JUDGES 10 TO 12
Judges 10; Judges 11; Judges 12
The history of Abimelech shows the spirit that has wrought such havoc amongst the people of God — men without the knowledge of God seeking place and prominence. It leads only to strife and contention and destruction; it is a warning for us.
In Jephthah we see a man with true faith; he is mentioned among the worthies in Hebrews 11 and has the power of the [p. 164] Spirit with him, but he is not what we should call a spiritual man.
The general state of things in Israel now was apparently much worse. “And the children of Israel again did evil in the sight of Jehovah, and served the Baals, and the Ashtoreths, and the gods of Syria, and the gods of Zidon, and the gods of Moab and the gods of the children of Ammon, and the gods of the Philistines; and they forsook Jehovah, and served him not”, chapter 10:6. It seems to be a more general departure than before, so that the chastisement of God is more severe. In verse 8 it says that the children of Ammon “oppressed and crushed the children of Israel”. No such language had been used before. Then in verse 9 we read that “Israel was greatly distressed”; and at the end of verse 16 there is a ... . touching word; “His soul was grieved for the misery of Israel”. Jehovah’s soul was grieved for the misery of His people. It would seem to answer to the dark ages of christendom. In chapter 10 very little of the light of God seems to remain amongst God’s people; but there is repentance in verse 10: “And the children of Israel cried to Jehovah saying, We have sinned against thee, both because we have forsaken our God, and also served the Baals”. There is a crying to God and a confession, but God does not answer in the way of deliverance. He says, “Go and cry to the gods that ye have chosen; let them save you in the time of your trouble”. The condition is so serious that God has, as it were, to hold aloof from His people. This leads them into deeper exercise, so that in verse 16 we read, “And they put away the strange gods from among them and served Jehovah”. There is a returning to Jehovah and confession, and then deliverance comes in by Jephthah, but it seems to be on a lower ground than with Gideon. There is no appearing of Jehovah, no divine appointment. Jephthah comes to the front simply by the necessity of the case; he is not brought forward by the direct call or appointment of Jehovah, but the people are driven to fetch him by their necessities. It seems as if God would humble His people even by the character of the deliverer He used; He humbles them by driving them to have recourse to one who had been hated and expelled as an illegitimate son, a man with no status at all. There is a humbling character about the very deliverer that God was pleased to use.
Jephthah represents men whom God has used to deliver [p. 165] His people, but who are not spiritual men; men who have had faith to do what was needed in the necessities of the time, and who had the power of the Spirit to do it, but yet were not spiritual. To have the power of the Spirit does not make a man spiritual; he may still do things which are not according to the mind of God.
We see a different character of things in Samson; he is the last of the judges, and he presents the features that suit the last times, but I think Jephthah more answers to the Reformation time, when God was pleased to give faith and power to men who were not always spiritual, but who were suitable vessels for God to use to deliver His people. The very fact that they were not spiritual left its mark on all they did. God may use and bring forward men providentially to deliver His people who have not the features of spirituality. The fighting here is on the wilderness side of Jordan; that is the territory the enemy was trying to seize. It represents the kind of fighting there was at the time of the Reformation, when the effort of the enemy was to rob souls of the blessing that belonged to the wilderness side of Jordan. Could a man be separate from the world, be justified by faith, and have the Spirit, so that the moral beauty of Christ could come out in him? That was the battle at the time of the Reformation; the enemy tried to rob them of all that had been given to them in Balaam’s parables. Men at the time of the Reformation were not characterised very much by spirituality, there was faith there, and power there, but not always spirituality; therefore it left its mark on the Christian profession to this day. If we are not spiritual, though we may have faith, and the power of the Spirit of God, we shall be open to all kinds of assaults of the enemy.
The Ammonite wanted to possess the territory that should be held for Jehovah. Moab and Ammon represent the result of the people of God being led by sight and not by faith; they are the children of Lot. Lot really gave up the path of faith. It was not that he was not a believer; he was a righteous man, but he gave up the path of faith. If there is an element admitted that is not of God, it leaves its mark. Even if there is a great and honoured servant, if there is something there not of a spiritual character, it leaves its mark on all that is the fruit of that servant’s labour. Jephthah recognises Jehovah; he spake all his words before Jehovah, and we are told that the Spirit of Jehovah came upon him. But he was not content [p. 166] with that; it would have been well if he had let that suffice, but he made an unspiritual vow. The vow spoiled the victory for Jephthah.
