The Sacrifice of Jephthah’s Daughter

Tue story of Jephthah’s daughter as recorded in the Bible has presented a great difficulty to many superficial students of the Bible, as well as to many critics of it. How can we possibly justify Jephthah’s burning of his daughter as a sacrifice to Jehovah? we are often asked. In reply we would say, in the first place, that we are nowhere told that Jephthah did burn his daughter. We are told that Jephthah vowed that “whatsoever cometh forth from the doors of my house to meet me when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, shall surely be the Lord’s and I will offer it up for a burnt offering (Judges 11:31). The word translated “burnt offering” does not necessarily involve the idea of burning. There is no record that Jephthah’s daughter was actually slain and burned. The passage that relates what actually was done with her is somewhat obscure, and many think that she was devoted by her father as an offering to God by her living a life of perpetual virginity (Judges 11: 37-39). But even supposing that she was actually slain and burned, as many candid Bible students believe that she was, though the Bible does not actually say so, even in this case, we are under no necessity for defending Jephthah’s action any more than we are for defending any other wrong action of all the imperfect instruments that God, in His wondrous grace and condescension, has seen fit to use to defend or help His people. The Bible itself nowhere defends Jephthah’s action. If Jephthah really did slay his daughter, he simply made a rash vow without any command or other warrant from God for so doing, and having made this rash vow, he went further in his wrong doing and carried that rash vow into execution. So the whole story, instead of being a warrant for human sacrifice, is intended to be a lesson upon the exceeding folly of hasty vows made in the energy of the flesh.

XIII
IMPURE BIBLE STORIES

An old and favourite objection to the Bible on the part of unbelievers is that there are in it “chapters that reek with obscenity from beginning to end.” That there are chapters in the Bible which describe scenes that cannot be wisely dealt with in a mixed audience we have no desire to deny; but these chapters are not obscene. To speak in the plainest terms of sin, even the vilest of sins, in order to expose their loathsomeness, and in order to picture man as he really is, is not obscenity. It is purity in one of its highest forms. Whether the story of sin is obscene or not depends entirely upon how it is told and for what purpose it is told. If the story is told in order to make a jest of sin, or in order to palliate or excuse sin, it is obscene. If a story is told in order to make men hate sin, and to show us the hideousness of sin, and in order to induce men to give sin as wide a berth as possible, and in order to show man his need of redemption, it is not obscene, it is morally wholesome.

Now, this is precisely the way in which sin is pictured in the Bible. It is true that adultery and similar offences against purity are mentioned by name without any attempt at mincing words. Revolting deeds of this character are plainly described and their awful results related; but everything is so told as to make one recoil from these horrid and disgusting sins. Beyond a doubt many have been kept back from the practice of these sins by the plain things the Bible has said about them. Many others who have already fallen into these sins have been led by the Bible stories to see their enormity and their frightful consequences, and have thus been led to forsake them by what the Bible says about them, I am not speculating about this, but speak from a large experience with men and women who have been tempted to these sins and have been held back by the Bible utterances regarding them. And also from a large experience with others who have already fallen and who have been lifted up and saved by the truth on these subjects contained in the Bible.

It is said, “there is much in the Bible that is not fit to read in public,” and this is brought forward as if it were an argument against the Bible. But it is an exceedingly foolish argument. There are many passages in the very best and most valuable medical works that are not fit to be read in public, they are not even fit for a father to read to his children, but he would be a fool who would cut these passages out of these medical works on that account, and he is equally a fool who objects to the Bible because there are passages in it which are invaluable in their place, but which were not intended for and are not adapted to public reading. The Bible is in part a book of moral anatomy and spiritual therapeutics, and it would be a great defect in the book, in fact, an indication that it was not from God, if it did not deal with these frightful facts about man as he is, and with the method of healing for these foul moral diseases. I, for one, thank God that these passages are in the Bible. There are things that every boy and girl needs to know at a comparatively early age about some forms of sin, and loathsome sin. Many a boy and girl has dropped into these forms of sin before they realized their character, simply because they were not warned against them. Ignorance about them is a misfortune. I know of no better way for them to become acquainted with the effects of these sins that they need to know about than for them to read what the Bible has to say about them. Of course, boys and girls ought not to read them eee, but they ought to read them,

