The main outline of the story in Judges 10–11 is clear. After the death of the judge Jair, once again the Israelites had turned to idolatry of a most virulent kind. The Lord thus lifted His protective care from them and the Ammonites threatened to attack Israel from across the Jordan. When Israel appealed to God, He said He had no interest in being called upon only in their times of distress. “Go and cry unto the gods which you have chosen” (10:14), He responded. Undeterred, Israel turned to Jephthah, the illegitimate son of a harlot, for help. Having been previously “thrust out” by his brothers, he seems to have joined up with some unsavory fellows of the “wild east” in the heights of Gilead.
Though he at first refused for the same reason God had done (“Did not ye hate me, and expel me out of my father’s house? and why are ye come unto me now when ye are in distress?,” 11:7), he later relented. And why? Because they promised that, if victorious, he would be their “head.” Unlike the other judges who appear content to do their work for God and pass from the scene, it seems Jephthah had grander plans to become the head of a ruling family. But such dreams of a dynasty came to nothing.
The judge before Jephthah had 30 sons! The judge after had 30 sons and 30 daughters! But poor Jephthah had only one daughter. On her hung all his hope of a ruling family. But it was not to be. When the Ammonites attacked (after failed peace negotiations), Jephthah vowed that, if the Lord gave him victory, “whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, shall surely be the Lord’s, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering” (11:31). To his grief, it was his only child. That much of the story is clear.
Now the question: did he really sacrifice his daughter in a macabre attempt to pay off God for His assistance? If so, it was in direct violation of the law’s prohibition (Deut. 18:9), Abraham’s offering of Isaac notwithstanding. That was “commanded but never intended”—to prove Abraham’s fealty to God. The answer to Micah 6:7, “Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” should be obvious.
Notice that Jephthah’s daughter does not ask for a two-month reprieve to bewail her death but her virginity (Jud. 11:37). And verse 39 explains: “her father…did with her according to his vow which he had vowed: and she knew no man.” The rv margin suggests the vow to read, “whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me…shall surely be the Lord’s, or I will offer it up for a burnt offering” (vv. 30-31). And the same version gives “celebrate” for “lament” in verse 40, and the marginal reading as “talk with,” suggesting that each year the young women met with his daughter to acknowledge her heroic act of submission. Those who suggest such could not be an admirable act might read 1 Corinthians 7:38 again.