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.
Parallel Translations
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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.
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And Jephthah came to Mizpeh unto his house, and, behold, his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances: and she was his only child; beside her he had neither son nor daughter.
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And Jephthah came to Mizpah unto his house, and, behold, his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances; and she was his only child; beside her he had neither son nor daughter.
Cross-references (14)
Passages linked to Judges 11:34 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Exodus 15:20 Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a tambourine in her hand; and all the women went out after her with tambourines and with dances.
- Jeremiah 31:4 I will build you again, and you will be built, O virgin of Israel. You will again be adorned with your tambourines, and will go out in the dances of those who make merry.
- Judges 10:17 Then the children of Ammon were gathered together and encamped in Gilead. The children of Israel assembled themselves together and encamped in Mizpah.
- Judges 11:11 Then Jephthah went with the elders of Gilead, and the people made him head and chief over them. Jephthah spoke all his words before Yahweh in Mizpah.
- Psalms 68:25 The singers went before, the minstrels followed after, among the ladies playing with tambourines,
- Psalms 150:4 Praise him with tambourine and dancing! Praise him with stringed instruments and flute!
- Judges 5:1-31 Then Deborah and Barak the son of Abinoam sang on that day, saying, “Because the leaders took the lead in Israel, because the people offered themselves willingly, be blessed, Yahweh! “Hear, you kings! Give ear, you princes! I, even I, will sing to Yahweh. I will sing praise to Yahweh, the God of Israel. “Yahweh, when you went out of Seir, when you marched out of the field of Edom, the earth trembled, the sky also dropped. Yes, the clouds dropped water. The mountains quaked Yahweh’s presence, even Sinai at the presence of Yahweh, the God of Israel. “In the days of Shamgar the son of Anath, in the days of Jael, the highways were unoccupied. The travelers walked through byways. The rulers ceased in Israel. They ceased until I, Deborah, arose; Until I arose a mother in Israel. They chose new gods. Then war was in the gates. Was there a shield or spear seen among forty thousand in Israel? My heart is toward the governors of Israel, who offered themselves willingly among the people. Bless Yahweh! “Speak, you who ride on white donkeys, you who sit on rich carpets, and you who walk by the way. Far from the noise of archers, in the places of drawing water, there they will rehearse Yahweh’s righteous acts, the righteous acts of his rule in Israel. “Then Yahweh’s people went down to the gates. ‘Awake, awake, Deborah! Awake, awake, utter a song! Arise, Barak, and lead away your captives, you son of Abinoam.’ “Then a remnant of the nobles and the people came down. Yahweh came down for me against the mighty. Those whose root is in Amalek came out of Ephraim, after you, Benjamin, among your peoples. Governors come down out of Machir. Those who handle the marshal’s staff came out of Zebulun. The princes of Issachar were with Deborah. As was Issachar, so was Barak. They rushed into the valley at his feet. By the watercourses of Reuben, there were great resolves of heart. Why did you sit among the sheepfolds? To hear the whistling for the flocks? At the watercourses of Reuben, there were great searchings of heart. Gilead lived beyond the Jordan. Why did Dan remain in ships? Asher sat still at the haven of the sea, and lived by his creeks. Zebulun was a people that jeopardized their lives to the death; Naphtali also, on the high places of the field. “The kings came and fought, then the kings of Canaan fought at Taanach by the waters of Megiddo. They took no plunder of silver. From the sky the stars fought. From their courses, they fought against Sisera. The river Kishon swept them away, that ancient river, the river Kishon. My soul, march on with strength. Then the horse hoofs stamped because of the prancing, the prancing of their strong ones. ‘Curse Meroz,’ said Yahweh’s angel. ‘Curse bitterly its inhabitants, because they didn’t come to help Yahweh, to help Yahweh against the mighty.’ “Jael shall be blessed above women, the wife of Heber the Kenite; blessed shall she be above women in the tent. He asked for water. She gave him milk. She brought him butter in a lordly dish. She put her hand to the tent peg, and her right hand to the workmen’s hammer. With the hammer she struck Sisera. She struck through his head. Yes, she pierced and struck through his temples. At her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay. At her feet he bowed, he fell. Where he bowed, there he fell down dead. “Through the window she looked out, and cried: Sisera’s mother looked through the lattice. ‘Why is his chariot so long in coming? Why do the wheels of his chariots wait?’ Her wise ladies answered her, Yes, she returned answer to herself, ‘Have they not found, have they not divided the plunder? A lady, two ladies to every man; to Sisera a plunder of dyed garments, a plunder of dyed garments embroidered, of dyed garments embroidered on both sides, on the necks of the plunder?’ “So let all your enemies perish, Yahweh, but let those who love him be as the sun when it rises in its strength.” Then the land had rest forty years.
