When a Foolish Vow Changes Everything - Judges 11:35–12:15 (Session 12)

Jephthah returns from victory over the Ammonites only to discover that his only daughter is the first person to come from his house to greet him. His careless vow suddenly becomes the defining crisis of his story.

In this session, Glenn and Steve examine whether Jephthah actually sacrificed his daughter as a burnt offering. Although the wording of the original vow refers to a burnt offering, the later passage repeatedly emphasizes her virginity, her lack of marriage, and the end of Jephthah’s family line. This provides a strong contextual case that she may have been permanently dedicated to the Lord rather than killed.

The discussion also explains that human sacrifice was clearly forbidden under the Mosaic Law. Jephthah could have appealed to the provisions of the law regarding an invalid vow rather than carrying out something God had prohibited.

Jephthah’s story offers a sobering lesson: a person may genuinely trust God, follow His direction, and still make a very foolish decision. The Bible does not hide the flaws of its people, and believers should be careful not to place Christian leaders on pedestals or discard everything good they have taught when a weakness is later revealed.

Judges 12 then records another conflict with the tribe of Ephraim. They threaten Jephthah because they were not included in the battle, even though Jephthah says he had previously asked for their help. Their jealousy and divisiveness lead to civil war and the deaths of forty-two thousand Israelites.

The session closes by examining how internal division destroys churches and communities. When believers turn inward and fight each other, ministry, outreach, and witness quickly suffer.

Scripture: Judges 11:35–12:15
Series: The Book of Judges — An RTTB Study

Questions discussed in this session:

• Can people be in the will of God and still make foolish mistakes? 
• Can jealousy and hatred cause people to be unreasonable? 
• What should we do when we meet people who cause division? 
• How effective is the church when it’s fighting amongst itself?  

Transcript

Israel's Multiple Gods and Jephthah's Vow

Speaker 1 0:02

Music .

Speaker 2 0:20

Hello everyone , welcome once again to Reasoning Through the Bible . We're going through a little bit of the middle part of the Book of Judges , chapters 10 and chapters 11 . There's a little bit of a review . In chapter 10 we saw that Israel was getting themselves into quite a bit of a pickle , so to speak , and that God had said I'm done bailing you out . And he turned them over to themselves and saying you go to these other gods that you continue to go back and worship to and let them bail you out . So it's a little bit of a review in regards to who those gods were , but all is the main God that they keep going back to and it talks about Ba'alim , which is the plural for Ba'al , and the asterisk . Those have always been the main two Canaanite gods . They go to asterisk as a female god , but they were also serving the other gods of the countries surrounding them . With Syria , their gods were Hadath , ba'al , moath and Anasidon . They had all of Syria's gods plus the Phoenician god , astarte .

Speaker 2 1:24

Siddhuan religion also included syncretism . That means that they just added Yahweh as to one of their other gods . They didn't really consider him to be God Almighty and the God the Creator . He was just another God . The Moabites worshiped Chimash , the Ammonites worshiped Molech and we've talked about Molech before , where you had child sacrifice in the worship of Molech and in the Philistines they worshiped Dagon and Ba'al as well , and these are all referenced throughout Judges and other parts of the Old Testament and Kings . So they had gone into a full scale canonization of worshiping all these other gods . That's what brought God to the point of saying I'm not going to bail you out anymore . You go to these gods and let them bail you out . We looked at that at our last session and then we came into this person of Japheth and we started looking into Japheth . So he won over the Ammonites and he made this vow , glenn , in regards to .

Speaker 1 2:21

He makes a vow , chapter 11 , verses 30 and 31 . He makes a vow to the Lord and said If you will indeed give the sons of Ammon into my hand he was going into a battle If you let me win the battle against Ammon verse 31 , then it shall be that whatever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me when I return from the sons of Ammon , it shall be the Lord's and I will offer it up as a burnt offering . He makes this vow to the Lord . Well then , guess what ? It's the first thing that comes out of his house when he gets back and his daughter and it's not just his daughter , it's his only child .

Speaker 2 2:56

It's the only child that he had .

Speaker 1 2:58

So we conclude that's a foolish vow . We talked last time how if you do make a vow , you need to treat that very seriously , and he does here . But today I don't hear a whole lot about making vows . I've known a few people that have made vows to the Lord . We need to be very careful about making vows . I always was a little bit afraid to make a vow to the Lord , not because of the vow , but because I knew how weak my flesh was and I knew how many times I've done things that I didn't want to do . So any vow that depends on my weak flesh to complete it is not going to be a real strong vow . Just , if you do make a vow , take it very seriously . Don't make one that's foolish , like this man .

