Year 4, Day 272: Judges 11

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Character

• Character: Having the interior life that is necessary to support the work that God sets before a person.  It is hearing from God and obeying.  It is doing the right thing when nobody is looking.

Jephthah is an interesting character, whose life is filled with interesting choices.  We get to see three perspectives on character today.  First of all, we get to see the character that is thrown upon him.  He is the son of an ungodly sexual union.  Gilead – Jephthah’s father – has sex with a prostitute and Jephthah is the product.  Jephthah’s life is cast by this decision.  He is expelled from his community.  All sorts of rabble gather around him.  After the first third of this story, it would be easy to judge from a human perspective that Jephthah would have a shady character of ill-repute.

But this is not what we see.  The elders come back to him when they are under oppression.  They ask Jephthah to lead them.  Here is where we get proof of his character.  Had Jephthah been spiteful, he could have refused them outright.  But he does not.  Had Jephthah been nefarious, he could have accepted for his own benefit, his own fame, and even for his own extortion of their money.  But he does not.  What does Jephthah do?  Jephthah turns, gives glory to God, reminds the elders about God, and then says that if God wills it, he will become their leader.  That’s character.  Jephthah had every opportunity to have bad character develop within him.  But he demonstrates good character instead.

Then we have the tragic story of Jephthah’s daughter.  It was a silly and foolish vow.  But I’m going to take a very unpopular decision from the world’s perspective.  He and his daughter both honored the vow.  The fact that his daughter so willingly embraced the honoring of the vow causes me to support her in spite of Jephthah’s foolish vow.  Not only did Jephthah demonstrate character in dealing with the elders but he has raised a daughter with character, too.  No doubt that Jephthah’s daughter is still embraced by God as a woman who loved her God more than her own life.  Now that’s character.

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