Mythic Stories of the Judges: Jephthah

Embark on a mythic journey through the Old Testament book of Judges with us! 📖 Next up is Jephthah, the outsider turned hero who made a costly vow in his quest to defeat the Ammonites. ⚔️  Despite his victory, Jephthah's tragic folly raises profound questions about sacrifice and belonging. 🏹 Explore the enigmatic story of this unlikely hero and its deeper implications as we continue to unravel the mysteries of Judges on the Navigating An Ancient Faith podcast. 🔍

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Chapters

• 0:00 Malcolm Gladwell's Theory of Story Types
• 8:44 The Intriguing Tale of Jephthah: An Outsider's Rise
• 15:48 Jephthah's Story: A Deeper Dive into Judges
• 29:49 Unraveling the Complexities of Jephthah's Vow
• 39:14 The Ephraimite Conflict and Its Resolution
• 44:07 Unpacking the Symbolism and Lessons of Jephthah's Story
• 59:38 Tying Up Loose Ends: The Judges Before and After Jephthah

Transcript

Jephthah

David: [00:00:00] Who was the president in Seinfeld? It was Buchanan. It was the Buchanan Boys. 

J.R.: No, no. 

David: No, it wasn't?

J.R.: No. Okay. I had to Google Seinfeld president gang. Yeah. It was the Van Buren Boys. 

David: The Van Buren Boys. That's what it was. 

J.R.: That's right. Yeah. 

David: I think you and I have both read several Malcolm Gladwell books. 

J.R.: Love Gladwell. 

David: Yeah. Tipping Point. 

J.R.: Outliers

David: Outliers, yeah. 

J.R.: Yeah, Blink is my favorite. I think. Yeah, that's just kind of the one that captured me. Tipping Point felt like a little bit of a college course, you know, it was good. <Yeah. Okay.> But it was very business kind of for business classes, that type stuff. It had that vibe to it, but Blink came out and I was like, this is really cool. You know, your first impression matters. Yeah. <Yeah.> Love Gladwell, sure. 

David: Yeah. Okay. . So Malcolm Gladwell was on, I think it was Rogan's podcast. It's been a little while ago now. 

J.R.: Yeah. No, I'm almost certain I heard that. 

David: Okay. So he had this interesting take on the idea of types of [00:01:00] stories that are told in movies.

J.R.: Yeah. 

David: And I don't think it's in his books, but I definitely remember from this Rogan podcast. 

J.R.: Yeah. The, what the Western and the Eastern and the <Yeah, exactly.> Yeah. Okay. So I remember that, but you'll have to remind me. 

David: Well, so we've talked about how Judges resembles the Western a little bit and I never quite, I just know it resembles a Western, but I couldn't quite verbalize it until I thought about what Gladwell had said. So he describes the Western as there is no system in place and an outsider comes in and establishes a system. <Okay.> Right. So that's the classic <Yeah.> sheriff ... 

J.R.: Stranger. Stranger walks into town. Yeah. That's right. 

David: Exactly. Stranger rolls into town. Run by outlaws. There is no system. And he ends up establishing a system.

J.R.: Yeah, 

David: And oftentimes, you know, puts the sheriff's badge on at the end of the movie, right? <Yeah, sure.> Or rides off into the sunset. 

J.R.: Wait a second, I was about to say, rides off into the sunset and everything goes into chaos. 

David: As the case may be, but yeah, there's a system now in place after he leaves, right? [00:02:00]<Yeah.> And so we all know the Western, and so Gladwell goes on with this theory that there are Easterns and Southerns and Northerns, right? And probably the easiest one to understand besides the Western is the Southern, which is the system has to be reformed and it has to be reformed from the outside. So the outsider comes into a corrupt system.

J.R.: Yeah. Mississippi Burning.

David: Mississippi Burning. 

J.R.: Yeah. Great movie. 

David: The classic one right now would be Reacher. Have you seen <Oh yeah, sure.> some of Reacher? 

J.R.: Yeah. Is that south? Is that, is that set in the south? Okay. Yeah. 

David: First season is actually North Georgia somewhere. 

J.R.: Okay. Yeah. 

David: So yeah, it's the same thing, right?

J.R.: Yeah. Roadhouse.

David: Yeah. Roadhouse.

J.R.: That's another one. 

David: Yeah. The outside has to come in and reform the system. It's not there's a no system in place. It's just the system is broken. 

J.R.: Yeah. Sure. Okay. Yeah. And that makes sense because the South historically is tied to Jim Crow slavery. it kind of represents the broken system that has to be fixed.

David: Yes. TV shows and movies from that era. [00:03:00] <Right.> That basically said the outsiders had to come in and fix this. <Right. Okay.> Yeah. And so then he talks about the Eastern. This one to me is a little bit - I intuitively know what he's talking about, but the Eastern is that the system is reformed from within. And I think of mobster movies when you think of Easterns, right? East Coast mob, but the cops have to reform the system. Maybe there's dirty cops that are cooperating with the mob. 

J.R.: I think, I think he, - okay, I remember this. I think he described this as, when he says Eastern, he's talking more like Britain and England. Cop movies from Britain and England. How does he describe the Eastern first?

David: Well, see. <if it applies.> No, the Eastern is that the system has to be reformed, but it's reformed from within. So it's not an outsider. And if you think of some of these, it's not that the stranger wanders into town and takes care of the mob. It's that the system is reformed from within. I think that's what he's getting at.

J.R.: Okay. Well at least that holds true to like one of my favorite shows is [00:04:00] Broadchurch. Have you ever seen that? <Oh yeah.> Right. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, the detectives that inside the system, of course, the corruption was inside the system because it ended up being a cop. 

David: So it needs to be reformed. 

J.R.: Yeah, but it was reformed from inside.

David: Exactly. 

J.R.: Okay, so that holds true. 

David: Yeah. And then the northern is the system is working and any kind of little glitch in the system, basically there's laws in place and the system isn't corrupt and so it quickly reforms and fixes things. And it would be something like simple - you might think of Law and Order. Someone breaks the law and the system quickly rectifies it, right? And it kind of sounds boring, but I do think a lot of the Law and Order shows, I do think he said, shows in Britain tend to revolve around this one. <Okay.> You know, and in the end of the day you go, okay, the system works. 

J.R.: Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

David: It's not broken. It works. 

J.R.: Right. Right. See, when I think of a Northern, I think of The Departed or Goodfellas or, you know, New York mob, that [00:05:00] type thing. But, it's funny that we're kind of struggling right now because I remember him in the interview saying, it's not a perfect system. <Yeah.> It's like, I'm still working it out, but it's funny because intuitively it feels right now. Maybe, some of the details need to be worked out. <Yeah.> 

 But yeah, that intuitively kind of feels, right. Okay. So if we're in Judges, we've been calling it the wild west, it would actually be an Eastern. Is that what you're saying? Or, a Northern?

David: I almost think it's. I almost think it's a Southern. 

J.R.: A Southern. 

David: I actually think in the beginning, it actually resembles the Western, right? There really is no established anything. 

J.R.: Yeah. 

David: And the judges come in and they start to lay down the system. <Yeah.> The further you get into judges, here's my theory, and you can tell me whether you agree with this. It's not that there's no system. It's the system is broken. And there needs to be oftentimes an outsider. Okay. So if it's an established judge, it would be an Eastern. 

J.R.: Okay. I know where you're saying. Yes. Because I'm thinking [00:06:00] Deborah and Gideon. <Yeah.> These are insiders that were risen up, but you're right. Today we're talking about Jephthah. 

David: And maybe today specifically, I think resembles the Southern in an unconventional way. 

J.R.: Right. But right. Yeah. Jephthah is an outsider. That's right. 

David: Jephthah is an outsider. <Okay.> Yeah. We talked last time about the smallness of Gideon. <Right.> Today, the theme is going to be Jephthah is the outsider. Okay. Yeah.> And we'll see how that plays out. 

J.R.: All right. So maybe we're shifting from a Western to a Southern. 

David: I think we are. 

J.R.: I don't know. don't try to diagram this or anything like that. The nerds out there that are trying to kind of dissect what we're saying. Yeah. Don't bother. 

David: If you're confused at home, you have every right to be, because we're pulling this together on the fly. <Right.> There's something intuitive that I think is there that might help people understand what the story of some of these judges resemble. <Right.> Why it's an archetypal pattern, you might say. 

J.R.: Yeah, yeah. And the point of Gladwell's example is that there's different ways to interpret different narratives, right? And I think that's kind of what we're noticing in Judges is [00:07:00] there's the overarching narrative that seems to be the recurring pattern, right? Israel follows other gods and they fall into captivity. And then they have to be taken out of captivity by a judge, right? That's the recurring pattern. <Yes.> So when it says over and over, The people of Israel again did what was evil in the sight of the Lord." And we've said this before, that's in there seven times. <Yeah.> It's almost like that's the cue. Act two, act three, act four, right? 

David: I think we're picking that up. Just in the last couple of days when we've talked 

J.R.: Right. Obsessively. 

David: To where our mother's probably tired of going, are you guys talking about Judges again? <Right.> I'm going to bed. Yeah. Yeah. But I think we're picking up that when you see that phrase, that's cuing you that a new chapter of this is about to begin. 

