The Fate of Jephthah’s Daughter

A reader sent an email asking me to discuss the passage in Judges 11:29-40 dealing with the fate of Jephthah’s daughter.

I have already written three posts on this subject. I refer the reader and those interested in this subject to read those posts:

1. Rereading Judges 11:31: The Sacrifice of Jephthah’s Daughter

2. Judges 11:39: The Fate of Jephthah’s Daughter

3. Judges 11:39: The Virginity of Jephthah’s Daughter

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary


Tags: Child Sacrifice, Jephthah, Judges 11

Judges 11:39: The Virginity of Jephthah’s Daughter

This is the third essay on Jephthah’s daughter.

To read the first article in the series, “Rereading Judges 11:31: The Sacrifice of Jephthah’s Daughter, click here.

To read the second article in the series, “Judges 11:39: The Fate of Jephthah’s Daughter,” click here.

This final essay on Jephthah’s daughter will deal with the issue of her virginity. There is no question that she was a virgin to the day of her death. On this issue, all scholars agree. The issue of her virginity is directly related to the manner in which she died. The translation of Judges 11:39 affects the way her death is interpreted. What follows is the way the RSV and the NIV translate Judges 11:39:

“And at the end of two months, she returned to her father, who did with her according to his vow which he had made. She had never known a man” (Judges 11:39 RSV).

“After the two months, she returned to her father and he did to her as he had vowed. And she was a virgin” (Judges 11:39 NIV).

To the average reader, the two translations are identical. The only difference in the two translations is found in the words translators use to describe her sexual condition: “she had never known a man” and “she was a virgin.” However, for the interpreter of the text, the way the text is translated affects the way the text is interpreted.

C. J. Goslinga (p. 391, note 182) explains how the translation of Judges 11:39 affects the interpretation of the text. Goslinga wrote:

It is hard to translate these words without opting for a particular interpretation of the text. The most obvious translation would be “and she had never known a man” (cf. RSV), but the preceding clause would then have to mean that Jephthah sacrificed his daughter. A more neutral but equally permissible translation would be “she had no relations with a man,” or “she was a virgin.” The meaning would be that she remained celibate her entire life and died a virgin. Such translation is therefore preferable. It does not contradict the thought that she was killed, but it also leaves open the possibility that she lived on as a virgin.

Goslinga is very clear: the translation of the RSV, “she had never known a man,” which he calls “the most obvious translation,” implies that Jephthah sacrificed his daughter. The translation of the NIV, “she was a virgin,” means that she was not sacrificed, but rather, that she remained celibate for the rest of her life.

The ambiguity of the text forces the interpreter to ask questions. Is the text saying that after she returned from her retreat she knew no man after that, that is, she never had sex until she died? Or is the text saying that she was sacrificed as a virgin?

C. F. Keil (p. 392) takes the former view. In his commentary of Judges, he wrote: “To mourn one’s virginity does not mean to mourn because one has to die a virgin, but because one has to live and remain a virgin.”

Keil then (p. 393) explains the words “and she knew no man”:

The clause in the account of the fulfilment of the vow, “and she knew no man,” is not in harmony with the assumption of a sacrificial death. This clause would add nothing to the description in that case, since it was already known that she was a virgin. The words only gain their proper sense if we connect them with the previous clause, he “did with her according to the vow which he had vowed,” and understand them as describing what the daughter did in fulfilment of the vow. The father fulfilled his vow upon her, and she knew no man; i.e., he fulfilled the vow
through the fact that she knew no man, but dedicated her life to the Lord, as a spiritual burnt-offering, in a lifelong chastity.

Even Goslinga struggled in deciding what happened to Jephthah’s daughter. He waivered between the fact that the text requires her death and the view that it was hard to understand “how a man like Jephthah could have taken a vow that obligated him to offer a human sacrifice” (p. 395). He then concluded:

In my view the words of verse 39, which conceal more than they reveal, do not absolutely rule out the possibility of permanent separation. Jephthah’s daughter could indeed have been put to death, but there could also have been a mournful ceremony in which she was sent off into the desert to wither and die. The words “and she was a virgin” would then make clear what Jephthah’s decision did to her, and the custom reported in verse 40 could have been a means to lighten her unbearable fate a little by allowing her to have company for four days a year.

