Bible Difficulties (37 page)

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Why did God allow Jephthah's foolish vow to run its course?

The nature of Jephthah's vow has been much misunderstood. In Judges 11:30-31

Jephthah, on the eve of his decisive conflict with powerful Ammonite invaders, made a solemn promise to God that if He would grant victory over the foe, then whoever would come forth from the doors of his home to meet him would become the property of the Lord: "And I will offer him up for a burnt offering."

Obviously it was some human being who was to be involved, someone from Jephthah's household or some member of his family, and one who would care enough about Jephthah personally to become the first to greet him. The Hebrew text excludes the possibility of any animal serving as a candidate for this burnt offering since the phrase rendered "whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house" is never used of an animal (Keil and Delitzsch,
Joshua, Judges, Ruth
, p. 385).

Had it been a beast, there would of course have been no problem about sacrificing it on the altar as a blood offering (which the Hebrew word for burnt offering [
òlah
] normally implied). But in this special case, since it was to be a human member of the household who would be the first to greet Jephthah, it was out of the question for a literal blood sacrifice to be performed. Why? Because human sacrifice was sternly and repeatedly forbidden by God in his law (see Lev. 18:21; 20:2-5; Deut. 12:31; 18:10).

It would have been altogether unthinkable for Jephthah or any other Israelite to imagine that he could please God by committing such a heinous and abhorrent abomination in His presence or at His altar. "You shall not behave thus toward [Yahweh] your God, for every abominable act which He [Yahweh] hates they [the Canaanites] have done for their gods; for they even burn their sons and daughters in fire to their gods. Whatever I command you, you shall be careful to do; you shall not add to nor take away from it" (Deut. 12:31-32). Again, we read in Deuteronomy 18:10-12: "There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire....For whoever does these... detestable things Yahweh your God will drive them out before you."

In view of Yahweh's well-known prohibition and expressed loathing for this practice, it would have amounted to a complete renunciation of God's sovereignty for Jephthah to have undertaken such a thing. It would have been a repudiation of the very covenant that constituted Israel as God's holy people.

Equally incredible is the notion that God, foreknowing that Jephthah was intending thus to flout His law and trample on His covenant, would nevertheless have granted him victory over the foe. The understanding of the event involves an intolerable theological difficulty, for it hopelessly compromises the integrity of God Himself.

What, then, actually did happen if Jephthah did not offer up his daughter on the altar?

As Delitzsch points out, the whole record of the manner in which this vow was carried out points to her dedication to the service of the Lord as a lifelong ministrant at the national sanctuary. Judges 11:37-38 states that she was allowed a mourning period of two 161

months, not to bewail her approaching death, but rather to lament over her permanent virginity (
betulim
) and the resultant extinction of her father's line, since she was his only child. As one set apart for tabernacle service (cf. Exod. 38:8; 1 Sam. 2:22 for other references to these consecrated virgins who performed service at the tabernacle), she would never become a mother; hence it is emphasized that "she knew no man" (Judg.

11:39). This would have been a pointless and inane remark if in fact she were put to death.

Jephthah acted as a man of honor in carrying out his promise and presenting his daughter as a living sacrifice, as all true Christians are bidden to present themselves (Rom. 12:1). Had he committed a detested abomination like the slaughter of his own child, he never would have been listed with the heroes of faith in Hebrews 11. (An extended and skillful treatment of this whole issue is found in Keil and Delitzsch,
Joshua,
Judges, Ruth
, pp. 384-95).

How could God have incited Samson to embark on a romance with a pagan girl as a
means of stirring up strife between Israel and her neighbors (Judges 14:4)?

Samson seems to have enjoyed cordial relations with the Philistine overlords who held the tribe of Dan in vassalage. These aggressive and warlike foreigners from Crete had held much of Israel in humiliating bondage for many years; and they were destined to plague them all through the period of Samuel and Saul until the final successes of King David around 1000 B.C. Samson was the one figure who could break the power of the Philistines; yet he was too concerned with his personal interests and pleasures to assume that task in a responsible fashion. His enormous physical strength and courage were hardly matched by his dedication to God's call. Consecrated from infancy to serve the Lord as a Nazirite, he had developed a willful spirit that was completely self-centered.

