then it shall be, that whatever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, it shall be Yahweh’s, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering.”
So Jephthah passed over to the children of Ammon to fight against them; and Yahweh delivered them into his hand. He struck them from Aroer until you come to Minnith, even twenty cities, and to Abelcheramim, with a very great slaughter. So the children of Ammon were subdued before the children of Israel.
Jephthah came to Mizpah to his house; and behold, his daughter came out to meet him with tambourines and with dances. She was his only child. Besides her he had neither son nor daughter. When he saw her, he tore his clothes, and said, “Alas, my daughter! You have brought me very low, and you are one of those who trouble me; for I have opened my mouth to Yahweh, and I can’t go back.”
She said to him, “My father, you have opened your mouth to Yahweh; do to me according to that which has proceeded out of your mouth, because Yahweh has taken vengeance for you on your enemies, even on the children of Ammon.” Then she said to her father, “Let this thing be done for me. Leave me alone two months, that I may depart and go down on the mountains, and bewail my virginity, I and my companions.”
He said, “Go.” He sent her away for two months; and she departed, she and her companions, and mourned her virginity on the mountains. At the end of two months, she returned to her father, who did with her according to his vow which he had vowed. She was a virgin. It became a custom in Israel
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv33, 34, 35, 37 Or, the plain.
Or, the plain.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv31–39 Jdg 11:31 Then it shall be, that whatsoever cometh…
Jdg 11:31 Then it shall be, that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, shall surely be the LORD’S, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering.
Ver. 31. Shall surely be the Lord’s, and I will offer it up.] Or, Or I will offer it up; for Fau is sometimes a conjunction disjunctive, as Gen 26:11 Exo 21:10; Exo 21:15; as if he should say, I will sacrifice it, if lawfully I may; or consecrate it unto God howsoever, if it be not fit for sacrifice.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 39 Minnith; a place not far from Rabbah, the chief…
Minnith; a place not far from Rabbah, the chief city of; the Ammonites.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv31–38 And he smote them from Aroer,.... A city which…
And he smote them from Aroer,.... A city which lay near the river Arnon, on the borders of Moab, Deu 3:12.
even till thou come to Minnith; which seems to have been a place famous for wheat, Eze 27:17 so David de Pomis (a) says it was a place where the best wheat grew. Jerom says (b) in his time was shown a village called Mannith, four miles from Esbus (or Heshbon), as you go to Philadelphia. Josephus (c) calls it Maniathe, and it is thought by some to be the Anitha of Ptolemy (d), which he places in Arabia Petraea even "twenty cities"; which he pursued them through and took:
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and unto the plain of the vineyards, with a very great slaughter; or, Abel Ceramim. Jerom says (e) in his time was seen a village called Abela, planted with vineyards, seven miles from Philadelphia:
thus the children of Ammon were subdued before the children of Israel; so that they were not able to oppress them any more.
(a) Tzemach David, fol. 81. 3. (b) De loc. Heb. fol. 93. E. (c) Antiqu. l. 5. c. 7. sect. 10. (d) Geograph. l. 5. c. 17. (e) De loc. Heb. fol. 88. K.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 39 Minnith - A place not far from Rabbah, the…
Minnith - A place not far from Rabbah, the chief city of the Ammonites. Subdued before Israel - It does not appear, that he offered to take possession of the country. Tho' the attempt of others to wrong us, will justify us in the defense of our own right, yet it will not authorize us to do them wrong.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv31, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 39 Verse 31. Shall surely be the Lord's, and I…
Verse 31. Shall surely be the Lord's, and I will offer it up for a burnt-offering.] The text is והיה ליהוה והעליתיהו עולה vehayah layhovah, vehaalithihu olah; the translation of which, according to the most accurate Hebrew scholars, is this: I will consecrate it to the Lord, or I will offer it for a burnt-offering; that is, "If it be a thing fit for a burnt-offering, it shall be made one; if fit for the service of God, it shall be consecrated to him." That conditions of this kind must have been implied in the vow, is evident enough; to have been made without them, it must have been the vow of a heathen, or a madman. If a dog had met him, this could not have been made a burnt-offering; and if his neighbour or friend's wife, son, or daughter, c., had been returning from a visit to his family, his vow gave him no right over them. Besides, human sacrifices were ever an abomination to the Lord and this was one of the grand reasons why God drove out the Canaanites, c., because they offered their sons and daughters to Molech in the fire, i.e., made burnt-offerings of them, as is generally supposed. That Jephthah was a deeply pious man, appears in the whole of his conduct and that he was well acquainted with the law of Moses, which prohibited all such sacrifices, and stated what was to be offered in sacrifice, is evident enough from his expostulation with the king and people of Ammon, Jdg 11:14-27. Therefore it must be granted that he never made that rash vow which several suppose he did; nor was he capable, if he had, of executing it in that most shocking manner which some Christian writers ("tell it not in Gath") have contended for. He could not commit a crime which himself had just now been an executor of God's justice to punish in others.
It has been supposed that "the text itself might have been read differently in former times; if instead of the words והעליתיהו עולה, I will offer IT a burnt-offering, we read והעליתי הוא עולה, I will offer HIM (i.e., the Lord) a burnt-offering: this will make a widely different sense, more consistent with everything that is sacred; and it is formed by the addition of only a single letter, (א aleph,) and the separation of the pronoun from the verb. Now the letter א aleph is so like the letter ע ain, which immediately follows it in the word עולה olah, that the one might easily have been lost in the other, and thus the pronoun be joined to the verb as at present, where it expresses the thing to be sacrificed instead of the person to whom the sacrifice was to be made. With this emendation the passage will read thus: Whatsoever cometh forth of the doors or my house to meet me - shall be the Lord's; and I will offer HIM a burnt-offering." For this criticism there is no absolute need, because the pronoun הו hu, in the above verse, may with as much propriety be translated him as it. The latter part of the verse is, literally, And I will offer him a burnt-offering, עולה olah, not לעולה leolah, FOR a burnt-offering, which is the common Hebrew form when for is intended to be expressed. This is strong presumption that the text should be thus understood: and this avoids the very disputable construction which is put on the ו vau, in והעליתיהו vehaalithihu, OR I will offer IT up, instead of AND I will offer HIM a burnt-offering.
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"From Jdg 11:39 it appears evident that Jephthah's daughter was not SACRIFICED to God, but consecrated to him in a state of perpetual virginity; for the text says, She knew no man, for this was a statute in Israel. ותהי חק בישראל vattehi chok beyishrael; viz., that persons thus dedicated or consecrated to God, should live in a state of unchangeable celibacy. Thus this celebrated place is, without violence to any part of the text, or to any proper rule of construction, cleared of all difficulty, and caused to speak a language consistent with itself, and with the nature of God."
Those who assert that Jephthah did sacrifice his daughter, attempt to justify the opinion from the barbarous usages of those times: but in answer to this it may be justly observed, that Jephthah was now under the influence of the Spirit of God, Jdg 11:29; and that Spirit could not permit him to imbrue his hands in the blood of his own child; and especially under the pretence of offering a pleasing sacrifice to that God who is the Father of mankind, and the Fountain of love, mercy, and compassion.
The versions give us but little assistance in clearing the difficulties of the text. In the Targum of Jonathan there is a remarkable gloss which should be mentioned, and from which it will appear that the Targumist supposed that the daughter of Jephthah was actually sacrificed: "And he fulfilled the vow which he had vowed upon her; and she knew no man: and it was made a statute in Israel, [that no man should offer his son or his daughter for a burnt-offering, as did Jephthah the Gileadite, who did not consult Phinehas the priest; for if he had consulted Phinehas the priest, he would have redeemed her with money."]
The Targumist refers here to the law, Le 27:1-5, where the Lord prescribes the price at which either males or females, who had been vowed to the Lord, might be redeemed. "When a man shall make a singular vow, the persons shall be for the Lord at thy estimation: the male from twenty years old even unto sixty, shall be fifty shekels of silver; and if it be a female, then thy estimation shall be thirty shekels; and from five years old unto twenty years, the male twenty shekels, and for the female ten." This also is an argument that the daughter of Jephthah was not sacrificed; as the father had it in his power, at a very moderate price, to have redeemed her: and surely the blood of his daughter must have been of more value in his sight than thirty shekels of silver.
