Sermon Tone Analysis

“Now Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty warrior, but he was the son of a prostitute.

Gilead was the father of Jephthah.

And Gilead’s wife also bore him sons.

And when his wife’s sons grew up, they drove Jephthah out and said to him, ‘You shall not have an inheritance in our father’s house, for you are the son of another woman.’

Then Jephthah fled from his brothers and lived in the land of Tob, and worthless fellows collected around Jephthah and went out with him.

“After a time the Ammonites made war against Israel.

And when the Ammonites made war against Israel, the elders of Gilead went to bring Jephthah from the land of Tob.

And they said to Jephthah, ‘Come and be our leader, that we may fight against the Ammonites.’

But Jephthah said to the elders of Gilead, ‘Did you not hate me and drive me out of 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 to you now, that you may go with us and fight against the Ammonites and be our head over all the inhabitants of Gilead.’

Jephthah said to the elders of Gilead, ‘If you bring me home again to fight against the Ammonites, and the Lord gives them over to me, I will be your head.’

And the elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, ‘The Lord will be witness between us, if we do not do as you say.’

So Jephthah went with the elders of Gilead, and the people made him head and leader over them.

And Jephthah spoke all his words before the Lord at Mizpah.”[1]

Contemporary Canadians excuse almost every failure on the basis of victimisation.

Everyone is a victim in contemporary society; failure seems always to be the fault of someone else or result from circumstances beyond our control.

One of the most common avenues of excuse for failure is to claim a poor start in life.

By 2002, one in four children was being raised in a one-parent home,[2] virtually ensuring a poor start to life.

Married families had a median income of $64,800, whereas single-parent families reported a median income of only $29,500.

Consequently, poverty—frequently self-imposed by parental choice—is commonly used as an excuse for crime, for academic failure, and for low achievement in life.

Throughout the years of my service to the people of God, I have witnessed the transformation of society into a culture of victimisation.

Drinking to excess is not the fault of the drunk—he is sick.

The drug addict can’t help herself—there is too much stress in life and she can’t cope.

The thief can’t really be held accountable—she has been deprived of life’s pleasures.

The rapist is not responsible for acting on his impulses—women dress in a provocative fashion.

The homosexual can’t be responsible for his choices—God made him that way.

Whatever the deficit, whatever the aberration, someone else is always responsible.

Politicians may be blamed for creating much of this mess, but it was preceded by retreat from the biblical injunction to accept responsibility for our choices.

Tragically, culture has invaded the churches, so that rather than serving as salt in the midst of a decaying world, the rot of the world has invaded the churches of our day.

Repentance is an unknown concept among contemporary churches.

Consequently, there are few leaders within modern ecclesiastical life who are willing to say, as did David, “I have sinned” [see *2 Samuel 2:13*].

Nor did David merely confess sin when he had failed morally.

When he sinned by doubting the Lord, his confession was “I have sinned greatly” [see *1 Chronicles 21:8*].

Even when exposed in egregious moral failure, too many of the professed saints of God excuse moral and ethical lassitude by blaming lousy teaching, by appeal to a poor start in their Christian walk, by attempting to blame someone else for their failure.

As background to the account before us, listen to *Judges 10:17, 18*.

“The Ammonites were called to arms, and they encamped in Gilead.

And the people of Israel came together, and they encamped at Mizpah.

And the people, the leaders of Gilead, said one to another, ‘Who is the man who will begin to fight against the Ammonites?

He shall be head over all the inhabitants of Gilead.’”

The year is 1089 b.c.

Israel is suffering another of the frequent invasions from the surrounding peoples that resulted from their wandering from the commands of God.

The elders of the land were desperate, and they sought someone who would deliver them from the invaders.

They turned to a most unlikely individual name Jephthah.

*A Poor Start in Life* — The first three verses are a flashback, introducing a man from the very place now suffering so horribly.

The text informs us that he was the son of a prostitute and a man named Gilead.

Perhaps that is not so important in this day, but throughout history, parentage has been very important.

To say that Jephthah was hindered in life is understatement.

We are introduced to the man whose life is central to the account—his name was */Yiptāh/*.

The meaning of the name likely gives us some insight into his background, for the name means “He has opened,” demonstrating gratitude toward a deity who was credited with giving a child.

The name likely was given by his mother, as his father did not immediately accept paternity.

Thus, the name reflects the gratitude Jephthah’s mother felt for being enabled to bear a son.

Fertility would have been of utmost concern in the culture of that day; and unlike this present day, the bearing of children would have been a woman’s highest goal.

Thus, Jephthah’s mother expressed her gratitude by naming her child according to the gift of life.

What is not said is what deity she had in mind when she named her son.

