 2 ‘minor’ Judges (minor because we know very little about them). And Israel again did was what evil in the sight of the Lord… They were worshiping the gods of all of the surrounding nations, as was predicted if they didn't drive them all out. God sold them to the Philistines and Ammonites. How many years this time? 18 years. Then they come to their senses, and cry out to God. Some of the translations say that the Lord was “impatient over the misery of Israel.” But the Hebrew states that the “Lord was grieved His soul over the misery of the Israelites.” This gives us more insight into how merciful and loving our God is. The continuation of disobedience and rejection of Israel, but the Lord continually sees the heartache that these false gods give His people. And He wants them to be free from these false gods and return to Him, in love and freedom. Then we hear of a turn… The Ammonites called for war, and Israel had no leader…

Judges 11 Here we are introduced to a mighty warrior Jephthah - who was the son of a prostitute. This was a big deal back then because he was basically considered illegitimate. But even the sins of a father was not supposed to be held over a son, as the Lord makes clear in Ezekiel 18:20. “20 The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.” So even though Jephthah wanted to make a life for himself, his past seemed to follow him. Everyone pretty much treated him like an outsider, until they needed him to be their leader. Because the Ammonites were getting ready for war against Israel, they needed a warrior and fast. And it seemed that Jephthah was the man. When the people of Israel asked him to lead, he swore before the Lord, that he would be the leader, if the Lord was with him and if the people would let him return home. They agreed and he became their leader. Instead of heading straight to war, he first tried to settle the dispute with a verbal debate and started a dialogue with the Ammonites. Jephthah and the Ammonite king got into a verbal disagreement on who really owned the land. Jephthah states calmly, that they Israelites asked to pass through certain lands, but it was only because the current land owners refused passage, that they had to fight. Jephthah also states that they only took the land that the Lord gave them, just like the Ammonites lived in the land that they believed their god, Chemosh, gave them. Here Jephthah is stating to them, you live in the land your god gave you, and we will live in the land our Lord gave us, and why fight over another land. But the king of the Ammonites didn’t care about it and wanted the land, no matter what political peace Jephthah was trying to make. 

Then Jephthah is filled with the Spirit of God, and makes a vow. If God gave them victory, he would sacrifice whatever came out of his home’s door when he got back. God gave them victory, and when he got home, his daughter walked out! He knew that what was vowed to God he had to keep it. When he saw his daughter he tore his clothes and told her about the vow. When the daughter hears the vow that her dad made she states, that he must keep the vow. She then asks to go to the mountains with her girlfriends to weep for her virginity. There is much debate about this, but I hope that I can clear some things up. We know that the Spirit of God came upon Jephthah, so we know that this wasn’t a rash, human vow. It was God’s plan, for him to vow this. Another thing, that we need to know, is that Israelites could have been given to God, to work at His Tabernacle. We know that the Lord isn’t pleased with human sacrifices, but the Lord would take men and women who were bound to the Tabernacle, as servants, as a living sacrifice to the Lord. This is why she probably went and mourned for her ‘virginity’ and not her life. As service to the Lord, would have prevented her from marriage and a normal life of a woman. This also would have been hard for Jephthah as he didn’t have any sons, only a daughter, which meant that his legacy would have ended. We also see  Hannah later, in 1 Samuel 1:11, where she gives her son, to live as a servant in the Tabernacle, aka Temple, to serve the Lord, all the days of his life. 

Judges 12 Then we hear about the men of Ephraim who wished that they could have been in the battle against the Ammonites. Jephthah again tried to talk sense into these men, stating that they were too busy and they handled it all on their own with the Lord’s help. But this answer wouldn’t do, and they wanted a civil war. Jephthah ended up fighting against them, and won the battle, scattering the losers. The tribe of Ephraim was from the West. And so their dialect was a tad different. Whenever they came upon someone they thought was an Ephraimite, that was hiding from the pending battle, they used a specific word, that was hard to pronounce to help them identify if they were really who they said they were. It would be like us in the Northwest, telling a Canadian to say ‘about’ and noting the difference of pronunciation. So that they could identify all of the Ephraimites that came down for battle, and wipe out the men that dared going against their brothers for the love of battle. After leading Israel for six years, Jephthah died and was buried. Then we learn about 3 other minor Judges who helped rule Israel until they died.

To sum it all up:

• In all you do - honor your God. Never forget that He is God and we are here to worship Him and Him alone.
• If you make a vow to God, uphold it. No matter how hard it is to keep and God will honor it. 
• Don’t be like the Ephraimties and long for war. Instead be like Jephthah who always tried to talk reason into whatever situation came up. I love that he was always trying to strike conversation, to see if problems could be resolved through peace talks first. He only went to war, after all that could be said, was said to stop it.