I sympathize with people who are uneasy with the outcome of this passage. It is hard to believe that a man endowed with the Spirit of God would offer human sacrifice to the God of Israel, but he did. Jephthah’s action should not be interpreted in light of the teachings of Jesus Christ. After all, Jephthah was a B.C. man.

The near sacrifice of Isaac in Genesis 22 reveals that the reality of human sacrifice was a possibility in the world in which ancient Israel lived. However, if Genesis 22 is a polemic against human sacrifice, then the greatest lesson to be learned from the near sacrifice of Isaac is that human sacrifice was not to be a part of the religion of the God of Abraham.

Jephthah’s daughter, unfortunately, was sacrificed as a burnt offering. The dedication of Samuel to God in 1 Samuel 1:11-28 is not a good precedent for the view that the sacrifice of Jephthah’s daughter was just a “spiritual sacrifice.”

The sacrifice of Jephthah’s daughter is not the focus of Jephthah’s narrative; the real focus of the story is the irrevocability of a vow. As Boling wrote (p. 209): “The fact of human sacrifice in Jephthah’s story is secondary to the theme of the irrevocability of the vow.” Although Boling believed that the “whatever” of verse 31 could be a reference to a domesticated animal, his view that the writer of the book of Judges is sympathetic with Jephthah, and his conclusion that the focus of the story is the writer’s portrayal “of Jephthah’s integrity in fulfilling his vow” (p. 210) is correct.

Christians will continue to discuss the sacrifice of Jephthah’s daughter and whether Jephthah actually offered his daughter as a burnt offering to God. Those who reject the view that she was not sacrificed, do so without much textual support.

The issue of how one views the fate of Jephthah’s daughter also affects the manner in which the text is translated. Bible translators cannot allow personal preferences to influence the way a text is translated. However, this is easier said than done.

Each translation is an interpretation of the text. The responsibility of the translator is to translate the text as the text appears in the manuscripts without conveying a meaning that is not present in the text.

For instance, to translate 2 Samuel 21:19, that Elhanan killed the brother of Goliath, as the TNIV does, is wrong because those words are not in the text. The words of Judges 11:31 and 11:39 are more difficult to translate because of the ambiguity already present in the text. The translator here must be faithful to the text and leave it to the interpreter yo decide what the text means.

References:

Boling, Robert. Judges. The Anchor Bible. Garden City: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1975.

Goslinga, C. J. Joshua, Judges, Ruth. Bible Student’s Commentary. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1986.

Keil, C. F. Joshua, Judges, Ruth. Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1950.

Claude F. Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Child Sacrifice, Jephthah, Judges 11

Judges 11:39: The Fate of Jephthah’s Daughter

Last week I wrote about the problem various versions of the Bible have in translating Judges 11:31. The proper translation of verse 31 is crucial to the understanding of the fate of Jephthath’s daughter. I am presupposing that you have read last week’s post; if you have not, I recommend that you do so as a background for today’s post. Click here and read my post, “Rereading Judges 11:31: The Sacrifice of Jephthah’s Daughter.”

Here is how the Revised Standard Version (RSV) translates Judges 11:30-31:

30 And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord, and said, “If thou wilt give the Ammonites into my hand, 31 then whoever comes forth from the doors of my house to meet me, when I return victorious from the Ammonites, shall be the Lord's, and I will offer him up for a burnt offering.”

Here is how the New International Version (NIV) translates Judges 11:30-31:

30 And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord: “If you give the Ammonites into my hands, 31 whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites will be the Lord's, and I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering.”

