Judges 10

Judges 10:6-12

Subdivision 5. (Judges 10:6-12.)Sowing and reaping: the Ammonite raids. The story of Jephthah and his successors comes in the fifth place among these captivities and deliverances; and where all show so strongly the divine government that is over all, it might seem little likely that this should specialize the lesson. Yet it seems really to do so when -and perhaps only when -we bring in the spiritual to interpret the literal. For if Ammon be typically what we have taken it to be, then we can see clearly how the Church, in its departure from God, sows in its own unbelief the seed of every heresy; or, to keep more strictly to the Lord’s illustration, how when men sleep the enemy sows his tares. The Word neglected and despised, opens the way for every perversion of it. And this is righteous retribution. But from first to last in this subdivision, the lesson seems especially enforced that as the sowing so is the reaping. Look at the Ephraimites in proof, where their own taunt is returned upon them to the full, as well as their harshness. (1) Again the story is repeated of Israel’s departure from God, and their chastening by the hand of those after whose gods they had gone. Indeed, the gods of every nation round had now their worship, and Jehovah alone is deprived of His. He sells them, therefore, again into the hands of the Philistines and of the Ammonites at once. The Ammonite scourge is spoken of in the section now before us; the Philistine bondage is not broken until we reach the book of Samuel, although Samson, as prophesied of him, begins the deliverance (Judges 13:5). The Ammonites depict, as we have found reason to believe (Deuteronomy 2:19, sq. n.), what the tares" do in the second parable of the thirteenth of Matthew, the fruit of the seed of Satan’s sowing within the limits of the kingdom of heaven. The good seed is the word of God, and the product of it the children of the kingdom; but the word of God is not what Satan sows, but some corruption of the truth, and the fruit of this is in errorists of multiple forms. This interpretation is confirmed as to the Ammonites by the fact that we find them not content with the subjugation of Israel: they claim, on the ground of their own title to it, to take away the land. From Ammon to Jabbok, the kingdom of Sihon formerly, now the inheritance of Reuben and of Gad, they contend that Israel had robbed firm of all this when they came out of Egypt; and they ask plainly for its restoration. Thus it is plain would heresy take away the portion of the people of God. And it is noteworthy that it is the land east of the Jordan which they openly demand, though, in fact, making this a vantage-ground for their attack upon the tribes across the river. Now Sihon’s kingdom we have taken to be the dominion of reason, which faith (Reuben) is to reconstitute and hold; and here is commonly where error begins the attack. Even in its superstitious forms it will be found to have its root in rationalism": the word of God is displaced from its authority, as we see in Romanism. Hence we find Jephthah quoting the Word against the king of the Ammonites: much of what he says being simply a quotation from the book of Numbers. The word of God has, indeed, given faith secure title to the whole province of reason, which rationalistic error has ever proved itself incompetent to hold, soon losing it to the Amorites, the infidel “talkers” against God. This is Jephthah’s plea, in fact, against Ammon, that they had so lost it to Sihon before Israel had gained possession, and that from Sihon, in fact, Israel had wrested it. Faith is ever and only the fullest reason and the word of God it is that is alone able to make the whole field of reason a fruitful and goodly portion. If we do not hold it, we expose Judah, Benjamin, and Ephraim, to the Ammonite attack, and open a way to the loss of all heavenly blessings. “If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not,” says the Son of God Himself, “how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things?” Of how much importance is it to insist upon this, today! Scripture is true and trustworthy every where, or it is to be trusted nowhere. Let us take our stand boldly there, if we would retain anything of what God has given to us. And away with the unbelieving thought that Scripture is not meant to teach us science! Let us rather say that it is meant to teach whatever it does teach. It is light, not darkness; truth, and only truth; the soul of reason; the illumination of all it touches. And here the name of the deliverer seems to be most significant. Jephthah is a word we have had already: it is the Jiphtah of Jos 15:43, and the Jiphtah-[el] of Joshua 19:14; Joshua 19:27. It means “he opens,” and in the first place we have taken it as applying to Christ opening the heavenly places for us; in the others, to God’s opening -El being added -whether of spiritual truth, or of the heart to receive it. How simply does this show us the deliverer from the children of Ammon, whether we may apply it to Scripture as opening truth, or Christ as the subject of Scripture, and the true light everywhere. These things are practically one, and in closest relation to what we have just been saying. “Scripture opens” -is truth, is science, puts Sihon’s king into the hand of faith. To maintain it thus is true deliverance from Ammonite heresy; while thus our portion in the land is covered from attack -Judah, Benjamin, Ephraim, are made secure from every inroad of this kind. Jepththah, too, is a Gileadite, and thus a Manassite. His being made head of Gilead figures largely, as we see, in the deliverance. It is only he who goes on in the truth, making progress in the acquisition of the divine treasure, who can preserve from the Ammonite raider the treasure of the past. But as a Manassite also, let us remember, he enters into the things that are beyond, the heritage across Jordan also, and connects it with the inheritance on this side. He who in the spiritual reality can hold these things together is the true deliverer from the raids of the Ammonite. (4) As to Jephthah’s vow, there seem haste and failure in it, but surely not the human sacrifice that many have imagined. Most recent commentators agree in this, and believe that his daughter was simply consecrated to God, to live an unmarried life, as verses 37-39 seem plainly to show. There is not a word about death in her case, save what is supposed to be involved in the 31st verse, “I will offer it up a burnt-offering.”* But Jephthah’s words to the king of Ammon show him to be acquainted with the law; and by the law such an offering was forbidden as an abomination. (Leviticus 18:21, etc.) No altar could have been found for it; no priest would have performed it; and the two months of mourning on the mountains would have given ample time for the news of the contemplated sacrifice to have spread far in Israel. To suppose that under the circumstances he could have been ignorant of the law, or that, knowing it, he could have had such a passion to sacrifice the daughter he loved, as in the face of it to persevere in offering to Jehovah an abomination that He hated, seems incredible enough. Everything is against the perpetration of such a crime; and the Hebrew certainly allows the translation of or “instead of” and I will offer it." “The great Jewish commentators of the Middle Ages,” says Edersheim, “have, in opposition to the Talmud, pointed out that these two last clauses are not identical. It is never said of an animal burnt-offering that it should be to Jehovah, -for the simple reason that as a burnt-offering it is such.