If we accept that Jephthah’s name was an abbreviated form, he might have been named */yiptāh-yhwh/* (the Lord has opened the womb) or */yiptāh-'ēl/* (God has opened the womb).

The former name is optimistic, to say the least, whereas the latter is quite non-specific, for a deity called /'/Ēl was worshipped by Canaanites as was true for the Israelites.

A third possibility that seems more likely in my estimate is that the boy was named */yiptāh-ba'al/*, or “Baal has opened the womb.[3]

The fact that his mother is identified as a prostitute presents the very real possibility that she was not Jewish, but rather Canaanite.

While Jewish women who were unable to provide for themselves might turn to prostitution as a means of providing for themselves and their children, such actions were clearly proscribed under the Law.

Perhaps you recall the divine proscription, “Do not profane your daughter by making her a prostitute, lest the land fall into prostitution and the land become full of depravity” [*Leviticus 19:29*].

Despite this interdiction against prostitution, the practise was distressingly common among the Canaanites; women, as well as men, would engage in cult prostitution as part of their religious devotion to Baal and Asherah.

Thus, if Jephthah’s mother was a Jewess, her actions reveal that she was thoroughly canaanized.

On the other hand, it is conceivable, perhaps even probable, that she was a member of one of the Canaanite races, in which case her actions would have been consistent with her culture.

If Jephthah’s mother was a cult prostitute working in a Canaanite cult centre, then it means that Gilead was a patron, contributing through his participation to the Canaanite religion.

You would know that worshippers of the Living God were proscribed from having such intercourse with the Canaanites.

God commanded, “Take care, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land to which you go, lest it become a snare in your midst.

You shall tear down their altars and break their pillars and cut down their Asherim (for you shall worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God), lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and when they whore after their gods and sacrifice to their gods and you are invited, you eat of his sacrifice, and you take of their daughters for your sons, and their daughters whore after their gods and make your sons whore after their gods” [*Exodus 34:12-16*].

This was such a serious issue that in the second iteration of the Law, God gave the same instructions.

“When the Lord your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations more numerous and mightier than yourselves, and when the Lord your God gives them over to you, and you defeat them, then you must devote them to complete destruction.

You shall make no covenant with them and show no mercy to them.

You shall not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons, for they would turn away your sons from following me, to serve other gods.

Then the anger of the Lord would be kindled against you, and he would destroy you quickly.

But thus shall you deal with them: you shall break down their altars and dash in pieces their pillars and chop down their Asherim and burn their carved images with fire” [*Deuteronomy 7:1-5*].

The manner in which Jephthah’s half-brothers acted toward him and the willingness of his father to participate in prostitution (cultic or otherwise) lead me to conclude that the family was more readily identified as belonging to the land of Canaan than as belonging to God’s holy people.

Again, this is a blot against the young man—in the best-case scenario his family was essentially devoid of any possibility of a vital relationship to the True and Living God.

What is worse, this condition was the result of choice rather than mere ignorance.

Jephthah is identified as a true Gileadite—he was fathered by a man who bore that name.

Though Gilead is technically a geographic designation, it was also used as a tribal and family eponym.

What is evident from the text is that Gilead accepted Jephthah into the family, assuming a measure of responsibility as father of the boy.

However, the text leads me to conclude that his other sons could not have been kind to the child Jephthah.

They must have felt resentment against him, and it is difficult to believe that they did not express that resentment toward him during his formative years.

What we do know about Gilead is that he had one wife, or at least one wife that bore him children.

The text reads, “Gilead’s wife also bore him sons.”

Moreover, it would seem that Gilead had some wealth.

Upon his death, he was able to leave an inheritance to his sons.

It was enough that they were unwilling to permit Jephthah to have a share.

Gilead’s name reflected a degree of nobility.

The name Gilead first appears when given to a grandson of Manasseh through Machir [see *Numbers 26:29*].

This Gilead became head of the clan of Gileadites.

Jephthah’s father bore the name of the clan, perhaps indicating a position of some stature.

However, after his death, his other children wanted nothing to do with Jephthah because his mother was a whore.

They drove him out, denying him any possibility of sharing in their inheritance.

Their rationale for this action was that Jephthah was “the son of another woman”—his mother was not acceptable in their estimate.

What may not be apparent today is that their action was a gross violation of Israelite law.

The expulsion of their half-brother was based upon raw prejudice that Jephthah was “the son of another woman”—in their estimate, he was a social inferior.

However, the Mosaic Law commanded that an Israelite was to act with compassion toward the outcast and to demonstrate care for the social inferior.

This becomes abundantly clear as we read a somewhat extended passage found in Deuteronomy.

“And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments and statutes of the Lord, which I am commanding you today for your good?

Behold, to the Lord your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it.