Why would God honor Jephthah's deal?

[Mike_from_NJ]

In Judges 11 as Jephthah was marching toward the Ammonites he made a vow to God saying that if
God gave the Ammonites to his hands that we would offer the first item to come out from his door as a burnt offering. Judges 11:32 says in no uncertain terms that God gave the Ammonites into Jephthah’s hands. Soon after we see that the first thing that comes out of Jephthah’s house to greet him is his lone daughter.

What I want to focus on is honoring such a deal. If I know from the start that a deal or wager will result in evil or misery I won’t accept it. If I find out after accepting a deal or wager would result in evil or misery I won’t follow through with it.

For example:

1. If a friend of mine sells me a laptop that I know was not his to sell, like it was owned by his adult daughter, I wouldn’t buy it.
2. If a friend bets me on a football game, I win, and I later find out that he bet his much needed rent money then not only wouldn’t I take the money I’d offer help to get him through his tough spot.

But here we have God – knowing what would happen – accepting Jephthah’s vow and resulting in the death of his daughter. It’s a deal that is both evil and caused misery. Plus if we take into account the common rationalizing of why God won’t answer sincere prayers for purely good reasons (health, security, etc.) it seems quite odd that he would give the Ammonites to the hands of Jephthah. It comes off more like a deal with the devil.

 

[Mintaka]

Where does it say that God accepted Jephthah’s vow?

Jephthah’s story comes in Judges, which as the book says, is about the times when “every man did what was right in his own eyes.” Jephthah did what he thought was right, not what God thought was right. Jephthah made the vow, and Jephthah didn’t have enough common sense, or enough historical sense, to realize that God wasn’t into human sacrifice. God didn’t send him any signs that He “accepted the vow.” God didn’t do a deal with Jephthah; God had already taken pity on the people. The vow was Jepthah’s free offering.

God doesn’t always send a miraculous messenger to stop us from doing idiotic things, or wicked things, or both. Jephthah’s story is in the Bible as a warning against rash vows (and an explanation of a very minor local festival), and that is the way it has always been taken. Most other “honor-based” cultures have similar stories about rash vows, because people vowed so many stupid things, and weren’t smart enough to ask to be excused. There’s an Old English poem that says something about how many things are vowed in the mead hall, but the real hero keeps his mouth shut.

The law of Moses specifically includes a way to be excused from a bad vow, and Jephthah could have taken advantage of that, too. (If he’d had any legal sense.)

The part of the story where “the spirit of the Lord” came upon him was the bit where he went to all the different towns and advanced against the Ammonites. Like Samson, the spirit of the Lord is giving him military strength and speed to fight.

The vow was not made under the influence of the spirit of the Lord; that is another sentence. Neither Jewish nor Christian commentators have ever taken it that way. The spirit of the Lord didn’t make Samson tell all his weaknesses to Delilah, either.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

So Jephthah makes the decision to vow a human sacrifice (the wording of the passage makes it pretty clear he is expecting some human to come out of the house, not just the dog) and then makes the second decision to honor his vow instead of maybe discussing it with God or saying “Lord take me instead” etc.

And somehow all this is God’s fault that a guy basically acted like a pagan in vowing a human sacrifice?

 

[De_Maria]

Basically, that story says that Jephthah was full of himself and allowed Satan to trick him into doing something heinous.

Another lesson to be learned here is that men are afflicted by a fallen nature. You see these types of stories throughout Scripture. Adam and Eve committed the original sin, Cain killed his brother, a horrible generation arose which had to be wiped off the face of the earth. Noah, the survivor and the only righteous person, got drunk and his son took advantage of his own mother, Abraham gave his wife to Pharao, Lot had children by his own daughters, etc. etc.

God had nothing to do with Jephthah’s vow.

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

Where does it say that God accepted Jephthah’s vow?

Judges 11:32 says “Then Jephthah went over to fight the Ammonites, and the Lord gave them into his hands.” God was not passive. He performed the word-for-word action that Jephthah requested.

Jephthah’s story comes in Judges, which as the book says, is about the times when “every man did what was right in his own eyes.” Jephthah did what he thought was right, not what God thought was right. Jephthah made the vow, and Jephthah didn’t have enough common sense, or enough historical sense, to realize that God wasn’t into human sacrifice. God didn’t send him any signs that He “accepted the vow.” God didn’t do a deal with Jephthah; God had already taken pity on the people. The vow was Jepthah’s free offering.

