I put this story of mine here as part of
a conversation about the subjugation of women by, and in, the Bible. I think the Biblical tale is shocking at so many levels.
And Jephthah swore and oath to God (Judges Chapter 11. verse 30)
Jephthah, Scion of Gideon,
Mighty Deliverer, Judge of Israel, my comrade in arms, my dearest friend, my
Brother Bastard; farewell.
Jephthah. How
well I remember those days when you brought us together. Each of us
kicked out of our homes, out of our family homes, as the children of
concubines, despised by our ‘legitimate’ brothers, tolerated until the day our
fathers died, when we took to the hills, running for our lives.
Alone and desperate we
crossed the Jabbok, roamed the barren hills, until you found us, united us, and
named us. “If are called
bastards led us be A Band of Bastards.” And so we were. Banished from the
fertile valley, scratching a living from the thin hillside soil, we were swords
for hire when that was needed. We were oft times brigand raiders
too. But we only took our swords east, to hit the idol worshippers,
the Amalekites and Midianites, ancient enemies of God and of the People of God,
of Isra-El. We only took what was needed, when it was needed. And
of course we needed women, so we took them. Never the wives; only
the concubines or daughters of concubines. We are bastard bandits,
yes, but we were honourable bastard bandits. And some of us, like you,
found love with the women we took. Some of them loved us simply for
making them wives. No concubinage for them now. We knew
what it was like to be second class. So we were with wives, and then with
children. Legitimate children. We might have been born
bastards, but our children were not.
I remember, Jephthah, when
your beloved wife died, in first child-birth. And how you turned
the fierce energy of your grief into tender love for your
girl-child. My wife wet-nursed her, yes, but you were her real
mother as well as father. You, a man of iron with hands
shaped by your plough and sword, found gentleness within you as you held her,
as you raised her. And as she grew she shone, as only a beloved child can
shine. She never missed the mother she had never known. She was
full of joy. And we loved her too. She was our
princess. How we delighted in her smile, and in her
voice as light as the wind that stirs the barley or the sound of the bubbling
brook. We named her after it.
We knew you had noble
blood in your veins, the blood of Gideon. Gideon who put the
Amalekites down, but would not be King in Israel. I may be your Judge he said, but only YAHWEH is our King. And when the call came for us
fight, not for money or for plunder, but to defend his tribe against the
invading Amalekites again, you claimed your heritage. When we win I am
your Chieftain you
declared, and they gladly assented. There were no leaders among them.
What were the rest of our
band fighting for? For our reputations? For
recognition? To be legitemised? To be Bastards no more?
For a way back home? For all of these. And surely victory would
bring us rich farms in the plain for our reward, away from the unforgiving
rocks and parched hills. No more banditry for us. So none fought
harder than we that day. And none of us fought harder than
you, our Commander, our warrior in chief. Your blade shone red.
But when the battle turned
against us you called to the Lord, and swore to him a mighty oath. “Give me victory
this day, O Lord, and I will sacrifice……I will sacrifice to you the first
living creature that greets me from my homestead on my return”.
I heard that, and in the heat
of battle a cold river swept down my spine. But the Spirit of The
Lord came upon you, mightily, and you waded back into the fray. None could
stand against you then, and we followed, trampling their bodies before they
broke and ran like cavies from a wolf.
We won.
We wiped our blades and headed home.
I was by your side,
Jephthah, when your beloved girl, our beloved princess, ran to greet
you. You shuddered to a halt. You fell to
your knees. For the first time in my life I saw you weep. For the
first time in her life she heard you shout – at her. “What have you
done! What have you brought upon me!” And you told her how you were bound by a solemn
oath to the Lord, an oath that had brought us victory, had saved our lives, and
would now cost her hers.
She did not argue. She did
not dispute. She did not rebel. “Just give me some time, my Father, to
say farewell to my friends, to lament with them. I am not yet a woman, I
will never have a lover, a husband, or children of my own, so give me three
months to mourn my virginity.”
Did she think that given
time you might change your mind, or hear your Lord release you from your
vow? I do not think she did. She accepted her fate as
unquestioningly as she had accepted your love.
Once, by some miraculous
alchemy you had turned your grief for her mother into love for your child. But
your grief for your daughter? That turned to rage. The sharp
blade of your rage needed a target. And eventually you found one.
The Ephraimites, our
cousins from across the river, were ashamed and angry that it was us, not them,
who had been called on to fight the Amalekites. After all, they
were legitimate. And so when they felt bold enough they came
and challenged us. We were armed with anger too, anger at their presumption, at
their assumed superiority.
And they soon discovered who really were
the better men when iron met iron. They too scattered and ran,
running westwards for their homes. They had to cross the Jabbok, the Blue
River, before they reached safety, but we knew the hill country better than
they and with you in the lead we cut them off at the ford.
Of course we knew who was
one of us and who was not, but still you questioned each man we grabbed when
they reached the ford, as if you did not know. “Tell me’ you asked, so calmly, ‘tell me, what do they call my daughter?”
And did they know? And if
they knew could they even pronounce her name? The name we had given her, naming
her for her voice, a voice like the sound of the bubbling brook?
Jephthah, farewell.
I have fought with you for what we needed to survive. I have fought beside you
for gold and for honour. But I cannot fight for you again, nor be
your friend.
At Jabbok the Blue River
ran red with the blood of those Ephraimites as you cut their throats.
They died for your daughter’s sake, for the darling girl you slew with
your own hand. Those proud and foolish men paid the price for that
desperate oath of yours, a promise your Lord never required of you, and one you
never sought remission from. Who did you hate most that
day? Those men, your God, or your self?
So farewell Jephthah,
Scion of Gideon, Mighty Deliverer, Judge of Israel, once my comrade in arms,
once my dearest friend, but now no more my Brother Bastard. No more. Farewell.
For at the ford of Jabbok
you did not kill those men, Jephthah, you murdered them. Just as
you had murdered your daughter, your beloved, our beloved, the girl we called
Shibboleth.
© Bob Vernon. 2015.
