WHAT THE BIBLE REALLY SAYS
By: J. R. Hyland
The period of the Judges lasted from about
1200 to 1050 B.C. During that time the people of Israel were ruled by a series
of charismatic leaders. There were twelve of them and although they are know as
“Judges” their powers were more like those of a minor potentate. Their
leadership was less than inspiring and scholars refer to that era as the Dark
Ages of Israel- - “a cruel, barbarous and bloody epoch.”[1]
The stories of three of those Judges, Deborah,
Jephthah and Samson give witness to that assessment and are chilling tales of
deception and violence, representative of the kind of character and activity
considered godly and exemplary by the people of their time. The other nine
Judges, whose stories are not detailed in this book, exhibited leadership styles
and characteristics similar to those whose stories are told.
Deborah was the first of the Judges and the
only woman numbered among them. For the most part, the women of the Bible who
are considered role models are lauded for what are seen as traditional, female
virtues: subservience, child bearing and husband-tending. But in spite of this
ongoing evaluation of a woman’s worth, both Jewish and Christian spokesmen have
always been impressed with Deborah. Although she did not justify her existence
by giving birth to a child, she was instrumental in causing the death of
hundreds of Israel’s enemies. This capacity for violence redeemed her barrenness
and insured that her story would be considered edifying for men, as well as for women.
Under Deborah’s leadership, the Chosen People
were able to decimate the entire army of Jabin, a Canaanite king. An account of
the carnage is given in chapters four and five of the Book of Judges. And in a
rare instance of academic accord, scholars agree the “Song of Deborah,” which
celebrates her exploits, dates back to 1125 B.C.
But it is not only Deborah who is celebrated
in this account of female leadership. The scripture also tells the story of her
contemporary, Jael, who was an assassin. They were a very effective team:
Deborah routed the Canaanite army and Jael murdered Sisera, their
commander-in-chief.
The Bible describes the bloody battle that
took place and tells how all the Canaanites were killed- -except for Sisera. He
managed to escape and made his way to the tent of a Kenite Chieftain. He thought
it would be a safe place because the Kenites were at peace with Sisera’s people.
The Chieftain was away from home but his wife, Jael, welcomed the exhausted
commander. She gave him some refreshments, covered him with a blanket and
promised to watch over him while he slept. She did not keep that promise. As he
slept “(Jael) took a tent-peg, picked up a hammer, crept up to him and drove
the peg into his skull as he lay sound asleep. His brains oozed out on the
ground, his limbs twitched and he died,” The Bible celebrates this event in
The Song of Deborah.[2]
“Blest among women be Jael,
She stretched out her hand for the tent–peg.
Her right hand to hammer the weary.
With the hammer she struck Sisera, she crushed his head;
She struck and his brains ebbed out.
At her feet he sank down, he fell, he lay;
Where he sank down, there he fell, done to death.”
The “Song” goes on to describe how Sisera’s
mother anxiously awaited the return of her son, unaware that he was dead.
“Why is his chariot so late in coming” she cried, and then found comfort in
telling herself that he and his men were probably celebrating their victory. But
of course he would never come: his skull had already been crushed and his brains
had oozed out. Deborah’s Song ends with a benediction: “So may all your
enemies die like that, O Lord.”
Although acclaimed by Christians and Jews as a
song of praise celebrating the Lord’s help in military matters, the sentiments
expressed in the poem are hardly uplifting. Nevertheless, Christian commentators
justify the mayhem that it celebrates. In contradistinction to those who excuse
their actions with the claim that the devil-made-me-do-it, these spokesmen
excuse those who perpetuate violence in the name of the Lord when they claim
that God-made-them-do-it. Having made this claim, the maiming and slaughter of
individuals or of groups of people, becomes a virtuous undertaking.
The God who is described in the story of
Deborah and Jael - - and in so many other places in the Bible - - is a partisan
and violent deity. He is in fact a god-of-war as well as a god who wants to
teach men how to make war. The book of Judges begins with an explanation of the
endless bloodbaths that took place from the time that Israel first
invaded Canaan. “So then, the Lord left
some (enemy) nations in the land (Canaan) to test the Israelites about war,
especially those who had never been in battle before.”[3]
It is this god-of-war who promises Deborah
that Israel will be victorious in the battle against Sisera’s army. “The Lord
God has given this command, take ten thousand men . . . and lead them to Mount
Tabor. I will bring Sisera to fight you . . . I will give you victory over him.”
Modern scholars continue to credit God for
the bloodshed of that battlefield. Matthew Henry, whose Bible Commentary is an
unimpeachable text for evangelical scholars, insists: “The Lord must have all
the praise. The will, the power and the success were all from him.”[4]
And in discussing Jael’s murder of Sisera, Henry’s commentary follows this
pattern of praising God for that which he would condemn in human beings. “It is
probable that Jael really intended kindness to Sisera, but by a Divine impulse
she was afterwards led to consider him as the determined enemy of the Lord and
of his people and to destroy him.”[5]
Kindness and cruelty have been juxtaposed: it
is Jael who is kind and God who overcomes her innate compassion and turns her
into an assassin.
