JEPHTHAH SET A JUDGE “Now Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty man of valor, but he was the son of a harlot; and Gilead begot Jephthah. Gilead’s wife bore sons; and when his wife’s sons grew up, they drove Jephthah out, and said to him, “You shall have no inheritance in our father’s house, for you are the son of another woman.Then Jephthah fled from his brothers and dwelt in the land of Tob; and worthless men banded together with Jephthah and went out raiding with him” (1 – 3) Even though Jephthah’s brothers drove him out, to have no inheritance in their father’s house, because he was the son of a harlot, yet, having a heart wide open with love, when the Spirit of the Lord dwelt on him, he stood to save them. 1- Jephthah flees from his brothers 1 - 3 2- The elders of Gilead and Jephthah 4 - 11 3- Jephthah negotiates with the king of Ammon 12 - 28 4- Jephthah’s bitter vow 29 – 40 1- JEPHTHAH FLEES FROM HIS BROTHERS: https://coptic-treasures.com/ The word ‘Jephthah’ means (he who opens). By such a name, he probably carried a symbolic portrait of the Lord Christ. and His salvation works.. When his brothers’ hearts were closed shut, and drove him away from their midst, so as to have no inheritance in their father’s house, he had to flee to dwell in the land of ‘Tob’, namely ‘Teba east of the Jordan, outside the border of Israel (2 Samuel 10: 6); from where ‘Hanun’ king of Ammon hired men, when he made himself repulsive to king David; called nowadays ‘Mephes’ or ‘Um Kiss’. Jephthah, however opened up his heart to stand up and save them from the people of Ammon. In this he is a symbol of the Lord Christ, before whom, humanity closed its doors, to find no place to be born among the people, and was born in a fold of cows. In His ministry, the Lord Jesus openly proclaimed that “the Son of Man has nowhere to place His head” (Matthew 8: 20). Yet, while being driven out by the Jews with all their categories, He opened His heart to them, together with the Gentiles, on the cross, to embrace all, and to carry them to the bosom of His Father, to reconcile us with Him forever (2 Corinthians 5: 18). The Lord Christ, “He who opens, and no one shuts” (Revelation 3: 7); is the true Jephthah, who opens the gates of paradise before his believers, after they closed it shut by disobedience. He was called ‘Jephthah the Gileadite’: for he was raised in Gilead; and because his father’s name was ‘Gilead’. Even though the Holy Book confirmed that he was ‘one of illegitimate birth’, yet this is not counted against him; because “The son shall not bear the guilt of the father, but the soul who sins shall die (Ezekiel 18: 20). Indeed the law denied him entrance into the assembly of the Lord; yet it did not deny him the leadership of the army, to be a judge, nor the enjoyment of the eternal inheritance. Commenting on this, St. Jerome says: [Jephthah , whom the apostle counts among the righteous (Hebrew 11: 32), was “one of illegitimate birth’, yet, it is written: that the sons shall bear neither the virtues nor the guilt of their fathers; God will judge us only on the time when we were born anew in Christ]. https://coptic-treasures.com/ It was befitting of Jephthah’s brothers to gain and not to lose him, for it was no fault of his; but they unwisely drove him away; to be banded together with worthless men, to go out raiding with him (3). They drove him away to be attached to evildoers, and to practice what is unbefitting; something, even though does not justify Jephthah, yet it does not relieve his brothers of their responsibility for what he ended up to. 2- THE ELDERS OF GILEAD AND JEPHTHAH: When Jephthah was driven out by his brothers, he fled to beyond Israel, to the land of ‘Tob’……… as though he is the Lord Christ who was driven out by His own, to set forth to ‘Golgotha’, being the true land of ‘Tob’ (namely goodness); for there, the goodness of the Lord, and His heart kindled with love toward everyone, were proclaimed; according to the words of the lord, Himself: “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” (John 3: 16). To drive Jephthah away from Gilead, it so seems that his brothers used a legal verdict issued by the elders of Gilead. . “ It came to pass after a time that the people of Ammon made war against Israel. And so it was, when the people of Ammon made war against Israel, that the elders of Gilead went to get Jephthah from the land of Tob. Then they said to Jephthah, “Come and be our commander, that we may fight against the people of Ammon” (6) On account of that they sought him to be their commander, for being a mighty man of valor; Jephthah declined their offer, proclaiming his protest, saying: https://coptic-treasures.com/ “Did you not hate me, and expel me from my father’s house? Why have