Dr. Hales has entered largely into the subject: his observations may be seen at the end of this chapter.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv31, 33, 34, 36, 37, 39 Jdg 11:31. Shall surely be the Lord’s, and I…
Jdg 11:31. Shall surely be the Lord’s, and I will offer it up for a burnt- offering — Dr. Waterland translates it, shall be consecrated to the Lord, or, I will offer it, &c. “It is very evident,” says Dr. Dodd, “that this translation of Dr. Waterland must be right, because it was impossible that Jephthah should mean to offer for a burnt-offering whatever came forth of the doors of his house to meet him, since it was possible for him to have been met by several things which it would have been sacrilegious for him to have offered to the Lord; and indeed the event sufficiently proves the propriety of this interpretation, since he was met by that which no vow, however solemn, could justify him in offering up. This is Mr. Locke’s opinion, in his gloss upon the place.” See the note on Jdg 11:39-40.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv31, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37 The words of this verse prove conclusively that Jephthah…
The words of this verse prove conclusively that Jephthah intended his vow to apply to human beings, not animals: for only one of his household could be expected to come forth from the door of his house to meet him. They also preclude any other meaning than that Jephthah contemplated a human sacrifice. This need not, however, surprise us, when we recollect his Syrian birth and long residence in a Syrian city, where such fierce rites were probably common. The Syrians and Phoenicians were conspicuous among the ancient pagan nations for human sacrifices, and the transfer, under such circumstances, to Yahweh of the rites with which the false gods were honored, is just what one might expect. The circumstance of the Spirit of the Lord coming on Jephthah Jdg 11:29 is no difficulty; as it by no means follows that because the Spirit of God endued him with supernatural valor and energy for vanquishing the Ammonites, He therefore also endued him with spiritual knowledge and wisdom. The Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon, but that did not prevent his erring in the matter of the ephod Jdg 8:27. Compare 1Co 12:4-11; Gal 2:11-14.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv31, 33, 34, 35, 37, 38, 39 Whosoever, &c. Some are of opinion, that the meaning…
Whosoever, &c. Some are of opinion, that the meaning of this vow of Jephte, was to consecrate to God whatsoever should first meet him, according to the condition of the thing; so as to offer it up as a holocaust, if it were such a thing as might be so offered by the law; or to devote it otherwise to God, if it were not such as the law allowed to be offered in sacrifice. And therefore they think the daughter of Jephte was not slain by her father, but only consecrated to perpetual virginity. But the common opinion followed by the generality of the holy fathers and divines is, that she was offered as a holocaust, in consequence of her father’s vow: and that Jephte did not sin, at least not mortally, neither in making nor in keeping his vow; since he is no ways blamed for it in scripture; and was even inspired by God himself to make the vow, (as appears from ver. 29, 30.) in consequence of which he obtained the victory; and therefore he reasonably concluded that God, who is the master of life and death, was pleased, on this occasion, to dispense with his own law; and that it was the divine will he should fulfil his vow. (Challoner) --- St. Thomas [Aquinas] (2. 2. q. 88. a. 2.) acknowledges that Jephte was inspired to make a vow, and his devotion herein is praised by the apostle, Hebrews xi. 32. But he afterwards followed his own spirit, in delivering himself, without mature deliberation, and in executing what he had so ill engaged himself, to perform. This decision seems to be the most agreeable to the Scripture, and to the holy fathers. St. Jerome (in Jer. vii.) says, non sacrificium placet, sed animus offerentis. "If Jephte offered his virgin daughter, it was not the sacrifice, but the good will of the offerer which deserves applause." Almost all the ancients seem to agree that the virgin was really burnt to death; and the versions have whosoever, which intimates that Jephte intended to offer a human victim; particularly as he could not expect a beast fit for such a purpose, would come out of the doors of his house to meet him. (Calmet) --- Yet many of the moderns, considering how much such things are forbidden by God, cannot persuade themselves that Jephte should be so ignorant of the law, or that the priests and people of Israel should suffer him to transgress it. The original may be rendered as well, "whatsoever proceedeth....shall surely be the Lord’s, and (Protestants) or I will offer it up for a holocaust." (Pagnin. &c.) --- The version of Houbigant is very favourable to this opinion. See Hook’s Principia. --- It is supposed that the sacrifice of Iphigenia, which took place about this time, (Aulis. v. 26,) was only in imitation of this of Jephte’s daughter. But the poets say, that Diana saved her life, and substituted a doe in her place; (Ovid, Met. xii.) which, if true, would make the conformity more striking, if we admit that the sacrifice of Jephte’s daughter was not carried into effect. Iphigenia was made a priestess of Dians, to whom human victims were immolated. The daughter of Jephte, whom the false Philo calls Seila, was consecrated to the Lord, and shut up (Haydock) to lead a kind of monastic life; as the wives of David, (2 Kings xx. 3.; Grotius) after they had been dishonoured, were obliged to live in a state of continency. Although (Haydock) forced chastity be not a virtue, (Calmet) yet Jephte had no reason to believe that his daughter would not enter into the spirit of his vow, and embrace that state for God’s honour and service. We know that she gave her entire consent to whatever might be the nature of his vow; and surely she would be as ready to refrain from marriage, however desirable at that time, as to be burnt alive, which would effectually prevent her from becoming a mother, ver. 37. To require this of her, was not, at least, more cruel in her father than to offer her in sacrifice. Then Chaldean paraphrast says, "Jephte did not consult Phinees, the priest, or he might have redeemed her;" and Kimchi gives us a very mean idea, both of Jephte and of the high priest, the great Phinees, whom the Rabbins foolishly suppose was still living, and of course above 300 years old, ver. 26. --- "Phinees said, He wants me, let him come to me. But Jephte, the head of the princes of Israel, shall I go to him? During this contest the girl perished." To such straits are those reduced who wish to account for the neglect of Jephte in redeeming his daughter, as the Targum observes, was lawful for a sum of money, Leviticus xxvii. 2, 3, 28. --- But (Haydock) his vow was of the nature of the cherom, which allowed of no redemption, and required death. (Calmet) --- On this point, however, interpreters are not agreed, and this manner of devoting to death, probably, regarded only the enemies of God, or such things as were under a person’s absolute dominion. (Haydock) --- If a dog had first come out to meet Jephte, could he have offered it up for a holocaust? Certainly not, (Grotius) because it was prohibited, (Deuteronomy xxiii. 18,) to offer even its price, (Haydock) and only oxen, sheep, goats, turtles and doves, were the proper victims. If, therefore, a person made a vow, of a man, he was to be consecrated to the Lord, (Grotius) like Samuel, and he might marry. But a woman could not, as she was already declared the servant of the Lord, and was not at liberty to follow her husband. (Amama) --- We need not herein labour to defend the conduct of Jephte. The Scripture does not canonize him on this account. If he did wrong, his repentance, and other heroic acts of virtue, might justly entitle him to be ranked among the saints of the old law. (St. Augustine, q. 49) --- "Shew me the man who has not fallen into sin....Jephte returned victorious from the enemy, but in the midst of his triumph, he was overcome by his own vow, so that he thought it proper to requite the piety of his daughter, who came out to meet him, by parricide. In the first place, what need was there of making a vow so hastily, to promise things uncertain, the event of which he knew not, instead of what was certain? Then why did he perform so sorrowful a vow to the Lord God, by shedding blood?" (St. Ambrose, Apol. Dav. i. 4.) --- This saint adopts the common opinion that Jephte really immolated his daughter. But he is far from thinking that he was influenced by the holy spirit to make the vow, otherwise he would never represent it in such odious colours. If God had required the life of Jephte’s daughter, as he did formerly command Abraham to sacrifice his son, the obedience and faith of the former would have been equally applauded, as the good will of the latter. But most of those who embrace the opinion that Jephte sacrificed his daughter, are forced to excuse or to condemn the action. They suppose that he was permitted to fulfil his vow, that others might be deterred from making similar promises, without the divine authority. (St. Chrysostom, hom. xiv. ad pop. Ant.; St. Jerome, contra Jov. i.) "I shall never, says St. Ambrose (Off. iii. 12,) be induced to believe that Jephte, the prince, did not promise incautiously that he would immolate whatever should meet him "at the door of his own house;" whence he seems to take whosoever in the same latitude as we have given in the Hebrew. He concludes, "I cannot accuse the man who was obliged to fulfil his vow," &c. We may imitate his moderation, (Haydock) rather than adopt the bold language of one who has written notes on the Protestant Bible, (1603) who says, without scruple, that by this rash vow and wicked performance, his victory was defaced; and again, that he was overcome with blind zeal, not considering whether the vow was lawful or not. (Worthington). --- If Jephte was under the immediate influence of the Holy Ghost in what he did, as Salien believes, and the context by no means disproves, we ought to admire the faith of this victorious judge, though he gave way to the feelings of human nature, ver. 35. We should praise his fidelity either in sacrificing or in consecrating his daughter to God’s service in perpetual virginity: but if he followed his own spirit, we cannot think that he was so ill-informed or so barbarous as to murder his daughter, nor that she would consent to an impiety which so often disgraced the pagan superstition, though she might very well agree to embrace that better part, which her father and God himself, by a glorious victory, seems to have marked out for her. Amid the variety of opinions which have divided the learned on this subject, infidels can derive no advantage or solid proof against the divine authority of the Scripture, and of our holy religion. The fact is simply recorded. People are at liberty to form what judgment of it they think most rational. If they decide that Jepthe was guilty of an oversight, or of a downright impiety, it will in the first place be difficult for them to prove it to the general satisfaction; and when they have done so, they will only evince that he was once a sinner, and under this idea the word of God gives him no praise. But if he did wrong in promising, as many of the Fathers believe, he might be justified in fulfilling his vow, as God might intimate to him both interiorly, and by granting him the victory, that he dispensed with his own law, and required this sort of victim in order to foreshew the bloody sacrifice of Jesus Christ for our sins, (Serarius and Salien, in the year of the world 2850) or the state of virginity which his blessed Mother and so many nuns and others in the Christian Church embrace with fervour. --- Peace, with victory. --- Same. Hebrew, "it shall be the Lord’s, and (or) I will make it ascend a whole burnt offering." (Haydock) --- The particle ve often signifies or as well as and, and it is explained in this sense here by the two Kimchis, by Junius, &c. See Exodus xxi. 17. Piscator says, the first part of the sentence determines that whatever the thing was it should be consecrated to the Lord, with the privilege of being redeemed, (Leviticus xxvii. 11,) and the second shews that it should be immolated, if it were a suitable victim. (Amama)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v34 Jephthah, returning victoriously, is met by his daughter. The…
Jephthah, returning victoriously, is met by his daughter. The fulfillment of his vow
Jdg_11:34-40.
