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‘Alas, my daughter! thou hast brought me very low, and thou art one of them that trouble me: for I have opened my mouth unto the Lord, and I cannot go back.’
Jdg_11:35
I. Jephthah, it is true, betrayed ferocity and hardness, but must surely have had within him the spirit of the faithful, all the more remarkable when we consider his birth and upbringing.—In studying these we come to the two great laws of heredity and environment, great facts which exist and are working in you and me to-day. By heredity we mean the sum of impulses received from our forefathers and transmitted to us through our parents; while by environment is meant external conditions or the sum of influences affecting us from without. These are generally admitted and familiar to all of us, proving that beneath and behind there is a personal will influencing men by law. There are always certain dangers which arise from looking at anything from one point of view; and when men discover new principles they become so fascinated by them that they see nothing else, interpreting everything to suit their discovery and drawing all sorts of generalisations and inductions therefrom. Look at the history of any science and you will find it is the one great and common error to make too wide generalisations and too swift inductions, that men are too ready to form theories, too ready to draw inferences. With regard to these laws the same huge mistake has been made, and people go the length of saying that given certain parents, education, and companions, and they will infallibly foretell the life and history of that person. Now you will easily see the danger here, how despairing and fatalistic this view is; and life itself shows how really untrue such conclusions are, for all here must have seen again and again exceptions to the rule. There is no lesson in this story of Jephthah more important than that the grace of God is all-powerful, raising a man from the lowest deeps to the highest heights and entirely changing his moral character. What did Jephthah owe to his friends? He was driven from his father’s house by the covetousness of his brethren, and there is nothing so warps the character as injustice. With a heart burning with indignation he left home and dwelt on the borders of Moab, living as a freebooter at the head of a band of desperate men. One could not imagine a man less fitted for the work he afterwards was called to do, not being even a decent man, far less a strong and conscientious judge. Such is the influence of God on the free spirit of man that no one is so unfortunate as to be utterly beyond it, nor so depraved as to be utterly lost. If we would but remember this we should be less despairing over those who have gone far astray, and with such comfort in our hearts be likely to do more work.
II. That Jephthah really sacrificed his daughter, Iphigenia-Iike, was the received opinion of tradition and that of Josephus; but in the twelfth century this idea was questioned.—It was then said that Jephthah had secluded her as a nun; but this refutes itself. Yet the dark tragedy is not unrelieved, for on the one hand are the heroism and fortitude of the girl, and on the other the stern faithfulness of the father, loving his child with a strong, true love. ‘Alas, my daughter!’ He was of that old heroic type to which our fathers belonged, and which people say has died out in the land. Of the daughter, Tennyson fitly makes her sing:—
My God, my land, my father—these did move
Me from my bliss of life, that Nature gave,
Lower’d softly with a threefold cord of love
Down to a silent grave.
When the next moon was rolled into the sky,
Strength came to me that equall’d my desire.
How beautiful a thing it was to die
For God and for my sire!
It comforts me in this one thought to dwell,
That I subdued me to my father’s will;
Because the kiss he gave me, ere I fell,
Sweetens the spirit still.
Yes, it is sometimes a beautiful thing to die, and there are many things worth dying for. All sacrifices point to Christ’s, which transcends all yet offered. For a father’s rash vow the maiden laid down her life; the Son of God gave up His that we might not see death. There has been great progress in revelation since Jephthah’s time, and now it would not be possible so to interpret law as he did, ‘Shall I give the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?’ (Mic_6:7). It became known that ‘to do justly and to love mercy’ were what God required. ‘For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice’ (Hos_6:6). Absolute trust in God and absolute surrender of our lives to Him make the truly religious life.
Illustration
‘The readers of Mark Rutherford cannot have forgotten his marvellous sermon on the death of Jephthah’s daughter, “Aye, and perhaps God wanted the girl.” We say,
They surely have no need of you
In the place where you are going;
Earth has its angels all too few,
And heaven is overflowing.
But heaven is not overflowing, and it never will be. “In My Father’s house are many mansions. I go to prepare a place for you.” ’