One of the most interesting controversies in the Old Testament involves the vow Jephthah made to God. Did he offer his daughter up as a human sacrifice? A good case can be made for both yes or no, and reasonable, faithful brethren (both past and present) may be found on either side. The main question should always be: “What does the text tell us?”
And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord, and said, “If you will indeed deliver the people of Ammon into my hands, then it will be that whatever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the people of Ammon, shall surely be the Lord’s, and I will offer it up as a burnt offering” (Judges 11:30-31).
This vow seems strange to Americans and the way of life to which we are accustomed. One of our first reactions is probably: “What does he expect to come out of the doors of his house—his wife (none is ever mentioned), his daughter, a servant?” This vow certainly seems bizarre from that respect. The Pulpit Commentary affirms that Jephthah could not have intended or expected anything other than a human being—based on the use of the word meet (3:3:124). However, do not animals come out to meet their owners? When the shepherd calls for the sheep, do they not come forth from the pen to meet him?
Jephthah indicates a familiarity with the Law of Moses. In fact, the part about keeping a vow is from Numbers 30:2, which is not the most prominent verse of the old covenant. Certainly it would not be as familiar as, “You shall not murder” (Ex. 20:13; Deut. 5:17). One could call offering a human being to God a burnt sacrifice, but it would be nothing less than murder. Can we actually suppose that Jephthah was so devout that he would make and keep a vow while being so obtuse that he would plan to murder a human being? Human sacrifice was not common in Israel at this time.
Rash?
Quite often, what this judge over Israel did is referred to Jephthah’s rash vow. This is an assessment of men. The words rash vow do not occur in the Scriptures. In fact, the word rash is never used in connection with Jephthah at all. Tom Wacaster made an excellent point concerning this alleged defect in him:
To begin with, Jephthah does not seem to be a man of rash and impetuous action. His attempted negotiations with the king of Ammon depict a man of rational and calm thinking. Nor did Jephthah utter this vow in the heat of battle. These things were spoken before he set out against the Ammonites (Studies in Joshua, Judges, and Ruth (217). [This book was part of the Annual Denton Lectures edited by Dub McClish (1994).]
Who or What Would Come Forth?
Did Jephthah actually expect a human being to come forth from his house? On what basis would an animal be in his house? Nothing is explained in the text that provides a clue, but if houses then were like those in the New Testament, we might better understand the situation. The following comments relate to the birth of Jesus and how it was that He could have been laid in a manger. They are made by two leading authorities on Palestinian life from the last century. The relevance to this situation will be readily seen.
Perhaps…recourse was had to one of the Bethlehem houses with the lower section provided for the animals, with mangers “hollowed in stone,” the dais being reserved for the family. Such a manger being immovable, filled with crushed straw, would do duty for a cradle. An infant might even be left in safety, especially if swaddled, when the mother was absent….
In the East today the dwelling place of man and beast is often in one and the same room. It is quite the usual thing among the peasants for the family to live, eat, and sleep on a kind of raised terrace (Arab, mastaba) in the one room of the house, while the cattle, particularly the donkeys and oxen, have their place below on the actual floor (ka’ albet) near the door…. On this floor the mangers are fixed either to the floor or to the wall, or at the edge of the terrace.”
These two quotes are from (respectively) Eric F. F. Bishop and Gustaf Dalmann; both citations are from an article, “Was There Really ‘No Room in the Inn’?” by Mario Siegle and Tom Robinson. It is cited in an unpublished manuscript by Timothy R. Summers titled, “Misconceptions about the Birth of Jesus.”
Of course, the events of Jephthah occurred more than 1,200 years earlier, but if these conditions existed at the time Jesus was born, it demonstrates the possibility that the same combination of humans and animals existed earlier and that Jephthah may well have expected an animal to come forth from his house.
