Judges 11:1-11; 1 Cor. 1:26-31, Moses' and Jephthah's Oppressions

Do you see yourself as a victim, handicapped by events in your past over which you had no control, events that were traumatic and life-changing?  Again, you are not in a unique position.  This kind of situation is common.  So common that we would not be able to, nor would we want to, study every person the Bible describes.  But if we did we would find something similar to the two people we look at today.

·        Moses (Exodus 2-4 plus).  Moses was a man born with tremendous potential.  We know this from the description in Ex. 2:2 that he was a beautiful child.  He was likely told this by his sister if not his mother.  But at age 40 as far as he was concerned he destroyed any possibility of being the savior of Israel when he killed the Egyptian and fled the country.  He did not doubt that, at the burning bush, he was in the presence of God; and yet he argued with God repeatedly that he was not the man to do the job God had in mind. 

The way I read and understand the story from the burning bush to the end of his life, Moses is being reshaped by God and made into the amazing Shepherd of Israel that he was.  Even on Mount Sinai in Ex. 33-34 Moses is learning to be the man of God.  And I find it so amazing: the same events that shaped Moses into the most humble man who ever lived (Num. 12:3) were the events that hardened the heart of Pharaoh. 

·        Jephthah (Judges 11-12).  Moses you have heard of; perhaps you never heard of this judge in Israel.  However some may identify with his situation.  In a nutshell, Jephthah was the son of a great man named Gilead and a prostitute.  All his brothers, who were born of the great man and his wife, cut Jephthah off when dad died: you shall have no inheritance in our father’s house, for you are the son of another woman (11:3).  So Jephthah fled the scene and took up the life of Robin Hood, well, sort of.  He brought together a bunch of worthless men who went out on raiding parties.

Then something interesting happened: the Ammonites decided to make war against the area called Gilead where his brothers lived.  So, since Jephthah had distinguished himself in harassing (raiding) people like the Ammonites the brothers asked Jephthah to come back and help them out, which he did, but only on the promise of becoming the head guy in their area.  Read the story; it’s quite fascinating.  How so?  Well Jephthah wasn’t the only “victim” who didn’t act like a “victim.”  He dealt with the Ammonites who had a chip on their shoulders from many years earlier.  Then Jephthah did something not-smart that resulted in his daughter having one of those sad, traumatic, life-changing experiences which she actually handled quite well.  Then Jephthah got belittled by the tribe next door, the Ephraimites, so he had to deal with them.  They were going to burn down his house just because of what we would call a “racist” view they took of Jephthah.

You can read on in the next few chapters of Judges of Samson.  Like Moses, he had a promising childhood.  But he didn’t walk with God like Moses did so it didn’t go quite as well with him.  But that’s enough.  Everybody has these things in their background and need to come to the place of declaring, “God is righteous!”

And can we just close with this reminder.  God delights in using the weak to do strong things (1 Cor. 1:26-28; 2 Cor. 12:9-10).  Actually, God will only use those who will bring Him glory, who will allow Him to do the work and simply use them in ways that points to our powerful and gracious and glorious God.  And an even better way to say it: God will always be glorified; He will not share it with others.