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Wisdom-Trek / Creating a Legacy
Welcome to Day 886 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.
I am Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom
Righting the Wrong - Wisdom Wednesday


Thank you for joining us for our five days per week wisdom and legacy building podcast. Today is Day 886 of our trek, and it is Wisdom Wednesday. Creating a Biblical Worldview is important in order to have a proper perspective on today’s current events.

To establish a Biblical worldview, it is required that you also have a proper understanding of God’s Word. Especially in our western cultures, we do not fully understand the Scriptures from the mindset and culture of the authors. In order to help us all have a better understanding of some of the more obscure passages in God’s word, we are investing Wisdom Wednesday reviewing a series of essays from one of today’s most prominent Hebrew Scholars Dr. Micheal S. Heiser.  He has compiled these essays into a book titled I Dare You Not to Bore Me with the Bible.

We are broadcasting from our studio at The Big House in Marietta, Ohio. Have you ever made a vow or a promise to God or a person and regretted it afterward? In today’s essay from Dr. Heiser, we want to explore one such vow made by Jephthah, one of the Judges of Israel. We will compare and contrast this vow to a New Testament story of Jarius where Jesus reversed this foolish vow. In Judges 10-11 we will focus on…
Righting the Wrong
The story of Jephthah and his tragic vow is paralleled by other stories—including a New Testament story that subverts it.
· The Story
After the brief judgeship of Jair (a man from Gilead), the people of Israel fell into idolatry by worshiping foreign gods. This account is found in Judges 10:6, "Again the Israelites did evil in the Lord’s sight. They served the images of Baal and Ashtoreth, and the gods of Aram, Sidon, Moab, Ammon, and Philistia. They abandoned the Lord and no longer served him at all."

As a result of this disobedience, God then allowed a foreign enemy to oppress the Israelites as punishment. This time it was the Ammonites, who lived on the other side of the Jordan in a place also known as Gilead. The Philistines and the Ammonites oppressed Israel for 18 years, and finally, the people called on God for deliverance.

God had his fill of their disobedience, and in Judges 10:13-14, God tells them, "Yet you have abandoned me and served other gods. So I will not rescue you anymore.  Go and cry out to the gods you have chosen! Let them rescue you in your hour of distress!"  After

much pleading and putting away all idols, God once again relented by calling Jephthah, another judge from Gilead, to deal with the Ammonites who were getting ready to wage war against them to take back some land.

In Judges 11, Jephthah sends a message to the king of the Ammonites. He wonders why the king is not content with the land that his god Chemosh had given to the Ammonites. Jephthah’s plea is flawed: based on historical data from that time period, Milkom also called Molech was the chief deity of Ammon, not Chemosh. It won't be the last time he makes a theological blunder.

When Jephthah leads Israel against Ammon, the Spirit of the Lord comes upon him for battle. Just before the fight, he utters his horrible vow..."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.'"After a resounding victory, we pick up the story in verse 34, "When Jephthah returned home to Mizpah, his daughter came out to meet him, playing on a tambourine and dancing for joy."
· The Story Behind the Story
The ancient Israelites believed that geographical areas and nations were under the dominion of o...