Bible in 365 Days

Judges 10-12

Judges 10

Following the death of Abimelech there seems to have been a period of forty years' quietness under the dictatorship of Tola and Jair.

After this there appears to have broken out a period characterized by an almost utter abandonment of the people to idolatry. The list of the forms which this idolatry took is appalling.

Judgment came this time through the Philistines and the men of Ammon and continued for eighteen years.

At last, sore distressed, they cried to God, and for the first time in the history it is recorded that God refused to hear them, reminding them of how repeatedly He had delivered them and they had returned to evil courses.

In the message of His anger, however, there was, as is always the case, clearly evident a purpose of deliverance. He recalled them to a recognition of His power by bidding them seek deliverance from the gods whom they had worshiped. They knew full well the helplessness of these gods in such an hour of distress. The very heart of Jehovah flames out in this connection in a remarkable statement. "His soul was grieved for the misery of Israel."

Judges 11

At last deliverance came through Jephthah, whose history is full of interest. He was the son of a harlot and had been thrust out from his inheritance by the legitimate sons of his father. Evidently the iron had entered into his soul and he had gathered to himself a band of men and had become a kind of outlaw freebooter. He was evidently a man of courage and heroic daring, and it is impossible to read the story of the approach of the men of Gilead to him without recognizing that he had certain excellencies of character. He can hardly be measured even by the highest standards of his own time. For some period he had been compelled to live outside the national life. Nevertheless, it is evident that he had his own religious convictions.

Perhaps the chief interest in this story is in the matter of his vow, of which there have been various interpretations. The story seems to leave no room for doubt that he intended to offer a human sacrifice, for when he promised to give what came to the door of his house, the reference can hardly be to an animal. When his daughter appeared, whether he actually slew her or whether, as some commentators believe, he condemned her to perpetual virginity must remain open to question. If indeed he offered her as a sacrifice by death, the question of the morality of his act can be discussed only in the light of his time, and, indeed, in the light of his own personal conviction. Certainly such an act was not justified by the law of Moses. Nevertheless, the impulse was a religious impulse.

Judges 12

The men of Ephraim took the same action in the case of Jephthah as they had done in the case of Gideon. After his victory they complained that they had not been called to help. It would seem as though they had become more arrogant as the result of Gideon's conciliatory method with them, for this time they came with the deliberate purpose of war. In Jephthah they found a man of another mold. He did not attempt to conciliate but visited them with the most severe punishment. Two things combined to rouse his anger, first as he reminded them when he and his people had been at strife with the children of Ammon, he had asked the aid of Ephraim and it had been refused. What had offended him and the men of Gilead most deeply, however, was the taunt which Ephraim had used against them, 'Ye are fugitives of Ephraim, ye Gileadites, in the midst of Ephraim, and in the midst of Manasseh."

This clearly again reveals the sad disintegration of the nation. The consciousness of the unity of the people seems largely to have been lost. A moment's retrospect here will be of value. After the terrible multiplication of idolatry (chapter 10), God had refused to hear the people and it is questionable whether anything afterward can be spoken of as deliverance. Prior to the raising up of Jephthah, there was a cry to God by the people, but it could hardly be claimed that Jephthah delivered the nation.