Either / Or
In fact, Keil and Delitzsch provide an explanation that allows Jephthah to have considered an animal or human greeting. Tom Wacaster (cited earlier) explains:
Keil and Delitzsch pointed out that the Hebrew “clauses ‘he shall be the Lord’s,’ and ‘I will offer him up for a burnt offering,’ (v. 31) cannot be taken disjunctively in such a sense as this” and they therefore interpret the whole of the phrase as “it shall EITHER be dedicated to the Lord, OR, if it should be a sacrificial animal, I will offer it up as a burnt offering” (2:386). [The preceding quote comes from McClish (217-28).
In response to this idea, Frank Gaebelein, writing for The Expository Bible’s Commentary, takes issue with that notion. He writes:
While it is true that the conjunction…can mean ‘or’ occasionally, the writer knows of no case where it joins clauses so diverse in structure and has the meaning ‘or’… (3:455). [This citation is given by James Rogers (McClish 404).]
If Gaebelein is correct that such a construction does not usually appear, this instance could nevertheless be an exception, which is always possible. If the either/or construction is not possible, then one of two things is true. Either Jephthah fully expected to offer a human sacrifice (as the Pulpit Commentary insists), or his only thought was that an animal would come forth. The first of these cannot be true. That Jephthah might have in any way contemplated a human sacrifice from the beginning is not possible. It violated God’s clear teaching (one more fundamental than keeping a vow). The worst scenario to imagine is that he neglected to consider a human greeting him, which would be about as short-sighted as a fellow could be. He may not have thought his daughter would be the first out of his house, but he could scarcely have thought that no human being, period, might come forth.
However, Keil and Delitzsch are not the only ones to bring up the either/or possibility. In correspondence with an individual on this very subject, Dub McClish quoted from Young’s Literal Translation of the Holy Bible by Robert Young, Revised Edition (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1956):
Young, Wilson, and Bullinger all conclude that there are two parts to the vow Jephthah made. Bullinger, in particular, goes into great detail to cite no fewer than 17 other passages in which the Hebrew conjunction and, as rendered in the vow (Jud. 11:31) not only could, but should be rendered or. Young’s Literal Translation so translates it (as I emphasized it to call attention to it). Although Wilson, in his Emphatic Diaglott, retains and in his rendering, he nonetheless explicitly argues that it is a two-part, rather than a one-part vow, as generally assumed upon a casual reading of our common English versions.
Furthermore, E. W. Bullinger made a defense of the idea that Jephthah’s daughter was consecrated instead of made a burnt sacrifice. He showed that Gaebelein is not correct and listed a number of passages showing that or is plainly to be chosen. Two of them are Genesis 41:44 and Exodus 21:18. The first of these has Pharaoh telling Joseph that without his (Joseph’s) consent no one would be able to “lift his hand or foot in all the land of Egypt.” Notice that hand and foot would be awkward, implying that the action would be done simultaneously. Or is clearly the better choice.
Likewise, Exodus 21:18 requires the or instead of the and. “If men contend with each other, and one strikes the other with a stone or with his fist, and he does not die but is confined to his bed….” To use and in this text instead of or would require that the one man struck the other with his fist and with a stone at the same time, which is obviously not the meaning. Bullinger provides a list of several passages, and they show that the Hebrew word may legitimately be translated “or.”
Could Jephthah really have failed to consider that no human being might come forth from his house at all? Did no human being ever emerge from his doors at any time? How dense could anyone be? It is far more logical to think that he had calculated and planned for both possibilities (and thus meant or). Yet he did not think his daughter would be the first human to greet him. If an animal did not come out, then at least it would be a servant. We do not know why he had this confidence, but it could be nothing more complicated than it was not her custom to do so.
Justification for the Sacrifice
It is interesting to watch those who advocate the human sacrifice theory justify their thinking. Following are two who contradict one another. One cites the intelligence of Jephthah.
Jephthah knew his Bible as is evidenced in his discussion with the children of Ammon (vv. 13; 28). He knew the history of Israel in detail. He was able to refute the error presented by the children of Ammon. When challenged, Jephthah knew how to give the appropriate answer (Rogers’ chapter in McClish 402).
