Ministries
Resources
29Then the Spirit of the LORD was upon Jephthah, and he passed through Gilead and Manasseh and passed on to Mizpah of Gilead, and from Mizpah of Gilead he passed on to the Ammonites. 30And Jephthah made a vow to the LORD and said, "If you will give the Ammonites into my hand, 31then whatever comes out from the doors of my house to meet me when I return in peace from the Ammonites shall be the LORD’s, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering." 32So Jephthah crossed over to the Ammonites to fight against them, and the LORD gave them into his hand. 33And he struck them from Aroer to the neighborhood of Minnith, twenty cities, and as far as Abel-keramim, with a great blow. So the Ammonites were subdued before the people of Israel.
34Then Jephthah came to his home at Mizpah. And behold, his daughter came out to meet him with tambourines and with dances. She was his only child; besides her he had neither son nor daughter. 35And as soon as he saw her, he tore his clothes and said, "Alas, my daughter! You have brought me very low, and you have become the cause of great trouble to me. For I have opened my mouth to the LORD, and I cannot take back my vow." 36And she said to him, "My father, you have opened your mouth to the LORD; do to me according to what has gone out of your mouth, now that the LORD has avenged you on your enemies, on the Ammonites." 37So she said to her father, "Let this thing be done for me: leave me alone two months, that I may go up and down on the mountains and weep for my virginity, I and my companions." 38So he said, "Go." Then he sent her away for two months, and she departed, she and her companions, and wept for her virginity on the mountains. 39And at the end of two months, she returned to her father, who did with her according to his vow that he had made. She had never known a man, and it became a custom in Israel 40that the daughters of Israel went year by year to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite four days in the year.
Did Jephthah eventually kill his daughter in fulfillment of his illicit vow? 11:39 states that he "did with her according to the vow he had made." No description of the killing is given, but the horrific idea is left as an imagined potentiality. There is a rich and fascinating deposit of the history of interpretation of this disturbing text, which divides into two major groups. Jewish and Christian readers up to the Middle Ages consistently affirmed that Jephthah put the knife to his own daughter. In medieval times another rendering gained wide acceptance up to the present day. According to this interpretation, he did not actually kill her, but rather dedicated her to a life of celibacy (cf. 11:37, 39 drawing attention to her virginity).
We may be quite certain of one thing. The celibacy interpretation would not have become popular if the possibility suggested in the text would not be so shocking. After all, Jephthah's exclamation is, "I cannot take back my vow" (11:35), and the vow specified a burnt sacrifice. As the reader, I want to cry out, "Oh, come on now, there must be a way out of this predicament! God does not want you to kill your daughter!" Moreover, God seems to be distant in all this. He does not intervene to correct Jephthah's folly. In some sense, and if Jephthah did do what he promised, we have reached a low point in Judges. But again, a reading of this story in the light of subsequent cycles shows that it would even get worse. Ch.19 records the rape and butchering of a concubine, and ch.21 relates the forcible kidnapping of hundreds of young women by the men of Benjamin. As we come to the closing of the book, the degradation of the people of God shows in the treatment of the weak and vulnerable. Pray that this trend may not materialize in our families and churches, for it would not be a novelty.
Well, if this is a shocking tale, then how about this one: God sacrifices his only son for us! The shock and stumbling block of the gospel is expressed in Rom. 8:32: "God did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all…." Now of course, we have to differentiate. Human sacrifice is prohibited because human life is sacred and the killing of a sinful human (such as we are) cannot effect anything. But God sacrificed his Son for this very reason: This one man's death did effect redemption for countless individuals doomed to be judged forever, and God knew that he would also raise Jesus and not leave his soul in hell. But this does not eliminate the shock, does it? God sacrificed his Son because he loved his people enough to pay the ultimate price. And who are we? Are we not all unworthy? To think that God would do such a thing for people like us! But he did do it, and we have become his own, the first-fruits of the new creation in Christ whom he raised from the dead. We, therefore, who know and believe these things, should offer ourselves as living sacrifices, venturing only on the basis of his Word.
The author of these devotionals, the Rev. Martin Emmrich, is an ordained OPC minister (Westminster OPC, Corvallis, Oregon) as well as the author of Pneumatological Concepts in the Epistle to the Hebrews, a book on the teaching of Hebrews on the Holy Spirit. We are happy to make these devotionals on Ecclesiastes and other passages of Scripture available to you.
© 2025 The Orthodox Presbyterian Church
