“Now Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty man of valour, and he was the son of an harlot: and Gilead begat Jephthah. And Gilead’s wife bare him sons; and his wife’s sons grew up, and they thrust out Jephthah, and said unto him, Thou shalt not inherit in our father’s house; for thou art the son of a strange woman. Then Jephthah fled from his brethren, and dwelt in the land of Tob: and there were gathered vain men to Jephthah, and went out with him.”* (Judges 11:1-3)

God here acquaints us with the unfair pressures that shaped Jephthah’s life. It wasn’t Jephthah’s fault that his father sinned and put him in such a predicament. Nor was it fair for the other sons of Jephthah’s father to treat him in such a way as to make him feel obligated to leave the country, especially since he seems to have achieved some merit in his life: “Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty man of valour.” It is a further measure of just how respected he was for his valour that (in spite of the thrusting of him out of the home) when the Israelites were in trouble with the Ammonites, they went to him for assistance (see vs. 4-11).

And so this man, Jephthah, responded to a life-or-death crisis. He would either prevail against the children of Ammon or they would prevail against him and his people. The trial would either make him or break him. To fail would be utterly disastrous; to succeed would mean everything.

Such pressure as this brings out a great deal of what we have. And we are given a picture of how Jephthah thought and how spiritually prepared he was for the crisis of his life by the conversation between Jephthah and the king of the Ammonites.

In verse 12, Jephthah asked the king of the Ammonites, “What is wrong? Why do you want to fight us?”

This king replies to Jephthah, “Israel took away our lands [300 years ago]. Now restore them” (vs. 13).

Jephthah then makes a long reply to the Ammonites in verses 14-27. Basically he says that the lands were not taken because Israel just wanted them. The Israelites merely wanted passage through the lands of Ammon (and Moab) to get to Canaan. But these countries would not give that passage and attacked Israel. They were defeated and their lands taken, but not because of Israelite aggression. Furthermore, they have had 300 years to recover their land and had not done so. Jephthah concludes, “Wherefore I have not sinned against thee, but thou doest me wrong to war against me: the LORD the Judge be judge this day between the children of Israel and the children of Ammon.”* (Judges 11:27)

This argument reveals a great deal of knowledge about God and His dealings in the past with the Israelites and their neighbors. It is accurate knowledge. God had indeed done those things, and it had happened as Jephthah related it. What is missing is a current relationship with God, characterized by faith and confidence in Him. Jephthah knows about God, and his knowledge about God is correct, but Jephthah doesn’t know God! Think of this! He is facing the greatest crisis of his life, and he doesn’t know God! He only knows about Him.

All of this comes out in the vow that Jephthah made. “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.”* (Judges 11:30-31)

A man that knew God and had faith in Him would not feel the necessity of making the vow that Jephthah made. He would understand that God did not want or take pleasure in such an extreme commitment. Jephthah misunderstood the character and nature of God. He thought within himself that God was of a nature to be moved to help by the extremity and severity of his sacrifice, and he still thought this (as did his daughter), even when the full extent of that rash vow became apparent. The awful tragedy of the whole matter is that God was not as Jephthah understood Him. God was all too willing to help and did help them, but God took no pleasure in Jephthah’s vow. As the Lord said at a later time to the Israelites, “They have built also the high places of Baal, to burn their sons with fire for burnt offerings unto Baal, which I commanded not, nor spake it, neither came it into my mind.”* (Jeremiah 19:5)

Now God could have delivered Jephthah from the consequences of his rash vow, just as God delivered the Israelites from the Ammonites. God could have fixed it so that Jephthah’s daughter, his only child (Judges 11:34), did not come out of the house, but God let it be. God let Himself be misunderstood. God let the matter proceed as it did. There were reasons why Jephthah had not gotten to know God as God really is, and the narrative stands as a warning to all of mankind of what we can get into if our heart is not taught of God. If we only know about God, rather than knowing Him as He is.

Please note that Jephthah still didn’t know God even after his ignorance bore terrible fruit. His daughter didn’t either. She felt the “necessity” of her father keeping his vow (Judges 11:36). At terrible cost, the vow was kept, and still they knew not that God took no pleasure in it.

There are many Jephthahs today who imagine that God requires or delights in such and such a thing. Many of these imaginations proceed from a profound misunderstanding and misinterpretation of what God is and what He has done in the past.

“Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess.”* (Matthew 23:25)

It is clear that this rash vow of Jephthah was excess. Excess is defined as “The state of surpassing or going beyond limits; the being of a measure beyond sufficiency, necessity, or duty; that which exceeds what is usual or proper; immoderateness; superfluity; superabundance; extravagance.” Think of what it means to be guilty of excess in the eyes of God! A lack of Holy-Ghost-inspired temperance. The strain of people trying to please their idea of what God is without being taught of Him how to worship Him in Spirit and in truth.