Therefore the only way to rouse him against the oppressors of his people was to allow him to get into a quarrel with them on the ground of his personal interest. His godly parents had urged him to have nothing to do with Philistine girls, no matter how pretty they were; but Samson brushed their admonitions aside and insisted on having his own way.

It is in this context that v.4 informs us: "However, his father and mother did not know that it was of the LORD, for He was seeking an occasion against the Philistines. Now at that time the Philistines were ruling over Israel" (NASB). It was time for a new hero to appear and deliver the Israelites from heathen oppression, as had happened back in the days of Othniel, Ehud, and Gideon. But Samson was too wrapped up in himself to be attentive to God's call. Therefore he needed some strong incentive to turn against the Philistines in retaliation for a wrong he had received from them. God used even this carnal reaction on Samson's part to accomplish His gracious purpose in lightening the load of their oppressors. The result of Samson's resentment toward the Philistine wedding guests who had wormed out of his young bride the answer to his riddle was that he resorted to attacking the young men (possibly in the militia) at nearby Ashkelon in order to rob them of their garments in order to pay off his forfeited wager (14:19).

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In the aftermath of this episode, Samson's unreasonable resentment at finding that the bride he had abandoned in disgust had later been given to another man led to his burning down all the standing crops of that town. The result of this was, of course, the organizing of an expeditionary force of Philistines to arrest and punish him for this deed (Judg. 15:6-8), a maneuver that led to their own destruction by the Rock of Etam and at Ramath-lehi (vv. 14-17). This led to the weakening of the grip that Philistia had maintained for so long over the Israelites. Even Samson's folly in revealing the secret of his strength to his Philistine girlfriend, Delilah, led ultimately to the death of the flower of Philistine leadership in the collapse of the temple of Dagon. "So the dead whom he killed at his death were more than those whom he killed in his life" (Judg. 16:30, NASB).

How could Samson's marriage be "from the Lord," as Judges 14:4 says, if it was
wrong to marry unbelievers?

Judges 14:3 makes it plain that Samson was doing the wrong thing by marrying the Philistine woman from Timnah, for his parents remonstrated with him about marrying out of the faith. Yet the headstrong young man insisted, "Get her for me, for she looks good to me." Then v.4, indicating how God was intending to use Samson as an aggressive champion against the Philistines in the years to come, says, "However, his father and mother did not know that it was of the LORD, for He was seeking an occasion against the Philistines."

It would be a mistake to conclude from this statement that God was pleased with Samson's violation of the Mosaic Law, which strictly forbade mixed marriages of this sort. But it does mean that God intended to use Samson as a champion in the deliverance of his people from the galling tyranny of the ungodly Philistines. Since up until that time Samson had enjoyed friendly relations with them, he was not likely to do anything to liberate Israel from the yoke of its heathen overlords. He needed to have a falling out with them before he would enter on his career as a champion for his country. The aftermath of this unhappy marriage, which was never really consummated, brought about the right conditions for Samson to raise a standard against Philistia.

How could Samson catch three hundred foxes for his prank at Timnah?

Judges 15 relates how Samson sought vengeance against the Philistine town of Timnah after his bride had been given to some other man. Verse 4 states that "Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, and took torches, and turned [the foxes] tail to tail, and put one torch in the middle between two tails." Then he lit the torches and let them run loose into the standing grain of the Timnite farmers so that they might lose their entire crop. As to the methods Samson may have used to capture so many foxes, when most people find it difficult enough to hunt down even one of them, we find no information at all in the text. Whether his superhuman strength was matched by a superhuman agility that enabled him to outrun them as they tried to escape, we cannot be sure. Or else he may have devised a set of unusually enticing traps and imprisoned them in cages until he had gathered a sufficient number for his purpose. Presumably he used a pair of thick leather gloves as protection against their sharp teeth. However he managed it, he was certainly in 163

a class by himself. But any warrior who could slay a thousand armed soldiers with the jawbone of an ass as his only weapon (v.15) could surely take care of a mere three hundred foxes without too much difficulty.