Instead of finding fault with the Bible for these things in it, we ought to praise God for putting them there. For example, there are things in the first chapter of Romans that one cannot dwell upon in public address, and, as a rule at least, one will omit two verses in the public reading of this chapter; but these two verses have been of greatest value in dealing with the heathen, and they have saved many a man in so-called Christian lands from the loathsome sins that are there exposed and denounced. An infidel in one of his works challenges Christians to know if they “dare to pick up the Bible and read from the book of Genesis the fact of On an.” He seems to think that this is a conclusive argument against the Bible; but it is simply silly. It might not be wise to read this chapter in public, but a private reading of that very story has saved many a man from the practice of a like sin. Indeed, this whole chapter, which is a favourite point of attack with infidels, has been greatly used in exposing lust and its appalling consequences.

Again it has been said by an objector to the Bible: “Part of the holy writings consist of history and the narration of facts of a kind that cannot be mentioned in the presence of a virtuous woman without exciting horror, and should a woman be permitted to read in her chamber what she would tremble to hear at her domestic board?” This, too, is considered a logical argument against the Bible. When one looks carefully at it and considers it, it is seen to be utter folly. Most assuredly a woman should be permitted to read in her chamber what she would tremble to hear at her domestic board. Every wise woman does it. I know of books that it would be most desirable for every woman to read in her private chamber, which if they were read at the domestic board would cause her to wish to rise from the table and leave the room with cheeks burning with shame. There are many things that men and women ought to think about, and must think about, in private, that they would not for a moment discuss in public. There are books on the proper conduct of women in certain most sacred relations of life, relations of life which are as holy as any, and which can be entered into in the presence of a holy God with no question of His approval, but which do not permit of public mention. It is passing strange that intelligent men and women should use arguments so childish as this.

That the Bible is a pure book is evidenced by the fact that it is not a favourite book in dens of infamy. But on the other hand, books that try to make out that the Bible is an obscene book, and that endeavour to keep people from reading it, are favourite books in dens of infamy. The unclean classes, both men and women, were devoted admirers of the most brilliant man this country ever produced who attacked what he called the “obscenity of the Bible.’ These unclean classes do not. frequent Bible classes. They do frequent infidel lectures.

These infidel objectors to the book as an “obscene book” constantly betray their insincerity and hypocrisy. Colonel Ingersoll, in one passage, where he dwelt upon this subject, objected to the Bible for telling these vile deeds “without a touch of humour.” In other words, he did not object to telling stories of vice, if only a joke was made of the sin. Thank God, that is exactly what the Bible does not do — make a joke of sin. It makes sin hideous, so men who are obscene in their own hearts object to the Bible as being an obscene book. Some of those who make the most of the so-called “obscenity of the Book” are themselves notorious as tellers of obscene stories. One of the men who led the attack on the Bible on the ground of its obscenity was retained by the publishers of obscene literature to defend their case. Another man, who was a leader in his city in sending out attacks upon the Bible challenging Christians to read in public certain portions of Scripture that were said to be immoral, was shortly afterwards found dead by his own hand in a Boston hotel side by side with a young woman who was not his wife. A man who says, “I protest against the Bible being placed in the hands of the young because its pages reek with filth,” and who does not wish people to read these “vile portions” of Scripture lest their minds be defiled, takes care to give a catalogue of the passages that he does not wish read and asks his readers to “look them up.” Can anything exceed the hypocrisy of that?

I found in one city where I was holding meetings that a man who would interrupt a service by calling out about portions of the Scripture that he regarded as improper and immoral, had himself been arrested and convicted for publishing obscene literature. The truth is, these men hate the Bible. They hate it because it denounces sin and makes them uneasy in sin.

To sum it all up, there are in the Bible descriptions of sins that cannot wisely be read in every public assembly, but these descriptions of sin are morally most wholesome in the places where God, the Author of the Book, manifestly intends them to be read. The child who is brought up to read the Bible as a whole, from Genesis to Revelation, will come to know in the very best way possible what a child ought to know very early in life if he is to be safeguarded against the perils that surround our modern life on every hand. A child who is brought up upon a constant, thorough, continuous reading of the whole Bible is more likely than any other child to be free from the vices that are undermining the mental, moral, and physical strength of our boys and girls, and young men and young women. But the child who is brought up on infidel literature and conversation is the easiest prey there is for the seducer and procuress. The next easiest is the one who, through neglect of the Bible, is left in ignorance of the awful pitfalls of life.