Vow and pay. Psalm 76:11.
No other way.
This vow story belongs to each of us who live and breathe and vow.
According to Henry's commentary, Jephthah’s sense of the powerful obligation of his vow must always be ours: "I have opened my mouth unto the Lord in a solemn vow, and I cannot go back,’’ (Judges 11:35) that is, "I cannot recall the vow myself, it is too late, nor can any power on earth dispense with it, or give me up my bond.’’
It's no longer in our own power. It is vowed to God. My Marriage. Your Marriage. Vowed before a Holy God.
We deceive ourselves if we think to mock God, says Henry.
What a powerful argument a marriage vow is against my sin,
we have by those vows bound ourselves out from,
"what a strong inducement to our duties we have hereby
bound ourselves up to, and what a ready answer to every temptation."
I have opened my mouth to the Lord,
and i cannot go back;
I must therefore go forward.
I have sworn, and I must, I will, perform it.
Let me not dare to play fast and loose with God."
This daughter did not.
Instead of dancing at her wedding,
her closest friends mourn in the mountains her hard fate.
Her grievances belonged to her friends.
And to her father:
"I know I am dear to you, but am well content that God should be dearer."
Such a hard passage in Judges 11.
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