Judges 11:40

40. Went yearly Went, probably, into the solitudes of the mountains. Those that lived near Mizpeh would naturally go to the same mountains where Jephthah’s daughter had bewailed her virginity.

To lament the daughter of Jephthah So all the ancient versions, but, doubtless, incorrectly. The word is better rendered rehearse, as in Judges 5:11; that is, to commemorate, to celebrate, to praise. After her death they ceased to bewail her virginity, and only celebrated the sublime heroism which led her, as she and they conceived, to die for God, her country, and her sire. Before her death she and her friends went to the mountains and bewailed all that they thought lamentable in her lot; and two months were deemed enough to mourn the dark side of her history, and that mourning they would have before her death, so that afterwards they need speak only of the bright side, and commemorate her lofty devotion.

It has been sometimes asked: “If she were really put to death, is it not strange that the fact of her death is not once spoken of?” The fact of her death, we answer, is sufficiently indicated in the statement, “He did to her his vow which he had vowed;” and as for the silence of the other parts of Scripture on this subject, that is no more strange than its silence on a hundred other things. With more show of reason may we ask, How is it, if she were not slain, that we have no mention of her subsequent life? The marginal reading, to talk with, is certainly untenable. It was natural for the daughters of Israel to go yearly and celebrate the sublime devotion and lofty heroism that haloed around the memory of the saintly maiden; but if she were still alive, it is inexplicably strange that no intimation of that fact is given.

Another exposition of Jephthah’s vow, at war with that presented in the foregoing notes, has largely prevailed among both Jews and Christians. It maintains that the maiden was not put to death at all, but was consecrated to a life of celibacy. Most of the arguments by which it is supported, and the objections and difficulties which it raises against our exposition, have been as fully met and answered in the foregoing notes as the limits of this work will allow. For more full and thorough discussion of the subject the reader is referred to the author’s article in the Methodist Quarterly Review for April, 1873. It remains for us to notice in this place the arguments; and objections which, for the sake of unity and clearness, we omitted to notice above.

The great objection against the literal interpretation is, that the offering of a human sacrifice was incompatible with Jephthah’s faith, piety, and knowledge of the law. But how is this to be shown? It is alleged that an inspired writer of the New Testament, in Hebrews 11:32, commends Jephthah’s faith. But be it noted that he does not commend Jephthah’s vow. Mark his words: “The time would fail me to tell of Gideon, and Barak, and Samson, and Jephthah; David also, and Samuel, and the prophets.” What parts or acts of their lives, now, shall we suppose this verse commends? All they ever did, or said, or were? Then must we include Barak’s cowardice, and Gideon’s idolatry and polygamy, and Samson’s lewdness with Delilah, and David’s lies, and adultery, and murder of Uriah! The six verses following, through which the writer to the Hebrews goes on to specify particular instances of faith, which distinguished those ancient worthies, contain no allusion which can with any rational probability be made to mean the consecration of one’s daughter to perpetual celibacy. Did it ever occur to the advocates of this consecration theory that for a father to doom his daughter, in the bloom of her youthful beauty, to a life of seclusion and celibacy, and thus rob her of the honour and joys of Hebrew womanhood, could scarcely be the ground of an apostle’s commendation? The faith which the inspired writer praises in the ancient worthies is not to be confounded with all the acts which, because of ignorance, may have sometimes sprung from their faith. It is well to observe that the faith of the harlot Rahab, ex-tolled by the same sacred writer, was compatible with what the ethics of the New Testament would pronounce a life of shame and an act of falsehood. Jephthah’s vow, as we view it, was an act at once of mighty faith and fearful ignorance. Our Christian instinct revolts both from the vow and the fulfilling of it. But we must not ignore and deny the spirit of exalted faith and piety from which his action sprang. The correctness of one’s doctrinal opinions is no sure criterion of his heart’s faith in God. The Lord Jesus found among the Gentiles a faith unparalleled in Israel.

