Shaul and Yiftah

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1. The First War against Pelishtim (V)

   Chapters 13-14 (Part V)

   Rabbi Amnon Bazak

   Toward the conclusion of the battle with the Philistines, Shaul makes the nation take an oath that they will fast. Was Shaul right? Did Jonathan act appropriately? What can we learn from the conclusion of the war?

2. Yiftach's Vow

   Rabbi Michael Hattin

   A close read of the text and a textual link to Akeidat Yitzhak points to the conclusion that the intention of Yiftah's vow was in fact human sacrifice. In the larger context, what this episode corroborates is that Israel and its leaders, in this horrible culmination of the process throughout the era of the Judges have become indistinguishable from the Canaanite. Yiftah, a self-styled leader of Israel and a seeming servant of all that is just and holy, is at the same time a product of the terrible effects of corrosive Canaanite culture that seeks to guarantee victory upon the battlefield by vowing to immolate an innocent human being.