BRAGADAYJAH 754
Jephthah’s Daughter
Jephthah vowed a vow unto the Lord and
said that if the Lord gave him victory over the children of Ammon, then
whatever came out of his house to greet him on his return shall be the Lord’s;
and he would offer it up as a burnt offering.
And so it happened that when he returned from conquest of the children
of Ammon, it was his only and beloved virgin daughter that came out to meet
him. Having allowed her at her request to go up and down the mountain to “Bewail
her virginity,” Jephthah then did unto her as he had vowed. The first question
then is what did Jephthah contemplate as the most likely thing to come to greet
him on his return? What thing that is,
he thought would be brought out to meet him? It is advanced that he did not
anticipate a person, least of all his very own daughter. Jephthah would have
known that God does not sanction, indeed prohibit, human sacrifices in the form
of burnt offerings. Where it was mandated that the first of the womb was the
Lord’s, God’s word provided that whether it be male or female it be redeemed,
and a price set for such redemption. It is most possible that Jephthah thought
he would have been showered with gifts on his return, and it is that gift, or
those gifts, he anticipated offering to the Lord as a burnt offering. In the premises, therefore, it is postulated
that Jephthah declared his daughter a perpetual virgin dedicated to the service
of the Lord; she never married, and as the context clearly indicates she had
anticipation of marriage. So the yearly ritual also suggests that what was
thereafter mourned was the fact that she never married; for “her father did
unto her according to his vow which he had vowed and she knew no man.” In
conclusion, it is not likely that Jephthah offered his daughter as a burnt offering
upon the altar as God does not accept human sacrifices.
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