We both agree that what Jephthah did was some combination of stupid and wrong, which is why I noted that I want to focus on God’s part in this bargain. You say God didn’t send any signs that he accepted the vow, but the fact that the Ammonites were given to his hand (exactly what he asked) and the fact that the Bible said he did exactly what was asked.

God doesn’t always send a miraculous messenger to stop us from doing idiotic things, or wicked things, or both.

Similarly if you take the two examples I gave, I can’t keep my friend from selling things or betting money he can’t afford to lose. All I can control are my own actions, which is why I have a problem with God’s actions as described in this story.

I’ve clipped out the part of your message regarding Jephthah’s actions as, again, we agree he erred.

The part of the story where “the spirit of the Lord” came upon him was the bit where he went to all the different towns and advanced against the Ammonites. Like Samson, the spirit of the Lord is giving him military strength and speed to fight.

The vow was not made under the influence of the spirit of the Lord; that is another sentence. Neither Jewish nor Christian commentators have ever taken it that way. The spirit of the Lord didn’t make Samson tell all his weaknesses to Delilah, either.

I’m not saying that God in some way forced or compelled Jephthah to make his vow. Instead I’m saying God should have not followed through with what essentially is an immoral intercessory prayer.

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

So Jephthah makes the decision to vow a human sacrifice (the wording of the passage makes it pretty clear he is expecting some human to come out of the house, not just the dog) and then makes the second decision to honor his vow instead of maybe discussing it with God or saying “Lord take me instead” etc.

And somehow all this is God’s fault that a guy basically acted like a pagan in vowing a human sacrifice?

It’s not God’s fault for Jephthah making the vow. God is complicit in giving Jepthah what he wanted, knowing that his daughter would die. We’re not talking about Danny Thomas making a vow to St. Jude, this was an evil bargain that the Bible describes and which God was a major participant.

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

Basically, that story says that Jephthah was full of himself and allowed Satan to trick him into doing something heinous.

While I agree that this has all the earmarks of a deal with the Devil, the Bible (which the Catechism says is true in one of four senses) says clearly that it was God who did what Jephthah asked.

God had nothing to do with Jephthah’s vow.

Can we at-will replace the word “God” with “Satan” in the Bible?

 

[Tis_Bearself]

I’m not buying it. Jephtha could have said he realized he’d vowed evil and refused to do his part of the bargain.

I’m not seeing a part of the Bible where the Lord talks to him and says give me your daughter or else.

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

I’m not buying it. Jephtha could have said he realized he’d vowed evil and refused to do his part of the bargain.

Again, I’m not talking about Jepthah. He was an idiot. He could’ve renounced the vow, or more properly not made it.

No, as I’ve noted a few times now I’m solely concerned with God’s actions. He knew what would happen and did it anyway. How would you defend’s God’s actions?

I’m not seeing a part of the Bible where the Lord talks to him and says give me your daughter or else.

I don’t know where you suggest that I said anything even remotely close to that. Just like I pointed out in my two examples, God was made an offer. God – all-knowing – accepted it when you absolutely should not have done so.

 

[Thom18]

I’m fairly certain (it’s been awhile since I’ve read the Old Testament) that God forbade human sacrifice (which this would have been) prior to this event. God wouldn’t say, “Don’t do such and such, unless you try to bargain with me”, so I don’t think we can say that God was particularly OK with this. The verse saying that the Lord gave them into his hands certainly could have been the inspired author’s idea or interpretation of the event:

“Jephthah was successful, so God must have been responsible for his victory. So, God must have desired the sacrifice”

If Jephthah had failed, then he and his entire army would have been slaughtered or captured. We could interpret this to mean that God didn’t desire the sacrifice; however, then people would blame God for not simply telling Jephthah that He didn’t desire such a sacrifice, despite the fact that Jephthah should have known better than to bargain as he did.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

No, as I’ve noted a few times now I’m solely concerned with God’s actions. He knew what would happen and did it anyway. How would you defend’s God’s actions?

