After completing last week’s lesson (https://theinseasonlifestyle.com/a-judge-named-jephthah/), I had a feeling there might be a lot more to discuss in the eleventh chapter of Judges and the story of Jephthah.
This was just a feeling in my spirit which I’ve pondered and prayed over all week as we approached our next lesson in the Book of Judges. Here are the things I did not mention before which I feel are important to Jephthah’s story.
WELCOME
Welcome to our COME AS A CHILD BIBLE STUDY. We present this study on this blogsite every Thursday. This dedicated study group is a small group of laypersons walking through the scriptures together as if reading them for the very first time.
Our goal is to try to use the eyes of a child as we study. A child comes to God with no pre-set conditions and no pre-programmed concepts; simply because they love and adore their Father and want to learn more from him.
This type of study is based upon the scripture passage from Matthew 18:2-4; Then Jesus called a little child to Him, set him in the midst of them, and said, “Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
Hence; you will find us here every Thursday, going page-by-page and word-by-word through the scriptures of our bibles as if we are reading them for the very first time and listening to our hearts for God’s interpretations to us.
Our Father has blessed us tremendously in this adventure! We are happy that you have decided to join in with us on the journey. If you wish never to miss a lesson, please hit the “submit” button at the top of this blogpost and sign up to receive our e-mails. We promise never to sell or give away your personal information. Also; we do not believe in overwhelming people with a constant bombardment of unnecessary e-mails.
That said; welcome to our study group! Today we are finishing up a lesson from The book of Judges; Chapter 11.
MORE UPDATES ON JEPHTHAH
In the meantime, it has become crystal clear to me while studying the present day war with Israel and Hamas; that the same type of situation exists in today’s world as it did when the Israelites were caught up in war with the Ammorites during the ancient times.
The war was clearly a dispute over who owns what lands. The Ammonites were trying to convince the Israelites that they had previous land-rights in the territory that Israel occupied.
This struggle for the land stemmed not from any type of national or racial problem, but it was and is a religious/spiritual problem.
We have determined in studying today’s modern conflicts that the concept of Palestine as a nation-state in opposition to Israel or as a racial group predating the presence of Jewish inhabitants is historically false. This was also true of the state of the Ammorites in ancient times.
HISTORY REPEATING ITSELF
So my statement about today’s wars is very similar to Jephthah’s statement to the King of the Ammorites before the beginning of the war with them. He was clearly stating that the war was based upon lies and false assumptions.
Hence; history seems to be repeating here. Over-and-over again we have seen this happen in any of our studies about the Middle East.
I suppose this same story will continue to play out until Christ returns. It is more of a spiritual struggle than a physical struggle. That is saying a lot; since the physical struggle (both past and present) has been extreemly devastating.
HEARTS FOR WAR TO HEARTS FOR PEACE
People of the world today are continuiously asking God (and ourselves) how we can change our world from a planet full of globlal wars to a world at peace.
All we can do is continue to pray for God to change the hearts of the people of the whole earth.
Peace will come from love, not hate. God is love.
Love must be taught when children are in their formative years.
The lack of this one fact is causing generations of suffering. I fear this translates to a problem that will take generations to solve; if it can be solved.
Yet; we know that with God nothing is impossible.
A TIME FOR INTENSIFIED PRAYERS
Now is time to pray as we have never prayed before. As mentioned previously, this is a spiritual problem. We must remain in a spiritual state of war in order to end these physical wars upon the earth.
As we pray, we must be in tuned to God’s Holy Spirit. Our hearts must be listening to the lessons we have learned from studying the Holy Scriptures.
The Word of God is the answer to everything.
I highly suggest taking one day a week to fast and pray for peace for all nations of the earth. Prepare to set aside special times with God alone so that He will understand the true intentions of your heart. Superficial prayers are never heard.
We must stop the virtue-signaling prayers that look good in public and return to genuine times of honest, personal prayers. Go to your closet and offer up your petitions before God and God alone. He will hear you.