J.R.: Right. And every time there's a different chapter, the overall cycle is the same. They run off and they get captive and they need to be bailed out. But the individual cycles do seem to have a little bit different flavor every time. It's almost like [00:08:00] this is what happens when the timid leader has to be risen up. And this is what happens when the egomaniac leader takes charge, you know I'm referring to Samson - listen next podcast for that one. But it's, these kind of different examples.

 Not all the judges are the same, and if you're looking for something similar in the judges. What you're trying to do is, what you're seeing is something similar in the pattern, but you're actually seeing different judges and their individual personalities kind of giving us an idea of this is how this type of person reacts in this situation.

David: Yeah. Playing the pattern out in a little different way. And ultimately there's a larger narrative that we probably can't get into. But yeah, we're doing some work on this. 

J.R.: Yeah. Well, I mean, I think we'll wrap up maybe with that. 

David: Okay. so Jephthah, that is a story that, if you're listening to this, you may not know right away. You may go, well, I don't recognize that name. You know, Deborah Gideon Samson. Got it, but. 

J.R.: Yeah, Jephthah I wouldn't have bet money whether he was an Old Testament or New Testament. I don't know. I, you know, I would have, I would have guessed ...

David: A [00:09:00] Monster in revelation?

J.R.: That's right. Is that the guy in Lord of the Rings? <Yeah.> Yeah. I forget. 

David: I think once we kind of tell the story and again, we'll tell the Sunday school version here real quick. Most people probably will go, especially if you come from a church background, you go, Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

J.R.: Yeah. I recall that. 

David: I've heard of that. So the setting now in judges, and we're going to start looking at Judges chapter 10 is the Ammonites are the problem now. Now we've seen the pattern where with Deborah, it was the Canaanites up North, right? And then with Gideon, it was the Midianites. And I believe those are kind of South, South East, right? <Yeah, roughly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.> So the Ammonites now are going to be due east of Israel. 

J.R.: right. And there is no western enemy because that's the ocean. 

David: That's the ocean. 

J.R.: But yes, you're right. You kind of lay all these out, what you see in, you know Samson and the Philistines, you kind of see that all these bordering towns they're kind of all mentioned through Judges and they all take their turn taking a shot at Israel and it takes one of the [00:10:00] judges to rise up and put them down, push them back.

David: So we kind of see this pattern of different judges representing different of the tribes taking on different threats that are surrounding this Promised Land. <Yeah.> So that's the threat now. It's, Ammonites. And an easy way to remember that is, I remember when it clicked in me, you know, think of Amman, Jordan. Well, that's the ancient Ammonites. <Oh, okay. Yeah.> Yeah. Straight east of Israel, you run into Jordan. 

J.R.: Sure. Is that where that, I'm assuming that's where the name came from. 

David: Yeah. Okay. Same thing. 

J.R.: Cool. 

David: So the story of Jephthah is the Ammonites are rising up and giving Israel fits. And we'll get into the tribes here in a minute because that actually starts to play into the story. Jephthah, like we said, is an outsider. And he's fallen into this band of, let's just say, undesirables, right? <Riffraff.> Riffraff, yeah, outside of town. But when the Ammonites really start pressing this region in Israel around the Jordan River, east and west of Jordan, you know, [00:11:00] that the people start thinking, man, I know there's one guy, I think, who can take care of this. And it's, it's Jephthah. 

J.R.: Yeah. And Jephthah's got a rep, dude. Yeah. 

David: Yeah. And his band of merry thugs. 

J.R.: Yeah. 

David: Right. So they go to Jephthah and say, Hey, help us out. We think you can take care of that Ammonite problem. And Jephthah rather shrewdly maybe says, okay, I will, but I want to be your leader. <Yeah.> Right? If I'm going to do this ... 

J.R.: Yeah. I'm going to come out on top. 

David: Yeah. If I'm going to do this, yeah, I'm going to be the new sheriff in town, so to speak. So the people say, well, look, we don't have any options right now. So Jephthah, rescue us. So Jephthah goes out and he takes on the Ammonites and maybe realizing with what's at stake, but we're going to talk about this today in a lot more depth. Jephthah makes a vow to God. Now it doesn't say that God asked him to do this. I'm getting ahead of myself maybe. But he makes a vow to God So Jephthah says, if you give me [00:12:00] the Ammonites into my hands, whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites, will be the Lord's. I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering. 

J.R.: you can see where this is going. You don't have to be a middle schooler to say, this doesn't sound like it's going to go a good direction. <Yeah.> Right. The family dog is probably not going to come running out the door. 

David: This is why maybe it's a good Sunday school story, because even a eight-year-old goes, "Yeah, that seems like a dumb thing to say."

J.R.: Right, I can picture the teacher saying, do you think that was a smart thing to say? You know, you know, and everybody's saying, no, of course the family dog would be the worst thing to come out for an eight year old. 

David: My little brother, maybe, but not the family dog. <Right.> Yeah. So that's the vow Jephthah makes. And it's almost one of those movie plots, that is so obvious you roll your eyes and go, yeah, I see where this is going exactly. <Right.> But this is exactly what happens, right? So Jephthah defeats the Ammonites and he is the new ruler of that region. And he goes home and the first thing [00:13:00]that comes out of his house is his daughter. His only daughter. His only child. 

J.R.: Yep. That's right. 

David: And wish the story ended differently, but Jephthah says, I have to honor the vow that I made to God. And he sacrifices his daughter.

J.R.: And no take backs in that day, apparently. 

David: Yeah. Yeah. 

J.R.: I can't believe that. Yeah. 

David: So that is a very strange story, right? 

J.R.: Yeah. It's one of those things that's at the end of it, you're like, well, what do you do with that? <Exactly.> Right, you know? 

David: And I've heard messages on this. I've heard other comments, commentaries and you can tell people don't quite know what to do. A lot of people defend Jephthah and say, well look, he did the honorable thing because he made this vow, right? <Right.> And others are saying, I'm not sure that was the right thing to do. And there seems to be a lot of tension between, is Jephthah a good guy or a bad guy? 

J.R.: Right, right. And I think most of the problem comes from trying to take an overly rational view of this story. <Yeah. Okay.> It's trying to wrap your head around, why would Jephthah say this? [00:14:00] And, you know, I have trouble with this. Why would Jephthah even say that? What sense does it make to make that vow? And, why didn't God tell him, no, that's not what we want. We don't do human sacrifice. You know, why did he follow through with it? It's just one of those strange things that you're trying to get your head around. It's like, well, is Jephthah a good guy or a bad guy? And it's almost like saying, no, no, no, you're trying to make too much sense of it. And you're kind of missing the symbolism because when we got into it, there's a lot of symbolism here.

David: Yeah. And maybe it goes back to this idea of you're not reading this mythically. <Yeah, exactly. Exactly.> Yeah. Right. You're not reading this like you would a good myth. And like we've been talking about, myth doesn't mean this didn't happen, but it means the elements are meant to almost draw you into it and ask these deeper questions.

J.R.: Right. I said this a couple episodes ago, you know, the deal about if I told you I ate 30, what was it? 

David: 30 chicken wings. 

J.R.: 30 chicken wings. You'd be like, you gotta be sick. And then if I said, yeah, the next night I ate 300 hot dogs and the next [00:15:00] night I ate 3,000 hamburgers. It's like, you're not even tracking anymore about if I'm sick or not. You're saying, Oh, he's saying something else because the story is so absurd. And that's what myths always seem to do. <Yeah.> There's this absurdity to a lot of them. And when you see something absurd, your mind automatically goes, okay, what are they trying to say? Well, I think that's what this is. You know, when you try to take a rational view at it, you're like, why would Jephthah make that vow? And why would he go through with it? It's like, no, the whole thing is so absurd. Look at it like a myth. What is it trying to tell you? What are we supposed to get out of this? 

David: Yeah. 

J.R.: And that's kind of the way I view it. And again, not to say that it did or didn't happen, that there's not literal aspects to it, but I'm just saying this episode is so ridiculous on its face that it must be telling us something deeper.

David: A little bit. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's right. Yeah. So in the rest of our time, we're going to dive into this story we're going to, dive into what happens before and after and this event itself. And we're going to try to make more sense. And to be [00:16:00] upfront, this is something you and I sat up late last night talking. <Yeah.> The more we talked about this, the more it became clear in our minds what's actually going on here. 

J.R.: Yeah. It actually tied up nicely. Everything makes sense. 

David: Yeah, we, we had all the answers and we've got it figured out.

J.R.: Once again.

David: Maybe I should dial that statement back a little bit. 

J.R.: Your letting your inner Gideon take glory. No there are some strange aspects to it, but it kind of all ties together nicely, once we read the little, what, paragraph before Jephthah about the previous judges and the paragraph after about the judges that follow Jephthah. And it's almost like, wait, these are so, what are these weird stories? You know, you talk about something that doesn't make sense. 

David: Yeah. 

J.R.: It's the little, the small little mentions of the judges before and after. And it's when we actually tied that into Jephthah's story that everything started kind of making sense. <Yeah.> Everything started tying together. So should we start there? 

David: Yeah. So here's why I think we realized [00:17:00] the mistake a lot of people make, and it's the same mistake we made, until we start reading the full text of this story is if you want to read the story, you go to where in my Bible, the heading says Jephthah, right?

J.R.: Yeah, sure. Right. 