Although only a small percentage of Christians
read the various commentaries that form the basis of Bible scholarship, even the
illiterate will eventually be exposed to the contradictory values they espouse.
These commentaries are the resources utilized by ministers as they prepare the
sermons that are the center of Christian services in the protestant tradition.
They are also the foundation upon which Sunday school
lessons are developed.
Unfortunately, these commentaries do not
acknowledge that the Bible records an ongoing conflict between opposing moral
and spiritual values. And what the people of a particular time and place
considered Godly and virtuous, may not be neither. The story of Jephthah,
another of Israel’s Judges, witnesses to that refusal to reject the judgment of
an earlier and less spiritually developed time.
Jephthah was the ninth of the Judges who
assumed leadership of the Hebrew people. He was born circa 1070 B.C. in Gilead,
and the interpretation of the events of his life is a sad example of the kink of
scholarship modern men have developed to avoid acknowledging that someone touted
as a Bible hero acted in a way that was more devilish than the divine.
The insistence that an ancient biblical
episode was morally acceptable in its own time is also a way of ignoring the
fact that ancient people, like their modern counter-parts, were quite capable of
attributing the most profane activities to divine inspiration, instead of accepting responsibility for
their own actions.
Jephthah led the Hebrews in a successful
campaign against the Ammonite people. Then, in thanksgiving for that victory, he
killed his only child. And because Bible scholars are often anxious to attribute
human savagery to God’s prompting, they accept his claim that murdering his
daughter was an act of sacrificial worship; a godly, rather than a sinful thing.
Both the slaughter of the Ammonite soldiers
and the slaughter of his own daughter came about in this way. As a young man,
Jephthah left his home town of Gilead after he was denied any of the inheritance
left by his father. The son of a prostitute, his half-brothers refused him any
part in the estate, a decision that was upheld by the town elders. So the young
man left town and settled in the land of Tob. A contemporary translation of the
Bible reports that “There he attracted a group of worthless men, and they
went around with him.”[6]
In this case, “they went around with him” is a nice way of saying
that under Jephthah’s leadership they became a band of marauding robbers who
made a living by attacking merchant caravans and outlying communities in the
district of Tob.
News of Jephthah’s successful career as
leader of a robber band reached his home town and when the Ammonites decided to
go to war against the Hebrews, the leaders of Gilead decided that Jephthah
should be the one to lead them in battle.
“The leaders of Gilead went to bring Jephthah
back from the land of Tob. They told him, ‘Come and lead us, so that we can
fight the Ammonites.’ But Jephthah answered, ‘You hated me so much that you
forced me to leave my father’s house. Why come to me now that you’re in
trouble?’ They said to Jephthah, ‘We are turning to you now because we want you
to go with us and fight the Ammonites and lead all the people of Gilead.”
“Jephthah said to them, ‘If you take me back
home to fight them and the Lord gives me victory, I will be your ruler.’ They
replied, ‘We agree. The Lord is our witness.’ So Jephthah went with the leaders
of Gilead, and the people made him their ruler and leader.”[7]
Not surprisingly, his attempt to get the
Ammonites to relinquish their claim to territories that the sons of Israel had
taken from them was unsuccessful. Jephthah told the Ammonite King that it was
ridiculous for him to claim something his people had lost a long time ago.
“For three hundred years Israel has occupied Hesbon and Arcer, and the towns
around them and all the cities on the banks of the Arnon River. Why haven’t you
taken them back in all this time?”[8]
Based on the argument that the land the King
wanted returned had been occupied by the Hebrews for such a long time that the
Ammonites no longer had a legitimate claim to it, the preparations for war
began. And as part of that preparation, Jephthah made a vow he hoped would
insure victory. “(He) promised the Lord: ‘If you will give me victory over
the Ammonites, I will burn as an offering the first person that comes out of my
house to meet me, when I come back for the victory. I will offer that person to
you as a sacrifice.”[9]
Obviously, Jephthah was unable to distinguish between the false gods of Canaan
who demanded human sacrifices and the true God of the Israelites who didn’t.
But in spite of that lack of understanding,
the biblical scribe reports that “The spirit of the Lord came upon
Jephthah…(He) crossed the river to fight the Ammonites and the lord gave him
victory.” He demolished at least twenty cities and along with that
destruction of habitat, “there was a great slaughter.”[10]
Jephthah’s god-of-war had come through for
him, so it was time to offer a human sacrifice, according to his promise that he
would “burn as an offering” the first person who came out of his house
after he had achieved victory. Odds were it would be one of his many servants
who would be killed; but it didn’t turn out that way.
