D23-31: What Jephthah Would Tell Us From The Grave Concerning Vow-Making If He Could

Have you ever heard of the saying that when man makes plans, God laughs?

I feel that statement goes right to the heart of our discussion on why we should NOT make vows.

See, the problem is the unintended consequences of making a promise to the Lord.

That’s really the issue because there’s no way we can predict even one minute ahead into the future let alone weeks, months or years.

Because let’s face it, that’s what we’re attempting to do when we make a vow.

We’re really setting ourselves up to fail, because truthfully speaking, how can we really know what’s gonna happen in the days ahead?

We can’t!

That’s an area completely outside of our control.

Again, the perfect example of a person who made a vow but shouldn’t have was Jephthah.

He wanted the Lord to bless him in a war he was about to fight and vowed that if the Lord would give him the victory, he would offer up as a burnt offering the very first thing that walked through his door when he returned home from battle.

Of course he was expecting one of his animals to burst through the door when he returned home but as fate would have it, it was his one and only beloved daughter who burst through the front door to greet him.

Since God had indeed given Jephthah the victory, he really felt like he had no choice and carried out the vow.

Now there’s a lot to be learned from this story, much more than we can cover in this post, but the following three points are the main lessons:

FIRST, the reason Jephthah followed through with his vow as horrific as doing so was is because he understood there were NO exceptions to the law here in Deuteronomy 23 concerning vow-making.

SECOND, God never asked for, wanted nor even accepted the human sacrifice of Jephthah’s daughter.

THIRD, the Lord absolutely did NOT require a vow from Jephthah in order to give him the victory in battle.  

So what’s the conclusion in the matter?

The conclusion is this.

If Jephthah could speak to us from the grave, I’m pretty sure he would tell us something like this:

“Don’t make any vows because doing so may have dangerous consequences not only for you but also your loved ones.”