Judges is a letter not often handled by pastors. The author is assumed to be Samuel. The most powerful impact of the book of Judges is the statement that Jephthah's daughter was dedicated to God in some form, but authors, including the famous Flavius Josephus, cite Jewish pseudepigrapha to state that she was in fact dedicated as a human sacrifice.
Exegetical Midrash Description
The Outer Midrash says that the daughter of Jephthah was actually offered humanly for the pride of Jephthah and Pinehas. In it, it says that God first made Jephthah's vow to do so with the intention of reminding him to "fulfill it in his daughter because it is rude to offer up whatever comes out first, even a camel." However, Jephthah was not sorry that he had taken the oath, and he became stubborn, saying that he could not nullify the oath, even though his daughter told him that Abraham had not offered Isaac and that he should go to the Sanhedrin to look into the Torah and find a solution to the problem. God was offended by this unbelieving attitude, and He made it impossible for Jephthah to go to the Sanhedrin to find the Torah, even though he was supposed to be able to know right from wrong without thinking about it.
But for some reason, he was stubborn and said, "Do you want me, a priest, to go to the son of a prostitute named Jephthah" and neglected to instruct Jephthah. And he neglected to instruct Jephthah. Jephthah also said, "How can I, a brave man of Israel, be saved by Phinehas?" Because of their negligence and arrogance, Jephthah's daughter was sacrificed in an apostasy that even God did not expect. The Holy Spirit departed from Phinehas, and some kind of punishment fell on him. After Jephthah's death, his bones were buried in the towns of Gilead. So every year in the month of Tevet, the waters turned to blood, and the women of Israel mourned for the daughter of Jephthah for four days. The end. Cited here
And you think, "Oh! Is that right?" there is a funny story. First of all, the Phinehas of the Outer Scriptures is not the Phinehas of the son of Eli, the high priest in the time of Judges, but a priest in the time of Moses, and there is a time gap of about 300 years with the Judges. Do a search on "biblical chronology" or something and you'll find a bunch of stuff. Jephthah was active around 1173 AD, whereas Phinehas in Moses' time died around 1400 AD or 2603AM. Ephta was engaged as a judge from 2853AM and died at 2858AM, so they are each over 250 years apart in age. So, there's a strange midrash description that says that Pinehas is another name for Elijah in the Bible, who was reborn as Elijah after having sinned and repented in the matter of Jephthah's daughter earlier. search for Pinchas is Eliyahu(elijah) midrash as well! Pinchas is Eliyahu(elijah).
It may be that the descendant priests of the Pinehas family are named in unison as Pinehas (i.e., Pinehas II, etc.), or that Pinehas, the son of Eli the priest of Ithamar in the time of the Judges is still considered, but the one in Moses's time who survived beyond his lifetime and was born again as Elijah and became an angel, is a fictional story. Furthermore, Wikipedia says that the priesthood was transferred to Eli the priest of Ithamar due to the apostasy of Pinehas concerning the daughter of Jephthah, but it doesn't make any sense except that he came to the future in a time machine.
So, whether the information in this external scripture is reliable is debated among the rabbis, and it is very likely that it is a scripture breathed by the evil spirits of the Talmud. Josephus, the famous historian of the first century, wrote in an ancient poem that Jephthah's daughter was sacrificed as she was. However, in the first century, the fusion of Greek philosophy such as Philon and Judaism was becoming prominent, and the Pharisees' interpretation of the Bible was also highly mistaken. Let's check whether the Jews of the time, including Josephus, were aware of the validity of this interpretation.
By the first century, Judaism had already merged with ancient Greek philosophy in some areas, and even after that it began to develop its own Talmud, which naturally diverged from the facts, and the authenticity of its midrash was questioned even among the most famous writers.
Human sacrifice prohibited by the law
Judges 11:30 And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord, and said, "If You will indeed deliver the people of Ammon into my hands, 31 then it will be that whatever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the people of Ammon, shall surely be the Lord's, and I will offer it up as a burnt offering."
Biblical critics condemn the inhumane practice, asserting that Jephthah's daughter was presented to Jehovah as a literal "burnt offering. On the other hand, an observation of the original language reveals another possibility, and many rabbis support it, so let us examine it.