Jephthah’s vow was not a true vow; it was a bargain There is a great difference between a vow and a bargain. Hannah’s vow was a spiritual vow. She said, “O Jehovah of hosts, if thou wilt indeed look on the affliction of thy handmaid, and remember me, and not forget thy handmaid, but wilt give unto thy handmaid a man child, then I will give him to Jehovah all the days of his life, and there shall no razor come upon his head”, 1 Samuel 1: 11. She wanted something for Jehovah. But Jephthah’s was a bargain, and it was unnecessary, because, if the Spirit of Jehovah was on him, he needed nothing more; he did not need a vow. A spiritual vow must be an intelligent vow. Jephthah’s was not intelligent, because he did not know what he was doing when he made it, and there was nothing for God in that. It was the fervour and zeal of an unspiritual nature, and it only brought sorrow and trouble. He said, so to speak, If you give me victory, I will do something. Deuteronomy speaks of choice vows; it supposes the people of God are so filled up with the blessing of God and the love of God that they want to give some of it to Him. The true thought of a vow is that we are so enriched that we should like to come out in a special way for God. So the Lord Himself speaks prophetically of His vows: “Thy vows are upon me, O God”, Psalm 56: 12. His vows were intelligent vows; He knew all that was involved in them. Jephthah did not know what was involved in this vow; therefore it was not a spiritual vow. The Lord knew His vows involved the offering up of Himself as a burnt-offering, and He never shrank back or repented of it; He went right through with it. He made His vow when He said, “Lo, I come to do thy will”, Hebrews 10: 9. He dedicated Himself to the will of God, and that meant the offering up of Himself as a burnt-offering, and not someone else.
We have Paul’s vow at Corinth: “having shorn his head in Cenchrea, for he had a vow”, Acts 18: 18. He finished his vow just as he left Corinth; that shows it was taken or carried out while he was in Corinth. I believe that when Paul went into that idolatrous, licentious, and proud city, full of intellectual glory, he felt that he must be specially for God in that place, and he took a vow. He met all the condition of the city by a special devotedness to God and to Christ.
[p. 167] We have all the instruction about vows in the Old Testament. We do not have the thing in terms in the New Testament, but we have the spirit and the principle of it. The principle of a vow is that one is devoted in some special way to the Lord. But Jephthah’s vow is a warning; it is a vow of an unspiritual man; he little knew what it would cost him, and it was a sorrowful man with garments rent who realised what his vow meant.
The solemn thing in Scripture is that God seems to hold people to their vows. It is said. “Better is it that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou shouldest vow and not pay”, Ecclesiastes 5: 5. So it says, “Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thy heart be hasty to utter anything before God”, Ecclesiastes 5:2. When anything is uttered in the nature of a vow, God seems to hold his people to it. Jephthah found no way of escape from his vow.
We see much that is a warning in Jephthah’s history. The closing incident in his history is seen in chapter 12, where the men of Ephraim come and complain that they are left out. These men of Ephraim seem to be touchy brethren; they are always ready to complain if they are left out. Gideon knew how to conciliate them; he got the victory over them on the line of the Spirit of Christ, but Jephthah killed 42,000 of them. It was not a spiritual thing for Israel to be fighting with Israel; it was the first time such a thing had happened in Scripture. It is not spiritual for the brethren to be fighting and killing one another. Jephthah lacked the conciliating spirit that we see in Gideon, who met their jealousy and complaints by saying, I have done nothing; you have done great things. He conciliates them and gets the victory. Ephraim was wrong in finding fault with Jephthah, and threatening to burn his house, but Jephthah was just as wrong in going to war with them; it was a terrible spectacle.
These incidents emphasise the difference between what might be called the external aspect of the Spirit, and the internal aspect of the Spirit. Jephthah represents a man who was in the power of the external aspect of the Spirit, but not in the good of the internal. The Spirit of God can come upon any man; He came on Balaam and on Saul. But what marks truly spiritual persons is that they have not only the Spirit on them for power, but they have the Spirit of Christ in them to give them new sensibilities and feelings inwardly. That is [p. 168] what Jephthah lacked. The Lord speaks in Luke 24 of the disciples being “clothed with power from on high”, verse 49. That is external. In Acts 2 it is said, “there appeared to them parted tongues, as of fire, and it sat upon each one of them”. That is external. The Spirit came on them for power, but in John 20 it is different: “He breathed into them, and says to them, Receive the Holy Spirit”. Now they are to be spiritual. A man with the inbreathing of the Spirit would never kill the brethren. The prophets were a great contrast to such as Balaam and Saul — the power of the Spirit of Christ rested on these, but it says of the prophets that the Spirit of God was in them. They were intensely spiritual men, marked by the most intense affection for the people of God, and characterised by readiness to suffer for them. They were marked by suffering love. That was inside. That spirit will never make rash vows, and will never slay the brethren.
Jephthah was a genuine man. There was a true recognition of Jehovah with him, and yet what he did was a perpetual sorrow in Israel. The virgins kept up a memorial of it for ever. Then the 42,000 men of Ephraim whom he slew left a permanent gap in Israel. Israel had to suffer for all time because this man was not spiritual — a man of faith and power, but not a spiritual man. It is a solemn warning.