“He that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not” (Ps. 15:4).
In a Bournemouth art gallery there is a series of paintings by Edwin Long depicting the story of Jephthah. The largest of them pictures the return from battle, with the daughter coming out to welcome her father. The last of the series is of Jephthah sacrificing her in fulfillment of his rash vow. It is terrible in its realism. The daughter is bound to an altar, and Jephthah is shown in anguish, about to take her life.
What are the facts? First of all, human sacrifices were expressly forbidden by the law. Israel was not to learn to do after the abomination of the nations, as making a son or daughter pass through the fire (Deut. l8:9). In Micah 6:7, the prophet asks: “Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” and shows that that is not what God requires. There is no evidence that Israel ever associated such sacrifices with the worship of Jehovah.
God’s testing of Abraham’s faith is no warrant for thinking otherwise. That yielding of the only begotten son was never represented to Abraham as being for the sin of his soul, but as evidence that Abraham was willing to obey in faith and keep back nothing from God, as God in love kept back nothing, but gave His only begotten Son for our salvation. That God did not allow the sacrifice to be consummated shows the true meaning of it. “Now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from Me” (Gen. 22:12).
Look at the wording of the vow. “If Thou shalt without fail deliver the children of Ammon into mine hands, then it shall be, that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me…shall surely be the Lord’s.” Note what follows: “or” (not “and,” RV margin) I will offer it up for a burnt offering” (vv. 30-31).
It was either to be for the Lord as in Leviticus 27:1-27, under a “singular vow,” or if an animal as was suitable for the purpose (see Lev. l:3, “of the herd”; v. 10, “of the flocks”; v. 14, or “of fowls”), then it was to be offered as a burnt offering.
Moreover, had she been thus vowed to the Lord she might have been redeemed in accordance with Leviticus 27:4, for 30 shekels, had there been nothing unusual.
The exception in Leviticus 27:29 is of those being “devoted” to destruction as was Jericho; a thing “doomed” was not redeemable. But the word “devoted” to death is not used in the case of Jephthah.
His vow appears to have pledged his daughter to perpetual virginity. This seems evident from her words: “My father, if thou hast opened thy mouth unto the Lord, do to me according to that which hath proceeded out of thy mouth…Let this thing be done for me: let me alone two months, that I may go up and down upon the mountains, and bewail my virginity…” (vv. 36-37).
The words of verse 39 bear this out: “Her father…did with her according to his vow which he had vowed: and she knew no man.”
The word “lament” in verse 40 is variously translated. In the RV it is rendered “celebrate,” in the margin “talk with.” This suggests that for four days each year the daughters of Israel went to talk with the daughter of Jephthah, and to celebrate her submission to parental authority, and her sacrificed hope of that which a Jewish woman held most desirable, the birth of a son.
It has been objected that the thought of devotion to virginity was not considered a pious thing, nor a desirable one in those days, that the conception has arisen since, being taken from the heathen (such as the vestal virgins, etc., of pagan Rome) by an apostate Christianity, but this scarcely seems borne out by the words of 1 Corinthians 7:38, RV: “So then both he that giveth [his own virgin daughter] in marriage doeth well, but he that giveth her not in marriage doeth better.”
The devotion and submission of Jephthah’s daughter to her father’s will reminds us of the willing yielding of Isaac and, more wonderful still, of One who became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.
Such seems to be the reasonable interpretation of Jephthah’s vow but there are others who take a different view, and believe that he actually offered his daughter. The outstanding lesson of the story is found in the noble words of Jephthah: “I have opened my mouth unto the Lord, and I cannot go back” (v. 35).