But where human beings are offered to Jehovah, there the expression is used, as in the case of the first-born among Israel and of Levi (Numbers 3:12-13). But in these cases it has never been suggested that there was actual human sacrifice.” He urges, as do others: “If the loving daughter had devoted herself to death, it is next to incredible that she should have wished to have spent the two months of life conceded to her, not with her broken-hearted father, but in the mountains with her companions.”
After all, the word does not actually mean, in Hebrew, “burnt-offering,” but simply an “offering that ascends” -all ascends -to God. And this makes a great difference. Jephthah did not pledge himself that the offering should be burnt, though that were the way in which an animal sacrifice would “ascend.” I have felt a necessity, therefore, of omitting this word from the translation. It is probably all that is really needed to avoid the difficulty. In any case the history remains a witness to and against the terrible legality of the human heart which could thus shadow the joy of such a deliverance at the moment of its being granted. Such vowing is now expressly forbidden by our Lord: “Ye have heard that it was said to them of old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths; but I say unto you, Swear not at all.” God’s will needs not man’s will to supplement, but only to obey, it. To undertake obedience all uncalled for is only to subject one’s self to bondage to one’s own infirmity. As tested, however, by the consequences of his vow, Jephthah, though smitten to the heart, abides the test, and proves his loyalty to Jehovah, a loyalty shared to the full by his noble daughter. Not even her name is inscribed upon the record here, but she fully takes her place among the great historic women of Israel. (5) We have still to speak of the Ephraimite outrage and its chastisement. It is a more violent repetition of their conduct toward Gideon, but which meets in this case a terrible retribution. The pride of Ephraim is typically an admonition for us, -a much-needed one. How readily does “fruitfulness” get spoiled by the blight of self-complacency! -and what sore rebukes does it necessitate for us, that we may be delivered from that which was the condemnation of the devil! (1 Timothy 3:6). Their taunting words as to the Gileadites became true to the letter as to themselves when they became, indeed, “fugitives of Ephraim among the Manassites,” who, alas, do not spare them. The quarrels of brethren are, of all, the severest: in proportion to the closeness of the ties sundered is the bitterness aroused: civil strife is proverbially the most uncivil. 2. Very briefly indeed we have now the account of Jephthah’s successors. As the quiet for twenty-five years after his death was doubtless the result of his victory, so also do they seem to represent, in their names and connection, the consequences spiritually. We have scarcely anything except names here; so that, if these are meaningless, the history as a whole can be little else. Any escape from such a conclusion -any light where otherwise all must be darkness cannot then but be welcome. (1) There are three successors, the first two of whom are Zebulonites; the third apparently an Ephraimite. Of Ibzan himself we have only the fact of his being a Bethlehemite. This Bethlehem is not that of Judah, but the one named in Joshua (19: 15) as belonging to Zebulon. Of course it has the same significance. Ibzan is said to mean “labor,” “great labor.” This is from the near-akin Chaldee. If from the Hebrew directly, then we must decide for “white,” perhaps “shining.” Taking the first, and remembering that Jephthah speaks of “opening” the truth, “labor” in the “place of bread” seems nearly and naturally connected as a consequence.

On, the other hand, “white,” the common symbol of purity, is no less natural; and more suitable, perhaps, in the place in which he stands here, first in succession. Sanctification is by the truth, and that satisfaction for the soul which “bread” -the “bread of life” -denotes, is a main element in sanctification. That he is a Zebulonite is quite in keeping; and the ties that we find spoken of as binding him with others may well imply the spiritual links that form where the word of God is felt in power and spread abroad. He is a fitting successor; then, to Jephthah. (2) Elon, the “oak,” comes next, implying strength as the product of life and growth. Growth by the truth fits well the second place, -Elon being again a Zebulonite. Nothing else is recorded of him but that he judged Israel ten years and was buried in Ajalon. (3) The third judge is Abdon, “service,” the son of Hillel, “praising,” a Pirathonite, or dweller in “freedom,” -thoughts which are too coherent and too easily understood in their connection by every Christian heart to need either expansion or insisting on. That Pirathon is in Ephraim connects again liberty with fruitfulness; and “in the mount of the Amalekites” may refer to some past victory over them, or at least to a possession of the land on their part which no longer existed. In the whole of this the spirit of consecration speaks, and that is doubtless the truth presented here. The free service which is the fruit of praise has succeeded to the old Amalekite misrule of “lusts that war in the members”: and this, with what has been brought before us in the judges preceding Abdon, gives us well the fruit of such victories as those of Jephthah typify, -for us the victories of the Word of truth.