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34And Jephthah came to Mizpeh [Mizpah] unto his house, and behold, his daughter came [comes] out to meet him with timbrels and with dances: and she was his only child; beside her28 he had neither son nor daughter. 35And it came to pass, when he saw her, that he rent his clothes, and said, Alas, my daughter! thou hast brought [thou bringest] me very low, and thou art one of them [the only one]29 that trouble [afflicteth] me: for I have opened my mouth unto the Lord [Jehovah], and I cannot go back. 36And she said unto him, My father, if [omit: if] thou hast [hast thou] opened thy mouth unto the Lord [Jehovah], [then] do to me according to that which hath proceeded out of thy mouth; forasmuch as the Lord [Jehovah] hath taken30 vengeance for thee of thine enemies, even of the children [sons] of Amnion. 37And she said unto her father, Let this thing be done for [to] me:31 Let me alone two months, that I may go up and down [may go and descend]32 upon the mountains, and bewail [weep over] my virginity, I and my fellows [companions]. 38And he said, Go. And he sent her away [dismissed her] for two months: and she went with her companions, and bewailed [wept over] her virginity upon the mountains. 39And it came to pass at the end of two months, that she returned unto her father, who did with her according to his vow which he had 40vowed: and she knew no man. And it was [became] a custom in Israel, That the daughters of Israel went yearly to lament [praise] the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite four days in a [the] year.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
[1 Jdg_11:34.—מִמֶּנּוּ, for מּמֶּנָּה, because the neutral conception “child” floats before the writer’s mind, cf. Bertheau. The explanation of מִמֶּנּוּ by ex se, implying that Jephthah, though he had no other child of his own, had step-children, would, as Bertheau says, be “unworthy of mention,” were it not suggested in the margin of the E. V.—Tr.]
[2 Jdg_11:35.—הָיִית בְּעֹכְרָי might be rendered: “thou art among those who afflict me.” But the ב is probably the so-called ב essentiœ (Keil), and simply ascribes the characteristic of a class to the daughter (cf. Ges. Gram. 154, 3, a). Dr. Cassel’s “only” is not expressed in the original, but is readily suggested by the contrast, of the sad scene with all the other relations of the moment.—Tr.]
[3 Jdg_11:36.—עָשָׂה, lit. “done,” with evident reference to the same word used just before: “do, since Jehovah hath done,” cf. the Commentary.—Tr.]
[4 Jdg_11:37—Dr. Cassel makes this clause refer to the fulfillment of the vow, and renders: “Let this thing be done unto me, only let me alone two months,” etc. But it clearly introduces the request for a brief period of delay, and is rightly rendered by the E. V., with which Bertheau, Keil, De Wette agree, cf. the Commentary.—Tr.]
[5 Jdg_11:37.—וְיָרַדְתִּי, “descend,” i. e. from the elevated situation of Mizpah (cf. on Jdg_11:29; Jdg_11:33), to the neighboring lower hills and valleys (Keil). יָרָד does not mean to “wander up and down,” a rendering suggested only by the apparent incongruity of “descending” upon the “mountains.”—Tr.]
EXEGETICAL AND DOCTRINAL
Jdg_11:34-36. And behold, his daughter comes out to meet him. A great victory had been gained. The national enemy was thoroughly subdued. All Gilead was in a joyful uproar. The return of the victorious hero is a triumphal progress; but when he approaches his home, his vow receives a most painful and unexpected definition. “It shall be God’s, and not belong to the victor”—so runs the vow—“whatsoever comes out of my house to meet me.” And here is his daughter coming towards him, with tambourines and choral dances, to celebrate her father’s victory! He sees her, and is struck with horror. It is his only child; and his vow tears her from his arms, and makes him childless. Broad as his vow was, he never thought that he could, even if he would, include her in it. This again appears from the circumstance, already adverted to, that the victory and the vow are against Ammon. The heathen promised or sacrificed their first-born sons. According to the Mosaic law, also, the first-born males (זְכָרִים) belong to God. The same law permitted only male33 victims to be presented as whole burnt-offerings (Lev_1:3). Jephthah’s design was to testify that he gave himself up to his God as entirely as the Ammonites imagined themselves to do to their idols. He would have consecrated his first-born son to God—Abraham’s child, also, was a boy,—but he had none. Hence, he expresses his self-renunciation in the form of a vow, in which he leaves it to God to select whatever should be most precious in his eyes. But of his daughter he did not think. It never even occurred to him that she might come forth to meet him; for that was usually done only by women34 (נָשִׁים, Exo_15:20; 1Sa_18:6), not by maidens, who remained within the house; and Jephthah’s daughter was yet a בְּתוּלָה, virgin. But this daughter was worthy of her father. The victory was so great, that she breaks through the restraints of custom, and, like Miriam (the same terms are used here as on the occasion of Moses’ song of victory, Exo_15:20), goes forth to meet the conqueror. As soon as Jephthah sees her, he recognizes the will of God. His vow is accepted; but comprehensive as he consciously made it, it is God who now first interprets it for him in all its fullness. The hero had made the vow in this indefinite form, because he had no only and dearly loved son like Isaac. True, he had a daughter; but he deemed himself debarred from consecrating her, and therefore makes his vow. God now teaches him that he looks not at the sex of the consecrated, but at the heart of the consecrator. However comprehensive Jephthah’s vow, without his daughter it would at most have cost him money or property, but his heart would have offered no sacrifice. God teaches him that He delights not in he-goats and oxen;35 that that which pleases Him is a broken heart. His heart breaks within him, when he sees his daughter. She is his darling, his sole ornament, the light of his house, the jewel of his heart; and from her he must separate. He comes home the greatest in Israel; he now feels himself the poorest. But he perceives that this is the real fulfillment of his vow; that God cares not for money or property. The highest offering, which God values, is a chastened heart. Obedience is better than sacrifice. The life is not in the letter: every contract with God must be kept in the spirit. Jephthah’s faith revealed itself before the battle. That God was with him, was proved by his victory. But his entire self-surrender to God approves itself still more beautifully after the battle. For he conquers himself. He bowed himself reverently before God, before the decision was given; but his deepest piety manifests itself afterwards. He gives his own people, he gives Ammon and Moab, an instance of the power of an Israelite to perform the vows he has made. He suffers his vow to bind him, but does not attempt to bind it. He interprets it, not according to the letter, but the spirit Lev_27:4-5 prescribes the way in which a woman, concerning whom a vow has been made, is to be redeemed. But his only little daughter, who comes to meet him, he cannot protect. Since God leads her forth towards him, He cannot intend an offering of ten shekels (Lev_27:5). His pious soul does not take, refuge behind external formulæ; as we read in connection with heathen vows and bad promises.36 He recognizes the fact that, since his only, dearly loved child comes to meet him, God demands of him all the love which he cherishes for her, and all the pain which it will cost him to part with her. And in this conviction, he hesitates not for an instant. He believes like Abraham; and, like him, albeit with a bleeding heart, makes full surrender of what God requires.
The scene of Jephthah’s meeting with his daughter has no equal in pathetic power. Her we see advancing with a radiant face, giving voice to her jubilant heart, surrounded by dancing companions, and longing to hear her father’s happy greeting; while he, in the midst of sounding timbrels and triumphant shouts—hides his face for agony! What might have been a moment of loudest jubilation, is become one of the deepest sorrow. That on which his imagination had fondly dwelt as the crowning point of his joy—the honor with which he could encircle the head of his only child, his virgin-daughter, now the first in all the nation—was instantly transformed into the heaviest woe. “O my daughter, deeply hast thou caused me to bow, and thou alone distressest me.” He borrows the words perhaps from the panegyrical song in which she celebrates him as “having caused the enemy to kneel,37 and to be distressed;” and in the extremity of his grief applies them to his child, thus suddenly astonished and struck dumb in the midst of her joy. “But,” continues the hero, though his heart weeps, “I have opened my mouth unto Jehovah, and I cannot go back.” I promised God in the spirit of sincerity, and must perform it in the same spirit. And there is not in all antiquity, no, nor yet in Holy Scripture, an instance of a maiden uttering a more beautiful, more profoundly pathetic word, than that which Jephthah’s daughter, a hero’s daughter, a true child of Israel, speaks to her father, even while as yet she knows not the purport of the vow: “Hast thou opened thy mouth to Jehovah, then do according to that which proceeded out of thy mouth; for Jehovah also hath done according to thy word, and hath taken vengeance on thy enemies.” She neither deprecates nor laments, gives no start, exhibits no despair—does nothing to make her father waver; but, on the contrary, encourages him, refers him to what God has done, and bids him do as he has promised, not to think, as he might perhaps be tempted to do, of change or modification in her favor. Such is the delicacy and tenderness of the narrative, that the modes of thought and feeling characteristic of this heroic daughter, as such, stand out in full relief; for it is in true womanly style that she says to her father: “Since Jehovah hath taken vengeance of thine enemies.” The utterance is altogether personal, as her womanly interest was personal. She concentrates the national victory in that of her father; the national enemy in the enemies of her father. God has given him vengeance (נְקָמוֹת); consequently he is bound, personally, to give to God what he has promised.