You’re willfully missing the points of the story, which are:

1. Don’t make rash vows to God (Jesus took this further and said don’t make “oaths” (i.e. vows of this sort) at all)
2. The whole book of Judges is depicting a bad, lawless time which is reflected in the stories therein
3. Jephtha did what he did out of his own free will. He didn’t even try to take back the vow (it’s my understanding that there was some Jewish process for getting a vow like this cancelled). God does not act or not act a certain way on the basis that he knows if he does A, we will use our free will to do bad thing B.

Some people have also interpreted the story differently, that Jephtha didn’t expect a person to be the first one out of the house because of how houses were designed at that point in history, and that he was super-obedient in keeping his promise even though it was a person and not a cow or something that came out first, but I more often hear the interpretations in 1,2,3 above.

If you still want to believe this was all God’s fault because he didn’t make the battle go the other way or didn’t step in to save the girl, that’s your prerogative, but like I said I think blaming this on God is missing the point. It seems to be more a warning to the reader about how not to act.

 

[Thom18]

Since God didn’t explicitly state His acceptance or rejection, I think we need to:
A) Consider the implications both outcomes (Jephthah’s victory or defeat) would have
B) Remember God’s commandments (not only the decalogue)

Then, using these, we can come to a better informed interpretation of what we’re reading.

 

[jcrichton]

Hi, Mike!

Did God accept the offering or did Jephthah, as in the case of king Herod, not proceed to fulfill his promise because he wanted to “safe face?”

Consider king David’s son with Bathsheba, how could God allow that child to be the son of the Promise? God rejected him and David’s immoral union.

Now, knowing that Yahweh God did not demand/require human sacrifice, why would Jephthah make such offering, could he not have understood that it would be more than likely that a human being would step out of his door?

Maran atha!

Angel

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Consider the implications both outcomes (Jephthah’s victory or defeat) would have

This is a good point. Jepthah’s victory affected a lot more people than just Jepthah. It’s likely other people were praying to God for help too. This wasn’t something just between God and Jepthah, it was a battle affecting a whole bunch of people. Who’s to say God wasn’t trying to do something that created the greatest good for a large number of his faithful?

 

[Kei]

HOLD UP HOLD UP!!
You don’t understand the story.
You think Jephthah’s daughter died because of this.
What actually happened was that she was brought into consecration by the Temple, and in fact as the vow was public she probably purposefully did this, and never had to know a man.

If you don’t know the ancient Jewish context I can see why you might misunderstand.

 

[MPat]

We both agree that what Jephthah did was some combination of stupid and wrong, which is why I noted that I want to focus on God’s part in this bargain. You say God didn’t send any signs that he accepted the vow, but the fact that the Ammonites were given to his hand (exactly what he asked) and the fact that the Bible said he did exactly what was asked.

I’m not saying that God in some way forced or compelled Jephthah to make his vow. Instead I’m saying God should have not followed through with what essentially is an immoral intercessory prayer.

So, what better alternative do you see?

For example:

1. If a friend of mine sells me a laptop that I know was not his to sell, like it was owned by his adult daughter, I wouldn’t buy it.
2. If a friend bets me on a football game, I win, and I later find out that he bet his much needed rent money then not only wouldn’t I take the money I’d offer help to get him through his tough spot.

Those examples have little to do with the subject. Why not make a closer example - A stupidly asking some B not to kill him (and some of A’s friends) and promising to kill his daughter in B’s honour if B won’t kill him? Well, do you think B should actually allow himself to be blackmailed into killing A and his friends in such case?

Or do you understand that in this case the correct answer is not to kill A and his friends, and if A still commits murder, that’s his fault - not a fault of anyone else?

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

I’m fairly certain (it’s been awhile since I’ve read the Old Testament) that God forbade human sacrifice

That’s another topic, but God certainly ordered the death of humans by humans,

(which this would have been) prior to this event. God wouldn’t say, “Don’t do such and such, unless you try to bargain with me”, so I don’t think we can say that God was particularly OK with this. The verse saying that the Lord gave them into his hands certainly could have been the inspired author’s idea or interpretation of the event:

“Jephthah was successful, so God must have been responsible for his victory. So, God must have desired the sacrifice”

If Jephthah had failed, then he and his entire army would have been slaughtered or captured. We could interpret this to mean that God didn’t desire the sacrifice; however, then people would blame God for not simply telling Jephthah that He didn’t desire such a sacrifice, despite the fact that Jephthah should have known better than to bargain as he did.