David: But you have to back up and you have to read these little stories. <Right.> So if you start at Judges 10:1, there's this guy named Tola and then there's a guy named Jair. Now, those seem unrelated on the surface. 

J.R.: Yeah. Well, you know, you got to give credit. There was a guy in there. They didn't do much because there's not much mentioned about them. <Yeah.> Or at least some strange stuff mentioned about them. But they were in the lineage. They were the Grover Cleveland, you know, he was a president. We got to mention him in the lineup. But it's not like we're saying much about him, right? 

David: Who was the president in Seinfeld? It was Buchanan. It was the Buchanan Boys. 

J.R.: No, no. 

David: No, it wasn't?

J.R.: No. Okay. I had to Google Seinfeld president gang. Yeah. It was the Van Buren Boys. 

David: The Van Buren Boys. That's what it was. 

J.R.: That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Just sort of a completely [00:18:00] random president given props. He was a president, but , other than that Seinfeld episode, I couldn't tell you anything about James Van Buren, if that's even his first name.

David: Right. Exactly. Yeah. All right. So, 

J.R.: Oh no. It was Martin Van Buren, by the way. Martin Van Buren, okay. 

David: It was James Buchanan. 

J.R.: James Buchanan, that's right. 

David: Is that right?

J.R.: I think that's right. I'm going to stop Googling. We've got to stop Googling. 

David: Alright, let's get off this rabbit trail here. Alright, so Judges chapter 10, verse 1 talks about Tola "At the time of Abimelech, a man of Issachar named Tola, the son of Puah, son of Dodo." That's unfortunate. "Rose up to save Israel. He led Israel 23 years and died." Like that's pretty much it, right? <Yeah. Okay.> And then same thing with Jair. <Right.> But there's a couple of important things that will help set the stage for the story of Jephthah in this. <Okay.> All right. So the first one happens to be that Tola lived in Shamir in the hill country of Ephraim.

<Okay.> All right. <Yep.> And the second one is that Jair is [00:19:00] from Gilead. Now, Gilead's not a tribe, but it's a prominent city that we've actually heard of in the Gideon story, right? <Yeah.> Right. <Okay.> So we have Tola from Ephraim, and we have Jair from Gilead. <Okay.> Now we're gonna put pins in that because that's actually gonna set the stage for what goes down here.

J.R.: Okay. We're coming back to that. 

David: Yeah. Now there's another tidbit in here. In Judges 10:4 that we were talking about, Jair, he had 30 sons who rode 30 donkeys, which that kind of sounds like Van Buren Boys. 

J.R.: That's right. 30 guys that rode 30 donkeys. 

David: 30 sons riding 30 donkeys.

J.R.: Sure. Yeah. 

David: That fits. 

J.R.: But you're right. It's a weird fact to throw in there. And it says that they had 30 cities. 

David: Yeah. 30 sons rode 30 donkeys and they controlled 30 cities.

J.R.: Right, and so that's one of those big red flags to me that's like, this has got to mean something. <Yeah.> What in the world does it mean?

David: And we think we figured it out, but let's come back to that. <Okay. All right.> But we'll leave it at this for now that Tola and Jair, those five verses before you get to the story of Jephthah [00:20:00]actually help explain the story of Jephthah. 

J.R.: Okay. Yeah, that's right. 

David: All right. So in verse six, then we get to that phrase. " Again, the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord." So that tells you a new cycle has begun. 

J.R.: Here we go. Let's get this rollercoaster going one more time. 

David: Yeah. They serve the Baals. They serve the Ashtoreths and the gods of Aram, the gods of Sidon, a bunch of gods. That's the point, right? I don't see Yahweh in the list though. 

J.R.: No, he didn't make the list. 

David: And that's the problem. 

J.R.: And ultimately they are in captivity once again by the Ammonites.

David: The Amonnites are the foreign threat now.

J.R.: Right. And that takes us to chapter 11 where we are introduced to Jephthah. <Yes.> And kind of the same way as Gideon. When you get to Jephthah, pay attention to what it tells us about 'em. 

David: Yeah. 

J.R.: Because that's gonna be a clue, right? Yes. So judges chapter 11 verse 1 says, "Now Jephthah," here's our guy, "the Gileadite." 

David: Okay, where did we just hear that?

J.R.: Yep, there we go. Alright, it goes back to the pin. Okay, so Gilead, which is the same as? 

David: Jair. 

J.R.: Jair, [00:21:00] right. Okay, so what does that mean? Well, we'll come back to that. We'll come back to that. Alright,but remember that it's the same as Jair, right? Okay, it says he was a mighty warrior. Alright. But, big but here, he was the son of a prostitute.

David: Yeah. Now, what would that tell you in terms of mythology, even the Old Testament? 

J.R.: Yeah, definitely. Here's our outsider. 

David: Here's the outsider. 

J.R.: Here's somebody who doesn't have the right lineage. He doesn't have the authentic bloodline. He doesn't come from the legacy that we expect him to come from.

David: Yeah. <Okay.> There's an interesting line in here because it says his father was Gilead. Now that happens to be the same name as the city. <Yeah, that's And his mother was a prostitute. But I've seen some interesting ideas around the fact that if his mother is a prostitute, it's basically a way of saying his father could have been anyone in Gilead.

J.R.: Oh, sure. 

David: So his father was Gilead. 

J.R.: Oh, okay. You know, I didn't even catch that. 

David: Yeah. Because if his mother's a prostitute and he's an outsider, [00:22:00] it doesn't make any sense that, oh yeah, his dad is Gilead. 

J.R.: I'm glad you pointed that out, because I was just sitting there thinking, oh, his dad happens to be named the same as the Gileadites. But of course we don't know who his dad is. He's the son of a prostitute, and who the heck knows who he's the son of Gilead. Yeah, okay. Yeah. Yeah. All of Gilead. Right. 

David: Unfortunately. Unfortunately, yeah. Not a great way to start out life, but that's why he's the outsider, right?

J.R.: Yeah. Okay. 

David: Yeah, so that's just one way to interpret this. You know, maybe there was a guy named Gilead and he happens to live in Gilead. But I thought that was an interesting take on this. So we go on to read about Jephthah and it says he was driven out. He was driven away. So he fled from his brothers or maybe the sons of the prostitute. <Right.> Yeah. So we don't really know what's going on there. So Jephthah fled from his brothers and he settled in a land of Tob, where a gang of scoundrels gathered around him and followed him. 

J.R.: Scoundrels. There you go. That is a term that our Uncle Gene would've called us. The gang of scoundrels. That's a gang. Yeah. Very [00:23:00] old man thing to call somebody, but yeah, he is hanging out with scoundrels. 

David: Yeah. . So this tells you right there, that Jephthah, that he is the outsider, right? <Right.> He doesn't fit into the town, he doesn't fit into the structure. <Right.> Even though this guy Gilead may or may not be his real father, we don't know. But he doesn't really have a legitimate bloodline. 

J.R.: Right. He's certainly doesn't have a traditional family. <Right.> And so his family ends up being these scoundrels, right? <Yeah.> These are his brothers. This is his clan now. 

David: Yeah. Okay. So this is where the elders of Gilead, they travel to him and they say, come be our commander, so we can fight the Ammonites. And then Jephthah says something interesting. He says, "Didn't you hate me and drive me out from my father's house?" 

J.R.: Yeah. Solid point. 

David: Fair enough. Right. Yes. We know that happened. We're asking you to overlook it. 

J.R.: We'll come back to that later. Just hear us out. 

David: So then we skip [00:24:00] down to verse 9, Jephthah answers, "Suppose you take me back to fight the Ammonites and the Lord gives them to me. Will I really be your head or your leader?" So now he's positioning himself, right? 

J.R.: Yeah. That seems like, yeah, he's a little bit of a tactician here. <Yeah.> He's like, yeah, . I might fight the Ammonites. But are you also asking me to be your leader? <Yeah.> He's certainly implying that. 

David: Yeah. Right. And so the leaders reply and say, "Yahweh is our witness. We will certainly do this."

J.R.: Yeah. Cause what choice do they have? 

David: Yeah. If the choice is being taken over by the enemy or,

J.R.: Hiring this outside motorcycle lawless gang. <Yeah.> You know, bringing in the Hell's Angels to take care of your problem. Yeah, there's probably going to be some problems involved with that, but at least we're going to take care of the Ammonites, right? <Yeah.> Okay. <Yeah.> what's the line when you When you're being bullied, find a bigger bully. 

David: Yeah. Yeah. I use the example sometimes in the nineties, I loved the Chicago Bulls, and the team you hated if you were a Bulls [00:25:00] fan was the Pistons.

J.R.: The Pistons. Yep. Bill Lambeer. 

David: Frickin Lambeer. Dennis Rodman. Yep. Right. Well, then what happened? 

J.R.: Love that era of basketball. <Yeah.> It's such a good, it hasn't been the same since. But yeah, love to hate the Detroit Pistons. Yeah. Yeah. Unless you were from Detroit, you hated them. 

David: Because if there was one team the Bulls had trouble beating to rise to the top, it was the Pistons. <Right.> They'd be bullied, pushed around, and you know, Rodman and Lambeer were the worst. <Right.> And then what happens, you know, your little basketball history, the Bulls signed Dennis Rodman as a free agent.

J.R.: Yeah, that's right. 