- 1 Samuel 18:6-7 As they came, when David returned from the slaughter of the Philistine, the women came out of all the cities of Israel, singing and dancing, to meet king Saul, with tambourines, with joy, and with instruments of music. The women sang to one another as they played, and said, “Saul has slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands.”
- Psalms 148:11-12 kings of the earth and all peoples; princes and all judges of the earth; both young men and maidens; old men and children:
- Jeremiah 31:13 Then the virgin will rejoice in the dance; the young men and the old together; for I will turn their mourning into joy, and will comfort them, and make them rejoice from their sorrow.
- Zechariah 12:10 I will pour on David’s house, and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplication; and they will look to me whom they have pierced; and they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for his only son, and will grieve bitterly for him, as one grieves for his firstborn.
- Luke 7:12 Now when he came near to the gate of the city, behold, one who was dead was carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. Many people of the city were with her.
- Luke 8:42 for he had an only daughter, about twelve years of age, and she was dying. But as he went, the multitudes pressed against him.
- Luke 9:38 Behold, a man from the crowd called out, saying, “Teacher, I beg you to look at my son, for he is my only child.
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Explain this verse (17 sources)
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain According to the manner after the victory.
According to the manner after the victory.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Jdg 11:34 And Jephthah came to Mizpeh unto his…
Jdg 11:34 And Jephthah came to Mizpeh unto his house, and, behold, his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances: and she [was his] only child; beside her he had neither son nor daughter.
Ver. 34. He had not of his own, son nor daughter.] Heb., Of himself. No more had God any son of himself, begotten of his own substance, but only Jesus Christ: whom yet he freely parted with, to be offered up as a slain sacrifice for our redemption. Ama amorem illius, saith Bernard.
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 With timbrels and with dances; in consort with other…
With timbrels and with dances; in consort with other virgins, as the manner was. See Exo 15:20; 1Sa 18.
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 And she said unto him, my father, if thou…
And she said unto him, my father, if thou hast opened thy mouth unto the Lord,.... The conditional word "if" may be left out, as it is not in the original text; for her father had told her that he had opened his mouth, or made a vow to the Lord, and had no doubt explained it to her what it was, though it is not expressed; she knew it respected her, as it had issued, and was concerning her, as appears by her later request:
do to me according to that which hath proceeded out of thy mouth; which is a remarkable instance of filial subjection and obedience to a parent, and which perhaps was strengthened by a like mistaken notion as that of her father concerning the vow, that it could not be dispensed with; and therefore was moved under a sense of religion, as well as filial duty, to express herself in this manner, as well as by what follows:
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forasmuch as the Lord hath taken vengeance for thee of thine enemies, even of the children of Ammon: such was her public spirit, and the grateful sense she had of the divine goodness, in giving victory over Israel's enemies, and delivering them from them, with vengeance on them, she cared not what was done to her; yea, desired that what was vowed might be performed.
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 His daughter - In concert with other virgins, as…
His daughter - In concert with other virgins, as the manner was.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 34. With timbrels and with dances] From this…
Verse 34. With timbrels and with dances] From this instance we find it was an ancient custom for women to go out to meet returning conquerors with musical instruments, songs, and dances; and that it was continued afterwards is evident from the instance given 1Sa 18:6, where David was met, on his return from the defeat of Goliath and the Philistines, by women from all the cities of Israel, with singing and dancing, and various instruments of music.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Jdg 11:34-35. Behold his daughter came out to meet…
Jdg 11:34-35. Behold his daughter came out to meet him — In concert with other virgins, as the manner was. Alas, my daughter! thou art one of them that trouble me — Before this I was troubled by my brethren, and since by the Ammonites, and now most of all, though but occasionally, by thee. I have opened my mouth — That is, I have vowed. I cannot go back — That is, not retract my vow; I am indispensably obliged to perform it.