Jdg_11:37-40. And she said to her father, Let this thing be done to me. The noble maiden may boldly take her place by the side of Isaac, who, according to the narrative in Genesis, was not aware of the sacrifice to which he was destined. She gives herself up to her father, freely and joyfully, to be dealt with as his vow demanded. Heathen antiquity, also, has similar instances of virgins voluntarily offering themselves up for their native land. But comparison will point out the difference between them and the case of Jephthah’s daughter, and will help to show that here there can be no thought of a literal sacrifice of life. Pausanias (i. 32) relates the legend, dramatically treated by Euripides, that when the Athenians, who harbored the descendants of Hercules, were at war with the Peloponnesians, an oracle declared the voluntary death of one of those descendants to be necessary in order to secure victory to the Athenians; whereupon Macaria killed herself.—When the Thebans were waging war with the Orchomenians, the oracle advised them, that, if they were to conquer, their most distinguished fellow-citizen must sacrifice himself (Paus. ix. 17). Antipœnus, who is this most distinguished citizen, despises the oracle; his daughters, on the contrary, honor it, and devote themselves to death.—In the war of Erechtheus with Eumolpus, the oracle required of the former the sacrifice of his daughters. They voluntarily killed themselves (Apoll. iii. 15, 11; cf. Heyne on the passage). The same thing is told of Marius by Plutarch. Defeated by the Cimbrians, a divine oracle informed him that he would conquer, if he offered up his daughter, which he did. In all these legends, which might be greatly multiplied, an oracle commands the virgin-sacrifice; in all of them, a vigorous, superstitious belief in the atoning efficacy of pure, blood, such as appears in the German legend of Poor Heinrich, is the underlying motive; in all of them, also, the virgin-sacrifice forms the preliminary condition of victory. But in the history of Jephthah all this is changed. Jephthah makes a vow, but does not think of his daughter. In his case, the vow is a recognition of the fact that victory belongs, not to men, but to God. He makes a vow, although God has not required one. He keeps it, even after victory, although the extent of the sacrifice had not been anticipated. Neither he nor his daughter think of evasions, such, e. g., as Pausanias (iv. 9) speaks of in connection with similar histories in Messenia. And yet, the offering which each of them brings is as trying as death would be, although it cannot actually involve death. For that point is decided, not only by the different statements of the history itself, but especially by the fact that the offering is made to Jehovah, who, even when, as in the case of Abraham, he himself requires a sacrifice, will not suffer obedience to consummate itself in deeds of blood.
Let me alone two months, that I may go and descend upon the mountains, and weep over my virginity, I and my companions. No equivocal intimation is here given of the fate which befell the daughter of Jephthah. She was still in her father’s house, an only daughter, not yet married. Since the vow touches her, and devotes her entirely as an offering to God, she must belong to no one else, consequently not to her father, nor to a husband. She cannot be married, and will never rejoice over children. That is Jephthah’s sorrow—his house is withered away (עֲרִירִי), his family disappears. The highest happiness in Israel, to have children, and thus to see one’s name or house continued, will not be his. The dearest of all beings, his only child, is dead to him. The same sorrow, and in accordance with ancient feelings with even greater severity, if that were possible, falls on the virgin daughter herself. An unmarried life was equivalent to death for the maidens of ancient Israel. For the bud withers away. Conjugal love and duty, the blossoms of life, do not appear. Unmarried maidens have no place in the life of the state. Marriage forms the crown of normal family life. The psalm (Psa_78:63) notes it as part of the utmost popular misery, that “the, fire (of war) consumes the young men, and the maidens are not celebrated” (in marriage songs). Analogous sentiments are frequent in the life of ancient nations. The Brahminism of India looks upon a childless condition as in the highest degree disgraceful. A woman is always in need of manly guidance and protection; be it as daughter from her father, as wife from her husband, or as mother from her sons (cf. Bohlen, Altes Indien, ii. 141 ff.). The laws of Lycurgus concerning marriage, and their penalties against men who did not marry, are familiar. Noteworthy, with reference to the customs of Asia Minor, is an episode in the history of Polycrates, the tyrant of Samos. Being urgently warned by his daughter against leaving his island to go to Oroetus, who was on the continent, he became angry, and threatened her, that in case of his safe return home, she should long afterwards continue to be a virgin; to which the dutiful daughter replied, that she would gladly remain virgin much longer still, if only she did not lose her father (Herod. iii. 124).
And weep over my virginity. Not, then, it appears, to mourn her own untimely death. If she was to die, it would have been unnatural to ask for a space of two months to be spent on the mountains in weeping. In that case, why depart with her maiden companions? why not remain at home with her father? A person expecting death and ready for it, would ask no time for lamentation. Such a one dies, and is lamented by others. But Jephthah’s daughter is to live—a virgin life, to which no honor is paid, from which no blossoms spring—a life of stillness and seclusion. No nuptial song shall praise, no husband honor, no child grace her. This weeping of virgins,38 because they remain without the praise of wedlock, is characteristic of the naïve manners and candid, unaffected purity of ancient life through wide-extended circles. Sophocles, in “King Œdipus” (11:1504), makes the father express his fears that “age will consume his children, fruitless and unmarried.” Electra, in the tragedy which bears her name, says of Chrysothemis (11:962 f.): “Well mayest thou lament that thou must grow old so long in unmarried joylessness;” just as she is herself commiserated by Orestes (11:1185): “Oh, the years of unmarried, anxious life which thou hast lived.” In many other instances of virgins who must die or have died, the fact of their dying unmarried is lamented. So, for example, in the beautiful inscription of the Anthology (cf. Herder, Werke, xx. 73): “Dear daughter, thou wentest so early, and ere I adorned thy bridal couch, down to the yellow stream under the shades,” and in the plaint of Polyxena (Euripides, Hecuba, 11:414): “Unmarried, without nuptial song, which nevertheless is my due.” The daughter of Jephthah laments not that she must die as a virgin, but with her maiden companions bewails her virginity itself.
From year to year the daughters of Israel go to celebrate in songs (לְהַנּוֹת, cf. Jdg_5:11) the daughter of Jephthah. Of this festival39 nothing further is known. A reflection of the feelings it expressed might, however, be found in very ancient analogies. After the maiden, with her companions, has wept on the mountains for two months, over the vain promise of her youth, she returns to her father. The mountains are the abode of a pure and elevated solitude, in which her own chaste heart and those of her companions can open themselves without being overheard. On mountains, also, and in unfrequented pasture-lands and forests, abode the Greek Artemis, the virgin who goes about alone, without companions, like the moon in the sky. It was on account of this her virginity, that Greek maidens celebrated her in many places with song and dance; from which practice she derived the name Artemis Hymnia, especially current in the mountains of Arcadia. The hymns were sung by virgin-choirs (cf. Welcker, Griech. Mythol. i. 585). A similar festival was devoted to Artemis on Mount Taygetus. At Caryæ, also in Laconia, festive choral dances were yearly executed in her honor (Paus. iii. 10). The virgin goddess was also called Hecaerge (‛Εκαέργη), and Opis or Oupis (Ὦπις or οὖπις). Οὔπιγγος is the song of praise, with which, especially in Delos, and in accordance with peculiar myths, virgins celebrated the chaste Oupis, and brought her, as soon as they married, a lock of their hair (Callim. in Del. 11:292; Paus. i. 43). The same custom was observed at Megara with reference to Iphinoe, who died a virgin (Paus. i. 43). Here also tradition leads us back to Artemis, who is styled protectress of her father. That it is the attributes of chastity and virginity which are thus celebrated, is indicated by the transfer of the custom in honor of a man, in the legend of Hippolytus. “Him,” Euripide makes Artemis say, “shall virgins ever praise in lyric songs;” and locks of hair were dedicated to him by Trœzenian brides (cf. Euripides, Hippol. 11:1425; Paus. ii. 32).
These observances are a reflection of the narrative concerning Jephthah’s daughter, for the reason that they present us with virgin festivals, and with songs to the goddess who did not die, but remained a virgin. In point of fact, the existence of such festivals points to conceptions of life under whose influence woman, contrary to the common rule, lived in a state of virginity. The circumstance, also, that it became a custom in Israel to “praise” the daughter of Jephthah four days in every year, is itself a proof that the practice did not refer to a maiden who had been put to death. For what would there have been to praise in what was not necessarily dependent on her own free will? As in Artemis, so in her, it is voluntary, self-guarded chastity that is praised, just as Hippolytus also is not celebrated because he died unmarried, but because his life fell a sacrifice to his virtuous continence.
And he did with her according to his vow, and she knew no man. Had she been put to death, that fact must here have been indicated in some way. The narrator would have said, “and he presented her as a sacrifice at the altar in Mizpah,” or, “and she died, having known no man,” or some other similar formula. At all events, it does not “stand there in the text,” as Luther wrote, that she was offered in sacrifice. Much rather does this sentence show the contrary. For its second clause is explanatory of the nature and purport of the vow as it was fulfilled. The end to which it looked was the very thing which it is stated was actually secured, that she should know no man.40 On any other interpretation, the addition of this clause would be inexplicable and questionable. For the fact that she was a virgin in her father’s house, has already been twice brought forward. Moreover, it is surely not an event of very rare occurrence, for young women to die before they are married. And why should the narrator have hesitated to speak of the transaction in such terms as properly and plainly described it? In other cases he does not fail to speak of the most fearful aberrations just as they are. The truth is, the whole narrative derives its mighty charm only from the mysterious, and at that time in Israel very extraordinary fact, that the daughter of the great hero, for whom a life of brilliant happiness opened itself, spent her days in solitude and virginity.41 Death, even unnatural, was nothing uncommon. But a life such as Jephthah’s daughter henceforth lived, was at that time unparalleled in Israel, and affords therefore profound instruction, not to be overlooked because issuing from the silence of retirement.