“And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit.”* (Ephesians 5:18) We are quite willing to say that there is no excessiveness in the requirements and dealings of the Spirit of God. Verily, He requires only reasonable service (Romans 12:1), as He defines reasonable. Now folks who are of a mindset to think that the Lord doesn’t care, that He is rather indifferent to much of how we live or do; they also do not have a rightful picture of what God is like, either. Their problem is not the strain of making rash vows; they are more inclined to go to excess in the opposite direction and conclude that God doesn’t really require much of anything. And so we see that if we are not led by the Spirit of God, we will be led by something, and that something will be of a tendency to excess in one direction or the other. One end of the human reaction scale is compromise and the other end is fanaticism. We submit to your thinking that the right path is not on the human reaction scale at all. Only the Divine Mind knows how we should walk and do (Jeremiah 10:23), and He wants us to know Him and His way for us. “But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the Lord which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, saith the Lord.”* (Jeremiah 9:24) It is not in being a “moderate” as we define what moderation is. It is being taught of God in our heart and the fruits that follow of really knowing Him. “It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me.”* (John 6:45)

The story of Jephthah and the untaught hearts of the children of Israel does not end with the eleventh chapter of Judges. It continues into the twelfth. Even the deliverance that God had given the Israelites from the enemy without (the Ammonites) did not unite them. There arose internal dissension over who got left out of the victory, etc., and soon Israelite was shedding the blood of Israelite. When God does not keep the house, even when He in mercy gives relief and help for certain needs, things still do not go well overall, for human effort is in charge. When we do not understand God or His ways correctly, it is not enough to recognize that an individual is really, truly saved (an Israelite). Human wisdom will impose artificial barriers and means of identifying which camp you are in. Are you an Ephraimite? “Say now Shibboleth.”* (Judges 12:6) And if you can’t say it just right (by their definition), they will slay you, spiritually speaking. This is the same thing we read about in Revelation 13:17, “And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.” In Jephthah’s time, you were rejected and slain if you couldn’t say “Shibboleth.” In the Revelation, you are rejected and cannot buy or sell if you do not have the “correct” number or name.

The professed Christian world is divided into a multitude of lands, all professing to be Israel. Many people who sing,

“We reach our hands in fellowship to every blood-washed one,
While love entwines about each heart in which God’s will is done”*

have not the faintest idea of a fellowship really based on just being saved. They recognize what they think is saved… plus something. This plus something can be as simple as being saved plus “attending our services.” The disciples applied an additional test of fellowship beyond salvation when they forbid the man casting out devils in the name of Jesus to continue “because he followeth not with us.”* (Luke 9:49-50) Jesus reproved them for forbidding him. They misunderstood the character and nature of God. We see then that a lack of understanding God leads to more of a lack of understanding of God. It just gets off further and further. The rash vow of Jephthah was grievous, but the civil war was infinitely more so.

God wants to be properly understood. He is seeking for true worshipers who want to know, yea, who will not be satisfied with anything else than to really know, what He is really like (John 4:23-24). Oh, He is seeking for those who want to know Him as He is! There are so many diligent, careful, false worshipers who hold in reverence “another Jesus!”* (2 Corinthians 11:4)

If we misunderstand God’s motives and His character, we are at enormous disadvantage in pleading His promises or properly interpreting what He does or does not do for us. A son that properly understands the character and love of his father expects good things, nor is he disappointed. “If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?”* (Luke 11:11-13) Do you see from this scripture that God wants to bless you? Do you understand that He is on the giving hand, a God that is near “and not a God afar off?”* (Jeremiah 23:23) To properly understand God is to really admire and adore Him. It will stir firm confidence (faith), complete trust, and rest. “When thou liest down, thou shalt not be afraid: yea, thou shalt lie down, and thy sleep shall be sweet.”* (Proverbs 3:24)

“God loves to be longed for, He loves to be sought,
For He sought us Himself with such longing and love:
He died for desire of us, marvellous thought!
And He yearns for us now to be with Him above.”1

God’s standards are not peculiarity for the sake of being peculiar. He does not delight in us being strange to worldly minds around us just to be strange. It is strange and peculiar to really live holy. It is strange and peculiar not to hold grudges and forgive others their trespasses. It is very strange to be humble and meek, to be little in our own eyes. It is completely foreign to natural human nature to live a surrendered, consecrated life without any ambition other than to please God and be accepted of Him. And God takes pleasure in such a dedicated, plain, careful life. He knows when it begins to become an end in itself, too. He knows when it is too loose and gives undue liberty to the flesh, and He knows when it is strained, stretched, and characterized by rash vows. God is not a God who delights in human stretching and straining. God is not pleased by fanaticism. God is not pleased by compromise.

God knows when our idea of His salvation is characterized by too much leaning to our own understanding—a reasoned salvation of human effort mostly, rather than being filled with the Spirit. There is vastly more to God than intellectualism. God is able to bring you into His pavilion until your soul is filled with a sense of His greatness and your appropriate and rightful (humble) relationship to His bigness. He not only saves us from sin; He can save us from ourselves and the inappropriate use of our capacity. It does not have to go with us as it did with Jephthah. Jephthah did not have to do as he did. He could have settled on this reality: “God has delivered Israel all down through the years. I’ll just trust Him to deliver us again.” How infinitely better this would have been than the path of the rash vow!