Speaker 2 3:41

And the question is whether or not we should even need to make a vow . We're told to ask God for the things that we want and the things that we need and to pray to Him . We're not told to make vows .

Speaker 1 3:53

Jeff the wanted to win this battle and we talked last time how you can't manipulate God . You can't say hey , God , I'll pay you off if you help me out with this problem . But what we can do is , out of love , give things to the Lord as a personal sacrifice . So if Japheth wanted to do that , then what could he have done ?

Speaker 2 4:13

He could have sacrificed to the Lord prior to it and given credit to the Lord prior to it , and asked for God's blessing and God's hand on him as he went into battle .

Speaker 1 4:24

Yeah , or been a little more specific . The best of my livestock , something like that . We're going to read in a minute and I think we could build a fairly strong case that this girl didn't die . But let's assume for a minute that he did burn his daughter , or at least let's assume for a minute that he made a vow to burn his daughter . So if the vow meant killing his daughter , would he have been justified in refusing to carry out the vow ? He realizes , oh my goodness , I've made a foolish vow . Would he have been justified to ?

Speaker 2 4:58

back out of it . One thing to mention before we discuss this is that it was very clear in that the worship of Yahweh , there was not to be any type of human sacrifice , whether it was child or whether it was adult . So human sacrifice was not something that God was asking for or would even accept .

Speaker 1 5:16

Just to reiterate that the Book of Judges , from start to finish , has a lot of horrible things in it . There's a lot of disobedience , a lot of garbage . It's gonna get worse before we get to the end of the book . There's a lot of horrible things in here . I've seen skeptics and critics pull open a Bible and turn to some of these horrible things and say , look at these horrible things that's happened back here in the Bible and in Judges . Well , yeah , it is horrible , but the reason it's horrible is not because of God . These people were in disobedience to God , as you just said . Nowhere does God ask for a human sacrifice , with one exception .

Speaker 1 5:53

And who's that that was with Abraham as a test as a test , and God stopped him .

Speaker 2 5:58

And also provided the sacrifice himself .

Speaker 1 6:01

And provided the sacrifice himself . So , apart from that one instance , which was a faith test , as you said , the book of Moses completely , entirely thoroughly , without question , was moral and it prevented human sacrifice . It had many things in the law of Moses that protected the innocent . It was the spirit of the entire law was exactly the opposite of taking advantage .

Speaker 2 6:27

So it kind of gives us an insight into Jesus' background . Okay , in regards to that , he knows human sacrifice is not something that God wants .

Speaker 1 6:39

So let's assume he wakes up one day and he had vowed to burn his daughter and he realizes it's the daughter , would he have been justified in backing out and breaking the vow ? Yes , there was a hypothetical question .

Speaker 2 6:53

Well , yes , and there were actually laws , provisions for that , that if there was happened to be some sort of a vow that were , or a sacrifice that made it and ended up being something that wasn't specific for God , he could have gone to a priest and explained the situation to him and had another type of a sacrifice that would have been provided . That was something that was provided in the law's form . So , yeah , there was something that he could have done to get out of it and plead his case .

Speaker 1 7:21

I submit that if Jephthah , at this point , would have said , oh my goodness , I made a mistake , I'm not going to follow through on my vow , I'm not going to burn my daughter to death , that at that point , even if God would have held him accountable , who would have been the subject of God's wrath Would have been Jephthah , not the daughter . Jephthah , by breaking the vow and falling on God's mercy , would have prevented the daughter's innocent death . Instead of protecting his self from God's wrath , he would have said , okay , I'm going to suffer God's wrath and protect my daughter , but I think he didn't kill her , and we'll find that out in the next passage . Judges , chapter 11 , starting in verse 35 . And I'm going to read here when he saw our E Torah's closed and said alas , my daughter , you have brought me very low and are among those who trouble me , for I have given my word to the Lord and I cannot take it back . So she said to him my father , you have given your word to the Lord . Do to me as you have said , since the Lord has avenged you of your enemies , the sons of Ammon , she said to her father let this thing be done for me , let me alone two months that I may go into the mountains and weep because of my virginity I and my companions and he said go . So he sent her away for two months and she left with her companions and wept on the mountain because of her virginity . And at the end of two months she returned to her father who did to her , according to the vow which he had made , she had no relations with a man .