Deuteronomy 18:9 "When you come into the land which the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominations of those nations. 10 There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, or one who practices witchcraft, or a soothsayer, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, 11 or one who conjures spells, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead. 12 For all who do these things are an abomination to the Lord, and because of these abominations the Lord your God drives them out from before you.
Deuteronomy 23:3 "An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter the assembly of the Lord; even to the tenth generation none of his descendants shall enter the assembly of the Lord forever,
The Ammonites, Moabites, Canaanites, and other nations surrounding Israel were offering their babies, who were conceived through promiscuity, to idols as human sacrifices. For this reason, Yahuwah used the nation of Israel as a punisher and appointed Joshua in particular as the leader of the exterminators to destroy the corrupt nation and free them from the noose of evil and sin. Those who were sanctified received the wages of their sins and are now in death sleep, but will soon be resurrected and learn of Christ.
The Book of Judges describes in detail the spiritually stormy situation in Israel after the death of Joshua, the warrior in Judges 17:6 "6 In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes."
If we assume that Jephthah was born from the child of a foreign prostitute and may have witnessed and been influenced by pagan human sacrifice practices, then we can understand his reckless wager in Judges 11 that "the first one to greet me at the door shall be offered as a burnt sacrifice to God."
However, the Israelite law forbade human sacrifices, and in the case of sacrifices, animals without conscience were used, and these sacrifices were offered by euthanasia, which is a quick death. Would Jephthah be the son of a prostitute, a bastard child, whose daughter would not be allowed in the tent? Or would they reject it because the human sacrifice itself is so evil and against the law that it is a reason to destroy a hostile nation? Any normal person would be able to weigh the two and understand which he or she would choose.
When the priests of Levi offer to sacrifice a human being, will Pinehas (Elijah), who is either time-slipped from the past or reincarnated, as in the external scriptures? (Elijah), but rather than overlook it due to negligence, the priests, including the surrounding Israelites, will make the priests reconsider their decision. Also, the law of Leviticus 27:1-8, which says that money should be paid instead because it is a violation of the law to offer a human being, was in effect. It is impossible to calmly recognize this scriptural passage as a human sacrifice and then interpret it as Jephthah continuing to serve from chapter 12 as a judge.
Jephthah must have known that his ancestor Abraham had not sacrificed Isaac and had been put a stop to it by God. He took the Lord as witness to his words and "went before the Lord at Mitzpah and repeated every word he had said" (v. 11). What we learn from Jephthah's message to the king of Ammon (vv. 14-27) is that he was familiar with the history of his people as recorded in the "book of the law." The fact that he did not just know it as historical facts, but recognized all of it as having happened through the Lord, shows that he had studied it in great detail.
Jephthah knew that all events were coming from Jehovah God. It was the Lord who "delivered Sihon and all his people into the hand of Israel" (v. 21). It was the God of Jehovah, the God of Israel, who drove the Amorites from before Israel. (v. 23) He believed that all that Jephthah and the Israelites had gained was given by God. (v. 24) And they believed that the judge who stood between the Israelites and Ammon was Jehovah God. (v. 27)
When Jephthah asked God for judgment, "the Spirit of the Lord came upon him". And here again we see the work of the Holy Spirit in the work of God. (v. 29) By the power of this Holy Spirit, Jephthah fought against the Ammonites, and Jehovah God honored his faith by delivering them into his hands. (Verse 32)
"Or" as a burnt offering.
Usually, if you open your Bible and read Judges 11:30, it is rendered, "And I will consecrate as a burnt offering," but the KJV also has "or" in the summary column of "and," that is, "or" as a subscript. The verse says, "And the first thing that cometh out of the doorway to meet me shall be God's. Or it shall be a burnt offering." This would be the main idea of the two options. The Hebrew word that should be translated "or" is וְ read vau, which is also translated as "and", "or" in many scriptural passages.
Genesis 41:44 “Pharaoh said unto Joseph, I am Pharaoh, and without thee shall no man lift up his hand OR foot in all the land of Egypt.”