David: And initially everyone's thinking, what are you doing? <Yeah. But then it made total sense. What they were doing is if you're tired of this guy bullying you, you hire the bully to play on your team. 

J.R.: Yeah. Get our own bully. Yeah. Yeah. That's clearly what they were lacking. 

David: Yeah. 

J.R.: You know, look, You're going to get our star guard's leg broke. And so we better bring in a goon to handle this, to handle your goons. 

David: Only, he's our goons. 

J.R.: Yeah, that's right. Sure. 

David: And they won three [00:26:00] championships. <Yeah, exactly.> So I think of that example when you talk about, you know, what do you do? You hire the bully. 

J.R.: Yeah, absolutely. Sure. 

David: But we're going to unpack this. It doesn't always work out so well. 

J.R.: As you can imagine, as Dennis Rodman proved, look, you're going to have some success, but things are going to go sideways eventually. Right? 

David: Yeah. Okay. All right. So the next part of the story, then Jephthah contacts the King of the Ammonites. And the Ammonite King basically says," " Hey, you took my country from me. That's why I'm retaliating against you." And Jephthah says, Jephthah goes into actually this long response of why actually that's not the case. 

J.R.: Yeah, this is kind of interesting because if Jephthah is sort of the motorcycle gang leader type thing, he's kind of got his stuff together here in his response to the king of the Ammonites.

David: It's actually a well crafted response for the leader of the thugs, right? 

J.R.: Yeah. Yeah. So you might have Dennis Rodman on your team, but you're [00:27:00] not going to make him your spokesperson. But in this case, Jephthah kind of makes a well crafted argument 

David: Right. So basically Jephthah explains to him that, look, when the Israelites were passing through your land on the way to the promised land out of Exodus, they asked for permission to pass through and you didn't let them. <Right.> And then in fact you attack them and you put them on the defense. <Right.> And you lost by the way. <Right.> Now there's this interesting line in here that we can't pass over.

Jephthah puts in there that look, you picked the fight with us.

J.R.: Right. You started it. 

David: We finished it. <Right. Yeah.> So what are you angry about? And to kind of put an exclamation point on it, he says, "Will you not take what your God Chemosh gives you? Likewise, whatever the Lord, our God has given to us, we will possess." That's in 11:24. 

J.R.: Yeah. And that's his way of saying, look, you ended up with what your god allowed. <Right.> And we got what our God allowed. 

David: Yeah. 

J.R.: And if you have a problem with that, take it up with the [00:28:00] gods.

David: Take it up with your God. 

J.R.: Yeah, that's right. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. 

David: I think that's an interesting line in there because it's something that we've seen in Gideon and Deborah. <Right.> These aren't just battles between Jephthah and the Ammonite,. Right? This is a battle of Yahweh versus Chemosh. 

J.R.: Well, it's that same pattern. We'll say it again. Of the heavenly realm reflecting the earthly realm. <Yes.> The song of Deborah.

David: Islands in the stream? 

J.R.: That's exactly right. Yeah. Kenny and Dolly, right. 

David: If you're confused, go back and listen to that episode. 

J.R.: You have to go back and listen to that. Too much of an inside joke. Yeah. The song of Deborah the stars fought, right? Which is this indication that there's a reflection of what's happening on earth is what's going on in heaven. <Yeah.> And you're right. We see that same pattern. We saw it with God and Baal in Gideon, and we see it now in Chemosh and Yahweh in Jephthah. 

David: Yeah. So it's one of those little acknowledgements that something bigger is going on in their worldview. Like, Hey, if you don't have this land, take it up with your god Chemosh. [00:29:00]<Right.> So again, it's always interesting that somewhere in these stories it's framed as a bigger supernatural conflict between the gods. 

J.R.: Yeah. Yeah. It's always tucked in there somewhere. Yeah. 

David: And what you see over and over again is these people saying, look, our God Yahweh is stronger than your god.

J.R.: Right. And if you have a problem with the way that battle ended up, take it up with your god.

David: Yeah. Yeah. So Jephthah actually writes this long response to him and verse 28 kind of cracks me up is it says, "The king of Ammon however paid no attention to the message." So basically all that was a big waste of time.

J.R.: Yeah, yada, yada, ya, womp, womp, womp, womp. Yeah, didn't hear any of it. 

David: Basically he didn't want to hear it. Yeah. Right, okay, whatever, you know. Then we get to the episode where Jephthah makes this infamous vow. <Right.> Now it's interesting because it says, "The Spirit of the Lord came on Jephthah." And he starts to advance against the Ammonites and Jephthah made a vow to the Lord. Again, that's [00:30:00] interesting. Like what do you do with that? It immediately starts raising the question of did the Spirit of God prompt him to make this vow or did something similar to maybe what you saw in Gideon where the Spirit of God came on Gideon but suddenly Gideon starts to act on his own?

J.R.: Yeah, that's actually a good way to think about it because when you were saying that right there, I was like, yeah, I didn't realize that the Spirit of God came on Jephthah and then he makes the vow. 

David: Yeah.

J.R.: It's almost like, well, who's making the vow? But I think you're exactly right. I think that can be seen well through the light of Gideon where, God's Spirit is clearly on Gideon. And the next thing Gideon says is, Hey, here's what we're going to yell: for the Lord and for Gideon, right? So he's still in there, right? You know, it's sort of like that idea of the whole God hardened Pharaoh's heart. It's like, well, how much of Pharaoh's hardened heart was God and how much of it was really kind of Pharaoh's heart shining through maybe even despite God? <Yeah.>

You know, and so anyway, that can get into a whole free will type of argument. We're not [00:31:00]going there today. But anyway, yes, I do think that's interesting. The Spirit of the Lord came on him and then Jephthah makes his vow. It's almost like the real Jephthah showed through. 

David: And one of the other things that I think we're learning to read in a book like Judges is when you see a pattern, when you see something happen in one judge and then you see a similar pattern happen with another judge, you can actually use the two to interpret each other. 

J.R.: Right? Yeah, that's why they're written that way. 

David: Yeah, it's exactly if it looks similar, it probably is. And it's probably on purpose. 

J.R.: Yeah. And that's why we take so, I mean, that's why we had a two hour podcast last time, because there's so many threads.

David: Should we apologize now? 

J.R.: No, no, we're not doing two hours today, but it is one of those things. There's so many threads that you want to pull on and you don't want to miss. I want to tell the audience about it, you know. Say, man, don't miss this. Don't miss this. 

David: Yeah. 

J.R.: But you're right. I mean, there's connected in so many ways that , when you see a connection, it's because they actually help translate each other. 

David: Yeah. Okay. So Jephthah makes this vow. If you give the [00:32:00] Ammonites into my hands, whatever comes out the door of my house to meet me, when I return in triumph from the Ammonites will be the Lord's: I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering. Now, a couple of other things right here, because this is the most confusing part of this story, right? 

J.R.: As soon as I heard that, I'm like, why would you say out of the door of my house? You know, what do you expect to come out of the front door of your house? <Yeah.> Right? Your son's annoying best friend, you know? I'll give that kid up, right? <Yeah.> Or, you know, what are you expecting to come out? 

David: Yeah. Who knows? I do think maybe there's something to, maybe this is more of the household. You can almost think of it maybe as the family farm. 

J.R.: Okay, so it's more like the front gates, you know, when I enter back into the gates of my home.

David: Yeah. Yeah. I'm just kind of throwing that out as a possibility because maybe we literalize this too much in terms of modern day, where if I come home, yeah, a cow or a donkey is not going to walk out my front door. <Yeah.> But if I live on a farm 3,000 years ago, , maybe a goat walks out, you know, [00:33:00] maybe the front gate swings open and it's a stray cat you know, something like that.

J.R.: Okay. So, do you think that Jephthah knowing obviously the Torah, do you think he's looking back at this and seeing that God provided to Abraham the ram and the thicket? 

David: I don't know. Okay. So here's - to answer that question, - <Okay.> here's another thing I just noticed. It says the Spirit of the Lord came on Jephthah. Now, usually, again, pay attention to the pattern. When the Spirit of the Lord comes on Deborah, when the Spirit of the Lord comes on Gideon, what does he say? I will deliver these people into your hands, right? <Right.> In this case, the Spirit of the Lord comes on Jephthah and Jephthah replies, "If you give the Ammonites into my hands." I think that might be a little clue right there that he's going renegade here. 

J.R.: Yeah, maybe. Okay. 

David: And I think maybe it's the same thing you see in Gideon a little bit, that he's got in the back of my mind, Hey, me being the leader of these people is at stake here. 

J.R.: Yeah. 

David: So God, I just want to be really sure, if you will do this for [00:34:00] me. <Right.> Which is kind of unnecessary because this idea that the Spirit of the Lord came on Jephthah should already say that, "Hey, I'm giving you these people into your hands, right?" You sure those people into your hands.

J.R.: You should already know. And Gideon, his response to the Spirit was, hey, let me test out the spirit. Let me test this out. Make sure that this is gonna happen. 

David: True. So Gideon goes through several tests to make sure, I just want to understand.

J.R.: Right and Jephthah doesn't do the test. He just sort of rashly says.

David: So, we said this last episode with Gideon that there's some validity to testing <Yeah.>

God, right? Because the last thing you want to do is pull a Jephthah and say, God, if you help me pass this test, I'm going to be a missionary to Africa. 