Speaker 1 8:59

Thus it became custom in Israel that the daughters of Israel went yearly to commemorate the daughter of Jeb the , the Gileadite , four days in the year . Now , in verse 35 , jeb the declares that he has to keep his vow and in verse 36 , the daughter submits to the sacrifice . So just to be careful with the text here , going back to verse 31 , the term there when he made the vow is indeed burnt offering . It's the same word that's used throughout the entire scriptures for burnt offering . So , yes , the text said in the vow burnt offering , not just a general offering , but he uses the same term that's used everywhere for burnt offering . It's the same original Hebrew word . However , the context here in the conversation that they're having , I think , builds a pretty strong case that he did not burn his daughter to death . And here's why Verse 37 , what is she weeping for ? Weeping for her virginity .

Speaker 2 10:03

For her virginity , yes 38, .

Speaker 1 10:05

Her friends weep two months because of her virginity . And in verse 39 , did to her , according to the vow which he had made . So she died a virgin .

Speaker 1 10:17

She did not know a man , so the term was burnt offering . But three times in the conversation it's talking about her not marrying , not having a child , being a virgin , staying a virgin until she died . The entire context Legit to believe . What he really did was he set her apart for the Lord , sacrificed her , quote-unquote . She was dedicated to the Lord like a nun and a monastery or something like that , didn't marry and didn't have children .

Speaker 2 10:50

Yeah , and it's most likely that she Was dedicated to the tabernacle , to go and serve in the tabernacle and her duties and things like that , and so , yeah , and it was commemorated that way and it was celebrated that way for our listeners , if they want on their own , they can go to the Leviticus , chapter 27 , 1 through 8 . That's where it explains that a invalid vow could be canceled by a priest . So there was another thing that the jessus could have done in regards to it . But , yeah , I think it's pretty clear on the text here that he talks about her being his only daughter , only child .

Speaker 2 11:23

And that's the sacrifice in that his line , his lineage , is not going to be carried on .

Speaker 1 11:29

It ends with his daughter but the point , regardless of what happened with the daughter , the point of the passage is really something bigger , which is he trusted God . This man , jeff the trusted God to Help him in this battle . God came through and defeated his enemies . From that standpoint , he had faith . Now he made a foolish vow .

Speaker 2 11:50

What he really meant was to sacrifice an animal and to your point , he could have been more specific in his vow , exactly .

Speaker 1 11:57

So here's a question for us Can people today Be in the will of God , following the Lord's directions , appealing to God , and still do something very foolish ?

Speaker 2 12:09

Yeah , it happens to me . Yeah , it has happened to me , or ?

Speaker 1 12:13

yeah , let's not have testimony time . We'll be here for a while between me and you . So yes , obviously the reason I say that is because sometimes people think , oh , this person's kind of an elevated holy person and we never expect them to make a mistake , and then when they find out they do make a mistake , we're ready to just flush them . Many a time there's been a Christian leader , pastor , famous church person , speaker , author , famous Christian person that we lift up and sort of put on a pedestal and then we find out they've got some sort of a flaw and we're ready to completely tear him down when really the vast majority of their life's work is good .

Speaker 2 12:54

I think , as you said earlier , steve , the book of judges , is all of us when that happens , because the world and the ones who do not believe in God , they're going to be quick to point that flaw out of those particular individuals and we shouldn't acquiesce to the worldly view of it . We should acknowledge that it was something that shouldn't have been done . And again , it's all in individual cases . It depends upon what the situation is . You have to take it case by case because if it's something that's just absolutely horrendous and shown as a pattern , but you can acknowledge that this person is a flawed individual , but what they spoke about or what they taught and other areas of their life were following God and their principles that they taught it doesn't mean that you throw out what they taught and the other aspects of their life of following God Because of this flaw that they might have had .

Speaker 1 13:50

Some of my best teachers taught us that you can learn from everybody . We can learn from . Learn lessons from everyone . I just hesitate to see Christians are so bad about tearing up our brothers and sisters when they find fault , and most of the people in the scriptures have faults . So next chapter , judges , chapter 12 , we're going to find out more sin in Israel . No surprise

Handle Divisive People in Church

Speaker 1 14:13

judges . Chapter 12 , verse 1 says Then the men of Ephraim were summoned and they crossed to Zephan and said to Jephthah why did you cross over to fighting against the sons of Ammon without calling us to go with you ? We will burn your house down on you .