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 His daughter came out to meet him - The…
His daughter came out to meet him - The precise phrase of his vow Jdg 11:31. She was his “only child,” a term of special endearment (see Jer 6:26; Zec 12:10). The same word is used of Isaac Gen 22:2, Gen 22:12, Gen 22:16.
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 Daughter. It seems the vow had been kept secret,…
Daughter. It seems the vow had been kept secret, as no precautions were taken to prevent the affliction of the general; (Calmet) and indeed to have done so, would have been injurious to God’s providence, and childish in Jephte, as he meant to offer whatever should come to meet him. It would have been very mean, and contrary to the meaning of the vow, for him to procure something for which he had no great value, to present itself. (Haydock) --- Dances, as it was customary on such occasions, 1 Kings xviii. 6.
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 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 Jephthah came to Mizpeh unto his house, and, behold,…
Jephthah came to Mizpeh unto his house, and, behold, his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances--The return of the victors was hailed, as usual, by the joyous acclaim of a female band (Sa1 18:6), the leader of whom was Jephthah's daughter. The vow was full in his mind, and it is evident that it had not been communicated to anyone, otherwise precautions would doubtless have been taken to place another object at his door. The shriek, and other accompaniments of irrepressible grief, seem to indicate that her life was to be forfeited as a sacrifice; the nature of the sacrifice (which was abhorrent to the character of God) and distance from the tabernacle does not suffice to overturn this view, which the language and whole strain of the narrative plainly support; and although the lapse of two months might be supposed to have afforded time for reflection, and a better sense of his duty, there is but too much reason to conclude that he was impelled to the fulfilment by the dictates of a pious but unenlightened conscience.
Next: Judges Chapter 12
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 34. His daughter came… with timbrels and with dances…
34. His daughter came… with timbrels and with dances — She had, doubtless, heard from some swift messenger of her father’s victory, and of his approach towards home, and with a band of her young female companions she went forth to celebrate the great triumph over Ammon. Such celebrations of victory were a common custom in Israel. See marginal reference.
Only child — This fact is here emphasized to explain the intensity of Jephthah’s agony, which is described in the next verse.
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 34. his daughter … with timbrels and with dances]…
34. his daughter … with timbrels and with dances] For women celebrating a victory cf. Exo_15:20, 1Sa_18:6, Psa_68:11. The last half of the verse is phrased with much beauty, lost in the translation.
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 (34) Behold, his daughter came out to meet him…
(34) Behold, his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances.—As Miriam went to meet Moses (Exo_15:20), and the women to meet Saul and David (1Sa_18:6-7).
His only child.—This is added because the narrator feels the full pathos of the story. (Comp. Gen_22:2; Jer_6:26; Luk_9:38.) The term used (yechidah) is peculiarly tender. The “beside her” is, literally, beside him; but this is only duo to a Hebrew idiom, which is also found in Zec_8:10.
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 To his house. Soever. 11. His only child (Je"hid)…
To his house. Soever. 11. His only child (Je"hid) the same term as is applied to Isaac. (Gen_22:2) Eusebius says that Cronus sacrificed his only son, who on that account was called Jeoud, which in the Phoenician tongue means an only son ("Prep. Evang.," 4:17).
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 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 musical instruments with heads like drums that can be…
tambourines
musical instruments with heads like drums that can be hit and with pieces of metal around their sides that sound when the instruments are shaken (See: Translate Unknowns)
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he tore his clothes
This is an act that shows mourning or great sadness. AT: "he tore his clothes from grief" (See: Symbolic Action)
You have crushed me with sorrow ... you have become one who causes me pain
Jephthah said basically the same thing twice to emphasize that he was very sad" (See: Parallelism)
You have crushed me with sorrow
Here Jephthah speaks of his great sorrow as something that crushes him. AT: "You have caused me great sorrow" or "You have filled me with sorrow" (See: Metaphor)
you have become one who causes me pain
Here Jephthah talks about his great distress and trouble as if it were pain. AT: "you have become someone who troubles me" or "you cause me great distress" (See: Metaphor)
I cannot turn back on my promise
This is an idiom. To turn back on a promise means to not do what you have promised to do. AT: "I must do what I have promised" or "I cannot break my promise" (See: Idiom)
translationWords
Jephthah
Mizpah
oath
promise
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.