The writer is correct with this part of his analysis although he eventually concludes that Jephthah made a human sacrifice of his daughter. However, compare the above word with the explanation offered by LaSor, Hubbard, and Bush in the volume on Old Testament History (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1982):
Although he may be judged by modern standards, Jephthah was not brought up under those standards. He was a Gileadite, and the non-Israelites in that region followed Chemosh, whose worship included the sacrificing of children as burnt offerings (2 Kgs. 3:27). According to the concept of progressive revelation, God takes his people where they are and leads them to a more complete knowledge of his person and will. Jephthah was a product of his own day…. When the Israelites learned that Jahweh does not require such actions, they learned to view Jephthah’s vow and its fulfillment accordingly (223).
This assessment of the situation assumes that neither Jephthah nor the Israelites had or knew God’s law. Apparently, the Israelites did not know that idolatry was wrong—or human sacrifice—even though both are condemned in the Ten Commandments. The entire passage assumes that Jephthah and the Israelites were spiritual and moral morons and that one day God would lead them out of it. The fact is, however, that if they truly did not know God’s law on these matters, the only possible explanation is that they departed from it. It is not as though they did not or could not know. But at any rate, we find one source commending Jephthah for his Bible knowledge while another claims that he had none. Which is it?
The Fulfillment of the Vow
When Jephthah returned, much to his dismay, his daughter came out to meet him (11:34). The homecoming was not the joyous event that either one of them anticipated. Jephthah said, “Alas, my daughter! You have brought me very low! You are among those who trouble me! For I have given my word to the Lord, and I cannot go back on it!” (11:35). Whatever he had vowed, he now had to keep. Remarkably, his daughter was a woman of great nobility. She replied, “My father, if you have given your word to the Lord, do to me according to what has gone out of your mouth, because the Lord has avenged you of your enemies, the people of Ammon” (11:36).
How did a young woman, raised in such a corrupt culture come to possess such loving obedience and willingness to participate in a vow to which she was not a party—and made by a father so heathen that he would practice human sacrifice? How did such blessed incompatibility come about?
Her only request is that she might have two months with her friends to bewail her virginity, which was granted her (11:37-38). At that time Jephthah fulfilled his vow. Every year the daughters of Israel lamented the daughter of Jephthah (11:39-40).
Now what is said in connection with fulfilling the vow, and what is not said? Does the text say that Jephthah killed her? It does not. The only way that could possibly have happened is if his initial vow involved killing a human being, which has not been established. The text affirms that he kept his vow, but if he had determined to give a human being to the Lord (consecrated to His service), then he could well have fulfilled his vow without bloodshed. For that reason this article considered what the vow was in the first place—because whatever he vowed he did. And if he actually did begin to sacrifice his daughter, why did God not intercede as He did when Abraham was offering Isaac? Was Jephthah ignorant of even the book of Genesis to the point where that event had no meaning for him? But God knew if he did not.
Nothing in the text says that his daughter was put to death (unless Jephthah had human sacrifice in mind from the beginning). What it does say is that he cannot go back on his word, and his daughter fully agrees. The text provides no details of either building or traveling to an altar. There is no attempt to engage a member of the priesthood to make a sacrifice. Furthermore, as Wayne Jackson points out: “There is no condemnation of Jephthah’s act in the record of Judges or elsewhere” (“What about Jephthah’s Vow?” on www.christiancourier.com). Would not even one priest or prophet have condemned human sacrifice?
How is it that he remained as judge after sacrificing his own daughter (Jackson)? Would Israel follow someone who sacrificed his own daughter? Wacaster quotes Keil and Delitzsch as saying:
The men whom God chose as the recipients of His revelation of mercy and the executors of His will, and whom He endowed with His Spirit as judges and leaders of His people, were no doubt affected with infirmities, faults and sins of many kinds, so that they could fall to a very great depth; but nowhere is it stated that the Spirit of God came upon a worshipper of Molech and endowed him with His own power, that he might be the helper and savior of Israel (2:391-92) [McClish 218].