When Jephthah returned to his home in Mizpah, who should come out
to meet him but his daughter, dancing to the sound of tambourines! She was an
only child. Except for her he had neither son nor daughter. When he saw her, he tore his
clothes and cried, ‘Oh no, my daughter! You have brought me down and I am
devastated. I have made a vow to the Lord that I cannot break.’
‘My father,’ she replied, ‘you have given your word to the Lord. Do to me just as you
promised, now that the Lord has avenged you of your enemies,
the Ammonites. But grant me this one request,’ she said.
‘Give me two months to roam the hills and weep with my friends, because I will
never marry.’
‘You may go,’ he said. And he let her go for two months. She and
her friends went into the hills and wept because she would never marry. After the two months, she
returned to her father, and he did to her as he had vowed. And she was a
virgin. Judges 11: 34 – 39
I read recently that real
courage is obeying even when you know the consequences. Jephthah had made a
rash vow that if God gave him victory in battle over the Ammonites, then he
would sacrifice the first thing that came to meet him when he got home.
God did give him victory in
battle and the first thing to greet him when he got home was his daughter, his
only child, celebrating his victory in battle and homecoming. What I notice
though is her response. She neither begs nor pleads with her father or God to
let her off a vow that she has not made. She understands the bigger picture; her
father has had great victory in battle because God helped him. The Israelites would continually need God’s help to win victory over their enemies and
breaking this vow would seriously compromise their future cause. Vows made to
God are serious things and should not be readily broken. Jephthah’s daughter
understood this. (see blog Broken vows
break relationships).
Instead she just asks for two
months to go and weep with her friends over what would never be; her own
husband, home and children. She had the courage to go through with this even
though she knew the consequences for herself. I am sure during those two months
some friends would have encouraged her to defy the vow. You can imagine them
saying that surely God would not expect her to die because of something her
father vowed. The consequences though for the nation would have been greater if
she had not gone through with it.
Imagine too the anguish of
Jephthah’s heart that he must have endured. No daughter or grandchildren now. Did
he beg God to let him off his vow I wonder? Nevertheless, he went through with
it; that takes courage – a courage only exceeded by his daughter’s.
Mary,
the mother of Jesus, was another woman who had the courage to be obedient to
God’s calling, despite the consequences. When she became pregnant by the Holy
Spirit before marrying Joseph, the consequences were awful. There was a very
real chance Joseph would reject her and I am sure society did. Unmarried
mothers were outcasts in those days. However she also got hold of the bigger
picture and knew she was the most blessed of women because she had been chosen
to be the mother of the Messiah. Simeon prophesied to her that a sword would
pierce Mary’s soul (Luke 2:35). Watching Jesus being crucified must have been
indescribable and like having her soul pierced just as Jephthah’s soul must
have been pierced when he had to kill his own daughter. What courage these
people displayed.
I
do not expect we will have to face such awful choices but may we have the
courage to obey God in our circumstances even when we know the consequences
will be hard.
