Judges 10:1-11:31
After the death of Abimelech, Tola and Jair judged Israel, but the people still departed from the Lord and worshiped the gods of Syria, Zidon, Moab, and the other nations around them. Then the Lord allowed their enemies to trouble them, and at last the Ammonites gathered their armies together and came over Jordan to fight against Israel.
Then the children of Israel cried unto the Lord and said, “We have sinned against Thee, both because we have forsaken our God, and also served Baalim.” This confession looked fine on the surface, but it was not from the heart. Alas, how often this is so. How often the sinner forgets the Lord as long as everything goes well, but then when trouble comes he turns to Him and expects deliverance out of his trouble. Sometimes even we who are Christians do this, but the Lord reminded Israel of all He had done for them, and of how they had turned away from Him to other gods. He told them to call upon the gods whom they had been worshiping and let them deliver them out of their trouble.
Then they owned their sin again, and this time they put away their strange gods and turned to the Lord who heard their cry. They said that the man who delivered them would be their head. We can see from this that although they had turned to the Lord, they were still looking to some man to be their leader. How difficult it is for us to look to the Lord alone. How naturally, even after praying to Him, we seem to look to “an arm of flesh.”
Jephthah was the one whom God used to deliver his people at this time, but there were things about him that showed the sad state into which the people had fallen. He was the son of a harlot, and had been turned out of his father’s house. He had a following of vain men too, but he was a mighty man of valor.
The men of Gilead sent for him, therefore, and told him that they wanted him to be their captain to deliver them from the Ammonites. Jephthah said he would come and fight for them if they would make him their head, when the Lord had delivered the Ammonites into their hands. The Gileadites said they would do this. Jephah then sent messengers to the children of Ammon asking them why they had come out to fight against Israel. The Ammonites said that the land from Amon to Jabbok, and to the Jordan, belonged to them, but Jephthah told them of how the Lord had given it to Israel out of the hand of the Amorites, and that now it belonged to them, not to the Ammonites.
The king of the children of Ammon would not listen to this, and so Jephthah passed over to fight against him. Before doing so, Jephthah vowed to the Lord that if He would deliver the enemy into his hand, then whatever came out of the door of his house to meet him, he would offer up as a burnt offering to the Lord. This was a rash and unnecessary vow. The Lord does not want us to makr such promises to Him, and we can surely say the Lord took no pleasure in the fulfillment of this vow. Nevertheless God honored the faith of Jephthah, as He always does, no matter how weak and failing the instrument. How good He is!
ML 11/01/1953