The term “civil war” is one of the greatest paradoxes in the English language. It is one of the most chilling tragedies in ancient or modern society! It is one of the most hideous displays of human depravity! Brother against brother! Family fighting family! Countrymen killing countrymen! Civil war is not just a period in the 1860’s that we read about in our American history textbooks—it is tearing our world apart today—Somalia, Nigeria, Uganda, Sudan, Libya, Ukraine, Syria, ISIS in Iraq. And if you think that modern America is immune to civil war, you haven’t followed the news from Ferguson, Missouri or seen the TMZ video of Baltimore Raven’s running back Ray Rice put a fist in his fiancés face, knocking her unconscious on an elevator floor.      

            Civil war is always the consequence of human sinfulness! The Bible shows us that—

for what we’ve got here in Judges 12:1-7 is failure to communicate! What we’ve got here in this text is a bloody civil war!

 

Jephthah’s Bad Deal: A Recap

            There is no doubt that Jephthah was dealt a bad hand in his early life. As we learned last Sunday, he was the bastard son of a prostitute mother and his half-brother’s made sure to cut him out of the family inheritance by driving him away from his hometown of Gilead. Like many young men who experience rejection from their family, Jephthah found acceptance in the company of a gang. He and his of band of thugs dwelt in the land of Tob, where he gained a reputation of being a mighty warrior.

            When Israel faced oppression from the Ammonites, the elders of Gilead went looking for him to help them. (How many of you know people like this? One minute, they don’t want anything to do with you, but when they need something, they come a’calling.) They begged him to fight for them, and in exchange, they would make him their ruler.

            Well, Jephthah made a good deal with Gilead, but he made a bad deal with God. Remember, his vow? In exchange for victory, he promised God that he would sacrifice the first thing that came out of his house as a burnt offering upon his return. He may have had a lot of brawn, but he definitely didn’t have any brains! Disastrously, his only child, his precious young daughter came dancing out of the house to greet him. Little did she know that her tambourines of triumph would soon turn into a tune of tragedy! Two months later, Jephthah fulfilled his vow and sacrificed his virgin daughter on the altar.

Jephthah’s Conflict with Ephraim (1-7)

            Jephthah never got to celebrate his victory over the Ammonites. Before the smell of his daughter’s burnt flesh cleared the air and before the tears of regret fell from his face, another problem rose on the horizon. The men of Ephraim showed up at his doorstep wondering why they weren’t invited to the battle against the Ammonites. Just as they had done with Gideon before, instead of being grateful for Jephthah’s deliverance, they complained against him and threatened to burn his house down. Isn’t that ironic? They threatened to burn the house of a man who just burned his household. What we’ve got here is failure to communicate!

            Immediately, Jephthah defends himself by asserting that the people of Gilead had a great dispute with the Ammonites, and then he fabricates a story that he called for Ephraim but they did not come. There is no evidence that he actually called for Ephraim’s help, but he shifts the blame back to them by proclaiming “When I saw that you wouldn’t help, I took my life in my hands and crossed over to fight the Ammonites, and the LORD gave me the victory over them. Now why have you come up today to fight me?” (3)

            With weapons in their hands and smug looks on their faces, the Ephraimites verbally assaulted Jephthah and the men of Gilead by calling them “fugitives (or renegades) from Ephraim and Manassah.” This was a type of racial slur meant to degrade Gilead as a subpar subset of the two tribes. The fact that they used the term “fugitive” was surely intended to touch a sore spot with Jephthah, alluding to his painful experience as an outcast from his Gileadite countrymen. (Block 383) What we’ve got here is failure to communicate again! With Jephthah’s ego severely wounded by Ephraim’s words, every ounce of machismo in this mighty warrior was ready to explode, and he rallied his troops and declared civil war.

            Jephthah sent a battalion of soldiers to capture the fords of the Jordan to prevent any Ephraimites from escaping. Whenever an Ephraimite fugitive approached the Gileadites guarding the fords, the latter would inquire whether or not he was an Ephraimite, Understandably, to save their own lives the Ephraimites would deny their tribal identity.