Jephthah performs his vow. That which comes to meet him, even when it proves to be his daughter, he consecrates entirely to God, as a true offering of righteousness (cf. Psa_51:19 : עוֹלָה וְכָליל זִכְחֵי־צֶדֶק). He fulfills his vow so fully as to put it beyond his own reach to annul or commute us purport. For he fulfills, as he vowed, voluntarily; no one called on him to make his promise good. The background of the history, without which it cannot be understood, is life in and with God. The providence to which the hero commits the definition of his vow, is that of Jehovah. And if God leads his daughter forth to meet him, and thus in her receives the highest object in the gift of Jephthah, the consecration of which she becomes the subject cannot be of a nature opposed to God.
The event throws a brightness over the life of perpetual virginity which rescues it from ignominy and dishonor. Jephthah’s daughter typically exemplifies the truth that a virgin life, if it be consecrated to God, is not such an utter abnormity, as until then it had appeared. In Jephthah’s fulfillment of his vow and the consequent unmarried life of his daughter, there is a foreshadowing of those evangelical thoughts by means of which the Apostle liberates woman from the dread of remaining unwedded. Not, however, that we are to look here for the germ or type of the nunnery system;42 but for an example of belonging wholly to God, and of living unmarried, without being burdened or placed in a false position.
That Jephthah through his vow became the occasion of such an example, is already some mitigation of his fate. He has become the father, not of children who inherited his house, but of countless virgins who learned from his daughter to remain free and wholly devoted to God. Jephthah is a truly tragic hero. His youth endures persecution. His strength grows in exile. His victory and fame veil themselves in desolation when his only daughter leaves his home. But everywhere he is great. Whatever befalls, he comes out conqueror at last. God is always the object of his faith. He suffers more than Gideon; but what he does at last does not become a snare to Israel. He also had no successors in his office of wisdom and heroism—just as Gideon, and Samson, and Samuel had none; but it was not his fault that he had them not. His daughter, who resembled a Miriam, gave herself up to God.43
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Jephthah’s call was extraordinary: extraordinary also is the manner of his own endurance and his daughter’s obedience. He parts with her, though deeply afflicted. He yields, though possessed of secular power. His daughter comforts him, though herself the greatest loser. Isaac did not know that he was to be the sacrifice; but Jephthah’s daughter knows it, and is content.
1. Thus it appears that a child who loves its father, can also love God. In true devotion of children to parents, there lies a germ of the like relation to God. The daughter of Jephthah loves her father so dearly, that for his sake she calmly submits to that which he has vowed to God. It is written: Honor thy father and mother, that thy days may be long in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. To Jephthah’s daughter this was fulfilled in the spirit. Her memory has never faded from the books of Israel, nor from the heaven of God, where all sorrows are redeemed.
2. Jephthah might have conquered without a vow; but having vowed before his victory, he fulfills it after the same. Faithfulness to his word is man’s greatest wisdom, even though he moisten it with tears. Faithfulness towards a sin is inconceivable; because unfaithfulness lies in the nature of sin. Faithfulness has the promise: be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee the crown of life.
3. Jephthah’s daughter does not die like one sacrificed to Molech: she dies to the world. She loses a thousand joys that are sweet as love. But no one ever dies to the world and lives to God, without experiencing sorrow. A virgin life is a nameless life, as Jephthah’s daughter is nameless in Scripture. But the happiness of this world is not indispensable; and like the solitary flower, the unmarried woman can belong to her God, in whose heaven they neither give nor are given in marriage.
Gerlach: That the Judges whom God raised up, when they thus offered to the Lord even that which they held most dear, did not deliver the estranged and deeply fallen people in a merely outward sense, is shown by this act of believing surrender.
Footnotes:
[28][Jdg_11:34.—מִמֶּנּוּ, for מּמֶּנָּה, because the neutral conception “child” floats before the writer’s mind, cf. Bertheau. The explanation of מִמֶּנּוּ by ex se, implying that Jephthah, though he had no other child of his own, had step-children, would, as Bertheau says, be “unworthy of mention,” were it not suggested in the margin of the E. V.—Tr.]
[29][Jdg_11:35.—הָיִית בְּעֹכְרָי might be rendered: “thou art among those who afflict me.” But the ב is probably the so-called ב essentiœ (Keil), and simply ascribes the characteristic of a class to the daughter (cf. Ges. Gram. 154, 3, a). Dr. Cassel’s “only” is not expressed in the original, but is readily suggested by the contrast, of the sad scene with all the other relations of the moment.—Tr.]
[30][Jdg_11:36.—עָשָׂה, lit. “done,” with evident reference to the same word used just before: “do, since Jehovah hath done,” cf. the Commentary.—Tr.]
[31][Jdg_11:37—Dr. Cassel makes this clause refer to the fulfillment of the vow, and renders: “Let this thing be done unto me, only let me alone two months,” etc. But it clearly introduces the request for a brief period of delay, and is rightly rendered by the E. V., with which Bertheau, Keil, De Wette agree, cf. the Commentary.—Tr.]
[32][Jdg_11:37.—וְיָרַדְתִּי, “descend,” i. e. from the elevated situation of Mizpah (cf. on Jdg_11:29; Jdg_11:33), to the neighboring lower hills and valleys (Keil). יָרָד does not mean to “wander up and down,” a rendering suggested only by the apparent incongruity of “descending” upon the “mountains.”—Tr.]
[33][Dr. Cassel manifestly views Jephthah’s vow as sui generis—not belonging to the class of vows treated of in Lev_27:1 ff. and therefore not falling under the provisions there made. Jephthah proposes a whole burnt-offering—spiritual indeed so far as its possible human subjects are concerned, but still bound by the law of whole burnt-offerings. Now, that law requires that offerings shall be of the male gender; whereas ordinary vows might embrace females, Lev_27:4. This view will impart clearness to some of our author’s sentences farther on, where he intimates that Jephthah could not redeem his daughter without taking “refuge behind external formulæ,” i. e. without interpreting the vow, as if it belonged to a class of vows to which it was not originally meant to belong.—Tr.]
[34][Frauen, by which the author evidently means married women. But נָשׁים bears no such restricted sense, cf. Ges. Lex. s. v. Moreover, that maidens were confined to the house is a proposition decidedly negatived by all we know of the position of the female sex among the Hebrews. See Bible Dict., art. “Women.”—Tr.]
[35]Apparently similar thoughts, it is true, are suggested from a heathen point of view, not only by such examples as that of Iphigenia (cf. Cicero, de Officiis, ii. 95), and of Curtius in Rome, but also by that of Anchurus, the son of the Phrygian king Midas, who deemed his own life the most precious sacrifice that could be offered from his father’s possessions to the gods. But in reality, these exhibit only the principles that underlie the practice of human sacrifices—principles, with which the spirit of the Scriptures, and their spiritual modes of conception, stand strongly in contrast.
[36]Cf. Nägelsbach, Nachhomerische Theologie, p. 244, etc.
[37] הַכְרֵעַ הִכְרַעְתִּנִי, from כָּרַע, to kneel; Hiphil, to cause to kneel, to subdue. She sang perhaps about the enemies whom he had subdued (cf. Jdg_5:27); he sadly applies her words to what she is doing with reference to himself.
[38]Similar customs may be found even in modern times. In a West-Slavic legend a maiden is blamed for having married without having taken leave of maidenhood, which it was customary to do in pathetic and elegiac terms Wenzig, West-Slav. Marchenschatz, pp. 13, 311.
[39]On the statement of Epiphanius, that a festival of the daughter of Jephthah was still celebrated in his time, compare my article in Herzog, p. 476.
[40]Hengstenberg, in his valuable essay on Jephthah’s vow (Pentateuch, ii. 105 ff.), seeks to explain the daughter’s destiny by means of an institute of holy women, into which she perhaps entered. This is not the place to treat that subject, which must be referred to 1Sa_2:22. This much only seems to me to be certain, that by the צֹבְאוֹת, Exo_38:8 and 1Sa_2:22, we are not to understand ministering women. It must be remarked, in general, that the fundamental signification of צָבָא is, not militare, but to be in a multitude.” From this the idea of the צבָאוֹת, the hosts, in heaven and on earth, is derived. צבָא derives its meaning “host,” not from military discipline, but from the assembling of a multitude at one place. The women of the passages alluded to are therefore not ministering women, but persons who collected together at the tabernacle for purposes of prayer, requests, and thanks-giving, like the wives of Elkanah (1 Samuel 1), or to consult with and inquire of the priests. Some, of course, were more instant and continuous in their attendance than others (cf. Kimchi on 1Sa_2:22). At all events, they were women who were either married or widowed. But the history of Jephthah’s daughter is related as something extraordinary. Her virginity must remain intact. On this account she is lamented, and a festival is celebrated for her sake. These are uncommon matters, not to be harmonized with the idea of a familiarly known institute. Even among the Talmudists, a female ascetic is a phenomenon unheard of and unapproved (Sota, 22 a).
[41]Nor is it necessary to assume anything more to explain the lament of the daughter or the grief of the bereaved father. Even Roman fathers took it sorrowfully, when their daughters became vestal virgins, notwithstanding the great honor of such a vocation. They were glad to leave such honors to the children of freedmen (Sueton. Aug. 31; Dio Cass. 55, p. 563).
[42]On this point, compare my article in Herzog, p. 474, note.
[43]Poets, unfortunately, have almost without exception considered a sacrificial death more poetical, and have thus done serious injustice to the memory of Jephthah. It was done, among others, by Dante (Paradise, v. 66), who herein followed the Catholic exegesis of his day (cf. my article in Herzog, p. 470). To be sure, Herder did the same. Lord Byron also, in his Hebrew Melodies (see a translation of his poems in Klein’s Volkskalender, for 1854, p 47). The names in Händel’s Oratorio seem to have been borrowed from the poem of Buchanan, published in Strasburg, 1568. Cf. Gödeke, Pamphilus Gengenbach, p. 672. In Faber’s Historischer Lustgarten (Augsburg and Frankfort, 1702), the daughter is called “Jephtina.”
