Jephthah gathered together all the men of Gilead (Judges 11)

Judges 11 gives us the very odd tale of Jephthah the Gileadite, a man whose life carries a few oddities that those like the SAB who like to find problems with the Bible are hardly going to overlook. Perhaps oddly, the SAB does not draw attention to the very first item of interest about Jephthah, the fact that apparently, he's a bastard. The fact that he is mentioned first and the following fact that apparently his half-brothers are afraid he will inherit from Gilead suggests that Jephthah is the eldest son, and may have some claim in being the rightful heir of Gilead. However, there is certainly a history (especially among the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) of firstborns not inheriting. Anyway, his family gets into some hot water with the Ammonites, and they come to him for help for some reason. He agrees to help in return for being made their leader.

The first thing he does as leader is send a message to the Ammonites looking for peace. I'm always looking for a hopeful suggestion where I can find it of a place where the SAB might add a "Good Stuff" icon; might there be one here? Certainly this is a much nicer approach than most guys in this book take. They argue back and forth a bit about whose land it is. Apparently, according to Jephthah, the land was won in battle from the Amorites (the SAB marks this fact as being bad for various reasons, but really, this is old news from back in Numbers 21, where Moses also tried to settle things peaceably, asking permission to pass through, and getting attacked in return, as we see briefly reviewed here in Judges. Sure, it's not all that nice that Sihon was destroyed by the Israelites, but this is largely a clear case of destroying a city in self-defense, oddly enough. Later in Jephthah's remarks, he points out that if indeed they think this particular part of the land belonged to them, it's odd they let the Israelites live there for 300 years without ever rectifying the situation. The SAB itself points out (although it calls it a contradiction) that the Israelites were ordered by God not to attack the Ammonites. Actually, they were ordered not to attack the land of the Ammonites, but this is the Ammonites attacking them.

Jephthah makes a remark that is much more thought-provoking to the SAB than it is to me, giving an apprent nod to the Ammonite god Chemosh. Does this statement imply that Chemosh exists, or that at least Jephthah thinks he does? I don't think so. I think this is an ironic statement on the part of Jephthah, although it certainly may have been stated in a manner that was meant to sound more polite, as in you serve your god in your land, we'll serve our god in ours, okay? As for the issue of the Bible containing statements that other gods might exist, I have formerly addressed that here. (Steve, if you don't mind, can you add a link on that page? I keep meaning to help you clean up the links between us, but I'm a terrible procrastinator.)

And now with all the pleasantries finished up, the battle begins, and the big issue of this story comes up. The "spirit of the Lord" comes upon Jephthah, (I was reading recently that this expression is often used in contexts such as this meaning not that the person becomes closer to God or anything like that, but that God gives them the power and wisdom to be a great military leader) and he goes to war. Early into the battle, he makes a rash and foolish gesture: he vows to kill the first thing that comes out his front door as a sacrifice to God when he returns victorious. When he wins, and he does return, the first thing out the door is his young daughter. Ouch.

The first thing to note is that nowhere does it say that God asked for this, so it is not proper to say that God approves. This was stupidity on the part of Jephthah to make the vow, and also to carry it out. There is more to say, though, in an odd musing that I myself have had with this passage. What was Jephthah really expecting? Does he often come home from work and find himself greeted at the door by...I don't know...a pair of turtledoves? What kind of stupid vow was that? I find myself wondering if he was expecting not so much a more proper sacrifice, but if he expected someone else to be at the door. I've never heard anyone else suggest this as a possibility, but the implications seem pretty staggering. Perhaps Jephthah was having domestic problems and hoped for an easy divorce?

Anyway, he comes home, and out comes his daughter, dancing with joy. He's not happy, of course, but feels he has to keep his vow. He gives her time to mourn her situation, and then sacrifices her. (Some have suggested that verse 39 is implying that rather than dying, she remained a virgin all of her life. This is definitely a possibility, but the verse is far from clear on the matter.)

Yea, I throughly washed away thy blood from thee (Lev. 15:24 & 20:18)

Well, I was going to let it sit until a future date, but then, in writing the last post, something came up that truly troubled me, and I decided to jump ahead to an issue that I originally meant to leave for much later: sex with a menstruating woman.

Those who have had dealings with me before elsewhere, and perhaps a few times in this blog, will know that I sometimes will say something like "Well, that's a contradiction, but not an important one." You know, like one verse says 700 horses, and another says 7,000? That doesn't bother me, and I know there are problems like that in the Bible in quite a few places. Well, in wrapping up the last post, I came accross a problem that I could not simply shrug off. It's found here.