Exodus 20:4 “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, OR any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, OR that is in the earth beneath, OR that is in the water under the earth”
Exodus 21:15 “He that smiteth his father, OR his mother, shall be surely put to death.”
Exodus 21:17 “He that curseth his father, OR his mother, shall surely be put to death.”
Exodus 21:18 “if men strive together, and one smite another with a stone, OR with his fist, and he die not, but keepeth his bed”
Numbers 16:14 “Moreover thou hast not brought us into a land that floweth with milk and honey, OR given us inheritance of fields and vineyards: wilt thou put out the eyes of these men? we will not come up.”
Numbers 22:26 “And the angel of the LORD went further, and stood in a narrow place, where was no way to turn either to the right hand OR to the left.”
Deuteronomy 3:24 “what God is there in heaven OR in earth”.
2 Samuel 3:29 “Let it rest on the head of Joab, and on all his father's house; and let there not fail from the house of Joab one that hath an issue, OR that is a leper, OR that leaneth on a staff, OR that falleth on the sword, OR that lacketh bread.”
1 Kings 18:10 “there is no nation OR kingdom, whither my lord hath not sent to seek thee.”
1 Kings 18:27 “And it came to pass at noon, that Elijah mocked them, and said, Cry aloud: for he is a god; either he is talking, OR he is pursuing, OR he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awaked.”
With a negative, the rendering “NOR” is equally correct and conclusive:
Exodus 20:17 “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, NOR his manservant, NOR his maidservant, NORhis ox, NOR his ass, NOR any thing that is thy neighbour's.”
Deuteronomy 7:25 “The graven images of their gods shall ye burn with fire: thou shalt not desire the silver OR gold that is on them, NOR take it unto thee, lest thou be snared therein: for it is an abomination to the LORD thy God.”
2 Samuel 1:21 “neither let there be rain, upon you, NOR fields of offerings”
Psalms 26:9 “Gather not my soul with sinners, NOR my life with bloody men:”
Proverbs 6:4 “Give not sleep to thine eyes, NOR slumber to thine eyelids.”
Proverbs 30:3 “I neither learned wisdom, NOR have the knowledge of the holy.” Cited here
In addition, Israelite households at that time kept livestock near the first-floor entrance, so it is highly likely that the animals that greeted Jephthah, or rather, that he encountered, were domesticated animals. Moreover, the original composition of this verse, "that which came out of the doorway" means a male animal (chayah), which also makes it understandable that the intention was to dedicate the male animal kept at the doorway as a burnt offering. For Jephthah, he has no male relatives, since he has only one daughter as his only heir.
The original word for "anything" coming out of the doorway of a house is asher, which is also the original word used in Numbers 5:10, but there it means "thing," not "person. In short, it refers to animals, livestock, or grain, depending on the situation, and not to a person. In other words, Jephthah did not intend to make a human sacrifice from the beginning, but was simply expressing his intention to offer "male livestock" as a burnt offering to God in accordance with Israelite law.
We do not know what Efta kept, but he must have had in mind that when he came home and opened the front door, he would be greeted by a male domestic animal.
When you dedicate a person
Exodus 38:8 He made the laver of bronze and its base of bronze, from the bronze mirrors of the serving women who assembled at the door of the tabernacle of meeting.
1 Samuel 2:22 Now Eli was very old; and he heard everything his sons did to all Israel, and how they lay with the women who assembled at the door of the tabernacle of meeting.
Women serving in the tent of meeting seem to have been in common use since the time before Jephthah. However, we do not know the detailed regulations regarding whether or not they should remain pure and unmarried for the rest of their lives. Since Leviticus 15 defines uncleanness as a physiological phenomenon of sexual discharge in both men and women, it can be inferred that the women who served in the tent of meeting were held to even higher standards of sexual purity.
Although she is described as a lady, the kjv is the English word for "serving woman," and in the original language there are half a dozen uses of the word to mean both married and unmarried women. So, even if there were women who volunteered to serve and served in the temple at that time, in many cases they would have already married, had children, and their children would be independent. If the children who are not independent are still living at home, they cannot serve in the temple due to the busyness of raising children.