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv31, 32, 34 whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house…
whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me--This evidently points not to an animal, for that might have been a dog; which, being unclean, was unfit to be offered; but to a person, and it looks extremely as if he, from the first, contemplated a human sacrifice. Bred up as he had been, beyond the Jordan, where the Israelitish tribes, far from the tabernacle, were looser in their religious sentiments, and living latterly on the borders of a heathen country where such sacrifices were common, it is not improbable that he may have been so ignorant as to imagine that a similar immolation would be acceptable to God. His mind, engrossed with the prospect of a contest, on the issue of which the fate of his country depended, might, through the influence of superstition, consider the dedication of the object dearest to him the most likely to ensure success.
shall surely be the Lord's; and [or] I will offer it up for a burnt offering--The adoption of the latter particle, which many interpreters suggest, introduces the important alternative, that if it were a person, the dedication would be made to the service of the sanctuary; if a proper animal or thing, it would be offered on the altar.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 39 31. Whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my…
31. Whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me — Rather, whosoever comes forth. It is hardly possible to avoid the conviction that Jephthah had a human being in his mind. For what else could he expect to come out of the doors of his house to meet him? Surely not a cow, nor a sheep, nor a goat, nor a herd of these animals, for their place was not in his house, or else, as Hengstenberg remarks, “the house of the Gileadite chieftain must have been a kind of Noah’s Ark — cattle and men in one room, going out and in at the same door, stall-fed alike — a thing surely not to be seriously thought of. Every thing that we know of the arrangements of houses among the Hebrews is against it.” And surely not a dog, or any unclean animal. No animal, clean or unclean, would be dignified with such lofty emphasis, for “how strange it would be,” says Pfeiffer, “if some great prince or general should say, ‘O God, if thou wilt grant me this victory, the first calf that comes to meet me shall be thine!’” If he meant to offer an animal, would he not have selected the best of his flocks, and have offered, not a single victim, and the first he found, but many sacrifices? Every feature of the passage indicates that Jephthah consciously vowed the sacrifice of a human being, and the tremendous force and awful solemnity of the vow appear in the very fact that not a common but an uncommon offering is pledged, and the victim is to be taken from the members of his own household. And as the most loving and affectionate would be likely to be the first to come and meet him, he hazards even that contingency, holding nothing back, but leaving it, as it were, for the Lord to select the victim.
When I return in peace — Having conquered the enemy, and thus secured a lasting peace.
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Shall surely be the Lord’s, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering — Some have construed this passage so as to give the suffix pronoun it or him (הו) a dative sense, and refer it to the Lord. Thus, I will offer HIM (that is, to Jehovah) a burnt offering. In this case the vow is made to contemplate two distinct things, (1) a person to be consecrated to Jehovah, and (2) the additional offering of a burnt sacrifice. But such a construction would be a solecism in Hebrew. Were the sense dative, as above indicated, לו, to him, would have been used, for the suffix to the verb is always the accusative. In 2Ki_3:27, where it is said the king of Moab took his son and offered him a burnt offering upon the wall, we have precisely the same construction. Compare also 1Sa_7:9. This explanation must therefore be rejected as critically untenable.
The marginal reading, OR I will offer, etc., is also untenable. According to this reading the import of the vow would be, as Kimchi and others have paraphrased it, “I will offer it for a burnt offering if it be fit for such a purpose, or, if not fit, I will consecrate it to the Lord.” But every passage in which Vav (ו) is supposed to be used disjunctively is capable of a different explanation. The notion that the Hebrew language is so destitute of connecting particles that Vav must be often used in a disjunctive sense is an almost inexcusable blunder, especially when it is brought to bear on the simple and positive phraseology of Jephthah’s vow. It does not appear that this vow was uttered in the heat of battle or in a moment of confusion. If Jephthah contemplated divers methods of fulfilling it, the Hebrew language did not lack words by which to express precisely his intention. If he meant to say or, there was the proper disjunctive או, which is used more than a hundred times in the Old Testament in the sense of or.
Another attempt to escape the obvious import of the vow is to take the word עולה, burnt offering, in a figurative or spiritual sense. But such a deep spiritual sense of burnt offerings as this passage would involve was alien to the age of the Judges, and no passage in the whole Old Testament can be found where the word in question has such a meaning. Every passage cited in Hengstenberg’s essay on this subject fails most signally to help his argument. Hos_14:2; Psa_40:7-9; Psa_51:17; Psa_119:108. Take, for instance, the passage oftenest quoted, Psa_51:16-17, where the spiritual idea of sacrifices in general is expressed, and the sacrifice of a broken and contrite heart, so far from being identified with burnt offering, is put in direct opposition to it. The whole attempt to put a figurative or spiritual sense upon the word עולה, especially in our text, is a manifest striving after something which the Scriptures nowhere offer, and a prodigious effort to get rid of the common meaning of an oft-recurring word.
It follows, then, that the only translation of this verse that will bear the test of criticism is substantially the following: “Whosoever comes forth from the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the sons of Ammon, shall be for Jehovah, and I will offer him for a burnt offering.” The last sentence is not tautological nor superfluous, but epexegetical of what immediately precedes, and shows the manner in which he meant to consecrate to the Lord the first person that came to meet him on his return home. So the language of Jephthah’s vow, according to the only defensible meaning of the words, clearly involved a human sacrifice.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv31, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 39 31. whatsoever … it shall be … I will…
31. whatsoever … it shall be … I will offer it up] whosoever … he shall be … I will offer him up, so LXX, Vulgate, Peshitto Jephthah had in his mind a human victim1[44]
[44] Early Arabian religion before Mohammed furnishes a parallel: “Al-Mundhir [king of al-Ḥîrah] had made a vow that on a certain day in each year he would sacrifice the first person he saw; ‘Abîd came in sight on the unlucky day, and was accordingly killed, and the altar smeared with his blood.” Lyall, Ancient Arabian Poetry, p. xxviii, cf. p. xxvii.
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. It is unnecessary to mention the various expedients which have been adopted in order to escape the plain meaning of the words. Nothing is said about Jephthah’s rashness; nor are we told that there was anything displeasing to Jehovah in the nature of the vow; the narrative emphasizes in the issue the grief of Jephthah and the pitiful fate of his daughter. At a crisis or under the influence of despair, when ordinary sacrifices seemed unavailing and at all costs the divine help must be secured, Semitic religion had recourse to human sacrifices. Among the Hebrews in the rude, early days such a sacrifice was possible (as here), but in time it was felt to be contrary to the spirit of the religion of Jehovah (Genesis 22); the hideous practice revived, however, in the period of Ahaz and Manasseh (2Ki_16:3; 2Ki_17:17; 2Ki_21:6 etc., Mic_6:7), and was denounced by the prophets (Jer_7:31; Jer_19:5 etc., Eze_16:20 f., Eze_23:39) and forbidden by the law (Deu_12:31; Deu_18:10, Lev_18:21; Lev_20:2). Among the neighbouring peoples, e.g. the Moabites (2Ki_3:27), the Canaanites or Phoenicians (Philo Bybl., Fragm. Hist. Gr. iii. 570; Porphyry, de Abstin. ii. 56 etc.), the Babylonians in Samaria (2Ki_17:31), the practice continued. In 1Sa_15:33, 2Sa_21:1-9 the reference is not to human sacrifice, but to a religious execution or ḥerem. Recent excavations in Palestine (e.g. at Gezer) have revealed many remains of human sacrifices; see Stanley A. Cook, Religion of Ancient Palestine, pp. 38 ff.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 39 (31) Whatsoever cometh forth.—The true rendering undoubtedly is, Whosoever…
(31) Whatsoever cometh forth.—The true rendering undoubtedly is, Whosoever cometh forth (LXX., ὁ ἐκπορευόμενος; Vulg., quicunque). Nothing can be clearer than that the view held of this passage, from early Jewish days down to the Middle Ages, and still held by nearly all unbiased commentators, is the true one, and alone adequately explains the text: viz., that Jephthah, ignorant as he was—being a man of semi-heathen parentage, and long familiarised with heathen surroundings—contemplated a human sacrifice. To say that he imagined that an animal would “come forth of the doors of his house to meet him” on his triumphant return is a notion which even St. Augustine ridicules. The offer to sacrifice a single animal—even if we could suppose an animal “coming forth to meet” Jephthah—would be strangely inadequate. It would be assumed as a matter of course that not one, but many holocausts of animals would express the gratitude of Israel. Pfeiffer sensibly observes (Dub. vexata, p. 356): “What kind of vow would it be if some great prince or general should say, ‘O God, if Thou wilt give me this victory, the first calf that meets me shall be Thine?’” Jephthah left God, as it were, to choose His own victim, and probably anticipated that it would be some slave. The notion of human sacrifice was all but universal among ancient nations, and it was specially prevalent among the Syrians, among whom Jephthah had lived for so many years, and among the Phœnicians, whose gods had been recently adopted by the Israelites (Jdg_10:6). Further than this, it was the peculiar worship of the Moabites and Ammonites, against whom Jephthah was marching to battle; and one who had been a rude freebooter, in a heathen country and a lawless epoch, when constant and grave violations of the Law were daily tolerated, might well suppose in his ignorance that Jehovah would need to be propitiated by some offering as costly as those which bled on the altars of Chemosh and Moloch. Human sacrifice had been “the first thought of Balak in the extremity of his terror” (Mic_6:7), and “the last expedient of Balak’s successor” (2Ki_3:27)—Stanley, i. 358. If it be urged that after the great lesson which had been taught to Abraham at Jehovah-jireh the very notion of human sacrifice ought to have become abhorrent to any Israelite, especially as it had been expressly forbidden in the Law (Lev_18:21; Deu_12:31, &c), one more than sufficient answer is that even in the wilderness Israel had been guilty of Moloch-worship (Eze_20:26; Jer_49:1; Melcom, Amo_5:26; Act_7:43). The Law was one thing; the knowledge of it and the observance of it was quite another. During this period we find the Law violated again and again, even by judges like Gideon and Samson; and the tendency to violate it by human sacrifices lasted down to the far more enlightened and civilised days of Ahaz and Manasseh (2Ch_28:3; 2Ch_33:6). Indeed, we find the priests expressly sanctioning, even in the palmiest days of David’s reign, an execution which, to the vulgar, would bear an aspect not far removed from human sacrifice, or (rather) which might easily be confused with the spirit which led to it (2Sa_21:1-9). If, again, it be said that the possibility of Jephthah’s being guilty of so rash and evil a vow is excluded by the phrase that “the Spirit of the Lord came upon him,” such reasoning is to substitute idle fancies for clear facts. The Spirit of the Lord “clothed” Gideon, yet he set up an illegal worship. The “Spirit of the Lord” came upon Saul (1Sa_19:23), yet Saul contemplated slaying his own son out of regard for no less foolish a vow (1Sa_14:44). The “Spirit of the Lord” came upon David “from that day forward” on which Samuel anointed him (1Sa_16:13), yet he could sink into adultery and murder. The phrase must not be interpreted of high or permanent spiritual achievement, but of Divine strength granted for a particular end.