The Gileadites, however, devised some clever counterintelligence to expose them: Suspicious persons were commanded to say the word “shibboleth,” knowing full well that the Ephraimite pronunciation of the word sounded like “shibboleth.” By this method, they captured and killed every Ephraimite who tried to cross the river. (Block 384)

            Indeed, what we’ve got here is failure to communicate. What we’ve got here brothers fighting brothers! What we’ve got here is Israelite killing Israelite! What we’ve got here is God’s people annihilating God’s people! What we’ve got here is a bloody civil war with 42,000 Ephraimite casualties, which almost brought the tribe to the brink of extinction.

            With the ground cascaded with the blood of civil war, the narrator concludes the story by telling us that Jephthah led Israel for six years, died, and was buried in his hometown of Gilead. He doesn’t rule nearly as long as the preceding judges of Israel, and notice that the narrator omits the refrain “and the land had rest for a period of years.”

            As the Israelites continued to do what was right in their own eyes, the spiritual and social fabric of their nation was tearing apart. They were becoming less and less like God’s covenant people and were resembled their Canaanite neighbors more and more.

            There are many lessons that we could take away from this story, but I just want to focus on one today. Do you see the downward progression from ego to argument, argument to insult, insult to conflict, and conflict to annihilation? Civil war and the denigration of civilization takes on many forms. It does not begin with swords or guns; it begins in here, in our hearts and souls!

            How do you respond when your ego is wounded or your pride is challenged? What do you do when you don’t get your own way? How do you react to unfair criticism or false accusations? Do you forgive or do you fight back? Are you apt to start or get caught up in an argument? Do you ever reduce yourself to lobbing verbal insults or piercing people with your tongue? And at what point would you allow an argument to turn violent?

            Are you involved in any civil wars? How is your relationship with your parents, spouse, and kids? Are you in a conflict with someone else in your family or at your workplace? Are you harboring some hostility in your heart or withholding forgiveness from someone who has hurt you? Civil war is always the result of human sinfulness!

            Well, I started this sermon with a song; allow me to conclude it with another song. Larry Norman, the father of Christian rock music, sang about the many expressions of American civil war in his ballad “The Great American Novel.” After being told not to mention politics or religion, he sang this song to President Jimmy Carter and 1,000 guests on the White House lawn on September 9, 1979:

I was born and raised an orphan in a land that once was free
In a land that poured its love out on the moon;
and I grew up in the shadows of your silos filled with grain,
but you never helped to fill my empty spoon.

And when I was ten you murdered law with courtroom politics,
And you learned to make a lie sound just like truth;
But I know you better now and I don’t fall for all your tricks,
And you’ve lost the one advantage of my youth.

You kill a black man at midnight just for talking to your daughter,
Then you make his wife your mistress and you leave her without water;
And the sheet you wear upon your face is the sheet your children sleep on,
At every meal you say a prayer; you don’t believe but still you keep on.

You are far across the ocean but the war is not your own,
And while you’re winning theirs, you’re gonna lose the one at home;
Do you really think the only way to bring about the peace
Is to sacrifice your children and kill all your enemies?

The politicians all make speeches while the news men all take note,
And they exaggerate the issues as they shove them down our throats;
Is it really up to them whether this country sinks or floats?
Well I wonder who would lead us if none of us would vote.

Well my phone is tapped and my lips are chapped from whispering through the fence,
You know every move I make, or is that just coincidence?
Well you try to make my way of life a little less like jail,
If I promise to make tapes and slides and send them through the mail.

And your money says in God we trust,
But it’s against the law to pray in school;
You say we beat the Russians to the moon,
And I say you starved your children to do it.

You say all men are equal, all men are brothers,
Then why are the rich more equal than others?
Don’t ask me for the answer, I’ve only got one:
That a man leaves his darkness when he follows the Son.