Scripture Daily

Context No. 2555 of 4322 · Judges

Context · Reflection

Judges 11:7-11: in context

7Jephthah said to the elders of Gilead, “Didn’t you hate me, and drive me out of my father’s house? Why have you come to me now when you are in distress?” 8The elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, “Therefore we have turned again to you now, that you may go with us and fight with the children of Ammon. You will be our head over all the inhabitants of Gilead.” 9Jephthah said to the elders of Gilead, “If you bring me home again to fight with the children of Ammon, and the LORD delivers them before me, will I be your head?” 10The elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, “The LORD will be witness between us. Surely we will do what you say.” 11Then Jephthah went with the elders of Gilead, and the people made him head and chief over them. Jephthah spoke all his words before the LORD in Mizpah.

Jephthah had been driven out of his own family, disowned as the son of another woman, and had made a life among outcasts. Now Ammon threatens Gilead, and the same elders who expelled him come begging: lead us. Jephthah does not pretend the past away. Did you not hate me and drive me from my father's house? he asks. Why come to me now that you are in trouble? Yet when they offer to make him their head, he agrees, and goes to fight for the people who cast him out.

The rejected one becomes the deliverer. Jephthah names the old betrayal plainly, he does not paper over the injustice, and then he goes to serve the very people who wronged him. There is grace in that, a willingness to help those who once cast him aside. It is a pattern Scripture returns to again and again, God raising up the despised and the excluded to save the ones who rejected them, and it points ahead to a greater Rejected One who came to save those who would not have him. Being cast out is not the end of a person's usefulness to God.

Could God be calling me to serve, or even to forgive and rescue, the very people who once rejected me?

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