And I will offer it up for a burnt offering.—The margin gives the alternative reading or instead of and. This is due to the same feeling which made our translators adopt the rendering “whatsoever.” They are practically following R. Kimchi in the attempt to explain away, out of deference to modern notions, the plain meaning of the Bible. It is true that vau, “and,” is sometimes practically disjunctive (or, rather, is used where a disjunctive might be used), but to take it so here is to make nonsense of the clause, for if any person or thing was made “a burnt offering” it was necessarily “the Lord’s” (Exo_13:2, &c.), so that there can be no alternative here. The “and” is exactly analogous to the “and” between the two clauses of Jacob’s (Gen_28:21-22) and of Hannah’s vow (1Sa_1:11). The “it will I offer” ought to be, “I will offer him.”
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 39 So Jephthah. The narrator takes up again the thread…
So Jephthah. The narrator takes up again the thread of the narrative, which was interrupted at ver. 29, the words he passed over up, to the children of Ammon being repeated.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On v34 I have opened my mouth unto the Lord, and…
Jdg_11:34-40
I have opened my mouth unto the Lord, and I cannot go back.
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Retreat impossible
I. what we have done. I have opened my mouth unto the Lord.
1. We have opened our mouths before the Lord, first, by confessing our faith in Jesus Christ.
2. We have also avowed and declared before the living God that we are Christs disciples and followers.
3. We have opened our mouth to the Lord, next, because as we believe in Jesus Christ, and take Him to be our Master, so we have admitted the Redeemers claims to our persons and services, and have resolved to live for Him alone in our days. We have made a dedication of ourselves to His service, declaring that we are not our own, but bought with a price.
4. We have cast in our lot with His people.
II. What we cannot do. I cannot go back. Having once become Christians, we cannot apostatise from the faith. We cannot go back, even by temporary turnings aside.
1. If we did go back, we should show that we have been altogether false until now.
2. We should incur frightful penalties. To go back is death, shame, eternal ruin.
3. It would be so unreasonable. If you give up the religion of Jesus Christ, what other religion would you have? If you were to give up the pleasures of godliness, what other pleasures would you have? Oh, says one, we could go into the world. Could you? If you are a child of God you are spoiled for the world.
4. I have no inclination to go back. The man who is married to a good wife thinks to himself, If I had to marry again to-morrow morning, she should be the bride, and happy would we be. And so, if we had our choice to make again, we would choose our dear Lord over again, only with much more eagerness and earnestness than we did at first.
5. We have opened our mouth to the Lord, and we cannot go back because we are so happy as we now are. A man does not turn his back upon that which has become his life and his joy; he is bound to it by the bliss which he derives from it. Can the Swiss forget his country when he listens to the home-music which he heard as a child amidst his native hills? Does not the home-sickness come over him so that he longs to be among the Alps again? Does not the Englishman, wherever he wanders, whether by land or sea, feel his heart instinctively turn to the white cliffs of Albion, and does he not say that with all her faults he loves his country still? Who would cease to be that which he loves to be?
6. And then, besides that, we cannot go back from what we have said, for Divine grace impels us onward. There is a secret power more mighty than all other forces called the force of grace, and this has captured us.
III. Something which we must do. If there is a present sacrifice demanded of us, we must make it directly. If there is anything in your business, and you cannot be a Christian if you do it, abjure it at once and for ever. If you are to do this, however, you must ask for more grace. One other admonition to Christian people is this--burn the boats behind you. When the Roman commander meant victory he landed his troops on the coast where he knew there were thousands of enemies, and he burned the boats, so as to cut off all chance of retreat. But how are we to get away if we are beaten? That is just it, said he; we will not be beaten; we will not dream of such a thing. Burn the boats--that is what you Christian people must do. Make no provision for the flesh. Let the separation between you and the world be final and irreversible. Say, Here I go for Christ and His Cross, for the truth of the Bible, for the laws of God, for holiness, for trust in Jesus; and never will I go back, come what may. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
No trifling with God
We have opened our mouth unto the Lord. It is not what we promised the Church, though in becoming members of it we have promised to fulfil the mutual duties of Christians. It was not what we promised to the minister, though, in the very fact of becoming members of a Church of which he is the pastor we have a Christian duty towards him. It was not what we promised one another, though we all owe something to each other. But we have opened our mouth to the Lord. If a man must trifle, let him trifle with men, but not with God. If promises to men may be lightly broken--and they should not be--yet let us not trifle with promises made to God. And if solemn declarations ever can be forgotten--which they should not be--yet not solemn declarations made to God. Beware, oh! beware of anything like levity in entering into covenant with the Most High. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Do to me according to that which hath proceeded out of thy mouth.
A sacrifice of the world to high principle
Never in any age, or among any people, was there a more ready or thorough sacrifice of the world to high principle and duty than was made by the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite. It was made, too, in most trying circumstances. If ever the world seemed bright to her, it must have been when she went forth with timbrels and dances to meet her father. The land of Israel they had so longed for was to be their home--they were to dwell there in peace and honour, high in rank, great in power. It would seem to the daughter of Jephthah as if life were but beginning; the night seemed past and the morning breaking--a morning without cloud. She could not but anticipate a long bright day for her father and herself; and it would be all the more welcome that they had sighed for it so often, and watched for it through a night so dark and so long. It was in these most trying circumstances that the daughter of Jephthah heard from her fathers lips that he had opened his mouth unto the Lord and could not go back. Yet without one word of reproach or complaint, and without hesitation, she said unto him who had vowed that rash vow, My father, if thou hast opened thy mouth unto the Lord, do to me, etc. Think of her, that child of an outcast--brought up in a heathen land and in a camp--think of her, how pure, how unworldly, how unselfish, how noble in spirit! Think of her patriotism, think of her self-sacrifice, that you may abhor all that is mean and selfish, and worldly and untruthful; and that you may cease to grudge the sacrifices your Father in heaven requires in love and wisdom, and for your own deliverance and safety. (M. Nicholson, D. D.)
Let me alone two months, that I may.., bewail my virginity.--
The wail of Jephthahs daughter
It is this wail of Jephthahs daughter that rises from every generation of this worlds history. What we are all of us called upon to see with our own eyes, and judge with our own hearts, is a similar, or much more grievous waste of all that is good in human nature, of devotedness to country and family, of fine feeling, of the best intellect. Again and again, in our own society, we see the most splendid mental abilities squandered in the quest of what can never be discovered, the truest eloquence and highest moral feeling consecrated to a cause that is not worth lifting a finger to defend. Who has not seen the most precious human feelings wasted, you would say, on worthless people, while they might have fertilised and enriched responsive natures--the noblest devotedness sacrificed to a mere lie, or deception, or mockery? Two months was not too long to weep over the dreadful misguidedness of human actions, and the consequent waste or outward unprofitableness of what is best in human nature. Still, there is a compensating element even here. These companions who sympathised with their friend, and at last decked her as if for her bridal, and gave her into her fathers hands, must no doubt have felt to the close of life that a world in which anything so tragic could happen was a blighted, melancholy world. Still, as they themselves passed through the various womanly duties that fell to them, and felt still the hold that event had taken; as they told the story of the noble maiden to their own children, and found how it moved and controlled them, and how many, through that example, were urged to more self-sacrificing deeds, and to higher thoughts about what is beautiful and good in life; must not these women sometimes have thought that possibly the real children of Jephthahs daughter, those who had truly succeeded to her nature, were more and better than could have been hers, had she lived? If then by family circumstances, or in any other way, we are called upon to sacrifice our own will to what seems a very needless, provoking, and rash plan, what we have to do is to seek to have something of the spirit of Jephthahs daughter, and accept our position without a murmur; knowing that, though we do not see how, any more than she did, this may, and will, by Gods blessing, result in such development of our own character, and such enlargement of our usefulness, as could not otherwise be attained. (Marcus Dods, D. D.)