The “whoever” of the RSV presupposes that Jephthah expected a human being to meet him. The “whatever” of the NIV presupposes that either an animal or a person would come out of the house. However, the “him” of the RSV and the “it” of the NIV makes clear that the translators of the NIV had an animal in mind.

On his return, Jephthah’s daughter came to meet him. In his distress, Jephthah bemoaned the fact that he will have to sacrifice her. His daughter asked permission to go away for two months, and upon her return, Jephthah “did with her according to his vow which he had made” (Judges 11:39).

The question to be asked is: If Jephthah did with his daughter what he vowed to do, what did Jephthah do with his daughter?

The simple answer is: he sacrificed her as a burnt offering to God. This is the simple meaning of the text. The promise that Jephthah made to God was that whoever came from his house to meet him, he would offer him up to the Lord as burnt offering. Or, as the Good News Bible puts it: “I will burn as an offering the first person that comes out of my house to meet me when I come back from victory. I will offer that person to you as a sacrifice” (Judges 11:31). The word עולה ('olah) is often translated as a “holocaust” or “burnt offering.” When the offerer made an 'olah sacrifice, the sacrifice was completely burned.

Some scholars disagree with the view that Jephthah’s daughter was sacrificed to God. They believe that verse 39 is not clear and that it does not tell what Jephthah did with his daughter. Thus, these writers believe that Jephthah did not sacrifice his daughter as a burnt offering to God. In his commentary on Judges, Adam Clark wrote:

“Therefore it must be granted that he never made that rash vow which several suppose he did; nor was he capable, if he had, of executing it in that most shocking manner which some Christian writers (‘tell it not in Gath’) have contended for.”

Clark emends the text to read that Jephthah will offer a sacrifice to the Lord to celebrate his victory against the enemies of Israel. The reason Clark does not believe that Jephthah sacrificed his daughter to the Lord was because Jephthah was a pious man who was endowed with the Spirit of God (Judges 11:29). Since the Spirit of God was upon Jephthah, Clark said, “that Spirit could not permit him to imbrue his hands in the blood of his own child; and especially under the pretense of offering a pleasing sacrifice to that God who is the Father of mankind, and the Fountain of love, mercy, and compassion.”

His conclusion, then, is that Jephthah did not sacrifice his daughter to God, but consecrated her to serve the Lord in a state of perpetual virginity. His view is based on the words “she had never known a man” (v. 39). According to Clark, persons who were dedicated or consecrated to God would live in a state of celibacy until death.

C.F. Keil, in his commentary on Judges takes the same approach. Keil wrote:

And so, again, the still further clause in the account of the fulfilment of the vow, “and she knew no man,” is not in harmony with the assumption of a sacrificial death. This clause would add nothing to the description in that case, since it was already known that she was a virgin. The words only gain their proper sense if we connect them with the previous clause, he “did with her according to the vow which he had vowed,” and understand them as describing what the daughter did in fulfillment of the vow. The father fulfilled his vow upon her, and she knew no man; i.e., he fulfilled the vow through the fact that she knew no man, but dedicated her life to the Lord, as a spiritual burnt-offering, in a lifelong chastity.

Clark’s and Keil’s views are based on the interpretation of Rabbi David Kimchi (1160-1235), a Middle Age Jewish scholar, who believed that Jephthah had not sacrificed his daughter to God. Rather, Kimchi believed Jephthah dedicated his daughter to serve in one of the sanctuaries of the Lord as a virgin for the rest of her life.

A closer look at the text reveals that the better interpretation of what happened in this situation, and let it be told in Gath, was that Jephthah actually sacrificed his daughter as an offering for the Lord.

Jephthah was a man without honor. He was the son of a prostitute (Judges 11:1) and was expelled from his father’s house because he was an “illegitimate son.” He was a man rejected by the leaders of Gilead because of his illegitimate birth and he became the leader of a group of men of low character who went out raiding with him.

Jephthah’s only honor was the honor of his word, but even this, some scholars are trying to take away from him. Jephthah said to his daughter: “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” (Judges 11:35).

