“‘Completely destroy every man and every woman who has had sex with a man.’ Among the inhabitants of Yavesh-Gil‘ad they found 400 young virgins who had not known a man by lying with him, and they brought them to the camp at Shiloh, which is in the land of Kena‘an.”-Judges 21:11-12
I wanna show you something interesting in verse 11.
The command is given to “completely destroy” every man, woman and child living in Jabeth-Gilead.
The King James Version says to “utterly destroy“…
And the NIV says “Kill every male and every woman who is not a virgin“.
I’ll tell you right now…
All versions have failed to captured the true essence of the Hebrew correctly here.
Heck, I’ll even go so far as to say that probably every English Bible translation in existence has missed the true flavor of what’s really being communicated here.
The original Hebrew for “utterly destroy” is HEREM.
If you went through the Torah with me a couple of years ago, you should know that term.
If you’re not familiar with this word, don’t bother asking your Christian pastor, preacher or Bible teacher…
Because they won’t know diddly squat about this important Holy War term.
In other places in the Hebrew Bible, this word is translated as “ban”…
As in to ban something because it is reserved for destruction unto God.
Again, this is HOLY WAR TERMINOLOGY we’re dealing with here.
It’s connected to the idea that since God Himself is the real commander in a Holy War, all the war booty is to go to Him.
However God is spirit and has no use for material things.
Therefore, the spoils of war are instead offered up to Him as burnt offerings.
That’s why all the war booty was to be destroyed (yes, including every man, woman and child) and burned up.
This is how it is dedicated to the Lord.
Got it?
I hope you do because what I just explained is the true and proper Biblical definition of HEREM or the ban.
Go back and read over the last couple of sentences again if you still don’t understand what Herem means.
My point is the Israelites who were about to attack the people of Jabeth-Gilead felt completely justified in their behavior.
They viewed what they were doing as a God-approved and holy endeavor.
Why?
Again, because they viewed this attack as a killing per God’s law of HEREM.
Since they had made a vow to God to kill everyone who refused to fight, they felt morally justified for what they were about to do.
But were they really justified before God?
Heck no!
This was more a case of fleshly self-justification rather than having anything to do with the Lord.
In the heat of the moment, the men had made an impulsive vow and now felt handcuffed by it…
That they had to obey their oath no matter what.
This kind of reminds me of Jephthah and the vow he made that resulted in him killing his own daughter (and yes, the evidence points to the FACT that he really did kill her, not that she lived out the rest of her days as some virgin surrounded by ridiculous sunflowers).
I discern 2 takeaways here.
The first one is obvious.
Don’t be making rash vows for crying out loud…
Because we’re not God and the vows we make could end up causing dire consequences.
Second, this highlights our fleshly tendency to try and get God to approve of behavior He has NOT condoned.
We just loooooooooooooooove to engage in all manner of Scripture-twisting and self-justification to excuse the wickedness we do whether it’s committing adultery, getting a divorce, eating unclean food or whatever.
Over and out.
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