Judges 12
HERE we find sin breaking out again and as usual, soon after God had wrought a great deliverance for His people. What marvelous forbearance He showed, and still shows, for mercy has not yet given place to judgment! But since the cross of Christ, the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men (Romans 1:18), and, knowing the terror (judgment) of the Lord, we persuade men (2 Corinthians 5:11). Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners (1 Timothy 1:15), but how shall they escape who neglect so great salvation? (Hebrews 2:3).
The quarrelsome men of Ephraim of whom we have read before (chapter 8). had not followed Jephthah to the war against the Ammonites, but now, when victory is obtained, they blame him for not calling them, and threaten to burn his house over his head. There does not appear the fear of God in the words of the Ephraimites, nor yet in the doings of Jephthah, for the latter gathered all the men of Gilead, and fought with Ephraim. Forty-two thousand Ephraimites suffered death at the hands of Jephthah and his followers from Gilead.
The Word of God does not tell us His judgment about this fight; it does not seem that either side could be commended. Jephthah should have met the angry men of Ephraim with a gracious spirit, as Gideon had met their fathers (chapter 8:1-3). Summing up his life we should rather form an opinion of Jephthah from the meaning of his name (an opposer), and what we have seen of him in the eleventh and twelfth chapters that he was a selfish and violent man of the world who did not know God by faith as Gideon, Deborah and many others before him in the record of the Holy Scriptures, but the divine Penman in the eleventh chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews, speaking of those “faith-worthies” of the Old Testament says:
“And what shall I more say? for the time would fail me to tell of Gideon, and of Barak, and of Samson and of Jephthah ... ..who through faith subdued kingdoms ... ...
We must be slow to judge others, but apply the Word of God strictly to our own individual selves. It is “sharper that any two-edged sword ... .and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” (Hebrews 4:12,13).
ML 12/20/1925