It may also mean that the women who are proto-literally the Lord's (in a sense, married to the Lord) and work in the tent are in many cases unmarried. Leviticus 4 includes a provision for the offering of "young lambs and intact male goats," so it would seem that, since human sacrifices are not permitted under the law, women who had relations with men and had not suffered the loss of their membranes would be offered to the temple and serve there, and in a sense, were intact. Since the women who had relations with the sons of Eli the High Priest were to become their wives if they were unmarried, as per the Law of Moses, but they were not, purity and chastity were presumably required for the period of time they served in the tent. (Exodus 22:16) Also, the period of Samuel's growth while serving in the tabernacle coincided with the dedication of Jephthah's daughters to God, and the chastity of Jephthah's daughters is emphasized in the scriptures in contrast to those who should have remained unmarried but fell into a relationship.
Judges 11:37 Then she said to her father, "Let this thing be done for me: let me alone for two months, that I may go and wander on the mountains and bewail my virginity, my friends and I." 38 So he said, "Go." And he sent her away for two months; and she went with her friends, and bewailed her virginity on the mountains. 39 And it was so at the end of two months that she returned to her father, and he carried out his vow with her which he had vowed. She knew no man. And it became a custom in Israel 40 that the daughters of Israel went four days each year to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite.
In this passage, indeed, Jephthah's daughter is not "lamenting her death" but lamenting her inability to marry, and the fact that the latter part of the verse emphasizes repeatedly that she had no relationship with a man all her life makes it likely that she worked all her life in the tent of meeting and never got married.
If Jephthah's daughter is to be humanly sacrificed and offered up, as the literal meaning of the word suggests, she would normally not be lamenting her virginity, but rather her cruelty and death, and moreover, it would be natural for her Israeli girlfriends to point out the oddity of Jephthah's daughter and her father being humanly sacrificed and stop.
If we assume that she is going to die and still mourn her virginity, she might not ask Jephthah for a two-month reprieve, but rather ask him to let her marry before she dies and have a child and give birth to an heir before she dies. Alternatively, we can predict that Jephthah's daughter also spent the remainder of her life in a sense of intact chastity, so as not to lose her virginity by having relations with men. ("Not on purpose to hasten her death by human sacrifice, but lamenting it because of her need to remain intact and chaste.")
Furthermore, the fact that in the relevant passage in Judges the women who had relations with the son of Eli the high priest, even though they had sworn an oath, were not condemned, leads us to assume that Jephthah's daughter accompanied her friends to the mountains to "inquire" of God and the priests in order to decide whether she really wanted to remain chaste and unmarried for the rest of her life and fulfill her oath.
The name Seira, the daughter of Jephthah, appears in the ancient Jewish pseudepigraphic text Philon. In 1 Samuel 1:28, "Samuel was dedicated," and the Hebrew for "dedicated" is H7592שָׁאַל (shaw-al'), which reads sheilah, meaning "ask." Sheilah is said to be the root of the word Seila. Seilah is a variant of Sha'el as a woman's name, which means that even though Jephthah was grieved by the loss of his only daughter and heir, the name of Jephthah's daughter, Seilah, has the significance of being dedicated to the temple of Shiloh like Samuel, so it is not necessarily dedicated in a human sacrifice way. It can be read that the offering was not necessarily made in the manner of a human sacrifice.
Finally, Jephthah's daughter, accompanied by her friends and various people in the mountains, spontaneously expressed her strong faith that she would work in the tent of the Lord for the rest of her life, even if she was too busy to get married and raise her children.
The original word for burnt offering is olah, which also originally meant "complete offering." Normally, a portion of the burnt sacrifice could be returned by the priest to be eaten, but this is not the case with olah, and there is a provision that a person cannot buy it back if it belongs to the Lord. (Lev. 27:28)
In other words, unlike Samuel, the daughter of Jephthah, who is the equivalent of a burnt offering, is completely dedicated to the Lord and does not take a vacation or return to Jephthah, and since she is dedicated to the tent serves for a lifetime, she cannot marry or have children because there is no temporary period when she can raise children in her role as a mother.
