The Daily Reading For Today is Judges 11:12-40

What is the importance of a history lesson? (v.12)

How does this history lesson establish Yahweh's "first" intention for Israel across the Jordan on the west? (v.20, 26)

What was the only reason Yahweh gave this portion of (the land of promise) at this time to Israel before their spiritual foundation was laid on the west side of the Jordan? (v.14-23)

How does this become a contest of the "gods" instead of what is righteousness? (v.24)

Therefore how does the Spirit of the one true God lead us to understand the righteousness of God to give Israel this land? (v.25-28)

Therefore how important is it that we take care how we build with the promises and that we know we are building them upon the truth of God's foundation since it is the LORD'S righteousness that carried Israel into the promised land?

Matthew 3:13–15 (NKJV)

13 Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan to be baptized by him. 14 And John tried to prevent Him, saying, "I need to be baptized by You, and are You coming to me?" 15 But Jesus answered and said to him, "Permit it to be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness." Then he allowed Him.

Deuteronomy 9:6 (NKJV)

6 Therefore understand that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are a stiff-necked people.

1 Corinthians 3:10–23 (NKJV)

10 According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder, I have laid the foundation, and another builds on it. But let each one take heed how he builds on it. 11 For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12 Now if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, 13 each one's work will become clear; for the Day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire; and the fire will test each one's work, of what sort it is. 14 If anyone's work which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward. 15 If anyone's work is burned, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire. 16 Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? 17 If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are. 18 Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you seems to be wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. 19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, "He catches the wise in their own craftiness"; 20 and again, "The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile." 21 Therefore let no one boast in men. For all things are yours: 22 whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas, or the world or life or death, or things present or things to come—all are yours. 23 And you are Christ's, and Christ is God's.

How does Jephthah, a bastard son by all natural respects, come to be honored by the Spirit of the LORD as a true son of Israel by identifying with him as he passes through Gad? (v.1, 29)

Surely it was his trust in the righteousness of Yahweh to do what was good according to the covenant He made with Israel.

John 7:21–24 (NKJV)

21 Jesus answered and said to them, "I did one work, and you all marvel. 22 Moses, therefore, gave you circumcision (not that it is from Moses, but from the fathers), and you circumcise a man on the Sabbath. 23 If a man receives circumcision on the Sabbath so that the law of Moses should not be broken, are you angry with Me because I made a man completely well on the Sabbath? 24 Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment."

And therefore, upon whose righteousness did Jephthah make the case that he had against both the sons of Israel and the sons of Ammon? (v.2, 7, 15)

John 7:16–19 (NKJV)

16 Jesus answered them and said, "My doctrine is not Mine, but His who sent Me. 17 If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know concerning the doctrine, whether it is from God or whether I speak on My own authority. 18 He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory; but He who seeks the glory of the One who sent Him is true, and no unrighteousness is in Him. 19 Did not Moses give you the law, yet none of you keeps the law? Why do you seek to kill Me?"

But why does Jephthah now lose his head by trusting in his own righteousness to make such a foolish vow? (v.30-31)

Ecclesiastes 5:2–7 (NKJV)

2 Do not be rash with your mouth, And let not your heart utter anything hastily before God. For God is in heaven, and you on earth; Therefore, let your words be few. 3 For a dream comes through much activity, And a fool's voice is known by his many words. 4 When you make a vow to God, do not delay to pay it; For He has no pleasure in fools. Pay what you have vowed— 5 Better not to vow than to vow and not pay. 6 Do not let your mouth cause your flesh to sin, nor say before the messenger of God that it was an error. Why should God be angry at your excuse and destroy the work of your hands? 7 For in the multitude of dreams and many words, there is also vanity. But fear God.

Psalm 66:13–15 (NKJV)

13 I will go into Your house with burnt offerings; I will pay You my vows, 14 Which my lips have uttered And my mouth has spoken when I was in trouble. 15 I will offer You burnt sacrifices of fat animals, With the sweet aroma of rams; I will offer bulls with goats. Selah

Psalm 76:11–12 (NKJV)

11 Make vows to the Lord your God, and pay them; Let all who are around Him bring presents to Him who ought to be feared. 12 He shall cut off the spirit of princes; He is awesome to the kings of the earth.

Psalm 56:9–13 (NKJV)

9 When I cry out to You, Then my enemies will turn back; This I know because God is for me. 10 In God (I will praise His word), In the Lord (I will praise His word), 11 In God I have put my trust; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me? 12 Vows made to You are binding upon me, O God; I will render praises to You, 13 For You have delivered my soul from death. Have You not kept my feet from falling, That I may walk before God In the light of the living?

