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HOUSMAIL HM110 1
September 2003 JEPTHAH'S VOW -
THE BIBLE AND HUMAN SACRIFICE In the
Law of Moses, God expressly forbids the offering of human sacrifices as burnt
offerings. (Leviticus 18:21, Deuteronomy 18:10) Human
sacrifice was practised by some of the Canaanite nations who worshipped Molech.
(Leviticus 18:21) In
2 Kings 3:27, there
is the story of a Moabite King who offered his son as a burnt offering, when he
saw that he was losing an important battle. (It didn't help! He lost the battle
anyway!) Many
Israelites who became idol worshippers, copied this abominable sin. (Leviticus 18:21, 2 Kings 16:3, 2 Kings 17:7-8, 2 Chronicles 33:6,
Jeremiah 32:35, etc.) Ahaz and Manasseh, kings
of Judah, are both recorded as offering their sons as burnt offerings. (2 Kings 16:3,2 Kings 21:3) Josiah is commended for
destroying the altar in Gehenna, on which the Jews had been sacrificing their
sons and daughters as burnt offerings to Molech. (2 Kings 23:10) JEPTHAH And
then of course there is the sad and puzzling story of Jephthah. (Judges 11:29-40) Do you remember his rash
promise? "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 11:31) Of course
it wasn't a "whatsoever" that ran to meet him, but a "whosoever
"-- his beloved daughter! The story says that Jephthah gave her 2 months
to wander in the mountains, bewailing her fate -- and then kept his vow. Some
have tried to water this down (explain it away?) by suggesting that the daughter
became some sort of "Jewish nun". However, taking the story at face
value, it is much more likely that she was actually sacrificed as a burnt offering. We have
already seen that under God's laws, this would have been extremely repugnant to
God. How then do we reconcile Jephthah’s clearly sinful behaviour with the statement
in Hebrews 11:32, that
Jephthah is listed amongst the faithful who will share in the inheritance of the
Kingdom of God? There
is a simple and obvious answer. What Jephthah did, isn't any more acceptable to
God than Abraham's lie to Abimelech, (Genesis 20:2) or David's adultery with Bathsheba. (2 Samuel 11:4) The listing in Hebrews 11, infers repentance and
forgiveness, for all three! In this incident we have a warning against
the making of rash promises which would require us to commit sin, in order to
keep our promise! -- Like many other Old Testament stories, this is not
an endorsement of what Jephthah did -- but a warning against it. (1 Corinthians 10:6) The simple truth is that both JEPHTHAH'S actions are equally sinful! THE
WARNING FOR US People
who make promises to commit a sin, do not have God's approval for making the promise!
Neither do they have God's approval to commit the sin they have promised to do. For
today, we should regard Jephthah's loss of his daughter as a warning
to us from God. We must never make the dreadful mistake of assuming that God approves
the actions of people who attempt to do His work, by sacrificing the welfare of
other people, or doing harm to them! It would
have been far better for Jephthah to repent of his sinful vow, than to sin a second
time, by keeping it! Of course
it is very important that we do keep valid promises.
(Psalm 15:4) But ..... we should never promise to commit a sin. That is NOT
a valid promise! And if we do make that terrible mistake, we should never keep
the promise. Nor
should we ever seek to justify such actions to others as our "faithfulness".
If we do manage to persuade them to approve of our sin, we make them a party to
it! There is a VERY severe warning about the consequences of that in Matthew 18:6. Allon |