But the main strength of the consecration hypothesis lies in the supposition that a judge in Israel must needs have been acquainted with the law against human sacrifices, (Leviticus 18:21; Leviticus 20:2; Deuteronomy 12:31; Deuteronomy 18:10.) But let it be observed that this is only a supposition; it has no positive evidence to support it, and may be opposed by considerations which make the very contrary supposition much more probable. First, the fact, which the Book of Judges makes no secret, that that was a lawless and degenerate period of Hebrew history. “Every man did that which was right in his own eyes.” Judges 17:6; Judges 21:25; Judges 2:16-19. Then consider Jephthah’s early exile from his father’s house, and the fact that about the time of his expulsion the multiplied idolatry described in Judges 10:6.

must have been at its height in Israel. They had even gone so far as to serve “the gods of Moab and the gods of the children of Am-mon.” To what extent they worshipped Chemosh and Moloch we are not told; but let the impartial student of history judge whether it is safe to affirm, that while they shamefully apostatized from the Lord and openly served those gods whose most signal honour was a human sacrifice, they could never, even in a single instance, be supposed to have shown them such signal honour.

And how natural for the youthful Gileadite, under all the circumstances of his lot, to suppose that the substance and methods of religion were about the same among all the nations; and, since human sacrifices were offered by some, and he had possibly known of instances even in Israel, they entered into and helped to form his notions of what would be most specially noble and pleasing in the sight of God. What supposable opportunities did his wild border life afford him for becoming acquainted with the law of Moses? It there was great ignorance of the law in the very heart of Israel, and near to Shiloh, the seat of the tabernacle, what greater ignorance must have prevailed far off on the border of Ammon! These considerations lead us to conclude that, so far from being absurd or impossible, it was both natural and probable that Jephthah’s knowledge of the law was exceedingly meagre and confused, and that the savage discipline of his border life, often in contact with the Ammonites, had led him to suppose that the sacrifice of a human being was the noblest possible offering to God.

The hypothesis of Bush demands a passing notice. He supposes that during the two months’ mourning the affair became notorious throughout the land, and the subject of great lamentation and discussion. He imagines that when the vow passed Jephthah’s lips it had more of the character of a devotement ( cherem, Leviticus 27:28) than of a vow, ( neder,) but that he was subsequently instructed by the priests that a burnt offering was incompatible with the nature of a devoted thing, “and that the law having made no provision for the latter being substituted for the former, he was even, according to the very terms of his vow, rightly understood, not only released, but prohibited from performing it. Accordingly, he conceives that Jephthah executed his vow by devoting his daughter to perpetual celibacy “a mode of execution which did not, in the first instance, enter his thoughts.” The one and all-sufficient answer to this hypothesis is that from beginning to end it is a tissue of conjectures, and can claim no support from the sacred narrative. It may do for poets and romancers to weave such fancies around the facts of Scripture, but not for a commentator sagely to give us such conjectures for exposition.

Some have been puzzled to know by whose hand Jephthah’s daughter could have been sacrificed. It would have been unlawful, they urge, for Jephthah to have done it, for he was not a priest, and the priests at Shiloh would surely have not polluted the tabernacle with a human sacrifice. This difficulty is all imaginary. A reference to Judges 6:19-20; Judges 6:26-27; Judges 13:19, will show that in that age it was no uncommon thing for persons to offer sacrifices without the aid of priests, and at places far from the tabernacle. And a man who, like Jephthah, thought that a human sacrifice would be pleasing to God, would not be likely to scruple over forms; and to suppose that between the time he was made judge and the time he performed his vow he must have become acquainted with the regulations of the Levitical priesthood, is to suppose what has no evidence in Scripture. The same remarks will apply to the objection that none but a male victim could be offered in sacrifice, according to the law. Is it assumed, then, that Jephthah might have legally offered his son, if he had had one?

Finally, it is said that our exposition enables the oppugners of a divine revelation to urge a capital objection against the morality of the Bible. But how is this possible when the Bible nowhere approves or sanctions Jephthah’s vow? Must we accept as sanctioned of God every action in Bible history that is not specifically condemned by some sacred writer? Or will it be pretended that the Bible anywhere sanctions human sacrifices? Amazingly shallow are they who presume to oppugn divine revelation with such logic, or they who seriously fear the attacks of such objectors. We shudder at Jephthah’s ignorance and superstition, and revolt from his bloody deed: but with the daughters of Israel, who lived in that darkest of historic ages, we cannot but commemorate the mighty faith and zeal of Jephthah, and the sublime devotion of his daughter.