you come to me now when you are in distress? And the elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, “That is why we have turned again to you now, that you may go with us and fight against the people of Ammon, and be our head over all the inhabitants of Gilead.” “So Jephthah said to the elders of Gilead, ‘If you take me back home to fight against the people of Ammon, and the LORD delivers them to me, shall I be your head?’” “And the elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, ‘The LORD will be a witness between us, if we do not do according to your words’ Then Jephthah went with the elders of Gilead, and the people made him head and commander over them; and Jephthah spoke all his words before the LORD in Mizpah” (7 – 11). Here we see Jephthah represent a unique personality. For we are used to see spiritual leaders, who once they receive the position of leadership, they pervert and become swallowed by the love of authority and honor. But Jephthah, here, who started his life among evildoers who raided together with him; when he was asked to become a commander in the war, he desired to be a head over Israel both in war and in peace. ……….. Yet, once he received the responsibility, we see him become a man of faith, amazing in his behavior. …………. If some, not enduring responsibilities and honor, collapse spiritually; some others are so https://coptic-treasures.com/ internally awed by the responsibility, to set forth to new beginnings of spiritual work in the Lord. Having got his new assignment, after his debate with the elders of Gilead, not from their hands, but from the hands of the Lord Himself, Jephethah therefore did not trust in himself, nor in his men, as much as he did in the Lord Himself; said ”If you take me back home to fight against the people of Ammon, and the Lord deliver them to me …………” (9). If it was them who brought him back; yet he fights by the Lord Himself, the secret of his conquest and victory. Commenting on this, St. John Chrysostom says: [We cannot run along the way of God, except carried on the wings of the Spirit]. 3- JEPHTHAH NEGOTIATES WITH THE KING OF AMMON: Jephthah did net hasten to fight the people of Ammon, despite the fact that they have previously humiliated the children of Israel for many years, but, with a high spirit of wisdom, he sought peace. “ Now Jephthah sent messengers to the king of the people of Ammon, saying, “What do you have against me, that you have come to fight against me in my land?” (12) “ And the king of the people of Ammon answered the messengers of Jephthah, “Because Israel took away my land when they came up out of Egypt, from the Arnon as far as the Jabbok, and to the Jordan. Now therefore, restore those lands peaceably.” https://coptic-treasures.com/ “ So Jephthah again sent messengers to the king of the people of Ammon, and said to him, “Thus says Jephthah: ‘Israel did not take away the land of Moab, nor the land of the people of Ammon; for when Israel came up from Egypt, they walked through the wilderness as far as the Red Sea and came to Kadesh. Then Israel sent messengers to the king of Edom, saying, “Please let me pass through your land.” But the king of Edom would not heed. And in like manner they sent to the king of Moab, but he would not consent. So Israel remained in Kadesh. And they went along through the wilderness and bypassed the land of Edom and the land of Moab, came to the east side of the land of Moab, and encamped on the other side of the Arnon. But they did not enter the border of Moab, for the Arnon was the border of Moab. Then Israel sent messengers to Sihon king of the Amorites, king of Heshbon; and Israel said to him, “Please let us pass through your land into our place., But Sihon did not trust Israel to pass through his territory. So Sihon gathered all his people together, encamped in Jahaz, and fought against Israel. And the LORD God of Israel delivered Sihon and all his people into the hand of Israel, and they defeated them. Thus Israel gained possession of all the land of the Amorites, who https://coptic-treasures.com/ inhabited that country. They took possession of all the territory of the Amorites, from the Arnon to the Jabbok and from the wilderness to the Jordan (12 – 22) . The fact is that God has forbidden Israel to fight against both the people of Ammon and of Moab ( Deuteronomy 2: 9, 19). What the Children of Israel took by force what belonged to the Ammorites. And Ammon seek his land that extends from the River Arnon (whose name means (corrected’), to the River of Jabok (whose name means voided) -- the River of Zarkah. to the River Jordan, is not based on the truth. On another aspect, Israel, having taken over that disputed land since 300 years ago, it became, therefore, its own by law . The