Judges 11:1-33
“From Zero to Hero”
- Intro.
- Vs. 1-2 Outcast: The boy no one wanted
- Vs. 3 Outlaw: The thug from Tob
- Vs. 4-11 From bandit to band leader
- Vs. 12-28 From street fighter to diplomat
- Vs. 29-33 Spiritual leader
Intro
Literature is full of “Cinderella” stories where local rejects make good. Author Horatio Alger wrote over 100 boys stories focused upon this theme. They appeal to most of us because we relate to the “rejects” and wish that we too could rise above our circumstances. Nothing about Jephthah was normal there is no doubt that Jephthah had been dealt a bad hand, a man with deep emotional scars that seemed to direct his choices in life. Saints, we cannot advocate nor recommend this kind of upbringing, nor can we condone Jephthah’s responses to it but what we can do is appreciate our God who in spite of this can still reach into a person’s soul and not only redeem them but use them to redeem others. This chapter records five stages of development in the life of Jephthah.
Vs. 1-2 Outcast: The boy no one wanted
Vs. 1-2 As we read of Jephthah’s being a “mighty man of valor” it doesn’t coincide with his upbringing. His mother was a harlot, a heathen prostitute. His father “Gilead” (rocky) gave this child a “rocky” start in life. This situation would be difficult in any time but Israel was a “Theocratic” nation in which all of life centered on the worship of God. His father did the “right thing” by taking him into his home but he nonetheless grew up unwanted but his step mother and siblings as they drove him away and he fled to the frontier area of Tob where other outcasts and drifters lived and he was forced to make his own way in the world (verse 2-3).
Yet in Hebrews 11:32-34 the author says, “For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah, …who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of the aliens.” Wow, Jephthah (Whom God sets free) was “free indeed” and is mentioned in the “Hall of Faith” as a man who “through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of the aliens.” At the start he certainly would not have been a person voted “Most Likely to Succeed”.
Friend’s, do you feel a bit like Jephthah, abandoned, left to fend for yourself, gotten off to a “Rocky start”? Remember that God loves to fish in the pond of “dysfunction”. He finds and develops by His love the most affective servants from the most unlikely places. Our God is in the business of making unusable people usable and ugly people beautiful. David (another rejected boy) wrote in Psalm 27:10 “When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take care of me.”
Vs. 3 Outlaw: The thug from Tob
Vs. 3 From “outcast” to “outlaw” seems like the natural path following his family’s rejection. Jephthah was unwanted and unloved and he built walls around his rejection that kept him imprisoned in his insecurity. He becomes a thug, a gang leader as he hung around “worthless men” doing nothing but raiding folks as he surrounded himself with likeminded thugs and hit the streets of Tob; 15 miles from the Sea of Galilee (Good). It was a place where the Israelites and their enemies lived in constant conflict and Jephthah was used to this. You could probably picture these young men dressed in black riding their loud “Harley Donkeys” with the insignia on their backs that read “Tob Mob”. Jephthah served as the “Robin Hood” of the area along with his band hardcore thugs who for a price would protect the Jews from attacks from their enemies. It was in this wilderness of his isolation that he graduated from the “school of hard knocks” and learned three things in this school that God would use to deliver his people:
- He learned how to fight effectively: Nothing is ever wasted in life in the school of Christ; he redeems even our worst traits for His glory. God who would be sovereign after Jephthah’s salvation was sovereign before his salvation.
- He learned how to lead: Jephthah took a bunch “worthless men” and turned them into the best bully’s on the block. It is one thing to train winners and keep them winning and another thing to take a bunch of losers and cause them to win.
- He learned how to be a worshiper: In spite of his up bring somewhere down the road this man became a follower of God (He uses the personal name of God more than any other Judge in this book). Based upon his diplomacy in verse 12-28 he is quite the student of God’s Word.
