Top of Page In that place between wakefulness and dreams, I found myself in the room. There were no distinguishing features save for one wall covered with small index card files, which stretched from floor to ceiling and seemingly endlessly in either direction, had very different headings. I quickly shut it, shocked to realize that I recognized the names written on each one.
Adah, the Daughter of Jephthah Judges Chapter 11 While Jephthah was in Tob, the Hebrew people began to seek a strong leader of men who would save their nation from the destruction planned by the Ammonites.
By this time, the enemy forces had been marshaled together and were ready to march against the Israelites. The Elders of Gilead had let it be known that the command of their forces was open to any man who could accept. No one having come forward, the elders approached Jephthah and asked him to assume the command.
Jephthah was deeply anxious to be victorious, but he had serious misgivings about his ability to handle this Herculean task without some Divine Assistance. At this point, the Spirit of the Lord came to Jephthah, and Jephthah told the Lord that, if he were victorious over the enemy, and if he were returned home safely, he would sacrifice to the Lord whatsoever came out of his house first.
Having communed with God, Jephthah started forth to do battle against the enemy. There was an hour of great triumph for Jephthah. In his heart he was deeply thankful to God for His Help, and he was overcome with joy as he once again saw the beloved lands of his home.
Then, bounding out of the house came his beloved Adah! In this instant, the joy of victory, the happiness of his homecoming, and all of the supreme exultation of his triumph vanished.
For, as Jephthah looked at the gay, shining face of his young daughter, he remembered that according to the terms of the vow which he had made of his own free will and volition, he had committed his one and only child to death.
The problems which faced Adah may also be simply stated. Adah had been included in a vow to God which was in accordance to the law of the times. Legally, and morally, Jephthah was free to make any and all decisions for Adah until such time as she married. Adah, also, had no choice but to keep faithful to her father and to her God.
This is the willingness with which both of them fulfilled their obligations. It was not necessary for God to send His messengers to force Jephthah to keep faithful to his vow. Jephthah did not force God into loosing the fury of His wrath upon him.
He voluntarily kept faith even under the stress of great personal anguish. It was not necessary for Jephthah to drag Adah from a hiding place. It was not necessary for Jephthah to bind and tie her in order to fulfill the agreement.
When the time came, Adah came forth, willingly and unafraid, to keep faith even at the cost of life itself. The incidents of the story are among the most fascinating of the entire Bible, marked with poetic beauty and simplicity.
The climax is reached in the romance and marriage between Ruth and Boaz. But the events of some years prior must be read for one to fully appreciate this beautiful and happy climax. Ruth the heroine of the story, was a lovely maiden of Moab, while Boaz was a nobleman and wealthy citizen of Israel.
The Moabites were aliens to the Israelites, idolaters, and intermixture of the two races was forbidden by Jewish law. Mutual enmities existed between the two races. For economic reasons Naomi, her husband Elimelech, and their two sons had migrated to the land of Moab from the little Hebrew town of Bethlehem.
Some of the Moabite people were wholesomely influenced by the piety, devoutness and religious strictness of this family. Ruth became the wife of one of the sons, and quite evidently a proselyte to the Hebrew religion.
Tragedy came to this Hebrew family in a strange land. Elimelech and the two sons diedand three lonely widows were left desolate. When Naomi decided to return to Israel and to her native town of Bethlehem, Ruth refused to sever her attachment to Naomi and accompanied her.
The depth of her love for her mother-in- law and her devotion to the Hebrew religion were given expression in these immortal words: Entreat me not to leave thee, Or to return from following after thee: Where thou diest, I will die, And there will I be buried: The Lord do so to me, and more also, If ought but death part thee and me.Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
1 John In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. The Bible is full of so many great stories, from struggle to triumph and impossible to miraculous. The most memorable for me are the love stories. There are many different kinds of love stories in the Bible, including parents with their children, friendships and loving your enemies, but I really like the marriage relationships in the Bible.
Jephthah's daughter, called Adah, wore a robe of pale blue linen, woven by the servant dramatic story of the Red Sea crossing, her of the guiding cloud that moved across the desert the awe-inspiring pillar of flame that marked the way at night.
7 "Forty years they traveled, and their clothes waxed not old" said Jephthah.
It is a most beautiful Bible romance, a pastoral love story. In the days when the judges judged, there was a famine in Bethlehem, a city of Judah. Elimelech, with his wife Naomi, and their two sons, Mahlon and Chilion, journeyed to Moab, and become prosperous.
According to the genealogy of Gen –19, Adah is one of the two wives of Lamech and the mother of two sons. Those sons, along with the son and daughter of her co-wife, Zillah, are in the seventh generation of naturally born human beings. An inspiring portrait of an immigrant and the gift he gave his new home.
Persecuted as Jews, Izzy Baline and his family emigrated from Russia to New York, where he fell in love with his new country/5.