Deuteronomy 12:10–11 (NKJV)

10 But when you cross over the Jordan and dwell in the land which the Lord your God is giving you to inherit, and He gives you rest from all your enemies round about, so that you dwell in safety, 11 then there will be the place where the Lord your God chooses to make His name abide. There you shall bring all that I command you: your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, the heave offerings of your hand, and all your choice offerings which you vow to the Lord.

Deuteronomy 12:26–27 (NKJV)

26 Only the holy things which you have, and your vowed offerings, you shall take and go to the place which the Lord chooses. 27 And you shall offer your burnt offerings, the meat and the blood, on the altar of the Lord your God; and the blood of your sacrifices shall be poured out on the altar of the Lord your God, and you shall eat the meat.

Numbers 30:13–14 (NKJV)

13 Every vow and every binding oath to afflict her soul, her husband may confirm it, or her husband may make it void. 14 Now, if her husband makes no response whatever to her from day to day, then he confirms all her vows or all the agreements that bind her; he confirms them because he made no response to her on the day that he heard them.

Therefore, did the LORD give the enemies of Israel into Jephthah's hand because of this vow or because the LORD is righteous? And don't you have to go up to the tabernacle to confirm your vows and the offering? (v.32-33)

Therefore, isn't this vow, not his victory, nothing more than unbelief since it was apart from the Levitical altar? (v.34-35)

What is Jephthah's word in comparison to the Word of Yahweh? Is Jephthah's word higher than God's? (v.35)

Therefore how is this nothing more than a demonstration of human ignorance? (v.36)

1 Corinthians 14:36–38 (NKJV)

36 Or did the word of God come originally from you? Or was it you only that it reached? 37 If anyone thinks himself to be a prophet or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things which I write to you are the commandments of the Lord. 38 But if anyone is ignorant, let him be ignorant.

There are some "spin doctors" who want us to believe that his daughter was not offered up as (a burnt offering), but they have to play on the grammar and the context to color that conclusion, for the testimony of the Word is sure because the Scripture states that Jephthah "did to her according to the vow." Besides, you couldn't just offer "whatever" as a burnt offering. It had to be offered as a particular animal depending on the value and purpose of the vow, as a bull, a ram, a goat, a lamb, or even two doves. (v.39)

However, what is the praise of his daughter's vow? And was Jephthah commemorated for it "as they went yearly" for four days? And therefore, where did they go to commemorate it (after the fact)? (v.38-40)

Therefore the glory of the vow is taken from Jephthah and given to his only child, who was sacrificed in her father's place because he did not go to the tabernacle to fulfill it. Consider that it is written that it was her father who did according to the vow, not the high priest of those days. Therefore it is clear that he didn't go up to the place of God's choosing. (v.39)

Deuteronomy 26:3 (NKJV)

3 And you shall go to the one who is priest in those days, and say to him, 'I declare today to the Lord your God that I have come to the country which the Lord swore to our fathers to give us.'

Numbers 15:27–29 (NKJV)

27 'And if a person sins unintentionally, then he shall bring a female goat in its first year as a sin offering. 28 So the priest shall make atonement for the person who sins unintentionally, when he sins unintentionally before the Lord, to make atonement for him; and it shall be forgiven him. 29 You shall have one law for him who sins unintentionally, for him who is native-born among the children of Israel and for the stranger who dwells among them.

Numbers 15:30–31 (NKJV)

30 'But the person who does anything presumptuously, whether he is native-born or a stranger, that one brings reproach on the Lord, and he shall be cut off from among his people. 31 Because he has despised the word of the Lord, and has broken His commandment, that person shall be completely cut off; his guilt shall be upon him.'"

Exodus 20:24 (NKJV)

24 An altar of earth you shall make for Me, and you shall sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings, your sheep and your oxen. In every place where I record My name, I will come to you, and I will bless you.

So the testimony of Scripture praises Jephthah's daughter for keeping her vow to remain a virgin until her marriage, which was fulfilled in her to Christ. Therefore that is what she wept over, that God had not fulfilled her "earthly" vow. Therefore between the father's righteousness and his daughter's righteousness, the testimony of Christ is demonstrated concerning the vow. Consider that she was his only child in the same way Christ is the only Son of God. (v.34)

Therefore Christ's image of God giving His only Son is in this vow, and therefore the Word of the LORD is fulfilled between the obedience of the two involved in the vow, but it is her word that is exalted over her father's word because he was rash with God's Word. He was the instrument of God's victory in battle, but his daughter is the victory of God's glory, having received her as Jephthah's substitute in his and her spiritual ignorance. Therefore she was a type of Christ to glorify 'the head' of her house.

