Jephthah. Judges 11:30-40

And Jephthah made a vow to the LORD : “If you give the Ammonites into my hands, whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites will be the LORD’s, and I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering.”

So I read the above sentence and immediately thought “oh no!”. But before I rant about Jephthah, I’ll have a little natter about the other bit in Judges that caught my eye.

I liked Caleb’s bit part. It’s such a random little extra bit which seems to have no impact on the rest of the book. Obviously someone at the time thought it was significant, but failed to tell us why. Random.

The tent peg massacre was interesting. I could just imagine that going oh so wrong: “Sisera then awoke, as the tent collapsed”. Surely she had a kitchen knife or something a bit less guesome than a tent peg? I guess it was a case of plausible deniability in case he woke up… “No, I’m not about to cave in your head, I’ve got some tents to put up…”

At sunday school Gideon is the superhero of all kids, along with David (vs Goliath), except we can believe that we are Gideon because he is small and scared and owns a fleece. But he ain’t all good. There’s a bit of me that is glad about that. But I shouldn’t be.

Anyway back to Jephthah. Why?!? Why would he vow that? Why? What did he expect? ( Wonders if he was looking for a way out of a bad marriage, or whether he didn’t like the pet cat ) But why? The photo above represent the greating I tend to get when I get home. My little girl (age 14 months) knows I’ll be coming in that door. And she looks out for me. I love it! Surely Jephthah should have known the first thing out of the house to meet him would be a person, and probably his only child or his wife.

What I don’t get is why he seems so surprised. Perhaps he didn’t expect he would defeat the Ammonites, and was said the vow out of desparation to save his own life. Then if he lost he wouldn’t have to go through with it. But in that instance I’d want to loose – I wouldn’t want to save my own life in exchange for my daughter’s. So bizarre. Can’t understand that.

Perhaps he kind of hoped it would be the Abraham/Isaac thing, and was desparately looking around for a ram in a bushes? But God was testing Abraham – this guy just made a foolish vow. Now he may have hoped the ram thing would have happened but he can’t have been thinking/expecting that when he made the vow.

I don’t get it. Why would he make that vow? I can only think that he wasn’t really thinking. I pray that God protects me from ever making foolish promises – particularly concerning my daughter.

The photo

This is the sight that greets me when I get home, normally minus the off-camera SB800 strobe.

31mm @ f4.0 1/15s – SB800 ttl mode off-camera