In the society where Jephthah lived, a vow was sacred to God: “When you make a vow to the Lord your God, you shall not be slack to pay it; for the Lord your God will surely require it of you, and it would be sin in you” (Deuteronomy 23:21). The sacredness of a vow is also reflected in Psalm 15. The Psalmist asked: “O Lord, who shall sojourn in thy tent? Who shall dwell on thy holy hill?” (Psalm 15:1). And the answer was: he “who swears to his own hurt and does not change” (v. 4).

Jephthah’s daughter recognized that her father had made a vow that could not be retracted. She said: “My father, if you have opened your mouth to the Lord, do to me according to what has gone forth from your mouth” (Judges 11:36). A Christian who lives by the teaching of Christ may recoil at the fact that a follower of the Lord actually sacrificed his daughter to God, but he did and in the end, he was praised as a hero of the faith in Hebrews 11:32.

The Lord delivered Israel not because Jephthah made a vow, but because the Lord desired to save his people. Jephthah’s fulfillment of his vow is due to his ignorance and lack of knowledge about the true nature of the God of Israel. Ironically, it is precisely in this act of being faithful to the promise he made to God that we can see Jephthah’s dedication to God.

Although human sacrifice does not appear in Israel until the days of Ahaz and Manasseh, Solomon dedicated temples to Chemosh and Molech (1 Kings 11:7), gods to whom human sacrifices were made. Human sacrifice was known in pre-monarchic Israel, but generally, it was dedicated to pagan gods.

There is no doubt that some people in Israel believed that human sacrifice was a great demonstration of faith and dedication to God. When the people asked the prophet Micah, “Shall I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” (Micah 6:7), their question assumes that some people believed that human sacrifice, under certain conditions, was acceptable to God.

So, the only obvious interpretation of Jephthah’s words, that Jephthah “did with her according to his vow which he had made” (Judges 11:39), is that Jephthah offered his daughter as a human sacrifice to God, and that in his mind and in the minds of some people in Israel, that kind of sacrifice was the best offering one could offer to God.

Next week I will conclude my study of the sacrifice of Jephthah’s daughter with a study of the words “she had never known a man” (Judges 11:39).

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Child Sacrifice, Jephthah, Judges 11

Rereading Judges 11:31: The Sacrifice of Jephthah’s Daughter

The story of Jephthah is well known by readers of the Bible because of his willingness to sacrifice his daughter to celebrate his victory against the enemies of Israel (Judges 10:6-12:7). Jephthah was the commander of the Israelite army in Gilead at the time the Ammonites were oppressing Israel.

The leaders of Israel selected Jephthah to fight for them. After the Spirit of the Lord endued Jephthah with power to defeat Israel’s enemies, he went to war against the Ammonites, the people who had oppressed Israel for eighteen years.

Before going to war, Jephthah made a vow to the Lord. In his vow Jephthah promised to make a sacrifice to the Lord in exchange for a victory against his enemies. Jephthah said:

“If you will give the Ammonites into my hand, then whoever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return victorious from the Ammonites, shall be the Lord's, to be offered up by me as a burnt offering” (Judges 11:30-31 NRSV).

When Jephthah returned to his home in Mizpah victorious from his war against the Ammonites, his only daughter came out in celebration to meet him. Jephthah was grieved by the fact that it was his daughter who came out to meet him. In grief, he tore his clothes and said: “Alas, my daughter! You have brought me very low” (Judges 11:35). Jephthah’s grief overwhelms his daughter; however, she does not lament her fate. Rather, she asks her father permission to go to the hills for two months to lament her virginity. After two months she returns, and Jephthah “did to her as he had vowed” (Judges 11:39).

The NIV and several other translations differ in the way they translate Judges 11:31. The intent of this change is to mitigate the moral dilemma raised by the fact that Jephthah, a man who is celebrated as a “hero of the faith” in Hebrews 11:32, makes a human sacrifice to Yahweh.

The NIV reads: “if you give the Ammonites into my hands, whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites will be the Lord's, and I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering” (Judges 11:30-31).

