“Then the spirit of Adonai came upon Yiftach; and he passed through Gil‘ad and M’nasheh, on through Mitzpeh of Gil‘ad, and from there over to the people of ‘Amon.”-Judges 11:29
The Lord is about to prepare Yiftach for battle.
And how does He do it?
Does He put him through a rigorous training regimen?
Does He provide him with the latest cutting edge military weaponry?
Does He have him repeat mind-numbing, feel-goody, warm fuzzy New Agey Law of Attraction meditations?
Nope, the Lord doesn’t provide or have Yiftach do any of that.
The Lord provided Yiftach with ONE THING and one thing only.
And we’re told what it is in verse 29…
The SPIRIT of the Lord came upon Yiftach.
And once that happened, oh boy, was Yiftach transformed beyond belief.
He went from being a mere man to an unstoppable, high velocity Holy Spirit-filled cannon ball.
Now I’ve explained before there are two basic words in Hebrew used to refer to the workings of the Holy Spirit.
They are LABESH and HAYYAH.
These words are similar but also very different.
I know you’re scratching your head right now, so let me explain.
LABESH means to cloth a person…literally like putting a coat or a dress on someone.
When the Lord clothed a person in His Holy Spirit, that person was given just enough supernatural power or wisdom to perform the task at hand…and this could include miracles.
However, here in verse 29 of Judges chapter 11, the word HAYYAH is used.
This word is different than LABESH.
HAYYAH means that God’s Spirit so overtakes a man it’s almost as if the his will is replaced by the Lord’s Will.
It wasn’t a complete takeover of course like demon possession or something.
But when a human being was HAYYAH’d by the Lord, that person became exceptionally obedient to God’s commands.
For Jephthah, this also represented a complete change of his status.
Kind of like what happens to believers in our day and age when we’re born again.
No longer was Yiftach just your average, middle of the road general.
He was now a divinely appointed SHOPHET for the Lord…and was about to kick some serious buttocks.
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