In the latter part, according to the kjv, two ways of "lamenting the daughter of Jephthah" and "speaking (to) the daughter of Jephthah" are appended to the summary section, and since it is also described as visiting Jephthah's daughter year after year, it is quite unreasonable to interpret her as having been dedicated as a human sacrifice due to a violation of the law. The use of the preposition "lamed" [to/for] for "Jephthah's daughter" can also mean to speak of her, to speak to her, if she is still alive. The use of "to/for" can also mean to talk to her - if she is still alive. Here's another quote
Also, although "lament" is the standard for kjv, the original word tanah, which actually means "to lament," also means "to praise." In other words, Jephthah's daughter could be interpreted as being comforted and praised or spoken to for her walk of faith.
The annual visit by Elkanah and Hannah's family to the temple in Shiloh also suggests that Jephthah's daughter could no longer see her friends as often because of her service in Jehovah's tabernacle. In support of this view, the duration of this ordinance is described as "mich yarmim yarmimah" (11:40) - verbatim, "from day to day." When associated with a "custom" it means "forever" (Exodus 13:10). But it is also used of the annual visit to the temple in Shiloh by the families of Elkanah and Hannah, described at the beginning of Samuel. This could have implied an event that occurred periodically over the lifetime of a particular family (1 Samuel 1:3 , 2:19) or, as here, many times during the lifetime of Jephthah's daughter. The actual time allowed for the visit to Jephthah's daughter was four days. The reference to "custom" would then have implied that some special concession was made to permit these brief annual visits, considering the seriousness of the vow. And the fact that the custom is not interceded for in later generations in the Hebrew Bible, and that no woman appears in the same instance, would seem to indicate that it was a "custom" limited to the lifetime of Jephthah's daughter.
The New Community Translation translates it as lamenting the death of Jephthah's daughter, but the word "death" does not appear in the original text. The original text does not mention the word "death." It simply says that he consoles (speaks of) Jephthah's daughter, and that he visited her four times each year.
In the time of Jephthah in the Old Testament, there is no concept of spiritual immortality or the practice of visiting the grave. Therefore, it is natural to interpret the visit to the "living Jephthah" as a form of consolation or praise. However, since infertility was a calamity in Israel at that time, and it was such a big problem that women lost their value, it may have been more painful for Jephthah's daughter to be single and childless for the rest of her life than to die.
What to watch out for
There are many interpretations of this passage, and many hold that it was literally sacrificed. But that in itself was a violation of the Torah of Israel, and God used Israel to destroy and exterminate the surrounding nations because of their barbaric behavior. It is necessary to investigate the original languages and imagine the contextual background rather than the opinions of authors who rely on the pseudepigraphic Talmud, and even those say that God showed anger at the human sacrifice.
A strange reincarnation? What we can learn from the external scriptures, which say that both Phinehas and Jephthah sinned, is that even those who are in a position where the Spirit of the Lord has descended upon them sin a great deal. Even Jehovah's Witnesses may taste the Spirit of God at first, but they are not secure forever, and they can become servants of the devil of their own free will. Blind obedience is dangerous. Furthermore, modern Christians teach that faithful unbelievers who do not believe will be tortured for the immortality of their souls, which speaks to the seriousness of the situation, which is even more ruthless, merciless, and cruel than the literal interpretation of the human sacrifice of Jephthah.
By the way, Paul cites Jephthah as a hero of the faith. The fact that the Midrash contains such strange teachings and that even the first century Pharisees were already hostile to Jesus and disregarded the justice and mercy of God's law makes it a unique Talmudic sham.
Hebrews 11:32 And what more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah, also of David and Samuel and the prophets: 33 who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, 34 quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of the aliens.
It is difficult to say that Paul would cite as an example a case of human sacrifice, which, unlike David's transitory sins of adultery and murder, is a great sin subject to sanctification in which the whole nation is destroyed, so the story of Jephthah's daughter, who was engaged in serving in the tent of meeting all her life and found no marriage encounter or time to play, could be interpreted as an example of faith that gave all.
Revelation 14:4 These are the ones who were not defiled with women, for they are virgins. These are the ones who follow the Lamb wherever He goes. These were redeemed from among men, being firstfruits to God and to the Lamb. 5 And in their mouth was found no deceit, for they are without fault before the throne of God.
No comments:
Post a Comment