Vs. 4-11 From bandit to band leader
Vs. 4-11 For 18 years Israel suffered under the oppression of the Ammonites, and it reached the point where God questioned the nation’s confession, and they realized that they need to submit to His authority and destroy their idols. When the Ammonites once again moved into the region of Gilead (part of modern-day Jordan) the Israelites had a counter-response using the eastern tribes who gathered at Mizpah. Jephthah’s brothers didn’t want him, but the nation needed him and sent a delegation 80 miles to recruit him. The people were desperate they needed a deliverer, and they need one now but there is no mention of prayer only a declaration that “Whoever is the man that will fight against the Ammonites will be head over all the inhabitants of Gilead”. Though they sought him out they had reduced his job title from “head over all the inhabitants” in 10:18 to “commander” of the army in 11:6 something that he is quick to point out in verse 9. Jephthah had not forgotten the way he had been expelled and rejected though what he wanted more than anything else was to be welcomed back home again. He hadn’t applied for the position they came calling and by the time the job interview ends he is again “head over all the inhabitants” which reveals a skill of diplomacy. Based upon 10:17-18 the search for a leader was quite extensive. The nation chose a bully to beat a bully and what they didn’t realize was that God was behind the scenes putting Jephthah right in place all along. The one thing that Jephthah did well was fight but he had never fought for something he had always fought against something.
Vs. 12-28 From street fighter to diplomat
Vs. 12-28 Here we see that his diplomacy reached beyond his job interview to a man who was far brighter than the thug and fighter the nation thought that he was. In a few days he went from outcast to leader of the band and was now standing negotiating with the enemy face to face. He didn’t come to the meeting with guns drawn and fists flying he came with a well thought out strategy and defense. He sent his messengers with a simple message, “What’s your problem!” His accusation was that they were demonstrating unwarranted aggression against a peaceful nation. The Ammonites sent back word that it was not unjustified as Israel had stole their land and they were here to take it back by force. Jephthah was no dummy with regards to Israel history as he knew that 300 years earlier when the nation passed this way they asked permission from king Sihon of the Amorites to pass through his land on the way to the promised land. Not only did Sihon refuse, he picked a fight against the nation but God was with His people and the Amorites went down to defeat and the land became Israel’s. His argument to this was fourfold:
- Vs. 15-22 Check your history: We captured the land from Sihon the king of the Amorites, not the king of the Ammonites, verses 19-21 apparently they couldn’t spell. When Israel defeated the Amorites in battle, they justly took the land of the Amorites – which also happened to be the previous land of the Ammonites. The war against the Amorites was prompted by the vicious Amorite war against Israeli civilians. Since God gave this land to Israel, the Ammonites have no claim over it.
- Vs. 23-25 Check your theology: God gave us this land and we will not surrender His gift to you. Jephthah tells them to live in the land their god gave them and they will live in the land his God gave them.
- Vs. 26-27 Check your logic: For 300 years Israel had held this land and the Ammonites had done nothing to lay claim to it, so the statute of limitations on claims had run out, so the Ammonites needed to get out.
- Vs. 27-28 Check your timing: Israel hadn’t declared war on the Ammonites or the Amorites it was always the surrounding nations who were declaring war on them: Israel was only defending themselves thus they were not the aggressors.
Jephthah did not react by name calling nor did he argue on any other ground except fact. We will never win the world to Christ by fanning the flames of our opinions or stating our claims by our experiences. No, we will only demonstrate the truth of our convictions by living by the facts of our resurrected Lord.
Vs. 29-33 Spiritual leader
Vs. 29 Remember that the Spirit of the Lord is coming upon the illegitimate son of a pagan prostitute who had become the leader of a gang. Maybe you know of a person who is the leader of the Mob from Tob and you have long ago given up that their life will ever be anything other than worthless. I’ll never forget what my saved older brother told me before I received Jesus, “You’ll never come to Jesus; you’re going to go to hell.” I love to remind him of those words 29 years later.
Vs. 30-33 Jephthah prayed, “Lord if you give us the victory, I’ll give you whatever I see first when I come home.” I’m certain that he wasn’t thinking in terms of his daughter but a lamb or a calf. This was a foolish and unnecessary vow in an attempt to get God “on his side.” It is far more important to be on God’s side than to try and persuade Him to be on your side. What this reveals is that even a Spirit-filled man can do foolish things. Hebrew scholars, translate this as “I will consecrate it to the Lord. If it be a thing fit for a burnt offering, it shall be made one; if fit for the service of God, it shall be consecrated to him.” Human sacrifice was strictly forbidden by the Mosaic Law in passages such as Lev. 18:21 and Deu. 12:31. Saints, No one is so “worthless” that God can’t transform them to His purpose! Your past may read like that of Jephthah’s, you may think your education and experience has left you completely unfit for use, but your problem does not lie in those things but rather in you inability to trust in a God who uses even the worst of us to accomplish the best of His purposes.
This is a placeholder. Notes will be added