Did with her according to his vow.--
Modern Jephthahs; or, parental immolations
In Jephthahs vow we see two things--
1. A good feeling overcoming the judgment.
2. A sense of right leading to an enormous crime.
I. Jephthah sacrificed his daughter to the true God. But what are many modern parents doing? Why, offering up their children to false gods!
1. The god of idleness. Indolence is ruin.
2. The god of worldliness.
3. The god of ambition.
II. Jepthah sacrificed only the body of his daughter. But parents in these modern times are found immolating the souls of their children; they are made to prostrate their powers, and to yield the Divine sentiments of their nature to idleness, pelf, vanity, fashion.
1. Soul immolation is more gradual.
2. Soul immolation is more mischievous. It is the ruin of the whole man.
III. Jephthah sacrificed his daughter from a noble impulse. No such high feeling prompts parents in these days to sacrifice the souls of their children even to the false and ignominious divinities. They do it either from the spirit of custom, vanity, greed, or ambition. It is a cold-blooded, soulless immolation. If there is any feeling, it is the mere lust of the eye and pride of life.
IV. Jephthah sacrificed his daughter with a terrible regret. But modern parents lay the souls of their children on the altar of worldliness, vanity, and sin, not only without any compunction, but with an utter indifference. They see the souls of their daughters running into grubs, butterflies, swine, and heave no sigh of regret.
V. Jephthah sacrificed his daughter with her full concurrence. Were worldly parents to say to their daughters at the dawn of their intelligent and moral life, We intend to take all the innocency from your young loves--all the sensibility from your young consciences--all the religious poetry from your young natures--and to make you the dolls of fashion, the devotees of a sham life, the victims of a pampered animalism, and thus rifle you of your birthright as immortals--this would be honest; this would bring the question so thoroughly home to the young heart as would, we think, rouse opposition to the fiendish plan. (Homilist.)
The vow performed
To Jephthah and his daughter the vow was sacred, irre- vocable. The deliverance of Israel by so signal and complete a victory left no alternative. It would have been well if they had known God differently; yet better this darkly impressive issue which went to the making of Hebrew faith and strength, than easy, unfruitful evasion of duty. We are shocked by the expenditure of fine feeling and heroism in upholding a false idea of God and obligation to Him; but are we outraged and distressed by the constant effort to escape from God which characterises our age? And have we for our own part come yet to the right idea of self and its relations? Our century, beclouded on many points, is nowhere less informed than in matters of self-sacrifice; Christs doctrine is still uncomprehended. Jephthah was wrong, for God did not need to be bribed to support a man who was bent on doing his duty. And many fail now to perceive that personal development and service of God are in the same line. Life is made for generosity, not mortification; for giving in glad ministry, not for giving up in hideous sacrifice. It is to be devoted to God by the free and holy use of body, mind, and soul in the daily tasks which Providence appoints. The wailing of Jephthahs daughter rings in our ears, bearing with it the anguish of many a soul tormented in the name of that which is most sacred, tormented by mistakes concerning God, the awful theory that He is pleased with human suffering. The relics of that hideous Moloch worship which polluted Jephthahs faith, not even yet purged away by the Spirit of Christ, continue and make religion an anxiety and life a kind of torture. I do not speak of that devotion of thought and time, eloquence and talent to some worthless cause which here and there amazes the student of history and human life--the passionate ardour, for example, with which Flora Macdonald gave herself up to the service of a Stuart. But religion is made to demand sacrifices compared to which the offering of Jephthahs daughter was easy. The imagination of women especially, fired by false representations of the death of Christ, in which there was a clear Divine assertion of self, while it is made to appear as complete suppression of self, bears many on in a hopeless and essentially immoral endeavour. Has God given us minds, feelings, right ambitions, that we may crush them? Does He purify our desires and aspirations by the fire of His own Spirit and still require us to crush them? Are we to find our end in being nothing, absolutely nothing, devoid of will, of purpose, of personality? Is this what Christianity demands? Then our religion is but refined suicide, and the God who desires us to annihilate ourselves is but the Supreme Being of the Buddhists, if those may be said to have a god who regard the suppression of individuality as salvation. Christ was made a sacrifice for us. Yes; He sacrificed everything except His own eternal life and power; He sacrificed ease and favour and immediate success for the manifestation of God. So He achieved the fulness of personal might and royalty. And every sacrifice His religion calls us to make is designed to secure that enlargement and fulness of spiritual individuality in the exercise of which we shall truly serve God and our fellows. Does God require sacrifice? Yes, unquestionably--the sacrifice which every reasonable being must make in order that the mind, the soul may be strong and free, sacrifice of the lower for the higher, sacrifice of pleasure for truth, of comfort for duty, of the life that is earthly and temporal for the life that is heavenly and eternal. And the distinction of Christianity is that it makes this sacrifice supremely reasonable because it reveals the higher life, the heavenly hope, the eternal rewards for which the sacrifice is to be made, that it enables us in making it to feel ourselves united to Christ in a Divine work which is to issue in the redemption of mankind. (R. A. Watson, M. A.)
Jephthahs payment of his vow
Jephthah paid his vow. At a frightful sacrifice he gave up what he had promised. When he gave up his daughter he gave up his all. Did Jephthah open his mouth unto the Lord? and have not you who are parents--have not you dedicated your children to the Lord, and vowed that they shall be His? Not rashly, not hastily, but with due deliberation you did so, and that in a holy ordinance appointed by God for the very purpose. Your vow is registered in heaven; is it to be forgotten on earth? You have opened your mouth unto the Lord; will you go back? God asks your children to be presented to Him not as slain, but living sacrifices. You have vowed; are you paying your vows? Do you pray for your children? Do you teach them to pray? Do you speak to them of God and of Jesus, and lead them in the way of holiness? And when your vows require that you should exercise discipline, and when faithfulness to God requires that you should lay upon your children what for the present is not joyous but grievous, do you shrink from it? To spare your feelings, do you shrink from it? Oh, remember Jephthah when you are thus tempted; and think, if you were under such a vow as he was, how you would act. And you children, think of Jephthahs daughter. Let her spirit take possession of you. Think how she lived above her own personal and selfish interests; think how she honoured her father and honoured God. (M. Nicholson, D. D.)
Did with her according to his vow
If he did not offer her as a burnt-offering, then he did not do with her according to the vow. Moreover, why all this wailing and anguish if, after all, all that was going to happen to her is what happens to thousands who seem to stand in little need of compassion? Then, again, why did she ask for the one favour of a respite of two months to bewail her virginity, if she was to have thirty or forty years with leisure for that purpose? And, lastly, if the mere fact of her remaining unmarried fulfilled even that part of the vow which specified that she was to be the Lords, then what objection can we make to other young women giving themselves to the Lord in the same way? If Jephthahs daughter became a nun, and if this was judged a fulfilment of his vow, if by being a virgin she was somehow more the Lords than by being a married woman, a stronger foundation need not be sought for the establishment of nunneries. (Marcus Dods, D. D.)
Vows which should not be kept
Two men are very foolish or stubborn who fulfil an agreement which they both see to be disadvantageous, and wish to fall away from. No duty whatever compels them to fulfil it, and if they do so they are justly the laughing-stock of their acquaintances. Now, this is precisely the case in which a man finds himself who has vowed to God what turns out to be sinful, for God can never wish him to fulfil a contract which, he now sees, involves sin. A man swears to do a certain thing because he thinks it will be pleasing to God, but if he discovers that, instead of being pleasing, it will be hateful to God, to perform his vow, and do that vowed but hateful thing, is to insult God. By the very discovery of the sinfulness of a vow, the maker of it is absolved from performing it. God shrinks much more than he can do from the perpetration of sin. Both parties fall from the agreement. (Marcus Dods, D. D.)
Typical aspect of Jephthahs vow
See in the tragic tale a foreshadowing of the Cross of our Lord Christ. He took upon Himself our human nature, and having vowed it as the ransom of the guilty world He never hesitated, despite the awful cost, to keep His vow. Gladly did He make voluntary oblation of His own spotless humanity, a vicarious sacrifice to set the whole race free from the spiritual children of Ammon, the followers of the evil one. That it was a costly sacrifice He offered we know full well from the story of Gethsemane; nevertheless He did only cry, Not as I will, but as Thou wilt, then held His peace. Do we think it is true that He bewailed His virginity with His fellows on the mountains before His death? Yet we know that from the human standpoint our Lords ministry of three years and a half was almost fruitless. Multitudes followed Him to see His miracles; they crowded about Him bringing their sick folk to be healed; but they did not become His disciples, and accept heartily His Word. To His human nature this must ever have been a grief and sore trial. Once He said to the Twelve, Will ye also go away? We know that not even His own relations believed on Him. (Arthur Ritchie.)
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The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv32, 34, 36, 38 So Jephthah passed through ... Yahweh gave him victory…
So Jephthah passed through ... Yahweh gave him victory ... He attacked
Since Jephthah was the leader of his army, he and his army are often spoken of as Jephthah himself. AT: "So Jephthah and his army passed through ... Yahweh gave them victory ... they attacked" (See: Synecdoche)
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Aroer
Translate the name of this city the same way you did in Judges 11:26.
Minnith ... Abel Keramim
These are the names of cities. (See: How to Translate Names)
twenty cities
"including 20 cities" (See: Numbers)
translationWords
slaughter
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.