The “whoever” of the NRSV presupposes a person, a human being. The “whatever” of the NIV presupposes an animal. The following translations use “whoever”: LXX, BBE, CEV, NAB, NET, NRSV, and the RSV. The following translations use “whatever” or a similar word: ASV, CJB, CSB, ERV, ESV, GWN, JPS, KJV, NAS, NIV, NKJ, NLT, RWB, TNIV, and the TNK.

The Geneva Bible translates “that thing” and the New Jerusalem Bible translates “the first thing.” The Darby translation is neutral; it reads: “that which cometh forth.” The Revised English Version is also neutral: “the first creature that comes out of the door of my house.” The GNB is not neutral: “I will burn as an offering the first person that comes out of my house to meet me.”

So, the question arises: was Jephthah expecting an animal or a person to come out and meet him when he returned home victorious? Did Jephthah make a vow to offer a human sacrifice to God?

Adam Clarke in his commentary on Judges wrote: “Therefore it must be granted that he never made that rash vow which several suppose he did; nor was he capable, if he had, of executing it in that most shocking manner which some Christian writers (“tell it not in Gath”) have contended for.”

In order to demonstrate that Jephthah did not make a human sacrifice, Clark changes the Hebrew והעליתיהו עולה, “I will offer it a burnt-offering,” to והעליתי הוא עולה, “I will offer Him (i.e., the Lord) a burnt-offering.” This emendation changes the meaning of the passage. The revised text reads as follows: “Whatsoever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me, shall be the Lord’s; and I will offer Him a burnt-offering.”

Thus, the “whatever” translation removes the stigma of human sacrifice from the text. The “whatever” translation allows for an animal sacrifice to be made to God. The “whatever” translation also clears Jephthah from a barbarous act.

Jephthah’s words, however, clearly indicate that he intended to sacrifice a human being, not an animal, for only a person living in his household could be expected to come out and meet him. If Jephthah had intended to offer an animal sacrifice, he probably would have promised to offer the best of his flock.

It was common in the ancient Near East to celebrate victories with music. Israel, like all its neighbors, also celebrated victories in battle with music and dancing. Music and dancing served as a natural expression of joy. In Israel, dancing was part of the victory celebration as can be seen in the case of Jephthah’s daughter.

One example of the use of music and dancing in times of celebration is Miriam leading Israelite women in celebration at the time the waters of the Red Sea (Sea of Reeds) parted and allowed the people to cross the sea safely. After the Egyptians drowned in the sea, Miriam “took a tambourine in her hand; and all the women went out after her with tambourines and dancing” (Exodus 15:20).

Another example of music and dancing to celebrate victory in battle is found in 1 Samuel 18:6. When Saul and David returned home after their victory against the Philistines, “the women came out … with singing and dancing, to meet King Saul, with tambourines, with songs of joy, and with musical instruments” (1 Samuel 18:6).

The “Song of Deborah” could also be considered a song of celebration, even though the text does not say that the women came out to meet Deborah and Barak with music and dancing after their victory against Sisera and the army of the Canaanites.

Thus, when Jephthah returned home victorious from his struggle with the Ammonites, his daughter came out to meet him, dancing to the sound of tambourines (Judges 11:34). This was the custom in Israel: when the people were victorious against their enemy, the victory was celebrated with music and dancing. But Jephthah probably expected a servant to come out and welcome him, not his only daughter.

So, Jephthah fulfilled his vow to the Lord. When his daughter returned home after two months in the mountain, Jephthah “did to her as he had vowed” (Judges 11:39).

But, an important question must be asked in the fulfilling of Jephthah’s vow. If Jephthah did to his daughter what he had vowed to do, then, what did Jephthah do? And there is a lot of debate about the answer to this question and to what happened to Jephthah’s daughter.

Next week I will come back to this text again and discuss the fate of Jephthah’s daughter.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Jephthah, Jephthah’s Daughter, Judges 11, Human Sacrifice