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Ruth

Is not the transaction between Boaz and the kinsman in Ruth 4:3-8 contrary to the
stipulations in Deuteronomy 25:5-10? And is not levirate marriage at variance with
t he law against incest in Leviticus 18:16?

Deuteronomy 25:5-10 provides that a childless widow is to be taken over by a surviving brother of her deceased husband to be his wife and to bear a son (if biologically possible) who will be legally accounted as the son and heir of the deceased brother. This means that the dead man's name will be carried on by the son whom his brother has begotten so that the dead man's line does not become extinct. But vv. 7-8 allow such a surviving brother to refuse the role of substitute husband if he so insists. If he should choose to do so, however, the widow may lodge a complaint against him before the authorities; and he may then be publicly disgraced. That is to say, the widow may publicly untie and remove his sandal and spit in his face, saying, "Thus it is done to the man who does not build up his brother's house" (v.9). Verse 10 goes on to say that he shall be known from then on as

"The house of him whose sandal is removed" (NASB).

As we compare this provision, with its concern for the perpetuation of the memory and family line of the deceased, with the negotiations between Boaz and the unnamed nearer kinsman in Ruth 4:3-8, we note the following additional features.

1. If there is no surviving brother in the immediate family (for Chilion had also died, as well as Ruth's husband, Mahlon), then the levirate obligation attached to the nearest surviving male cousin.

2. Along with the obligation to serve as a proxy for the deceased in the marriage bed, there was the related obligation to buy back any landed property of the deceased that was about to be sold or forfeited under foreclosure proceedings. (While this was not actually mentioned in connection with the ordinance of the levir in Deut. 25, it is specified in Lev.

25:25: "If a fellow countryman of yours becomes so poor he has to sell part of his property, then his nearest kinsman is to come and buy back what his relative has sold"

[NASB]).

3. In the case of a non-Israelite widow like Ruth the Moabitess, it might be considered a little more justifiable to refuse to perform the duty of a surrogate husband (levir) than otherwise, since a taint attached to the descendants of a Moabite. Deuteronomy 23:3

provided: "No Ammonite or Moabite shall enter the assembly of the LORD: none of their descendants, even to the tenth generation, shall ever enter the assembly of the LORD"

(NASB). Whether this applied to a Moabite woman married to a Hebrew as much as it would to a Moabite male convert to faith in the Lord is an arguable question. But at least this possibility raised a doubt that was apparently perceived as being legitimate.

4. Whether for this reason, or whether Ruth herself had no desire to humiliate the kinsman (
go'el
) when she had really set her heart on Boaz, the kinsman himself was 165

permitted to remove his own sandal; and he was even spared the humiliation of having her spit in his face.

These four special features can hardly be regarded as contradictory to the general law of the levirate in Deuteronomy 25. The basic rules there for a formal rejection of the duty to the widow and also for a public acceptance of that responsibility were carried out by both men. Ruth's failure to carry out an active role in accusing and shaming the other
go'el
amounted to the voluntary surrender of her right to perform this ceremony, in view of the fact that the essential purpose of the levirate ordinance was about to be achieved in a far more desirable and acceptable fashion through her kind benefactor, Boaz himself.

As for the law against incest with a brother's wife (Lev. 18:16), this obviously did not apply to a situation where the surviving brother took the childless widow into his home and undertook to act as his brother's proxy. If he had attempted to marry his sister-in-law under any other condition (as, for example, Herod the Tetrarch, who seduced his brother Philip's wife, Herodias, from him), that would have been a clear case of incest, which was a capital crime. Or if Ruth had borne a son to Mahlon, that would have made her ineligible to any surviving brother of his, or perhaps even to a first cousin (which Boaz apparently was not).