“Here is what we will do to them: we will let them live, so that God’s anger will not be on us because of the oath we swore to them.“-Joshua 9:20
There are several other examples in Scripture of someone making a vow that on the surface seemed like a good idea at the time but ended up being a total disaster.
Perhaps the most famous example is that of the Israelite general Jephthah.
He was tasked with leading Israel to fight a major war and in order to guarantee the defeat of his enemies, he vowed to God that if the Lord would give him the victory, he would sacrifice the first thing that walked out of his door to greet him when he returned home.
In his mind, he was assuming one of his farm animals would be the thing that would walk through his front door when he returned home but instead, it ended up being his daughter who greeted him.
Jephthah was heartbroken and devastated, yet he decided there was no way he could break his vow to Hashem even if it meant killing and then sacrificing his own daughter whom he loved by burning her body up on an altar.
I totally understand how shocking this is to us modern folks but such was the mindset of the ancient Middle Easterner.
And by the way, don’t assume that Israel’s decision to NOT destroy the Gibeonites or Jephthah’s decision to sacrifice his daughter pleased God and were the right things to do.
The Lord does NOT require us to do something evil and wrong just because we made a reckless vow to Him!
Nevertheless, I think the biggest takeaway here is to not make vows in the first place because there’s no way we can know what tragic results may come of it.
Although our intentions may be good, making a vow could put us on a path of sin and destruction that we never could have imagined possible.
That is exactly what happened to Jephthah and that is what is happening to Israel to this very day because they didn’t 100% completely destroy or expel the Canaanites from the land.
Ultimately, in verse Joshua 9:20, we’re told that Israel allowed the Gibeonites to live but they would have to serve Israel as servants forever.
CONNECTING THIS TEACHING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT
“Again, you have heard that it
was said to the people long ago,
‘Do not break your oath,
but fulfill to the Lord
the vows you have made.’
But I tell you,
do not swear an oath at all:
either by heaven,
for it is God’s throne;
or by the earth,
for it is his footstool;
or by Jerusalem,
for it is the city of the Great King.
And do not swear by your head,
for you cannot make
even one hair white or black.
All you need to say is
simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’;
anything beyond this
comes from the evil one“
-Matthew 5:33-37
Yeshua repeated the admonition you have here when he said that our “Yes” be a simple “Yes” and our “No” be a simple “No”.
Yup!
HaShem does not accept sacrifice of anything unclean for sacrifice. She therefore would have been given to the service of the temple for her lifetime. Her mourning would have been that she would never have a typical life, with a family, etc.