It is difficult to turn to the story of Jephthah without a sense of reluctance. The details of his life are so contested and yet so incontestably sad, his actions so mixedly heroic and horrific, and the interpretative decisions that we face so knotty that we would be glad just to turn the pages and pass Jephthah by without comment. But to do so would be to shirk our responsibility. Jephthah’s story is in the Bible because it has lessons for us – it too is “written for our learning” (Rom 15:4).1 And it is in the Bible in the way that it is because God wants us to wrestle with its details and, in our wrestling, to learn lessons that we would not grasp if this story were a simple morality tale with clearly delineated heroes and villains whose motives and actions were void of ambiguity and contradiction. That dereliction of duty would be particularly unforgiveable in a series focusing on the issue of family life in the book of Judges. This is true, not only because Jephthah’s story begins with details of his difficult upbringing, but because of how it ends. In a book that is preoccupied with what happens when one generation replaces another, the fact that Jephthah’s actions leave him not just childless but without progeny clamours for our attention. The salience of this issue is underlined by the fact that Jephthah’s story is followed immediately by that of Ibzan, one of the minor judges, whose record focuses exclusively on the care that he took in providing wives for his sons, and thus ensuring that his family line would continue.2
To some readers, talk of moral ambiguity in the story of Jephthah might seem wildly overblown, the result, perhaps, of an overactive imagination or injudicious reading. After all, does Jephthah not receive the accolade of a mention in Hebrews 11, where he is mentioned as part of the distinguished company “who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises … escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens” (Heb 11:33-34)? In the light of such an imprimatur, should we not simply assume that Jephthah’s actions should be interpreted in a positive light?
The issue, however, is not so simple as that, a reality that is attested by the fact that Jephthah’s name appears in juxtaposition with those of Barak and Samson. It is, of course, true that no one mentioned in Hebrews 11 lived a perfect life; even the greatest of these witnesses was marked by failure. But it would be a more than usually swashbuckling interpreter who would deny that the lives of Barak and, especially, of Samson were marked by failure. And while Barak’s moment of weakness seems to have been an isolated event, Samson’s failures are so plentiful as to be persuasive. The fact of a mention in Hebrews 11, then, does not give us sufficient grounds to assume that Jephthah’s actions were always – or even mostly – good. Indeed, even leaving the issue of his vow and the eventual fate of his daughter to one side, it is difficult to see Jephthah’s treatment of Ephraim in chapter 12 as the actions of a man in fellowship with God – a point that is only heightened by the marked contrast with Gideon’s more diplomatic response to a similar situation in chapter 9.
The mention of Jephthah in Hebrews 11, then, does not mean that we must read his account as the story of a hero. But it does mean that we cannot simply dismiss him as a villain. Like the other judges (or the other individuals in Hebrews 11), Jephthah is not the sort of two-dimensional figure that we might find in a children’s story. He is a real man, a compound of faith and of failure, of victory and defeat. He is, in fact, very much like us.
As we have noted earlier in this series, when we approach a book of biblical narrative like Judges, it is important that we read it as narrative, that we allow the story to guide our understanding of the characters, their motivation and their actions. It is imperative, then, that we notice the setting of Jephthah’s narrative within the wider framework of Judges. Judges 10:6ff. provides a striking and significant backdrop to the story.
The section opens in a way that is, by now, all too familiar: “And the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the LORD” (v6). Once again – how significant the adverb is – Israel slides into idolatry: “and served Baalim, and Ashtaroth, 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 forsook the LORD, and served not him.” For the fourth time in the book, we read, “And the anger of the LORD was hot against Israel, and he sold them into the hands of …” (v7). For the sixth time, we read that “the children of Israel cried unto the LORD” (v10). The pattern of Judges is repeating itself one more time and our response might well be a weary “here we go again”; that, in fact, is precisely the response that the narrator is seeking. But then the pattern breaks. All of our experience in Judges so far has set us up to expect that Israel’s cry will be followed by divine intervention: the raising up of a new judge who will deliver the nation and give them, however temporarily, a period of peace. But now God speaks: “Ye have forsaken me, and served other gods: wherefore I will deliver you no more. Go and cry unto the gods which ye have chosen; let them deliver you in the time of your tribulation” (vv13-14). And having spoken, starkly and sternly, He falls silent. The confession and repentance of the nation bring no audible response. No prophet appears to announce either judgment or deliverance. God simply goes silent. And in the yawning chasm of divine silence, Israel speaks: “And the people and princes of Gilead said one to another, What man is he that will begin to fight against the children of Ammon? he shall be head over all the inhabitants of Gilead” (v18).
And they keep on talking. Judges 11 contains more and more sustained dialogue than any other section of the book. From the beginning of the chapter, Jephthah, the rejected son of the harlot, proves himself a negotiator par excellence. He has words for his brethren – significantly the narrator notes that “Jephthah uttered all his words before the LORD in Mizpeh” (11:11). Unlike the earlier judges, he meets his enemy first with diplomacy, with a polished appeal to history that says much for his grasp of God’s dealings with the nation. And he has words for God, in the vow on which the narrative hinges. He has words of self-pity when his daughter meets him. He still has words in chapter 12, when the Ephraimites complain, but now, when Gideon’s example might have led us to expect further diplomacy, he speaks harshly, and only as a prelude to slaughter. And, just in case we were to miss the importance of the tongue to this story, that slaughter also involves speech, as the Ephraimites’ inability to pronounce “Shibboleth” seals their doom at the passages of Jordan.
The story of Jephthah, then, is one that foregrounds human wisdom and human speech against the backdrop of divine silence. That it ends not just with the sacrifice of Jephthah’s daughter but with the slaughter of Israelites is testament to the limits and the dangers of both.
1 Bible quotations in this article are from the KJV.
2 This assumes that the expression “took in thirty daughters from abroad for his sons” (12:9) means daughters from another family or tribe in Israel, rather than foreign wives. This reading is lexically unexceptionable and fits with the generally positive presentation of the minor judges. However, even if Ibzan did take the dubious step of securing foreign wives, the point still stands: he was interested in providing for the future of his family and in ensuring a progeny.