SOMETHING ELSE ABOUT JEPHTHAH
That point made, I would simply like to clarify more of last week’s lesson in today’s lesson.
All week long I have been looking at the people from Jephthah’s times and thinking about how they compare to today’s times. Both peoples (then and now) had fallen into living lives of paganism. God was not happy then. I would be so bold as to say that He is not happy now.
Today’s Christian churches seem to have forgotten the meaning of paganism. The subject of preventing false gods and false worship is the most emphasized thing in all of the Old Testament scriptures. Yet; we seem to have forgotten the very first commandment; “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”
Things were the same in the days of Jephthah too. In the ancient example of Israel and the Ammonites, God had turned his back away from His people in order to let them fall in hopes that they would eventually come to their senses.
Could that also be the case for the modern world and its many wars?
MAKING DECISIONS WITHOUT THE PEOPLE
The elders of Gilead were desperate for answers. They picked Jephthah for their leader. It is clear that not all of the nation of Israel was consulted in this and that fact deeply disturbed the tribe of Ephraim.
Here I see another similarity with today’s ways. Instead of acting as a nation and moving in unity as one nation, Israel was letting individual forces control a portion of its people.
This reminds me of how we have fallen into global thinking instead of national thinking. Contrary to much of higher education’s teachings; honoring your nation and moving in its best interest is not condemning the rest of the world.
When a nation survives and thrives in peace and prosperity, the rest of the world also reaps the rewards.
Global thinking is not always in the best interest of the whole globe. Each nation thriving in peace and making their own individual contributions to the world’s economy was a much better plan.
Elite ideology wasn’t the answer to solving Isreal’s problems of the past, and neither is it the answer for solving the problems of the world today.
Should we all get along and work together? Yes! Definitely. But; each nation and part of this world has been blessed with different and diverse blessings. In order to share them best with one another we must remain with our own national identities.
BLENDED NATIONS CANNNOT THRIVE
Having every nation follow the same pattern and walk the same walk isn’t a good plan.
Everyone screams diverstiy; but the true meaning of diversity has been marred. It is our differences that make us strong and helpful to one another.
Instead of strengthening the world by letting each nation make a different contribution, global thinkers wish to weaken the world by making everyone think and act the same.
This was never meant to be and it will never work.
A small elite group of people decided that Israel would go to war.
WAS JEPHTHAH A TRUE JUDGE?
Hence; there later arose a huge argument and dispute as to whether Jephthah was even a legitimate judge of Israel as far as the history books are concerned.
Many of the tribes did not ever consider Jephthah to be an official judge. Nonetheless, he proceeded. He based his actions on the name of Israel as a nation with only the approval of one tribe.
When you have an enemy in war, and you are in the heat of a fierce battle, no one from the other side is going to stop that war to verify the fact that you are legitimately acting in the interest of the whole nation. The war will happen irregardless of the decisions of the whole nation.
WHAT MAKES A NATION GOOD?
Here again, as I have pointed out so many times before, Isreal is the pattern God created to teach all other nations how to be a good nation. God designed things this way for a reason. We learn so much about being a nation when we look at the times of the Judges.
A smart nation will make sure that its truth is known at all times.
Also, a united nation will stand firmly together and not waver back and forth or let one individual man make the most important decisions for the whole nation.
When a nation claims to be ruled “by the people” it should truly be ruled by the people.
LACK OF UNITY CAUSES DIVISION
This type of division among the people happened with Israel in the days of Jephthah, and it is very likely to happen in any nation of the world at this moment in time; given the global thinking that has divided nations instead of uniting them. Division weakens nations.
Global thinkers call for utter chaos and ruin. They erronously believe by destroying present systems they can take over and create new systems which they desire to implement.
The truth gets harder and harder to present in a national form. Pray that we find better, more civil and fair ways to bring truth forth.
Apparently, it was too late for Israel to change their nation’s disagreements about some of the wars that were happening. We will talk more about this in future lessons.