Speaker 2 14:29

Where did we see the sons of Ephraim before chapter 8 with Gideon ?

Speaker 1 14:34

Yeah , and they said virtually the same thing , these people of Ephraim seem to be very and whiners , and whiners , and they seem to be always coming up saying how come you didn't bring us along when you were going to go get some money ?

Speaker 2 14:48

Yeah , they think of themselves more than what they actually are .

Speaker 1 14:52

They're one of the tribes of Israel . This isn't a evil canaanite group that was supposed to drive out of the land . These were the other tribes of Israel and they seem to be constantly fighting with the other tribes . Have you ever noticed that there's some people in the church that seem to always cause division ? Ask any pastor , they'll tell you . There's some people in the church that are just constantly causing division . Well , here , this was 30 something , hundred years ago , and there was still that case .

Speaker 2 15:26

They're wanting to create turmoil , always stirring things up . It's a pattern with particular people .

Speaker 1 15:34

So what should we do when we encounter people in our churches that want to cause division all the time ?

Speaker 2 15:39

We should walk away from them . Think sometimes we need to call them out and say your position is always a divisive position . Give them some instruction , correct them maybe , but the best thing to do is not participate in it .

Speaker 1 15:52

I've got three verses here I'm going to read from New Testament about divisive people . I urge you , brothers and sisters , by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ , to agree together to end your divisions and to be united in the same mind and purpose . 1 Corinthians , chapter 1 . Now I beseech you , brethren , mark them that are causing the divisions and occasions of stumbling contrary to the doctrine which you've learned , and turn away from them . Romans , chapter 16 , says and in Titus , chapter 3 , verse 10 , says reject a divisive man after the first and second admonition . So just what you were saying , steve . We need to be aware that there are going to be divisive people in the church and we need to kind of stay away from them . Don't be a participant with them . And if somehow division always seems to be around whenever I'm there , then maybe it's me and we need to be aware of that .

Speaker 1 16:49

In Judges 12 , at the end of verse one , what are the men of Ephraim threatening to do because they didn't get invited to the war party here ? The last sentence in verse one says we will burn your house down on you . Okay , so get the picture what they really wanted to do , just like back in Gideon's day . They wanted to go along for the battle and get some of the spoils , the money out of the battle and the land and the stuff . How come you didn't invite us along ? Because you didn't invite us to come along , I'm going to burn your house down and you in it . Now to your point .

Speaker 2 17:22

This is their own brethren .

Speaker 1 17:25

Was that a fair response ? By no means . I mean obviously not . We mentioned this prior because it came up prior . What does the law of Moses say ? I for an eye tooth for a tooth , and by that I mean if you destroy my cow , then the most I can get out of you as a cow . I can't go burn your whole house down and kill your whole family . So in this case , the men of Ephraim weren't even wronged . I mean maybe missed opportunity , but they hadn't been . Anything taken from them , certainly not their lives . And now they're ready to go kill all the people of Jephthah .

Speaker 2 18:02

In verse two it also talks about that . Japheth actually alludes to that he actually did call them to help and they didn't come .

Speaker 1 18:10

So what do you think's motivating Ephraim's jealousy here ? Jealousy and covetousness . We should teach people in our families , in our churches , to be satisfied with what the Lord gives us . There's nothing wrong with working to get more , to being industrious and trying to work to get more , but fighting family members and making enemies with our brethren just because I want more stuff . That is divisive and it's just wrong .

Speaker 2 18:39

We all have a place . We're all described as being the body of Christ . Some of us are ears , some of us are toes , some of us are hands , some of us are fingers , etc . We all have our places and some of us are not going to be called a leadership . Some of us are always going to be called to be supporters . We shouldn't be covetous of that , of saying why can't I be a leader ? This is where the Lord has you . Be content in it and be supportive because , who knows , maybe God might call you to be a leader at another point in time and you're going to want support from other people , Can't everybody be the leader ?

Speaker 1 19:18

So verses 2 and 3 , Jeftha says that we ask you for help but you refuse to . And then in verses 4 through 7 , there's a civil war between these two groups and 42,000 people at least 42,000 died . So Israel was supposed to be fighting the Canaanites to drive them out of the land . That was the instruction all the way back in Joshua . But instead of fighting the Canaanites , they're fighting each other . What happens in a church when two groups start fighting each other .