Seriously, there's a big difference between "unclean seven days" and "cut off from among their people." While the latter phrase is perhaps a bit vague, it's clearly something harsh; probably a person who is "cut off" is exiled from Israel. This isn't like other sins where it says nothing about punishment in one place, and in another lists a big one; those cases are just a matter of omission in the former verse. Saying one punishment here and a different punishment there, where both punishments are very different? That would be a serious problem, and I have to admit, I was stumped and ready to admit defeat on this point.

I wasn't going to gloss it over. At first, I thought I'd admit that it disturbed me and open it up to suggestions from readers. I figured I'd toss in a lame half-hearted attempt at partial reconciliation that didn't even really convince myself. Perhaps both punishments were to be performed? You know, "Leave town...and don't touch anything on your way out!" It doesn't make much sense, though.

Then something occurred to me that doesn't answer the issue, but I still think is thought-provoking: If a man broke this commandment, how would anyone know? Seriously. "Morning, Abiathar, how's things with you?" "Not so good, last night I had sex with my wife while she was menstruating. That's not a problem is it?" Well, it's not likely that you'd tell anyone, and if you didn't tell, who would ask? Still, there must be a purpose for this law anyway, and as such, there needs to be a reconciliation between these verses.

So as I prepared to gather my thoughts and post an admission of defeat, I read the verses again. And it hit me: read carefully "...lie with her at all..." vs. "lie with a woman having her sickness, and shall uncover her nakedness..."? The second verse uses two phrases that are both euphemisms for sex; why does a sentence need two euphemisms for the same thing?

I realized in this case, it is not the same thing. This is key. The little phrase "at all" is making it clear that we are not talking about a euphemism here. This is a case of a guy literally lying with his wife, and some of her menstrual blood happens to get on him in his sleep! No sex is involved, but he is still unclean. The latter case is a man who intentionally gets menstrual blood on him in an act of sex. It's that intentionality that makes the difference; being unclean and being sinful are not the same thing. In the end, there is no contradiction, only confusion brought about by unfortunate use of euphemisms. I wonder if it's clearer in the Hebrew? I'll have to check next chance I get.

So, the remaining issue (no pun intended)? Why is menstrual blood unclean? I don't know. There's no particular reason I can think of. Perhaps it's just another Mosaic Law oddity?

And all the people saw the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking (Exod 19)

Exodus 19 is the lead-in to the Ten Commandments passage, which I haven't decided how much detail I'm going to go into regarding it. It will probably take more than one entry, but whether it might be worth going really deep and making three, four, maybe even as much as ten, that remains to be seen. I suppose I have to decide what role I am to play in relating that information.

Here in this chapter, though, the first thing the SAB notes is God's promise of favor to the Israelites. I suppose one could see this as unjust and intolerant, as the SAB labels it, but at the very least, let's not forget that this is not arbitrary. If you read the whole verse, you see an "if" in it--this is a conditional state for the nation of Israel, contingent upon their fulfilling their part of the contract. If they do fulfill their part, they will become "a kingdom of priests", which is an odd turn of phrase. I think this is something that has to be taken figuratively to some degree, because reading all of the Mosaic Law makes it clear that only certain people can literally be priests. Defined very loosely, though, a priest is someone who is qualified to act as an intercessor between God and man, and the purpose of the nation of Israel according to Christian theology (and probably many branches of Judaic thought as well) is that all the other nations would see the special relationship between God and Israel and come to know God better by observing them. In this sense, every observant Jew is a priest.

Now God gives some warnings that nobody but Moses is allowed on Mt. Sinai. Penalties for breaching this law are severe; any man or animal that touches the mountain will be put to death. The SAB has an interesting speculation on this, one that I myself have considered in the past. Maybe Moses is going up on the mountain and meeting with nobody at all, and he figures that the best way to keep his cover from being blown is to keep everybody off of the mountain. If this is so, it doesn't seem to make much sense to punish animals as well, but perhaps it's just Moses' paranoia? I think the real problem with this is that the supernatural aspect is still apparent, and would need to be explained away. There's the column of smoke, which apparently at this time sits on the mountain, and there is the voice of God, and a show of power of some sort that the people experience. Still, an interesting thought no doubt.

The SAB also notes that Moses tells the men to not have sex for three days. I'm not sure why this is sexist, since there is no statement that somehow having sex will make them unclean because they touched a woman. Frankly, I have no idea what this is about, because no explanation is given.

The last note here is that God warns Moses to make sure nobody tries to sneak in and see God, because doing so will cause them to die. This is something that is mentioned a number of times throughout the Bible, and no explanation is given for it either. I don't think the "cruelty" tag is appropriate, nor really the "injustice" one, although I'd grant the "absurd". The fact that seeing God will cause one to die is generally presented not so much as God being mean and demanding privacy or whatever Steve Wells might be guessing, but rather a supernatural thing, that the mere act of laying eyes upon God in his full glory would be too much to take. It's another thing I don't fully understand, and certainly won't try to give an explanation for it.