Today's Scripture
Jephthah’s promise- Judges 11:29-39
Today’s Reading Schedule: Judges 10-12 – Click to read
29 Then the Lord’s spirit came on Jephthah. He passed through Gilead and Manasseh, then through Mizpah in Gilead, and from there he crossed over to the Ammonites. 30 Jephthah made a solemn promise to the Lord: “If you will decisively hand over the Ammonites to me, 31 then whatever comes out the doors of my house to meet me when I return victorious from the Ammonites will be given over to the Lord. I will sacrifice it as an entirely burned offering.” 32 Jephthah crossed over to fight the Ammonites, and the Lord handed them over to him. 33 It was an exceptionally great defeat; he defeated twenty towns from Aroer to the area of Minnith, and on as far as Abel-keramim. So the Ammonites were brought down before the Israelites.
34 But when Jephthah came to his house in Mizpah, it was his daughter who came out to meet him with tambourines and dancing! She was an only child; he had no other son or daughter except her. 35 When he saw her, he tore his clothes and said, “Oh no! My daughter! You have brought me to my knees! You are my agony! For I opened my mouth to the Lord, and I can’t take it back.”
36 But she replied to him, “My father, you’ve opened your mouth to the Lord, so you should do to me just what you’ve promised. After all, the Lord has carried out just punishment for you on your enemies the Ammonites.”37 Then she said to her father, “Let this one thing be done for me: hold off for two months and let me and my friends wander the hills in sadness, crying over the fact that I never had children.”
38 “Go,” he responded, and he sent her away for two months. She and her friends walked on the hills and cried because she would never have children.
39 When two months had passed, she returned to her father, and he did to her what he had promised. She had not known a man intimately. But she gave rise to a tradition in Israel where 40 for four days every year Israelite daughters would go away to recount the story of the Gileadite Jephthah’s daughter.
Devotion
What Does the passage Mean to Me/US?
The story of Jephthah is a disturbing story. And yes, the judges after him projects worst character.
Jephthah was a mighty warrior but never official heir of his father.
The elders of the nation came to him, where he was exiled when Israel was under the threat of the Ammonites.
He wins the battle of the Ammonites and was coming back from his victory.
He vowed that he will offer the first person who greets him from his victory as a prize to God, not knowing that it would be his daughter.
His vow shows how distant the people of God were distant from God.
Offering human sacrifice was a practice of the foreign gods. However, they did not know who God was and therefore made assumptions about God. He had no clue that the act of human sacrifice was not the way to honor God.
Some might consider this event disturbing because of the act of human sacrifice.
I am, however, more disturbed how Jephthat had no clue of who God really was. His assumption of God was the reason for the tragedy he needed to walk through.
Doesn’t that happen to us too? Instead of learning who God is through our personal encounter and the scripture, we assume who God might be through our assumptions.
Shouldn’t we seek to God more, every day, to avoid this?
Prayer
Lord, don’t want to see or follow you in the ways we are trained by culture. Help us to follow you correctly. In Christ name, AMEN.
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