That is a dangerous precedent in interpreting scripture. Scripture can be the exact opposite of true so long as the author (a divinely-inspired author) thought is was true. By its nature apologetics is a series of retreat positions (and this is a major one). Each retreat undercuts the alleged strength and validity of scripture.

The Bible says God interceded to bring Jepthah victory over the Ammonites. It’s not that it just so happens that Jephthah got the Ammonites into his hand, it was deliberate act by God. It’s literally described in the next sentence after the vow using the exact same language.

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

Mike_from_NJ:

No, as I’ve noted a few times now I’m solely concerned with God’s actions. He knew what would happen and did it anyway. How would you defend’s God’s actions?

You’re willfully missing the points of the story, which are:

1. Don’t make rash vows to God (Jesus took this further and said don’t make “oaths” (i.e. vows of this sort) at all)
2. The whole book of Judges is depicting a bad, lawless time which is reflected in the stories therein
3. Jephtha did what he did out of his own free will. He didn’t even try to take back the vow (it’s my understanding that there was some Jewish process for getting a vow like this cancelled). God does not act or not act a certain way on the basis that he knows if he does A, we will use our free will to do bad thing B.

Some people have also interpreted the story differently, that Jephtha didn’t expect a person to be the first one out of the house because of how houses were designed at that point in history, and that he was super-obedient in keeping his promise even though it was a person and not a cow or something that came out first, but I more often hear the interpretations in 1,2,3 above.

If you still want to believe this was all God’s fault because he didn’t make the battle go the other way or didn’t step in to save the girl, that’s your prerogative, but like I said I think blaming this on God is missing the point. It seems to be more a warning to the reader about how not to act.

I asked you to defend God’s actions and you didn’t spare a single word to do so, instead talking solely about Jephthah. I’ll ask again. How would you defend God’s actions?

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

Hi, Mike!

Did God accept the offering or did Jephthah, as in the case of king Herod, not proceed to fulfill his promise because he wanted to “safe face?”

God accepted the offering according to the Bible. Again, I’m not focusing on Jephthah. Jephthah was an idiot but an all-powerful all-knowing god should know better.

Consider king David’s son with Bathsheba, how could God allow that child to be the son of the Promise? God rejected him and David’s immoral union.

Now, knowing that Yahweh God did not demand/require human sacrifice, why would Jephthah make such offering, could he not have understood that it would be more than likely that a human being would step out of his door?

Once again I’m not concerned with Jephthah’s actions, but God’s.

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

HOLD UP HOLD UP!!
You don’t understand the story.
You think Jephthah’s daughter died because of this.
What actually happened was that she was brought into consecration by the Temple, and in fact as the vow was public she probably purposefully did this, and never had to know a man.

If you don’t know the ancient Jewish context I can see why you might misunderstand.

I figured at some point someone would try to claim “burnt offering” means “maintain virginity”.

Let’s look at what could have come out of Jephthah’s house to greet him:

1. A human virgin
2. A human non-virgin (perhaps a slave, a servant, or a neighbor)
3. An animal virgin
4. An animal non-virgin

Don’t laugh at me separating possibilities 3 and 4. It’s no stranger than separating possibilities 1 and 2. The Hebrew for burnt offering in Judges 11 (according to Biblehub.com) is ‘ō·lāh. Here’s a link from the same site showing all instances of that word in scripture. As far as I can see each one is about offering a sacrifice to be literally set on fire.

But by your logic you’re saying a single word means a literal burning if it’s option 3 or 4, and maintaining one’s virginity if it’s option 1. Please show where burnt offering has been used to describe maintain virginity. I can not think of any alleged disparity between a single word’s meaning covering a single event. This would not be the first time an apologist tried to play fast and loose with language to try and explain away uncomfortable scripture.

What would you suggest Jephthah would have to do if it was option 2? Let’s say a neighbor or a slave who was not a virgin came out to greet him. Would he or she be burnt? Since definitions can be pulled out of thin air perhaps in this instance ‘ō·lāh has a third meaning: “dance with joy”