DID JEPHTHAH OFFER HIS
DAUGHTER AS A BURNT SACRIFICE?
Jephthah was a judge in Israel. Just prior to a particular battle
he “made a vow to the Lord, and said, ‘If You will indeed deliver the people of
Ammon into my hands, then it will be that whatever comes out of the doors of my
house to meet me, when I return in peace from the people of Ammon, shall surely
be the Lord’s, and I will offer it up as a burnt offering’” (Judges 11:30,31).
After his return, “When Jephthah came to his house at Mizpah, there was his
daughter, coming out to meet him with timbrels and dancing; and she was his
only child. Besides her he had neither son nor daughter. And it came to pass,
when he saw her, that he tore his clothes, and said, ‘Alas, my daughter! You have
brought me very low! You are among those who trouble me! For I have given my
word to the Lord, and I cannot go back on it.’” “And…he carried out his vow
with her which he had vowed” (Judges 11:34,35,39). But what does “carried out
his vow with her” mean?
From Bible Study
Textbook: Joshua, Judges & Ruth
"It is most important for the Bible student to dig deeply into the text at this point. Many ramifications of the situation are seen immediately. A question rises in the Bible student's mind as he asks himself if it is possible for a man like Jephthah to have in mind the making of a human sacrifice. Then consideration must be given to the possibility of God's giving victory to a man who has such a sordid and cruel concept of sacrifice. The Bible does not say expressly that Jephthah sacrificed his daughter; it simply says that he did with her according to his vow (verse 39). The language of the vow is double in implication. Jephthah says whatever comes out will be the Lord's and he will offer it as a burnt offering. It would be possible for him to offer his daughter in perpetual service to the Lord, and that would be essentially the same as making a burnt offering. If he did have in mind the possibility of his offering a sacrifice, some students of the text indicate the conjunction and might be also translated or. Then the vow would indicate whatever came out would be the Lord's if it were human; or if it were animal, he would offer it as a burnt offering."
Jephthah had vowed to give
the Lord the first object belonging to him as soon as he got back to his home.
If he did sacrifice his daughter, the fact that he performed such a dastardly
deed is reason enough for his saying that he had been brought very low. On the
other hand, if he simply dedicated her to perpetual service around the Tabernacle,
she would leave him without heirs. She would live a life of perpetual celibacy;
and Jephthah, himself, would have no namesake since she was his only
child. In any event, he was brought very low."
"If the daughter had devoted herself to death, it is next to
incredible that she should have asked to spend the last two months of life
granted to her, not with her brokenhearted father, but in the mountains with
her companions. She bewails not 'her maiden age' but her 'maidenhood.' She does
not bewail that she dies so young, but that she is to live unmarried. It is
also impossible to understand why continued repetition should be made of the
fact that she knew no man if she were sacrificed. If she continued to live a
life of perpetual celibacy such as the women who served around the Tabernacle
in the days of Eli (1 Samuel 2:22, cf. Exodus 38:3), it would be pertinent to
mention that she knew no man."
"The King James Version gives a translation which indicates
that the daughters of Israel went yearly to 'lament' the daughter of Jephthah
four days each year. The American Standard Version says they went to 'celebrate.'
Brown, Driver, and Briggs in the Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old
Testament define the original word as coming from
tanah, which means to recount or rehearse
as is indicated in Judges 5:11, where the word also appears. In Young's Analytical
Concordance the word is found with the meaning of 'praise.' It is not at
all necessary to picture the women of Israel lamenting a person who was offered
as a burnt offering. They may as well have gone up to praise her or to meet in
celebration of her unselfish yielding to her father's vow" (pp. 461, 462,
464, 465).
From
An Examination of Alleged
Discrepancies
of the Bible
"There are good reasons for holding...that, instead of being
offered as a burnt-sacrifice, she was simply devoted to perpetual celibacy in
the service of the tabernacle.
"(a) The literal sacrifice of human beings was strictly
forbidden in the Mosaic Law; and Jephthah was doubtless fully aware of this
fact,
"(b) The Hebrew of Jephthah's vow may be correctly
translated, 'Shall surely be the Lord's, or I will offer it up for a
burnt-offering.' Dr. Davidson: 'It cannot be denied that the conjunction
"vav" may be rendered or. The Hebrew language very few conjunctions,
and therefore one had to fulfill the office of several in other
languages.' Dr. Randolph, J. Kimchi, and Auberlen render, 'Shall surely be the
Lord's, and I will offer to him a burnt-offering.' Davidson says: 'We admit
that the construction is grammatically possible; for examples justify it, as
Gesenius shows.' Either of these translations removes the difficulty.
“(c) During the 'two months' which intervened between Jephthah's
return and the supposed sacrifice, it is scarcely credible that the priests
would not have interfered to prevent the barbarous deed, or that Jephthah
himself would not have 'inquired of the Lord' respecting a release from his
vow.
“(d) As she was Jephthah's only child, to devote her to perpetual
virginity would preclude him from all hope of posterity, --in
the estimation of a Jew; a most humiliating and calamitous
deprivation.
"(e) The phraseology of verses 37-40
points clearly to a life of perpetual and enforced celibacy. On any other
hypothesis the language seems irrelevant and unmeaning. As Keil expresses it,
to bewail one's virginity does not mean to mourn because one has to die a virgin,
but because one has to live and remain a virgin. Inasmuch as the history lays
special emphasis upon her bewailing her virginity, this must have stood in some
peculiar relation to the nature of the vow. Observe, too, that this lamentation
takes place 'upon the mountains.' Cassel observes that if life had been in
question her tears might have been shed at home. But lamentations of this character
could not be uttered in the town and in the presence of men. For such plaints,
modesty required the solitude of the mountains. The words of the thirty-ninth
verse are very explicit. They assert that her father fulfilled his vow through
the fact that 'she knew no man.’ That is, the vow was fulfilled in the
dedication of her life to the Lord, as a spiritual burnt-offering, in a
life-long chastity" (pp. 239,40).