This morning I posted a link to Doug Chaplin’s thoughts on today’s Old Testament lectionary reading. And, I just sat down to write my own thoughts about this strange text. As Doug has said, there is certainly a lot going on here. So, I wanted to post the reading in its entirety:
The Spirit of the LORD came upon Jephthah.
He passed through Gilead and Manasseh,
and through Mizpah-Gilead as well,
and from there he went on to the Ammonites.
Jephthah made a vow to the LORD.
“If you deliver the Ammonites into my power,” he said,
“whoever comes out of the doors of my house
to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites
shall belong to the LORD.
I shall offer him up as a burnt offering.”Jephthah then went on to the Ammonites to fight against them,
and the LORD delivered them into his power,
so that he inflicted a severe defeat on them,
from Aroer to the approach of Minnith (twenty cities in all)
and as far as Abel-keramim.
Thus were the Ammonites brought into subjection
by the children of Israel.
When Jephthah returned to his house in Mizpah,
it was his daughter who came forth,
playing the tambourines and dancing.
She was an only child: he had neither son nor daughter besides her.
When he saw her, he rent his garments and said,
“Alas, daughter, you have struck me down
and brought calamity upon me.
For I have made a vow to the LORD and I cannot retract.”
She replied, “Father, you have made a vow to the LORD.
Do with me as you have vowed,
because the LORD has wrought vengeance for you
on your enemies the Ammonites.”
Then she said to her father, “Let me have this favor.
Spare me for two months, that I may go off down the mountains
to mourn my virginity with my companions.”
“Go,” he replied, and sent her away for two months.
So she departed with her companions
and mourned her virginity on the mountains.
At the end of the two months she returned to her father,
who did to her as he had vowed (New American Bible).
The story is certainly difficult as it stands, but every time I have read it I think I have missed what I think is the most unfathomable part. Look back at the beginning of the reading. It says: “The Spirit of the LORD came upon Jephthah.” Excuse me? “The Spirit of the LORD came upon Jephthah” and then he made this vow? What is the spirit of the Lord doing appearing in this passage? Certainly, “spirit of the Lord” does not mean the same thing in the Old Testament that it does in the New Testament. In the Old Testament, it is often thought of in terms of empowering, though it comes and goes. But, Jephthah is empowered by YHWH and then he makes this vow?
I think passages like this present us with two fundamentally different ways of reading the Bible. Do we try to explain it away? Do we try to explain it in such a way that we defend God? Or, do we simply say that what happened here was wrong? And, in the wrongness do we draw the lesson to beware of what actions people ascribe to the “spirit of the Lord?” What do you think?
2 responses to “The Most Unfathomable Part”
jeremy, i am far from a biblical scholar, heh, but in researching a current writing project which focused for a bit on Gideon, i was looking through the NIV commentary on Judges in which the author essentially suggested that Judges is chronicles a spiraling descent of the Israelites towards ruin. those aren’t his exact words, but that’s the gist. what i found interesting in Gideon’s story is that the spirit of the Lord descends on him as well, and through him God acheives some mighty victories (in spite of Gideon’s astounding amount of ignorance of God’s power as well as his lack of faith in the same). but Gideon then makes some idiotic choices and eventually leaves the Israelites “snared” (and moving down that spiral). i noticed that Japhthah’s story takes place chapters later (hence, most likely further down the descent if the commentary author is correct) and i was struck by how he also seems to make some bad choices even AFTER the Lord’s spirit has already given him the strength to do what it is he needs to accomplish (i assume, without going back to the context, this is to defeat the Ammonites). i’m wondering if there isn’t some lesson here (in addition to the one you suggest) about how the Lord gives strength to do what needs to be done but we broken humans seem to express some need to have some sense of participation/validity/control in the victory (Gideon asks his men to yell, if i remember right, something about “for the Lord and Gideon”–which is the first evidence of his eogcentricity–and J’s vows what he does even after the Lord has given him strength to defeat the Ammonites without that vow)? and those efforts or interference (are they out of pride?) mess things up profoundly–more so the further down the pike we get. just thinking.
Hi Carmen,
Thanks for commenting. I definitely think you are right that Judges chronicles a downward spiral. And, I think you are right to suggest that there are possibly other lessons than the one that I have drawn, or in addition to the one that I have drawn. This is one of those stories that is just difficult to explain. I suppose it could demonstrate that the spirit of God in the Old Testament empowers, but does not inhibit. In other words, it empowers people for a task that needs to be done, but doesn’t inhibit them from being incredibly stupid.
It is just one of those stories to me that makes me wonder how the spirit of the Lord could possibly be actively involved in this overall process, whether or not that is thought of simply in terms of empowerment. In that way, it is kind of like the story in 1 Kings 22 where I am wondering “What in the world is YHWH doing talking with these ‘lying spirits?”
By the way, what is your writing project?