J.R.: Yeah, no, that's a great example. Sure. Yeah. Help me out. Bail me out here. And I'll follow you forever. I'll become a preacher. <Yeah. Yeah.> There's actually some interesting stories of preachers telling you that's their origin story, right? 

David: Yeah. I got to think at some point, there was a bunch of people in Africa who would say, what vow did you make? Well, I made this one, you know?[00:35:00]

J.R.: That's right. Way to go dummy, but I'm glad you're here.

David: Yeah. I asked God to get me out of a speeding ticket and now I'm here. So, but so I think again, if you use different stories to interpret this one, I do think you can see kind of the rashness of this. 

J.R.: Yeah, no, I, yeah. 

David: It was an unnecessary vow.

J.R.: Yeah. However, you translate it, it's definitely a rash decision. Yeah. I think that's what you can gather from it. He's shooting from the hip here a little bit. 

David: I do think there might be something to the idea that it was more the family farmstead, because the first thing that comes out of my house, well, it's like your wife or your daughter, right? 

J.R.: Right. Or the dog, hopefully. But that's going to be a problem too, man, I'll be honest. Yeah, I'll be honest with you. I'm not. I'm not. Sacrificing the dog is a tough one for me also. 

David: Yeah. So he makes this vow and then predictably what happens, he goes over to fight the Ammonites and it says the Lord gave them into his hands. All right. It goes on and says he devastated all these towns, [00:36:00] thus Israel subdued the Ammonites. And this is the point in the movie where he starts to head home and everyone knows what's about to happen. 

J.R.: Right. You know this is going to go. And it's interesting that there's not much said about the battle. You know, there's, a lot said about all the previous battles. Here's how they did it. They used this tactic. In this case, that's clearly not the focus. 

David: That's not the point of this story. 

J.R.: Right. Right. He just goes and wipes out the Ammonites. <Yeah.> Next page, right? 

David: Right. So he returns to his home and who should come out to meet him but his daughter and just to rub it in just to kind of get the waterworks flowing, dancing to the sound of timbrels.

J.R.: Right. <Yeah.> Coming out dancing to meet dad. Yeah. 

David: Yeah. How much of a loser do you feel like right now? 

J.R.: Right. And then the next line, she was his only child. 

David: She was an only child. 

J.R.: Just to rub it in a little bit more. Yeah. 

David: "When he saw her, he tore his clothes and cried, 'Oh no, my daughter, you've brought me down and I am devastated. I have made a vow to the Lord that I cannot break.'" Then there's this really interesting exchange [00:37:00] between his daughter <Yeah.> and Jephthah. And she says, "My father, you've given your word to the Lord. So do to me as you have promised. But grant me one request. Give me two months to roam the hills and weep with my friends because I will never marry." 

So this is interesting too because the reaction of his daughter says, " You can do to me as you promise, but grant me this one request. 

J.R.: Right. And you're right. It is one of those things it's like, okay, how does this tie in? What do we do with this? Right, because then it follows it and that's what she does. She goes up in the mountains for a couple months <Yeah.> with her friends and then she comes back and she's sacrificed, man.

David: We're waiting for something to intervene, something to happen and nothing does.

J.R.: Yeah, no ram emerges in thicket and here we are. And then verse 40 is a little bit strange. It says that it became a custom. "That's why it's a custom in Israel that the daughters of Israel went up year to year to lament the daughter of Jephthah, the Gileadite, four days in the year." <Yeah.> And then we kind of just move on to the next scene. [00:38:00] <Right.> And it is, it's just kind of a weird thing. Like what in the world do we do with this, right? <Yeah.> But we think we've tied this in as well. I don't know. We'll come back to this. What? Let's finish telling the story and we will come back to this. We'll actually explain this part. 

David: Yeah. Okay. <Okay.> Yeah. The one thing I'll say is that this might be a case more where there's this practice, there's this custom that's going on and this happens to be, It's almost like the custom comes first and then the narrative comes later. I wonder if something like that is going on. You know what I mean?

J.R.: Yeah, yeah. The origin story of this particular custom that they do. <Yeah.> And this is mythological too. <Yeah.> You know, there's lots of, this falls in, there's all these myths of this is why the giraffe has the long neck. <Yeah.> Or this is why the rabbit has the long ears. You know, it's sort of like that kind of an explanation of a custom or something like that. And it's like, here's the origin story to it. This is where this came from. <Yeah.> Yeah, so it kind of does have that mythological tone to it.

David: And it's not the only place in the Old Testament where you'll see some weird event happened and then it says, and this is why we do this [00:39:00] every year. 

J.R.: Right. 

David: And it's almost like the custom comes first and then someone says, Hey, why do we do this? And no one's quite sure, but they kind of trace this idea. Back to idea. Back to it. Yeah. 

J.R.: Back to something in history. Yeah. 

David: But we'll come back to this. <Okay.> We'll come back to this. 

J.R.: Alright. Judges 12 hits us and immediately says the men of Ephraim. . There we go. Where have we heard of Ephraim? <Tola.> Tola. Alright, we're going back to Tola. We said we'd come back to it , so we'll explain that in a second. But anyway, the men of Ephraim were called to arms and they crossed over to Jephthah and they said, why did you fight the Ammonites and not call us to go with you? Right? 

David: Yeah. Hey, you're leaving us out. 

J.R.: Yeah. And then there's this weird thing, "We will burn your house over on you and turn it on you with fire," right? It's like, okay, so that's a little dramatic. You didn't invite me to the fight, and so therefore I'm going to burn your house down and you in it.

David: Hey, I heard you had a party without me. I'm going to set your car on fire. 

J.R.: Right. Okay. That's crazy town territory. So this is probably a friendship that needs to end right now. <Yeah. Yeah.> Well, and it does in some [00:40:00] case, right? <Yeah.> And so Jephthah kind of, again, he kind of has this interesting dialogue, kind of like he did with the King of the Ammonites where he makes his case, right? He makes a pretty strong case and he basically says ... 

David: And he comes across pretty eloquently. 

J.R.: Right. Hey, we did call you: A) right? We did call you. And B) you didn't answer the call. It was you that didn't answer the call for us. And I knew we couldn't count on you, and so we had to take matters into our own hands and fight the Ammonites ourselves.

David: Yeah.

J.R.: And then things really kind of go sideways with Jephthah and the Ephraimites. <And the Ephraimites.> I won't go to the whole thing. He marches against the Ephraimites. He takes this key ford a key crossing of a river. <Yeah.> And he takes a tactical advantage there. He can now controls this ford, right? And so then we get into. This weird part in verse five. 

David: Yeah, this is another head scratcher initially. 

J.R.: Yeah, yeah, it says that when the fugitives of Ephraim say, "Let me go over." In other [00:41:00]words, when an Ephraimite comes up and says, Hey, I need to cross the river. <Yeah.> Right. The Gileadites, 

David: who now control the ford. 

J.R.: Right. They say to him, No. They say to him, "Then say Shibboleth." And if the person says Sibboleth, then they know, I gotcha. You're an Ephraimite. And then they slaughter that person. That's a rough, that's a pretty rough test there, right? And so they ask him to say this awkward word, and they say it in their, what, their northern tone, or their southern drawl, or whatever, right?

You know, something like that. And once they figure out, oh no, you're an Ephraimite, boom. Cut the throat, they slaughter him, right? And then the final thing is that they say at that time, 42,000 of the Ephraimites fell. Okay. So this weird little quirky word test just got real. Like the way I read it, it's like, Oh, wow, this turned into a genocide, right? This isn't a joke anymore. This isn't some weird one off where they killed a few people like this. 42,000 of them fell. This is a genocide, man. 

David: and by [00:42:00] the way, this is all intra-Israel, right? These are tribes fighting each other. 

J.R.: Yeah, yeah, that's right. These are not the outsiders. The Ammonites are gone. Now the problems are within. <Right.> Yeah. 

David: And so we talked about how it's this weird, you know, Shibboleth actually means a river, a flowing river. It can mean. <Okay.> So there's some, symbolism there with say this word in order to cross the river. So it makes some sense there, right? But we were talking about how it's just different dialects within this one tribe that gave away where they're from. Much like if you talk to someone for just a minute or two, you might be able to tell whether they're from the Northeast in the United States or from the South. <Right.> Or from California. 

J.R.: Yeah. Every once in a while I get a, Hey, are you from the South? Or they'll say, Where are you from? I'm like, I'm from Tennessee. And they're like, Oh yeah, I can tell. And I'm like, Really? Cause I, I don't think I have an accent, but I bet I do. 

David: Oh yeah. Yeah. You do. 

J.R.: Okay, well maybe I do. Alright, yeah. Hold on to it. 

David: Not a real thick southern drawl, but yeah. 

J.R.: Yeah. Enough that it gives me away. <Yeah.> [00:43:00] And if you're hunting down Tennesseans, I'm toast. Right?

David: So we, gave the example of saying, say you all. 

J.R.: Yeah. Right. 

David: And if you'd said you guys. You'se guys. Right. Or if you said y'all. <Right. Or if you said, Hey dude, you know, that might give away where you are from. 

