Immerse: Kingdoms Full Volume - Flipbook - Page 76
64
IMMERSE
•
KINGDOMS
11:27–12:3
and in all the towns along the Arnon River. Why have you made no
effort to recover it before now? Therefore, I have not sinned against
you. Rather, you have wronged me by attacking me. Let the Lord,
who is judge, decide today which of us is right—Israel or Ammon.”
But the king of Ammon paid no attention to Jephthah’s message.
At that time the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah, and he went
throughout the land of Gilead and Manasseh, including Mizpah in Gilead,
and from there he led an army against the Ammonites. And Jephthah made
a vow to the Lord. He said, “If you give me victory over the Ammonites,
I will give to the Lord whatever comes out of my house to meet me when
I return in triumph. I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering.”
So Jephthah led his army against the Ammonites, and the Lord gave
him victory. He crushed the Ammonites, devastating about twenty towns
from Aroer to an area near Minnith and as far away as A
bel-keramim. In
this way Israel defeated the Ammonites.
When Jephthah returned home to Mizpah, his daughter came out to
meet him, playing on a tambourine and dancing for joy. She was his one
and only child; he had no other sons or daughters. When he saw her, he
tore his clothes in anguish. “Oh, my daughter!” he cried out. “You have
completely destroyed me! You’ve brought disaster on me! For I have made
a vow to the Lord, and I cannot take it back.”
And she said, “Father, if you have made a vow to the Lord, you must
do to me what you have vowed, for the Lord has given you a great victory
over your enemies, the Ammonites. But first let me do this one thing: Let
me go up and roam in the hills and weep with my friends for two months,
because I will die a virgin.”
“You may go,” Jephthah said. And he sent her away for two months. She
and her friends went into the hills and wept because she would never have
children. When she returned home, her father kept the vow he had made,
and she died a virgin.
So it has become a custom in Israel for young Israelite women to go away
for four days each year to lament the fate of Jephthah’s daughter.
Then the people of Ephraim mobilized an army and crossed over the Jordan River to Zaphon. They sent this message to Jephthah: “Why didn’t you
call for us to help you fight against the Ammonites? We are going to burn
down your house with you in it!”
Jephthah replied, “I summoned you at the beginning of the dispute, but
you refused to come! You failed to help us in our struggle against Ammon.
So when I realized you weren’t coming, I risked my life and went to battle