third important evidence presented by Jephthah to the King of Ammon was that, what Israel has got was not from the people of Ammon, or from those of Moab, or even from the king of the Ammorites, but they got it from the Lord Himself, as a divine gift. ‘And now the LORD God of Israel has dispossessed the Amorites from before His people Israel; should you then possess it? Will you not possess whatever Chemosh your god gives you to possess? ………… So whatever the LORD our God takes possession of before us, we will possess” (23, 24) “And now, are you any better than Balak the son of Zippor, king of Moab? Did he ever strive against Israel? Did he ever fight against them? While Israel dwelt in Heshbon https://coptic-treasures.com/ and its villages, in Aroer and its villages, and in all the cities along the banks of the Arnon, for three hundred years, why did you not recover them within that time? Therefore I have not sinned against you, but you wronged me by fighting against me. May the LORD, the Judge, render judgment this day between the children of Israel and the people of Ammon.’ However, the king of the people of Ammon did not heed the words which Jephthah sent him” (25 – 28). The issue of the debate now, is not the disputed land, but the kingdom of God. God granted the children of Israel to possess, and expelled the nations before them. Will they reject the work of God with them?. The land itself -- in Jephthah’s sight – bears the sign of being the possession of the Lord, and the acceptance by the believers of His promises and gifts; Any slothfulness in possessing it, therefore, would be counted as a reproach against the Person of the Lord. By such a line of thought, the apostle Paul considered the organs of his body, as though the land on which the people of Ammon, and those of Moab, have reigned for years. But once God expelled evil from those members , to reign by Himself on them, Will man give it back to the pagan nations(namely to the sins and evil desires)?!; As the apostle Paul say: “Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot?!” (1 Corinthians 6: 15) God delivered to us our life renewed in Him by His Holy Spirit; as though it is the land extending from ‘Arnon’ (the corrected) to ‘Jabok’ (the voided), to the ‘Jordan’, where we find Christ dwelling. So we find our life extend from “the Arnon’, namely we start by doing a true inner (correction), by the Holy Spirit of God; to ‘Jabok’, namely, where there is a complete voidance of the devil, and all his evil work, he who occupied the site, to the Jordan, fort the Lord Christ to reign in its water, to proclaim His conquest over Leviathan, who dwelt in those waters, https://coptic-treasures.com/ and to open the gates of heaven, so as to hear the joyful voice of the Father, and to see the dwelling of the Holy Spirit……….. Having received such a new life in the Lord, namely the land voided from the devil , to let the Lord reign on it; it would not be befitting of us to let the enemy repossess it again! How beautiful are the words said by Jephthah: “They took possession of the territory ….. from Arnon to Jabbok; and from the wilderness to the Jordan” (22). It is as though he says that the believers possess from the site of the inner (correction) to the (voidance) ……….; namely, they practically walk in their spiritual life; and as they seek to correct and to renew their life in the Lord, they void themselves completely from the devil and his works. ……………. As to saying: “and from the wilderness to the Jordan”,: he means, as though moving from the barrenness and draught to the paradise where the Lord Christ, the Tree of Life is inside it. The Jordan or the baptism are nothing but the return to the life on a heavenly level; for it is an entrance into a unity with the Father in His Son Jesus Christ, as a Member in His Holy Body, by the Holy Spirit. Those are how the fathers of the church felt when talking to the Catechumen, whom the felt as leading them to paradise itself; Among those fathers are St. John Chrysostom; and father Theodore of Misas. Finally, as Jephthah asked the king of Ammon to reconsider his decision to fight against Israel, he sought from him to follow the lead of the king of Moab; who also lost his land the way the people of Ammon did, but did not fight against Israel; or, after starting to fight, he reconsidered himself and refrained to do. 4- JEPHTHAH’S BITTER VOW:. https://coptic-treasures.com/ “ Then the Spirit of the LORD came upon Jephthah, and he passed through Gilead and Manasseh, and passed through Mizpah of Gilead; and from Mizpah of Gilead he advanced toward the people of Ammon” “And Jephthah made a vow to the LORD, and said, “If You will indeed deliver the people of Ammon into my hands, then it will be that