Jephthah was the Israelite hero who vowed, according to the A.V., that if God gave him victory in his war with the Ammonites then whatever living thing first met him on his return home would be sacrificed as a burnt-offering in token of his gratitude. He did gain the victory and the first to meet him was his only daughter. The narrative says briefly that "he did with her according to his vow" and has thereby given occasion for many a sceptic's jibe at belief in a God who would assent to such a proceeding.

As with so many Old Testament stories, this one requires examination before judgment is passed. The turn of a phrase, a difference of meaning in a word as between the seventeenth century, when the A.V. was produced, and the present time, can alter the entire position. In order to achieve correct understanding it is necessary first to look at the background.

The story is found in the eleventh chapter of Judges. The time was possibly in the second half of the period of the Judges, about 1100 BC. It was a rude and barbarous age in Israel and the ruthless, warlike Israelites had little to commend them beyond their fierce belief in the God of Israel and, in the main, a regard for the Law of Moses. "in those days there was no king in Israel; every man did that which was right in his own eyes" is how a later chronicler describes the times. Before judging them too harshly we have to remember that we, through our forebears, possess a knowledge of Divine laws and standards and the way of life which is right in God's sight which is the accumulation of over three thousand years of Divine revelation. The men of Jephthah's day had only the advantage of two centuries.

By force of circumstances Jephthah found himself at the head of the Israelite forces, determined to make a bid for liberation from the Ammonite yoke. Under the terms of the Mosaic covenant national apostasy from God was punished by servitude to a foreign nation and for eighteen years past they had paid tribute to Ammon. Now there had been a national repentance and by the same covenant, that should be followed by deliverance. Jephthah felt therefore that the Lord was with them and would fight for them.

This is the first factor to consider. Despite his early years spent as leader of a dissident group of "resistance fighters", with the lawlessness and licence which that must have entailed, Jephthah emerges as a serious-minded man. He is conscious of Israel's special position before God and the obligation of loyalty to God devolving upon himself as leader of the hosts of the Lord. Like so many Old Testament heroes, he was probably very much a swashbuckling freebooter. But this was a reflection of the times in which he lived; underneath that apparently reckless exterior there are glimpses of a nobility of character and a keen penetrating mind which go far to illuminate the story. Before advancing into battle with the Ammonites he first entered into prayer with God, and addressed a formal request to the king of Ammon to state the grounds of his complaint against Israel. The reply was a completely false assertion that Israel had appropriated territory rightfully the property of Ammon. Jephthah countered that by a logical and reasoned recapitulation of the historical evidences back to the original entry of Israel into the land after the Exodus, demonstrating the falsity of the claim. "We have done you no wrong; it is you who are doing us wrong by attacking us. The Lord who is judge will decide this day between the Israelites and the Ammonites" (Judges 11.27 REB). So they went to war.

Here comes the point at issue. "Jephthah made this vow to the Lord. "If you deliver the Ammonites into my hand, then the first creature that comes out of the door of my house, to meet me when I return from them safely shall be the Lord's; I shall offer that as a whole offering" (11. 31 REB). Jephthah must have known that under the Mosaic Law a burnt offering must be a male animal, in perfect condition, and not of those classified unclean. Human sacrifice in any case was expressly forbidden by the Mosaic Law (Lev. 18.21; Deut. 12.31). Barbarous as were the people in the days of the Judges, and common as was this practice among the surrounding nations, there is no trace of it in Israel until the decadent days prior to the Captivity, some eight hundred years later, when this abomination did penetrate into Israel with the adoption of Moloch worship. The impulsive champion of Israel probably uttered his vow in some haste without stopping to think of the situation that would be created if the first creature to meet him should be ineligible for a burnt-offering. In any case the vow was out of order and entirely unnecessary, for victory depended upon Israel's heart condition before God, and since in chapter 10 the fact of their national repentance is recorded Jephthah should have realised that deliverance was thereby assured.

So Jephthah sallied forth at the head of his armies, and in due course returned, the triumphant conquering hero. The Lord had given deliverance to Israel, and there was universal rejoicing. His home town of Mizpeh was sixty miles from the frontier and all along the way the crowds must have met him with acclamation, the name of the Lord upon all lips for His goodness and favour returned to Israel. That the national feeling was a religious one is evidenced by the action of Jephthah's daughter in coming forth to meet him "with tambourines and dancing". This was the traditional method of ascribing praise to God for a resounding victory, instituted by Miriam, the sister of Moses after the Red Sea crossing, a procession of maidens singing the high praises of God and recounting the deed of valour associated with the particular victory being celebrated. There must have been many such processions during the conqueror's sixty miles journey homeward with his victorious warriors.

It was the sight of those gracefully moving girls and the sound of melodious voices and tambourines that brought Jephthah to an abrupt halt. His eyes beheld his own daughter, leading her companions, and the recollection of his vow flooded into his mind. This was a possibility he had not imagined, and as he realised what was involved he rent his clothes in his anguish of spirit. Gone now was triumph and exaltation and rejoicing, yielding place to sorrow and utter despair. "Oh, my daughter" he groaned "you have broken my heart! Such calamity you have brought on me! I have made a vow to the Lord, and I cannot go back on it." Here is revealed the man's sterling loyalty and allegiance to God. Despite the depth of sorrow and grief into which the fulfilment of his rash vow must now plunge him and the fate to which he had condemned his innocent daughter there was no thought of going back on his word or seeking to avoid his obligation. "I have opened my mouth unto the Lord and I cannot go back on it". So far from being an uncultured robber chief, as some critics have maintained, this man was a true son of Israel.