J.R.: Okay. Yeah. So it's a little bit clunky to read it, but it actually kind of makes sense you're using some kind of litmus test to identify a people group and then eradicating that people group. That's a little freaky.

 it tells you that they basically all look the same, right? Because they're all Israelites coming out of Egypt; Hebrews coming out of The thing I take away from this is they're starting to use the little differences - they're supposed to be one people. <Right.> But they're starting to use the little differences to turn on each other. 

J.R.: Yes, absolutely. there's a term that says war creates unity, and peace creates division. <Yeah.> And you kind of see that in society that, the Ammonites are defeated and so [00:44:00] now we're going to start turning on each other and find our next dragon to slay. And unfortunately it's within the tribes of Israel. 

David: Yeah. So the whole story ends, or it looks like it ends in Judges 12:7, and it says, "Jephthah led Israel for six years. And the Jephthah, the Gileadite, died and was buried in the town of Gilead." 

J.R.: Right. <Right.> Yeah, onto the next judge, right? 

David: Onto the next one. But same as how we started saying you have to back up and read those couple little verses at the beginning before the story of Jephthah. <Right.> You also have to include this last part in the story of Jephthah starting in 12:8 where it talks about three other judges: Ibzan, Elon and Abdon. 

J.R.: Okay, so that's Jephthah; end the story, right? So how are we supposed to kind of break down and understand the symbolism of this story of who Jephthah was? What does he represent? Like we see the same pattern. <Yeah.> You know, Israel gets into captivity, they turn away from God. Here comes this judge. What's the unique pattern about [00:45:00] Jephthah and why did he make that crazy oath? What does that represent? That has to mean something. 

David: So let's start with the sacrifice because you'll see people debate whether or not he was doing the honorable thing or whether this was complete nonsense. And I fall under the camp of saying this was complete nonsense for this reason: the Torah, throughout the Old Testament clearly says you do not sacrifice children. That's what sets them apart. <Oh, sure.> From the pagan nations around them, right? <Right, right.> This is not how we behave. <Right.> You do not commit murder, right? You do not offer other people as a sacrifice to Yahweh. 

J.R.: Yeah, and when you have child sacrifice, you're at the end of that civilization. That's not Baal. That's not Asheroth. <Yeah.> That's Moloch, right? That's the worst of the worst. That's the worst of the worst. So you were at the end of the road here, right? So no, there's no indication at all that this was any type of godly sacrifice or that God required that Jephthah keep his vow. 

David: [00:46:00] Right. So we've talked a little bit about this idea of a proper sacrifice, because we see Gideon offering sacrifices that God tells him to make, right? <Right.> He tears down his father's Asherah pole. He sacrifices the bull, saved for Baal, right? <Yeah.> and so that's the proper sacrifice, I think. 

J.R.: Right. And that's kind of mirrored by Jephthah's improper. 

David: And this, I think then, is the flip side. This is the improper sacrifice. <Okay.> I don't think we're to look at this in any way, shape or form, and think that Jephthah is doing something honorable. 

J.R.: Well, okay. So why is it in there? I mean, is it just simply saying this is an improper sacrifice to move on?

David: Yeah. Well, not to move on, but I think originally you were supposed to read this and go, okay, that's an improper sacrifice, right? and maybe he's trying to do the same thing that Gideon was a little bit, is he's trying to look legitimate now, right? The people are about to make him the leader 

J.R.: Well, we talked about this I think this goes back to him being the outsider.

David: Yeah. So that's the other big theme <Right.> We've talked about here with Jephthah: he's an outsider. 

J.R.: Yeah. Not the tall, dark stranger that rolls [00:47:00] into town. <Yeah.> He was pushed out. He was an insider, but he was made to feel as an outsider from the Gileadites. You know, he was pushed away. He was born a Gileadite, but they pushed him out, right? So that's a little bit different than walking into certain strange man in a strange town.

David: Yeah. 

J.R.: He's kind of an insider that has now been pushed out, right? But he's ultimately an outsider. But how does that tie into the vow? 

David: Well, I think I don't know, let's say you're the screw up in high school or something. 

J.R.: Yeah. That's me. Sure. Hand raised.

David: Well, I wouldn't say in you, but we'll go with that, right? But let's say you're the screw up in high school or college - and look, we've all experienced this to some extent - and then you come back into town. And you try to be a legitimate businessman or maybe, someone says, Hey, we're going to put you up for school board or something. <Right.> you would feel this immediate pressure to say, I have to cover the sins of my past and look legitimate here.

J.R.: Yeah. It's funny because I mean, just personal stories - and I won't get into them - personal stories are popping into my head thinking, yes, [00:48:00] I'd seen this precisely, you know, the knuckleheads that I ran around with, have kind of made something of themselves and you run back into them and you see this almost like panic. Like don't mention the past, you know, I've left that behind me. I have a reputation, right? Let's just act like civilized adults, you know, right? 

David: We've had that happen to us. We've done that to other people, you know. Hey, you know, you're the knucklehead I ran around with in high school. And wait, you're doing what? Oh, come on man. There's no way. You know? <Right.> And you can see the person kind of squirming like, Hey, I'm different now. Well, of course we all are, you know. <Right, right.> But I just wonder, okay, so here's my theory. I just wonder how much Jephthah was trying to say, now I have to be legitimate. I'm gonna be a ruler of these people. And here's how that plays in. He makes the rash vow, right? <Right. And now if he doesn't go through with this vow, he loses face with the very people he's trying to gain credibility with. 

J.R.: That's what I was going to say is it's not the making of the vow. It's [00:49:00] the insistence on keeping the vow. Yeah, there you go. That actually makes sense. 

David: Exactly. Because let's knock off this nonsense that, well, I made it to God, so I have to do the honorable thing and keep it. <Right.> So if I said, let's go back to the, I'm going to burn your car, because you didn't - right? As, as absurd as that. So let's go back to that and say, well, I made a vow to God to do that. And really, so the godly thing is I really do need to go over to his house and burn his car. 

J.R.: The honorable holy thing. <You would say... > you know, you made a stupid vow. How about let's start there. 

David: How about you're an idiot. Let's start there.

J.R.: Right. Chalk that up to you're a moron and move on. Don't actually, hold on to your previous intentions so tightly that you can't adjust. <Yeah.> You know, cause I also see a little bit of that and this might be a little bit of a rabbit trail, but you see people, let's say they make a prediction like, Oh, the next president's going to do this or this team is going to do that, right? 

David: Yeah. 

J.R.: And you see it not really turn out that way. But then you see some [00:50:00] people have that personality trait that they are so insistent on holding on that they double down. And you're like, look, it didn't turn out the way you thought. That's okay. Move on. And it's like, no, no, no. It's going to be even worse next time. You know, and say, so they sort of double down. And so maybe I see a touch of that too. And yeah. And the interesting thing is that comes from kind of a low self esteem. Those are usually low self esteem moves. 

David: Right. That's an insecurity, right? 

J.R.: Yes. And yes, it comes from your insecurity.

David: Because a secure person would just say, look, guys, let's be honest. I made a stupid, 

J.R.: Swung and missed on that one. 

David: Let's move forward. 

J.R.: Yep. That's exactly right. Yeah. Yeah. 

David: So the insecure person goes, what are they going to think of me if I go back on this now? 

J.R.: Yes. So there really is, I think, a theme of this comes from insecurity. The insistence that I've got to carry it through comes from insecurity.

David: And the insecurity comes from being the outsider. That's how this all ties together. 

J.R.: Yeah. I like that. No, I think that makes perfect sense. Yeah. 

David: Okay. So there's another thing that we're going to unpack here. So much so that he is willing to sacrifice [00:51:00] his family and his future in order to gain power.

J.R.: Yes. 

David: Okay. So this reminds me of a Greek myth. Okay. And I almost forgot to bring this up, so if you know a little bit about the story of Troy, right. The Iliad, Agamemnon, he's one of the Kings, right? Agamemnon takes his fleet, heads to Troy and he gets stranded on a set of islands. There's no wind. So he's gonna be late to the party. 

J.R.: Yeah, he's stuck. 

David: so he consults his priests and he gets this word that the goddess Artemis is mad at you and to fix things, you need to sacrifice your daughter to Artemis, okay? So what happens is Agamemnon sends for his daughter, Iphigenia is her name. And he sends for his daughter and in some versions, it's actually under the pretext that I'm going to marry you off to Achilles. So she's going Achilles, you know, there's a catch right there. I'll be right there. 

J.R.: Right. Brad Pitt. Sure. Brad Pitt, sign me up. 

David: Yeah. [00:52:00] So she gets there and of course Agamemnon sacrifices her, kills her. <Okay.> And, wind pick up, and that to him is confirmation that he did the right thing. But the story of Troy is after the war, he goes back and he finds out that his wife, Clytemnestra, has taken the lover while he is gone. <Oh.> And Agamemnon suddenly is in the way and the two of them, Clytemnestra kill Agamemnon. <Okay.> okay? 

J.R.: He sacrificed more than his daughter. 

David: He sacrificed more than his daughter, yes.

J.R.: Right. Okay. 

David: Now the final piece of this puzzle is, he has a son, Orestes, and Orestes is so upset that his mother and this guy that she took up with killed his father, that he kills his mother. <Oh, wow.> And so what is the legacy of Agamemnon? 

J.R.: Yeah, it's completely wiped out. Yeah. Right. 

David: That he was willing to trade his entire future, his entire family, right? He traded them for the glory of Troy. 

