Jepthah's Daughter

Judges, in my humble opinion is the strangest, yet most fun to read book in the Bible.  I'm particularly thinking today about the story of Jepthah's daughter.  Go and read it yourself right around Judges 11 and 12.  My first reaction to the fact that someone from Israel sacrificed his daughter to the Lord is the same as my husband's.  "AND GOD WAS OKAY WITH THAT???" Now there's a story that was left out of my Bible story book when I was a kid.  We never covered it in all 15 years of my Christian education.  And I've never heard it covered in any Sunday sermon either.  Jepthah was a man from the tribe of Gilead who God raised up to conquer the Ammonites who had been oppressing Israel for years.  Jepthah makes a vow to God that he will sacrifice as a burnt offering the first thing to walk out of his house if God just gives him victory over the Ammonites.  I'm not sure what or whom he expected to walk out of his house, but it turned out to be his one and only precious daughter.  And after two months of mourning with the daughter's friends, the sacrifice is completed.  The daughter herself seems completely fine with the idea of herself being a live sacrifice.  What she mourns with her friends is that she will never marry.  WHAT?  So this is one of those scratch your head and wonder kind of stories in the Bible that if I think about too long, I think my head will explode.

What became very clear to me though was the fact that vows to God had better be kept.  I tried to think of any vows I might have made to God through the years.  I can only think of one, although I constantly bargain with God.  If you will only heal me I will...., or, if you allow me to marry Bryan I will.....I never considered those to be vows, but I suppose they were.  The biggest vow I ever made was to God and Bryan when I married him.  I promised to be faithful to him until our death.  We devalue vows in our culture.  We think nothing of getting married or divorcing.  We play around with the details of marriage and we debate about same-sex marriage.  But marriage as it stands today is a vow, and for some of us it is a vow before God.  When you make a vow to God it must not be broken.  Be careful what you promise God and what you vow to him. Both Jepthah and his daughter never give thought to breaking the vow.  They seem to instinctively value the keeping of the vow so much that they are both willing to lose/die in order to keep it.  Maybe that's why Jesus taught this in his famous sermon on the mount:

1.   ³³ “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.’ ³⁴ But I tell you, do not swear an oath at all: either by heaven, for it is God’s throne; ³⁵ or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. ³⁶ And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. ³⁷ All you need to say is simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.^" 

I think I may understand why Jesus taught about breaking oaths.  Perhaps he was thinking of Jepthah's daughter.  My guess is that he never wanted to see that happen again.