Speaker 2 19:50

It destroys the church in many , many ways . Been there , done that , and quite often there's what's referred to as a split .

Speaker 1 19:57

And who ends up dying is the people in the church who get into spiritually dying .

Speaker 2 20:02

And possibly the church itself ? How ?

Speaker 1 20:04

effective is a church when it's fighting against itself .

Speaker 2 20:09

Not effective at all . They lose focus in regards to being a light to the community and salt .

Speaker 1 20:15

I mean churches I've been in . That started internal squabbles . The ministry stop , the outreach stops , evangelism stops , it just kind of dies .

Speaker 2 20:25

Because you're turning inwards , fighting those situations and those battles on the internal perspective . And another reason is because the news usually gets out . How can the church continue to be that light and salt in the community when it's known that there have internal problems and issues ?

Speaker 1 20:42

Verses 8 through 15 . It tells about three different judges of Israel , mentions three of them , and it's a little bit tedious . It's mainly just a factual account . It's just a just a facts ma'am kind of a thing . It talks about these three people . But if you really look at it , I think we can dig out some interesting things . Just reading it through , okay , you'd ask yourself why in the world's is here . But think about it for just a minute . This gives factual , historically accurate reference material for these people it gives the judges names .

Speaker 1 21:19

It tells where they were from . It tells how many children they had . It Give some indication of where the children married . It Tells how long they were judges . It says where they were buried . It tells how some of them traveled around . Some of them traveled around on donkeys . It gives factual information , as a Accurate history would , and how many years each of them judged for how many years they judged for . So the Bible presents factual , historical Eyewitness accounts of what happened . Some of the Bible is purely factual history .

Speaker 1 22:02

This isn't just a fuzzy spiritual teaching . It's not a pop psychology book . It's , in this case , a history book . So this is one of these places .

Speaker 1 22:12

This section in Judges 12 Is one of these many passages , and we tend to point this out as we go along simply because these things are true . Reason it's true is because it recorded accurate history here . Because we can trust these things , then when it does give spiritual teachings , we can trust those as well . So the Bible is a factual reference book . The other thing is that it tells that each of these three judges were buried and I'm going to point this out as we go through . They were not burned . Bible does not teach cremation . It always Buries our dead . For 2,000 years Christians have buried our dead because we believe in resurrection . So before we get to next time , I think we'll get to the story of Samson . So it's probably a good time to stop here . But just want to mention something before we close for the day here at reasoning through the Bible .

Speaker 1 23:08

What Steve and I are trying to do is To help local churches , and we're trying to help Bible teachers and small group leaders , because I know , steve , you and I we've taught in different churches over the years and we know what it takes to help prepare a lesson and we know what a lot of churches have as far as resources and Many times they're struggling for teacher training materials . Often times there's a need for Training people . Maybe you got somebody a little tentative . What do I do ? I'm a little frightened to step up and lead . We've been there and kind of understand that , and I can't remember a church that I've been in that had too many Good teachers

Free Bible Podcast With Lesson Plans

Speaker 1 23:52

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Speaker 1 23:52

One of the things we're trying to do in this , verse by verse , going through the Bible and reasoning through the Bible , is To present a podcast that people can learn from and then , on our website , provide a lesson plan and if people will just go to our website , and for each of our podcast We've got a corresponding lesson plan .

Speaker 1 24:12

It's on our resources page . On the resources page you can download for free a lesson plan that follows along with our podcast . And if somebody were to just have that lesson plan and Listen to the podcast , then they could take that lesson plan and teach a pretty good Bible class , small group Sunday morning Bible class . So all of our listeners , if if you're in a church that needs teachers , tell them about us or tell your pastor or Just go and check it out . It's good to download them that follow along as you listen to the podcast . But what we're trying to do is to provide free resources for the local churches because we know we've , over the years We've seen Pastors that just struggle finding good teachers and we're trying to provide some good teacher training materials and also to spark some further Discussion so that hopefully after these podcasts you can have discussions with your friends and maybe your family members who are also listening to it .

Speaker 2 25:11

So if you have other people that listen to it , then it can spark things and have further discussions amongst yourselves .

Speaker 1 25:17

You can find that on our website at reasoning through the Bible comm Tune in . Next time to our podcast we're gonna meet a man named Samson who had great potential but pretty much didn't live up to his potential at all . That's it for today on reasoning through the Bible . You .