His daughter displays equal nobility of character. Whether at this moment she realised the nature of the vow does not appear. Probably she did not. But without hesitation she put herself at her father's disposal.

" Father, since you have made a vow to the Lord, do to me as your vow demands, now that the Lord has avenged you on the Ammonites, your enemies." Evidently this was a household where God was known and honoured and worshipped and the daughter, no less than the father, had no other thought than to do what was right in the sight of God, at whatever personal cost.

Here lies the crux of the question. Did Jephthah actually sacrifice his unresisting daughter upon a smoking altar, a burnt-offering unto God, or was the discharge of his vow effected in some other legitimate manner? What actually happened to this loyal noble-spirited girl?

It goes without saying that such a sacrifice would have been totally unacceptable to the Most High and could only incur His strongest condemnation. It remains then to examine the position in the light of the Mosaic code regarding vows and sacrifices to discover exactly what Jephthah, as a law-abiding man of Israel, would be obliged to do.

The laws governing such vows appear in Leviticus 27. From this it is apparent that there are two cases. A man could dedicate himself or any member of his household upon condition of some Divine favour such as recovery from an illness, deliverance from an enemy, or granting of some request. Thus Hannah dedicated her first-born son Samuel to the service of the Sanctuary upon receiving the blessing of motherhood. Animals or property of any description might likewise be dedicated. Should the animal be a perfect male of the flocks or herds then it must be sacrificed by fire. If it was an unclean beast, a human being or item of property such as land or houses then it could not thus be sacrificed but must either be given to the Sanctuary to be the Lord's forever, or redeemed by payment of a sum of money into the Sanctuary according to a scale laid down in Lev. 27. This discharged the vow. The other case concerned captives or booty taken in war which were to be "devoted" because of unfitness to remain in existence. The booty must be utterly consumed with fire and the captives must be slain. Jephthah's vow clearly comes within the first category. The offering was to be an acknowledgment to God in gratitude for victory. (The word "burnt-offering" in the A.V. is the rendering of a Hebrew expression meaning literally "that which ascends", primarily referring to the smoke of the sacrifice going up to God but having as its basic idea the presentation of an offering, the burning being only incidental). The victory had been granted and the vow must be implemented. Under the Law that meant either that Jephthah's daughter must be redeemed with money or else taken into perpetual service in the Sanctuary. It might be that the spirit of Jephthah's undertaking that the one meeting him "shall be the Lord's", precluded him from availing himself of the provision for redemption. It also might be that the magnitude of the victory demanded a positive sacrifice on the part of Jephthah, greater than could be made by the mere payment of money. It is evident from the rest of the account that in fact his daughter did enter the service of the Sanctuary thereby remaining unmarried to the end of her days. This is shown by the girl's request that before the irrevocable step was taken she might be allowed to spend two months with her companions to "mourn that I must die a virgin". Besides the customary expectation of marriage and motherhood normal to her sex, every Israelite girl was encouraged to hope that she might become the mother of the "seed of blessing" later on crystallized in the person of the Messiah. To be destined to a life of perpetual virginity was a crushing blow. It was this, and not the prospect of sacrifice, which Jephthah's daughter and her friends lamented those two months. At the end of the time her father who "fulfilled the vow he had made; she died a virgin." Thus she remained unmarried, consistent with her being "hallowed to the Lord", for the rest of her days.

Verse 40 as it stands in the A.V. conveys a wrong impression when it says that the "daughters of Israel went yearly to lament the daughter of Jephthah four days in a year". The word translated lament really means "to speak praise",. The RV gives "The daughters of Israel went yearly to celebrate the daughter of Jephthah, the Gileadite four days in a year. The implication is that once every year the young women of Israel visited her to commend and praise her for the devotion which led her so willingly to accept her fate. The visitors would have to journey to Shiloh, in the territory of the tribe of Ephraim, the geographical centre of the entire land, for here stood the Sanctuary of God, the Tabernacle which Moses constructed in the Wilderness. Here too the High Priest of Israel conducted the duties of his exalted office, Jephthah's daughter spent her life in the service of the Sanctuary.

There is not much said about the place of women in this service but that they were so employed is clear from a comparison of Exod. 38.8 and 1 Sam. 2.22 with Num. 4.23 and 8.24. The first two texts refer to the women who "assembled" at the Sanctuary whilst the other two use the same word, tsaba, to describe the work of the male Levites in the service of the Sanctuary. The Tabernacle at Shiloh was the central religious establishment of the country, fulfilling the function that in much later days was taken over by the Temple in Jerusalem. Pilgrims and visitors continually came for various religious exercises, and the tremendous influx three times in the year upon the occasions of the great "feasts", it is probable that the services of these women were very necessary in many ways. They were possibly in the main wives and daughters of the Levites attending on the Sanctuary, assuming their duties voluntarily and performing them within the routine of their normal daily lives. Jephthah's daughter, because she had been given to the Lord, was there on a different basis. She was not free to leave and for her there could be no normal life, no husband and family. For Jephthah her father, because she was his only child, there could be none to continue his line; his name must perish out of Israel. Those were the consequences of a rash vow, uttered unthinkingly and in haste and that never need have been made. But it was made and fulfilled despite the cost to those concerned, not only the Israelite conqueror but also his unnamed daughter. Surely she must occupy a place among that "great cloud of witnesses" whom the writer to the Hebrews sets forth as examples of sterling faith to the Christian Church.

AOH