“When Jephthah went back home to Mizpah,
there was his daughter coming out to meet him, dancing and playing the
tambourine. She was his only child. When he saw her, he tore his clothes in
sorrow and said ‘Oh, my daughter! You are breaking my heart! Why must it be you
that cause me pain? I have made a solemn promise to the Lord and I cannot take
it back.”[11]
The self-pity Jephthah expresses at the
thought of becoming childless deserves about as much sympathy as the plight of
the man who murders his parents and then asks for compassion because he is an
orphan. But in spite of this hubris, religious teachers laud him for his courage
in killing his daughter and commiserate with him. “He was faithful to his vow
to God, even though it cost him dearly.”[12]
None of these commentators discuss the
killing with any sympathy for the young girl who begged her father to allow her
to live a little while longer, so she could “wander in the mountains”[13]
to grieve and prepare for her death. Instead, there is tacit agreement that her
father was magnanimous in granting that request: “after she came back to her
father he did what he had promised the Lord, and she died.”[14]
Some Christian scholars become positively
lyrical when commenting on this story of human murder/sacrifice. They say that
“the story is tenderly told, with emphasis on the emotions of both parties. It
stands as one of the most beautiful expressions of tragedy in the entire bible.”[15]
Others, in order to maintain the “beauty” of the story, insist that although
Jephthah vowed his daughter would die as a “burnt offering,” surely he didn’t
subject her to the horrors of immolation. Well, of course, as far as the
information in the Bible is concerned, he did just that. But scholars, who are
appalled at such a gruesome death, are not as upset by stabbing, so they offer
their own scenario: “No doubt, what (Jephthah) envisaged was a quick death by
the knife, before the corpse was burnt.”[16]
These Bible commentators typically endorse
Jephthah as a great and godly leader; “He was one of the most illustrious
leaders of that period of Hebrew history,”[17]
and they offer an ethical imperative for the
murder of his daughter. “A vow once uttered was irrevocable.”[18]
But this rationale ignores the fact that the Law of Moses forbade human
sacrifice and said that anyone who committed such an abomination would no longer
be numbered among God’s people. The same Law said “if the community ignores what
he has done. . . I will no longer consider them my people.”[19]
Like contemporary scholars, the man of
Jephthah’s time were well aware of the prohibition against human sacrifice; but
as often happens in military victories the laws of morality, ethics, and of God
are replaced by the celebration of destructive power.
The slaughter of the Ammonites and of his own
daughter did not end the history making exploits of Jephthah. Soon after he
defeated Israel’s pagan enemies, he used his destructive skills to kill his fellow
Israelites in a civil war with the tribe of Ephraim. In a short-lived battle,
forty-two thousand Ephraimites were killed.
After giving this final report of mayhem, the
International Standard Bible Encyclo-pedia (ISBE) sums up Jephthah’s life by
extolling him as a great leader, “a man of energy and conviction, who was used
by the Spirit of God.”
Another text written to instruct Christians
in the ways of godly living refers to the slaughter of the Ephraimites as their
being “discomforted” at the hands of Jephthah. Still another teaches that just
because he was the leader of a robber band “he must not be thought of as a
lawless freebooter.” And why not? “Because he was a man with a conscience.”
That is a nice thought but nothing in the Bible validates it any more than it
validates another teaching from the same text. “He won (his daughter’s) entire
confidence and religious respect.”
Centuries after the time of Jephthah, the
prophet Isaiah pronounced an oracle against the violence reported so favorably
in the scriptures and attributed to the instrumentality of God. “God told me
to witness what the people are like. . .They are always rebelling against God,
always lying …They say ‘Don’t talk to us about what’s right. Tell us what we
want to hear.’ But this is what the holy God of Israel says: ‘You ignore what I
tell you and rely on violence and deceit.”[20]
The oracle that the prophet gave in his own
time applies to contemporary scholars and clergy who, in the guise of biblical
studies, "are always lying," calling human sacrifice the laudatory
fulfillment of a vow and the mass murder of 42,000 men, something that
discomforted them.
[1]
The New Westminster Dictionary of the Bible. H.S. Gehman (ed.)
(Philadelphia: the Westminster Press, 1976):, p. 529
[2]
Judges 4:21 NEB
[3]
Judges 3:1, 2 TEV
[4]
Matthew Henry
[5]
Matthew Henry Concise Commentary on the Whole Bible. Moody Press
Chicago. C 192. p. 198
[6]
Judges 11:3 TEV
[7]
Judges 11:4 - 11 TEV
[8]
Judges 11:26 TEV
[9]
Judges 11:30, 31 TEV
[10]
Judges 11:29, 32,33 TEV
[11]
Judges 11: 34 , 35 TEV
[12]
The International Bible Commentary, edited by F.F. Bruce (Grand Rapids:
Zondervan Publishing House, 1986 p. 329
[13]
Judges 11:37
[14]
Judges 11:39
[15]
The International Bible Commentary, edited by F.F. Bruce (Grand Rapids:
Zondervan Publishing House, 1986 p. 329
[16]
Wilcock, p. 116
[17]
The ISBE (Grand Rapids. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1979, Vol II,
p. 984
[18]
Numbers 30:2
[19]
Lev 20: 1 – 5 TEV
[20]
Isaiah 30: 8 – 12 TEV
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