ELEMENTS OF ISHMAEL AND ISAAC
Now I will back up a bit more with our current story.
I wish to step back even further into the past.
It is really interesting to note that this story of Jephthah is almost blow-by-blow a pattern of a repeat of the same storyline of Ishmael and Isaac. Perhaps this was already apparent to you as the story unfolded last week.
Jephthah was the son of a prostitute. Ishmael was the son of Abraham’s slave/concubine (not his wife.)
Both Ishmael and Jephthah were born outside of what many considered to be a legal marriage.
The two sons (Ishmael and Jephthah) were kicked out of the family because the legal heirs felt they should be disinherited.
These two sons (Ishmael and Jephthah) eventually went away to live in another region where they were followed by wild and lawless warriors.
Both men developed reputations as great warriors.
PARALLELS
It was predicted by God to Hagar that Ishmael would live his life similar to that of “a wild donkey.” It seems that Jephthah had the very same reputation, hence the reason for the elders of Gilead seeking him.
Therefore; I have now come to associate the acts of Jephthah (in our present story) with the acts of Ishmael (in the days of Abraham.) So many parallels are presented in both of these stories.
Perhaps this is a key that might unlock further understanding for us as we continue to study the times of the Judges.
ANOTHER POINT TO PONDER
Still another (and totally separate) aspect I noticed from our story in Judges last week is that there seemed to be no present days on the Jewish calendar to commemorate the four days that are mentioned for the morning/remembering of Jephthah’s daughter.
I wondered why this was so. It took a long time to verify the answer.
HER STORY DIED WITH HER
The answer all goes back to the dispute on whether or not Jephthah actually killed his daughter as a human sacrifice.
The Jewish teachings are VERY clear in stating that God does not demand human sacrifices. Because of this fact, most of the Jewish people of today believe the act of human sacrifice of the daughter of Jephthah did not happen.
All the stories I read from the Jewish writings (there were not many) said that Jephthah’s daughter was confined to service in the temple for life (in lieu of becoming a sacrifice.)
Of course this also meant that she would remain unmarried for the rest of her life and have no children, thus destroying the line of Jephthah’s ancestores forever.
NO NAME NO LINEAGE
Thus, following this line of thinking, the girls who went to morn for the daughter of Jephthah during the annual tradition of four days a year only kept it up until her death.
Upon the daughter of Jepthah’s death, her story ends and the tradition of keeping the annual days ends with it. This would also be the end of the line of Jephthah’s heritage.
That is why you will not find much about this annual observance in any of today’s Jewish writings, except for the historical account of the story.
From what I can gather; these four days of honoring Jephthah’s daughter are no longer observed.
When a family (or a nation) loses it’s idenity and it’s heritage; it is gone forever. Eventually all facts (good or bad) about those people will no longer be remembered. Nothing is passed on to the next generation. This may be the greatest lesson we learn from the story of Jephthah’s daughter. A good person ( or a good nation) can be ruined and destroyed forever from unwise and ignorant decisions of an unelected leader being given power.
PERIOD OF JUDGES REQUIRES DISCERNMENT
There are so many different perspectives coming from so many different cultures in the stories of the days of the judges that is very hard to determine which stories to listen to and which ones to ignore.
Here is just another reason for being sure that everything we do and say remains pure and truthful before God. I am once more reminded of Jesus’s words to Christians for end-times; “Do not be deceived.”
THE TRUTH SHALL SET YOU FREE
We must take nothing for granted, but prove truth from untruth when it comes to the worship of our Great God and the leading of a godly nation. The words “the truth shall set you free” ring out louder and louder as we begin to approach end-times and look for any prophetic significance in the scriptures.
This also proves out the importance of the role that accurate historical records play in determining truth for later generations. Those groups who are re-writing history just to suit their purposes and political causes will have to answer to God one day. It isn’t right to twist and turn words in order to achieve your own personal desires instead of God’s ways.
Pray that truth prevails in all nations of the earth.
Most of all, please continue to pray for the peace of Jerusalem.