A Vow That Should Have Never Been Made

My Bible reading yesterday morning included Judges chapter 11.  When I finished reading the chapter, I looked at Les and said, "This might be the stupidest story in the Bible!" Please don't misunderstand me!  I am not saying the Bible is stupid.  I'm talking about the actions of a man and a vow he made.  A vow that should have never been uttered.

My reasoning behind this statement comes from verses 30 through 40.  Verses 30-31 say, "And Jephthah vowed a vow unto the LORD, and said, If thou shalt without fail deliver the children of Ammon into mine hands, Then it shall be, that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, shall surely be the LORD'S, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering."

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible says, "The words of this verse prove conclusively that Jephthah intended his vow to apply to human beings, not animals: for only one of his household could be expected to come forth from the door of his house to meet him. They also preclude any other meaning than that Jephthah contemplated a human sacrifice. This need not, however, surprise us, when we recollect his Syrian birth and long residence in a Syrian city, where such fierce rites were probably common. The Syrians and Phoenicians were conspicuous among the ancient pagan nations for human sacrifices, and the transfer, under such circumstances, to Yahweh of the rites with which the false gods were honored, is just what one might expect. The circumstance of the Spirit of the Lord coming on Jephthah is no difficulty; as it by no means follows that because the Spirit of God endued him with supernatural valor and energy for vanquishing the Ammonites, He therefore also endued him with spiritual knowledge and wisdom."

Verses 34 and 35 tells us what happened after he returned victoriously, "And Jephthah came to Mizpeh unto his house, and, behold, his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances: and she was his only child; beside her he had neither son nor daughter. And it came to pass, when he saw her, that he rent his clothes, and said, Alas, my daughter! thou hast brought me very low, and thou art one of them that trouble me: for I have opened my mouth unto the LORD, and I cannot go back."

After reading those verses, I just shook my head.  Jephthah had ONE child.  Who was he thinking of when he made that vow?  The only others would have been his wife or a servant, but why would a servant come out to meet him?  So his burnt offering was going to be his wife or his daughter. There was nothing about this vow that could agree with God's laws.

His daughter replies in verse 36, "And she said unto him, My father, if thou hast opened thy mouth unto the LORD, do to me according to that which hath proceeded out of thy mouth; forasmuch as the LORD hath taken vengeance for thee of thine enemies, even of the children of Ammon." The Pulpit Commentary said, "The touching submission of Jephthah’s daughter to her unnatural and terrible fate, while it reveals a most lovable character, seems also to show that the idea of a human sacrifice was not so strange to her mind as it is to ours."

While many have said that she was not actually burned, The Pulpit Commentary said, "Who did with her according to his vow. Nothing can be more express than this statement. In fact, except the natural horror we feel at a human sacrifice, there is nothing to cast the least shade of doubt upon the fact that Jephthah’s daughter was offered up as a burnt offering, in accordance with heathen notions, but, as Josephus says, neither "conformably to the law, nor acceptably to God." Most of the early Jewish commentators and all the Christian Fathers for ten or eleven centuries held this view. Luther’s comment is, "Some affirm that he did not sacrifice her, but the text is clear enough." She knew. Rather, she had known."

Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible said, "Most condemn Jephthah; he did ill to make so rash a vow, and worse to perform it. He could not be bound by his vow to that which God had forbidden by the letter of the sixth commandment: Thou shalt not kill. God had forbidden human sacrifices, so that it was in effect a sacrifice to Moloch."

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible , "Jephthah was right in not being deterred from keeping his vow by the loss and sorrow to himself (compare the marginal references), just as Abraham was right in not withholding his son, his only son, from God, when commanded to offer him up as a burnt-offering. But Jephthah was wholly wrong in that conception of the character of God which led to his making the rash vow. And he would have done right not to slay his child, though the guilt of making and of breaking such a vow would have remained. Josephus well characterizes the sacrifice as neither sanctioned by the Mosaic law, nor acceptable to God.”

The Biblical Illustrator sums it up nicely, "Two men are very foolish or stubborn who fulfill an agreement which they both see to be disadvantageous, and wish to fall away from. No duty whatever compels them to fulfill it, and if they do so they are justly the laughing-stock of their acquaintances. Now, this is precisely the case in which a man finds himself who has vowed to God what turns out to be sinful, for God can never wish him to fulfill a contract which, he now sees, involves sin. A man swears to do a certain thing because he thinks it will be pleasing to God, but if he discovers that, instead of being pleasing, it will be hateful to God, to perform his vow, and do that vowed but hateful thing, is to insult God. By the very discovery of the sinfulness of a vow, the maker of it is absolved from performing it. God shrinks much more than he can do from the perpetration of sin. Both parties fall from the agreement."

God doesn't work the way Jephthah thought He did.  You don't make deals with God.  God was ready to deliver without a vow that went against His Word.  We can't say, "God, I'll do this, if You'll do that."  We need to be like the Hebrew boys before they were tossed in the fiery furnace in Daniel 3:16-18, "Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter. If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up."

Serve God.  Without conditions.  Whatever sacrifices we make, should be made out of love, not with an expectation of reward.  There should be no "If, Then" statements in our prayers. Follow Him wholly and everything else will go according to His plan.