whatever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the people of Ammon, shall surely be the LORD’s, and I will offer it up as a burnt offering” (29 – 31) “So Jephthah advanced toward the people of Ammon to fight against them, and the LORD delivered them into his hands.. And he defeated them from Aroer as far as Minnith— twenty cities—and to Abel Keramim, with a very great slaughter. Thus the people of Ammon were subdued before the children of Israel” (32 – 33). “When Jephthah came to his house at Mizpah, there was his daughter, coming out to meet him with timbrels and dancing; and she was his only child. Besides her he had neither son nor daughter. And it came to pass, when he saw her, that he tore his clothes, and said, “Alas, my daughter! You have brought me very low! You are among those who trouble me! For I have given my word to the LORD, and I cannot go back on it.” (34 – 35) https://coptic-treasures.com/ This vow, According to many fathers lacked every kind of wisdom. It is probable that, by it, God intended to teach Jephthah and all believers, along the generations, a very important lesson; by allowing for his only virgin daughter to come out to meet him; Seeing her, he tore his clothes in bitterness. According to St. Ambrose: [It was a bitter vow, and fulfilling it was more bitter. It is better not to vow altogether than to vow something that God Himself has no pleasure in ].. According to St. John Chrysostom: [By not stopping this sacrifice, the way He did with that of Isaac the son of Abraham, in spite His disapproval of the human sacrifices; God intended to give a lesson to humanity, that men should not hasten to make such a vow, lest by it they may lose their children. By allowing this vow to be fulfilled, God put an end to its repetition in the future. He also says: Although God did not stop the sacrifice this time, as He did in that of Isaac, He clearly showed on many occasions His disapproval of human sacrifices]. Anyway, despite God’s hate of human sacrifices, but Jephthah and his daughter – most probably with lack of the right knowledge – both lintended to present to God the most precious thing they have. In spite of the fact that she was his only child, and beside her he had neither son nor daughter, and that she was a virgin who knew no man, Jephthah did not go back on his vow, which would mean that he would die childless. And his daughter, offered her own life, even though with the bitterness of soul, on account of that she was going to die childless, and with reproach.: Anyway, even though she could have managed, some way or another, to avoid such a sad destiny, she, from the beginning, and with her complete free will, said to her father: . “My father, if you have given your word to the LORD, do to me according to what has gone out of your mouth, because the LORD has avenged you of your enemies, https://coptic-treasures.com/ the people of Ammon” (36). .” Then she said to her father, “Let this thing be done for me: let me alone for two months, that I may go and wander on the mountains and bewail my virginity, my friends and I.” (37) She went to bewail her virginity; for every girl in Israel longed to have seed, from which the Messiah would eventually come. And now she is going to die a virgin, and lose that hope …. “ So he said, “Go.” And he sent her away for two months; and she went with her friends, and bewailed her virginity on the mountains. And it was so at the end of two months that she returned to her father, and he carried out his vow with her which he had vowed” (38 – 39). “And it became a custom in Israel that the daughters of Israel went four days each year to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite” (40) Offering his daughter a sacrifice to God, Jephthah bore a symbol of a man who offers his life (his only daughter) a sacrifice of love to God. ……….. That is why, when Lolian -- a rich noble man – lost his wife and his two daughters, St. Jerome wrote to exhort him to join monasticism, to offer his life a vow dedicated to worship God; something that brings pleasure to God, better than any other kind of offering. He wrote to him, saying: [Offering his virgin daughter a sacrifice to God, Jephthah was counted by the apostle among the saints (Hebrew 11: 32). I https://coptic-treasures.com/ do not want you to offer to the Lord something that a thief can rob, or an enemy could take away …. But I want you to offer Him what goes together with you to the grave; No, but to the kingdom, to the paradise of joy]. Finally, according to St. John Chrysostim [Lamenting the daughter of Jephtjhah, the virgins intend to make men more wise in the future; and perceive that what Jephthah did was not according to the will of God].
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