J.R.: Yeah, you're right. So the [00:53:00] comparison is obviously that Jephthah sacrifices his bloodline to now be on the inside, the inside group of the men of Gilead. <Yeah.> No. Okay, I see that. Yeah. 

David: And so it's interesting that he said he led Israel six years and then he died. So he sacrificed his entire familial line and future for a six year reign. 

Doesn't that seem like a waste? 

J.R.: Well, hey, You could pull a Gideon. And you could, you could have a worse legacy, right? 

David: Right. Yeah. It's almost like competing who has the worst legacy.

J.R.: Is it worse to let your bastard son take over and screw everything up? Or is it worse to just sacrifice your family, your legacy to begin with and there you go. That's the end of it. 

David: Right. Right. And so here again, I think if you want to really interpret whether the vow was a rash one or an honorable one, I think you just have to look at the result. Nothing good came out of this. <Right, absolutely.> Nothing good came out of this. 

J.R.: Well, that obviously seems like a crazy story, like who [00:54:00] sacrifices their daughter, things like that. But, you know, again, if you're looking at it like a myth, what we can get from it is you kind of see this. Now, you don't see people literally sacrificing their children, but you do see people give up the opportunity to maybe actively shepherd their children in the pursuit of stronger social standing maybe, right? 

David: To have a career, right? 

J.R.: CIimb the career ladder. Yeah, be the big man in town, right? And you actually see this a lot you in fact you see lots of successful people with messes of kids because all of their time was focused on their career and, I'm not even trying to paint it in a real negative way This is just reality, right? You're so successful in your career that your children are kind of an afterthought and the next thing you know, your family's a mess. <Yeah.> You're getting a divorce and you know, the kids won't talk to you. 

David: And the kids a jerk. And ...

J.R.: Yeah, sure. All kinds of problems. So it's an outlandish example that points to unfortunately a common problem in our society.

David: Yeah. But these are exactly the kind of stories that are meant to prompt [00:55:00] us to go there because these are the patterns, you know, the whole point of Agamemnon is he was not known as a successful leader. <Right.> I think that's the same thing here with Jephthah. He's not known because he was willing to sacrifice his family for a little bit more status and maybe career growth. And look, that's no different than what we do today. Like you said, we don't physically harm our children, but we are, we're sacrificing, you know, our marriages. We're sacrificing children. I mean, that happens every day. 

J.R.: Right. And for what? What, a little social standing? A little bit more money? <Yeah.> A raise? <Yeah.> Right? You know, and at the end of the day, a wise person will always tell you, yeah, That's far too painful a sacrifice to make. 

David: Right. And a lot of times that only becomes evident in hindsight. <Right.> I would give anything to have my family back and I would gladly have given up, whatever, overtime <Yes.> or that promotion. Yeah.

J.R.: And so Jephthah really is kind of an image of an outsider that [00:56:00] tries to work his way in. And he's the perfect man to get rid of the Ammonites because it doesn't even give three or four verses about that. Like he just wiped the floor with them. He went in, he wiped them out, move on. 

David: Yeah. That's not the point of the story. 

J.R.: Right. But yeah, but then it comes at a sacrifice. It comes at a sacrifice of his legacy, first of all, and probably more importantly, it comes at the sacrifice of the internal division that he brought to the Israelites in general, right? <Right.> That he starts this almost like a race war against the Ephraimites, right? <Yeah.> And that's just weird thing. It's like, look man, you may have gotten the right guy to wipe out the enemy at the gates, but he's not the right guy <Right.> to unite the country.

David: So this is another pattern that we pulled out of this. <Yeah.> Is what happens. Okay. So let's back up one step here. What allows the outsider to step in and rule? The thing that allows that to happen is internally, there's corruption and the structure is falling apart, right? That's the only reason an outsider comes in. 

J.R.: Yeah. And the [00:57:00] outsider can usually see what the insider can't, right? <Right.> We got blind spots, right? Right. 

David: So if everything is healthy and going well, there is no need for the outsider to enter in and take power. <Yeah. Okay.> So it's the only reason that happens. Now, the outsider then becomes the deliverer in this case, right? But then it's also the consequences of what happens when you hand over the reins to the outsider.

J.R.: Yeah. Yeah. 

David: They're not there to bring the Israelites together. <Yeah.> In fact, what happens is he almost starts a civil war. 

J.R.: Right. And that's so cool because you can see the same thing in Gideon.< Yeah.> He's this, timid not the outsider, but he's this timid leader. And he gets brought up, but then he doesn't step forward and take his leadership position like he should. And his half son ends up taking it and screwing everything up, right? <Yeah.> And so he gets rid of the enemy. He gets rid of the Midianites. But that's not the end of the story. Now we got internal problems with his son and, it is this image that we see, modern day. [00:58:00] We see it today. You see it in much more recent generations. People like Winston Churchill. He was the guy to fight World War II. <Yeah.> But then they ran him out. You know, it's like they couldn't stand the internal division and the tension that he caused after he ran out the enemy.

David: Yeah. 

J.R.: Right. It causes internal problems. 

David: Yeah. There's this great saying that says, what happens to St. George after he slayed all the dragons? <Right.> I love that phrase because it really gets to this idea of what happens to , a fighter when there's nothing left to fight and they're leading your country. Well, they're going to pick fights. <Yeah.> They're going to find something to fight over cause it's all you know. 

J.R.: Right. And if the only enemy is inside your gates, well, that's who it's going to be aimed at. 

David: They're going to start exploiting that. 

J.R.: Yeah, that's exactly right. Yeah. I think that's a lot of what we see in our own country. you know, we got rid of communism sort of in the eighties, right? <Yeah.> The eighties were sort of like Rockyand Red Dawn. And what was the other one we were saying? Anyway, these kinds of anti communist movies that they're the enemy, right? And we're sort of united [00:59:00] under that. And then the Berlin Wall fell. Communism sort of goes by the wayside. It's a self destructive philosophy. 

And then that's kind of when we start turning on ourselves. That's when you look back and it's like, man, why is there this massive gap between Republicans and Democrats or right and left? It's like, why can't we even have a conversation? And it's like, well, because we're not united against an external enemy. 

David: It's shibboleth. 

J.R.: Yep. Yeah, there you go.

David: I've been waiting. 

J.R.: Sibboleth. It's Sibboleth, dude. Come on.

David: I'm kidding. That's going to be part of my vocabulary. <Right.> Someone's going to say something, I'm just going to go 'Shibboleth' and they're just going to look at me.

J.R.: Yeah. They're going to call 911 because they're thinking you're having a stroke. Yeah. 

David: All right. So there's one more big thread that we've got to tie up here. 

J.R.: Oh yeah. We made this promise. Yeah. We're going to tie these weird judges before. 

David: All right, so let's go back to Tola and Jair before the stories. 

J.R.: Yeah. Cause that is not connecting. 

David: All right. So we started to make that connection that there's something with Tola being an Ephraimite. <Oh yeah.> Right? And Jair being from Gilead. <Right.> And I think what it's [01:00:00]doing there is we already see the groundwork of the tension. And it's not here yet. <Right.> But it's laying the groundwork. <Right.> Okay. So there's a funny verse that we were having fun with last night. It says about Jair that he had 30 sons who rode 30 donkeys. We talked about that. <Right.> And what the heck does that mean? <Yeah. Yeah.> Okay. So Actually, you mentioned last night what you thought the donkeys represented. 

J.R.: Right. Well, I just kind of, you know, you kind of do a Google search like, what in the world? What's the significance of the donkeys? And one thing that really made sense and saw a couple places was that donkeys actually kind of mark peacefulness. Because, donkeys are unfit for wartime, right? You don't take a donkey into battle. You take horses into battle. 

David: Not if you want anyone to be scared of you.

J.R.: Yeah, that's right. That's right. You know, and that's sort of the symbology. If you want to go to the New Testament of Jesus coming in on a donkey, he wasn't coming in as a military leader. 

David: Right, it was peace.

J.R.: Right, it was peace. And so donkeys represent peace and that's why they represent peace. And the fact that they had 30 different cities, it was [01:01:00] sort of peace. It was order. It was prosperity. It was all those things, right? And so that's what the donkeys represent. So we've got 30 sons who rode 30 donkeys over 30 cities. 

David: Yeah. Okay. So let's remember that. And now let's go to the end of the story of Jephthah. 

J.R.: So I think it's interesting that you would think the death of Jephthah would be at the end of a chapter. Now I realize that chapter headings came after the fact, but still it's another slight indication that this actually goes in with the story of Jephthah. And so in chapter 12, verse eight, we have three more judges come after Jephthah.

David: And it seems very random when you first read through it. 

J.R.: Yeah. And a little quirky and a few more little symbols that you're like, what in the world does that mean? Yeah. But it says in verse eight, "After him," meaning Jephthah, "Izban of Bethlehem judged Israel." He had 30 sons. Okay, here we go. 

David: Okay. So there's a pattern. 

J.R.: Yeah, here we go. He had 30 sons, but they didn't have 30 donkeys. All right. " He had 30 sons and 30 daughters that he gave in marriage outside his [01:02:00] clan and 30 daughters he brought in from outside for his sons." Right? So here's this guy with 60 kids. 30 sons, 30 daughters. He gave his 30 sons to people outside his clan, and then he brought in outside daughters for the sons inside his clan. 