Genesis 22:1–2 (NKJV)

1 Now, it came to pass after these things that God tested Abraham and said to him, "Abraham!" And he said, "Here I am." 2 Then He said, "Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you."

Genesis 22:6–8 (NKJV)

6 So Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac, his son; and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife, and the two of them went together. 7 But Isaac spoke to Abraham, his father, and said, "My father!" And he said, "Here I am, my son." Then he said, "Look, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?" 8 And Abraham said, "My son, God will provide for Himself the lamb for a burnt offering." So the two of them went together.

Genesis 22:10–14 (NKJV)

10 And Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. 11 But the Angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, "Abraham, Abraham!" So he said, "Here I am." 12 And He said, "Do not lay your hand on the lad, or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me." 13 Then Abraham lifted his eyes and looked, and there behind him was a ram caught in a thicket by its horns. So Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up for a burnt offering instead of his son. 14 And Abraham called the name of the place, The-Lord-Will-Provide; as it is said to this day, "In the Mount of the Lord it shall be provided."

John 1:14–18 (NKJV)

14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. 15 John bore witness of Him and cried out, saying, "This was He of whom I said, 'He who comes after me is preferred before me, for He was before me.'" 16 And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace. 17 For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.

John 3:16–18 (NKJV)

16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. 17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. 18 "He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

That's the point of the testimony of Jephthah's vow preserved for us as the Word of God by the Holy Spirit!

Therefore the problem isn't the principle and liberty of making vows to the LORD; rather, it is the intentions of the one who creates the vow.

Our vows are to be holy and tested by the Word of the LORD because there are vows that have never entered the mind of God to fulfill nor to witness among them. Therefore this witness is only to be an example of Christ being the substitute for misplaced vows and of the motive of genuine love on both parties to forgive those misplaced vows. (v.37)

Romans 5:6–11 (NKJV)

6 For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. 10 For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. 11 And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.

Leviticus 20:1–5 (NKJV)

1 Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 2 "Again, you shall say to the children of Israel: 'Whoever of the children of Israel, or of the strangers who dwell in Israel, who gives any of his descendants to Molech, he shall surely be put to death. The people of the land shall stone him with stones. 3 I will set My face against that man, and will cut him off from his people, because he has given some of his descendants to Molech, to defile My sanctuary and profane My holy name. 4 And if the people of the land should in any way hide their eyes from the man when he gives some of his descendants to Molech, and they do not kill him, 5 then I will set My face against that man and against his family; and I will cut him off from his people, and all who prostitute themselves with him to commit harlotry with Molech.

Jeremiah 7:31 (NKJV)

31 And they have built the high places of Tophet, which is in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I did not command, nor did it come into My heart.

Jeremiah 19:5–6 (NKJV)

5 (they have also built the high places of Baal, to burn their sons with fire for burnt offerings to Baal, which I did not command or speak, nor did it come into My mind), 6 therefore behold, the days are coming," says the Lord, "that this place shall no more be called Tophet or the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter.

Jeremiah 32:35 (NKJV)

35 And they built the high places of Baal which are in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire to Molech, which I did not command them, nor did it come into My mind that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin.'

There's much more to be dug up and cultivated with more questions here, but I'm too lazy to continue with this chapter, so I hope this will suffice. Nevertheless, remember that Jephthah was a son of a harlot and was not raised fully on the Law of God and was therefore ignorant, though not necessarily willingly, of the customs and practices of Yahweh's altar. He was only called upon because he was a famous soldier, but he was never "fathered" with the sons of Israel to go up to the tabernacle of Yahweh. Therefore wasn't he disqualified from being the "head" of the elders of Gilead to begin with? Nevertheless, it was by faith that Jephthah obtained the promise of victory in battle based on the knowledge he did have and the righteousness God had from the foundation of the world. (v.11)

Hebrews 11:30–34 (NKJV)

30 By faith, the walls of Jericho fell down after they were encircled for seven days. 31 By faith, the harlot Rahab did not perish with those who did not believe when she had received the spies with peace. 32 And what more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah, also of David and Samuel and the prophets: 33 who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, 34 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.

Hebrews 11:39–40 (NKJV)

39 And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise, 40 God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us.