David: Yeah. 

J.R.: Right. And so that's kind of a weird thing to point out because then it goes on, it says that he judged Israel for seven years and then he died and that's it.

David: Yeah. 

J.R.: Right. So what do we make of that? 

David: Well, coming on the heels of the brink of a civil war, right? Where they're actually using shibboleth <Yeah.> to figure out who lives and who dies, right? This, the fact that he marries his children outside of his clan, right? That should tell us something. I think. 

J.R.: Yeah, absolutely.

David: He's maybe being portrayed here as the healer of this rift that started to occur. 

J.R.: That he's willing to give up his daughters to outsiders and bring outsiders into his family. Right. So let's [01:03:00] unite. 

David: Yeah. So his family now starts to resemble different tribes, right? <Right.> He's got his sons, but he's got now his in-laws that are from different tribes. They're from different areas. Some of them say Shibboleth, some of them say Sibboleth. It doesn't matter. <Yeah.> No one's going to die at the dinner table, right? He's healing this rift, right? I think that's why this story of Ibzan is in here.

J.R.: Yes, that makes perfect sense. So he's a healer, right? That's not the end of it. So now we go to, now we go to the next one. Yeah, then verse 11 and 12, we've got another judge by the name of Elon. It doesn't say anything about him, but he ruled for 10 more years. And then he died.

David: So, yeah, so maybe the point there is just he's extending the healing that's starting to take place. Maybe that's all it's saying, right? 

J.R.: Right. So Ibzan starts this idea of healing. Right. And maybe what you get out of Elon is that, look, this doesn't heal itself overnight, right? It takes a little time. So we do have a second judge. And then in verse 13, we go to the third judge, Abdon. And he has this same quirky thing about his sons and daughters , right? It says that he had [01:04:00] 40 sons and 30 grandsons who rode on 70 donkeys. And he reigned for eight years. All right. Now we're starting to see a little bit of a thread be pulled. 

David: Yeah. Why are they beating this drum? 

J.R.: Right. Why are they mentioning the donkeys? Why does that matter? Does it mean that there is that the equivalent of a BMW, you know? That they're all rolling in Lexus's? <Yeah. Yeah.> That's not it. Right. It's peace. And so now we have 40 sons and not just 40 sons, 30 grandsons, right? Who rode 70 donkeys. <Yeah.> Now let's get into the numbers. This is fun. <Yeah.> Right. Okay. So if you take 40 sons and 30 grandsons, what does that mean? 

David: Hold on. Let me get my calculator. 

J.R.: Yeah. Click, click, click. 

David: All right. That I come up with 70.

J.R.: 70, where have we heard 70?

David: 70 in the Bible is an assembly.

J.R.: An assembly, a proper assembly.

David: A proper assembly.

J.R.: And in this case, not just a proper assembly, it is a multi generational assembly. <Yeah.> This is an assembly that's going to last, [01:05:00] right. And they're riding donkeys, right. Which as much as I want to make fun of that means it is a peaceful multi-generational assembly that comes out of these previous two judges.

David: Yeah. Yeah. 

J.R.: Yeah. After this horrific internal bloodshed that is based on the clan you identify with, right? That's just not what you want. 

David: Right. Yeah. So something interesting here, we talk about 70 being assembly. And actually these judges are, made to be - like everything they're doing looks good and positive even though we don't have a lot of information, right? But you go back to the 70 and where have we just heard the number 70? Gideon had 70 sons. Gideon <Yeah.> declines to rule. <Yes.> And he says, Nope, I'm not going to rule. My sons are not going to rule even though he had the proper assembly and the 70 should tell you, but it was all there. You had the proper assembly.

J.R.: It was all ready. Yes. 

David: And he didn't take it. 

J.R.: It was all sitting there for the taking. <Yeah.> And he stepped back. <Yeah.> [01:06:00] yeah. Okay. So let's go back to the first judges. 

David: Okay. 

J.R.: Tola and Jair. <Right.> Okay. So what do we have? We have 30 sons who rode 30 donkeys. Okay. So it says again, well, I get the peace thing, but what's the deal? Is there anything with the 30? It's like, you know, let's, we're sticking with the numbers. 70 means something. So what's the problem with 30 sons and 30 donkeys?

David: 30 is something like a small clan. It's, we would say maybe it's a quorum, you know, it's enough to do something with, but it's not a proper assembly. So I'm going to throw this theory out there that the number 30 here represents the appearance of an assembly, the donkeys, an appearance of peace, <Right.> but it's not really there. 

J.R.: Right, because it, because it also says the thing about the cities, which is kind of a strange thing. They ruled over 30 cities. So yes, you have this appearance of prosperity, you have this appearance of peace, but the number 30 means we're not [01:07:00] quite there.

David: But is there really? 

J.R.: It's a little bit of a false prosperity, right? Because the Ammonites are building their army, right? The Ammonites are at the gates, right? So it's not quite as peaceful as we think it is. 

David: Right. And then that leads right into Jephthah, which tells you that this peace symbolized by the 30 donkeys and the 30 sons maybe isn't quite as stable as it appears to be on the surface because it immediately goes into, then things fall apart.

J.R.: Yes, that's exactly right. 

David: They need the outsider to take down the Ammonites. 

J.R.: Right. So in a sense, Tola and Jair who, again, you look at and you're like, Why even have verses on these guys? Right? <Right.> What's the deal with the donkeys, right? You can now see that as that is a precursor to real problems, right? It's a false sense of peace, right? It is peace. It is prosperity, but it's false. It's the calm before the storm. And then you come into Jephthah and the next thing you know, we have to get this outsider outlaw to bring peace and [01:08:00] fight the enemy that are sitting outside the city gates. But that's a messy process, right? And not only is it a messy process, we have internal problems from it and it takes three judges and what, 20-something years to finally heal the wounds <Yeah.> that Jephthah caused internally.

David: To undo. Yeah.

J.R.: Yeah. So the enemy's beaten, but man, that came at a pretty heavy cost.

David: But , that's the price of handing leadership over to the outsider. Yes.> And these little stories up front tell you another theme is this idea of responsibility abdicated. And so I think these couple of stories just up front tell you that someone wasn't quite stepping up and doing their job. <Yeah.> Because that's the only reason the outsider rises to power. 

J.R.: Right. And so it's not obvious that Tola and Jair were bad judges or anything like that. 

David: Yeah, we don't know that. 

J.R.: It's fine. But there is kind of the implication that somebody wasn't taking the responsibility necessary to really unite and protect the people.

David: So one final thing to put a bow on it. Abdon is an Ephraimite. 

J.R.: Oh yeah, that's right 

David: [01:09:00] So the book ends Tola. they're the Ephraimites and this is going to be, this whole narrative is the conflict between Gilead and Ephraim, right? 

J.R.: Yeah. And it ends on an Ephraimite being judge and, 

David: Getting it right.

J.R.: Getting it right and having, yeah, the very people that were persecuted. That's the one with the multi-generational assembly that brings peace to the land. Yeah, yeah, man. That is, that really is something. 

David: Yeah, it's fascinating when you start pulling these threads. And, I think something that you and I both experience doing this is we would skip around the first couple of readings. I didn't read these little verses about Tola and Jair and Ibzan and people like that. What did that have to do with the story? 

J.R.: I read them, but when we kind of outlined this podcast series, I'm like, well, we're not going to mention them. They've got one verse, two verses, who knows what to do with the donkeys and the sons, right? 

David: Yeah. 

J.R.: But now, yeah. But when you dive into it and you actually tie it together, man, that is a powerful image. <Yeah.> It's not [01:10:00] just the story about Jephthah, it is about the disintegration and the healing of a nation, right? <Right.> That complete cycle, man. Yeah, that really is fascinating. And same thing. We saw the same thing in Gideon, man. You can't take Gideon by itself. It makes a good Sunday school story. But for the adults in the room, man, read the entire passage, get the full story. And now you start to see a lot of that imagery, that's brought to us by studying myths. <Right.> And you can actually bring that into here and really get something deep and profound out of this.

David: Yeah. So, you turn the page, Judges 13:1 says, "Again, the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord." 

J.R.: Here we go again. 

David: We're starting a new cycle. 

J.R.: That's right. Next week. 

David: So, next week we're going to talk about Samson. 

J.R.: Yep. There we go. And you talk about a mess. 

I really can't wait, you know, I can't wait to tackle that one.

David: Yeah. Yeah. That's going to be great. And I do think we're going to have to do another episode on Judges 19 and ...

J.R.: Yeah, we, yeah, we got a couple more story, a couple more stories here, a couple more [01:11:00] scenes that we have to <Right.> display out and kind of really tie this whole thing together. But the more I dig in, man, this is powerful. 

David: Oh yeah, yeah.

J.R.: This is, fascinating on so many different levels. 

David: Yeah. So hope you're finding this fascinating too. Hopefully you're not just sitting there going, where are these guys getting all these ideas, right? <Right.> But hey, tell us we're wrong. We'd love to hear from you.

J.R.: Yeah. The pattern's obvious, I think. 

David: Yeah. Right. Facebook, we have a Fanlist page, you can support us there, or just email us too. You can go to the website and shoot us an email. We would love to hear from you, we'll answer your questions, and we will talk to you next episode. 

J.R.: We'll see you.