In Judges 11:39-40 did Jephthah actually sacrifice his daughter?

Question

It's clear that what Jephthah intended was to sacrifice the first animal that he met when he returned home:

Then the spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah. He marched through Gilead and Manasseh, passing Mizpeh of Gilead; and from Mizpeh of Gilead he crossed over [to] the Ammonites. And Jephthah made the following vow to the Lord: “If you deliver the Ammonites into my hands, then whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me on my safe return from the Ammonites shall be the Lord’s and shall be offered by me as a burnt offering.”—Judges 11:29-31 (NJPS)

So when it comes time to follow trough on his promise with his daughter, the text says:

After two months’ time, she returned to her father, and he did to her as he had vowed. She had never known a man. So it became a custom in Israel for the maidens of Israel to go every year, for four days in the year, and chant dirges for the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite.—Judges 11:39-40 (NJPS)

It seems clear that she was, in fact, offered as a burnt offering in violation of Leviticus 20:2 and Deuteronomy 18:10. Wikipedia, however, notes:

According to the commentators of the rabbinic Jewish tradition, Jepthah's daughter was not sacrificed, but was forbidden to marry and remained a spinster her entire life, fulfilling the vow that she would be devoted to the Lord.

And cites as a source:

Radak, Book of Judges 11:39; Metzudas Dovid ibid

Can this position be supported by the text or is it a pious reading intended to clear Jephthah of wrong-doing?

Answer 1

In support of the human sacrifice theory, Kaiser in Hard Sayings of the Bible says:

1. People, even servants of God, do horrid things. This era was very corrupt and there is no reason to see Jephthah as substantially different than his contemporaries.

2. The sacrifice of his daughter is the most natural way to interpret the text. Gleason Archer (who opposes this view) states that the term for "burnt offering" is 'ola and always elsewhere means a blood sacrifice wholly consumed on the altar by fire.

3. Early writers all understood this as a human sacrifice. The idea of perpetual virginity is not found until the Middle Ages.

4. It is alleged that the grammar of 11:31 allows only human sacrifice coming from the house not an animal.

Some of the supporters of a non-death sacrifice are Gleason Archer in A Survey of Old Testament Introduction and Keil & Delitzsch in Commentary on the Old Testament.

To summarize their arguments (and those of others),

1. Human sacrifice was always understood from the days of Abraham onward to be an offense and an abomination. It had been denounced and forbidden in Lev 18:21; 20:2-5; Dt 12:31; 18:10. There is no evidence of Israelites offering human sacrifice until the days of Ahaz.

2. His daughter went for two months to the mountains to bewail her virginity, not the coming loss of life. Though some argue that this should be read as "youth" instead of "virginity," K&D show that the terms are not interchangable. Also, she goes to the mountains to mourn. K&D say that were she mourning her youth, that could be done in town, but bewailing her virginity required that she leave town.

3. It is stated in verse 39 after Jephthah had performed his "burnt offering" that "she knew not a man." Such wording would be inane and heartless if she had died but is appropriate if she was devoted to service at the tabernacle. There are other examples of such women in Scripture; Ex 28:8; 1 Sam 2:22; and Luke 2:36,37. The pathos here lies not in the daughter's devotion to divine service but in the extinction of Jephthah's line as she is his only child. Both he and she bewailed her virginity.

4. There is no condemnation of Jephthah's act even though Gideon's heathen acts are condemned.

5. She was considered a heroine and the women of Israel celebrated her. It is unlikely they would have done so had she volunteered for a pagan ceremony. However, most translations take lthannoth as "lament" or variations thereof. Archer says it can be taken along the lines of celebration. Brown, Driver, Briggs Lexicon points out that this is modern and older versions (including the Septuagint) take the 11:40 as mourn. They [BDB] also point out that the word is used positively in Judges 5:11, "let them recount the victories of YHWH." Jud 5:11 and 11:40 are the only two occurrences of the word in the Hebrew Bible.

6. Jephthah judges Israel for 6 years afterwards. It is hard to see how the people would have stood for him leading them after this.

Kaiser concludes one way; Archer concludes another. Those are two men whom I respect very much. Personally, I conclude with Archer.

Answer 2

There is no mention in the text of dedication or of the tabernacle, and so the main thing recommending an interpretation involving those things is the bewailing of virginity. I won't go so far as to say that a reading of dedication to tabernacle service is completely unwarranted; but I want to give some push back to some of the points in Frank Luke's answer because I think it's easy for our reading to be skewed in as much as we underestimate the importance the culture of Jephthah's day placed on bearing children.

There are a couple passages worth examining in this regard. Consider the lengths to which Lot's daughters are willing to go in order to bear children and preserve the family line. Or consider the feud in Genesis 29:31-30:24 where Leah and Rachel perceive not only the LORD's love towards them, but also their own sense of worth or disgrace, in relation to their ability to bear children for Jacob, to the point that Rachel demands of Jacob, "Give me children, or I’ll die!"

Even accepting a dedication reading of Judges 11, one cannot fail to see the gravity with which the characters perceived the perpetual virginity of Jephthah's daughter. The prospect of it removes any rejoicing over the victory Jephthah has just won. He tears his clothes in devastation. His daughter requests two months to roam the hills and weep that she will never marry.

The narrative in Judges 21 further extends this point. The Israelites of the day prove quite willing to put to death their fellow Israelites - even for a failure to assemble - but are unwilling and grieved to let the line of the Benjamin be cut off.

So, we might read 11:39 and find "she knew not a man" to be a rather inane and heartless remark if it is in regard to someone who has just died; but would the original readers have found it so?

In my opinion, part of the narrative's contribution to the canon is to underscore the high value placed in that day on a woman's ability to bear children and continue the family line; and it does so by juxtaposing the perceived tragedy of virginity with the tragedy of death. In doing so, it serves to advance the theme of Judges, that, "In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit."

Answer 3

E. W. Bullinger, an Anglican theologian from the late 18oo's, shares some insightful information regarding this question: "Did Jephtha Really Sacrifice His Daughter: an Analysis of Judges 11:31."

Bullinger points out that the verse can read, "“If you deliver the Ammonites into my hands, then whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me on my safe return from the Ammonites shall be the Lord’s OR shall be offered by me as a burnt offering." He says, "This is done by observing the well known rule that the connective particle [vav] is often used as a disjunctive, and means “or”, when there is a second proposition." He points out the instruction in Lev. 27 for how to redeem a person (v1-8), animal (v9-13), or house (v14-15), if a man has consecrated them in a vow.

This is not a full answer of itself, and better supplements/supports the second half of Frankluke's answer. But I felt it was too rich to leave in the comment section.

Answer 4

Rashi says she was killed:

and it was a statute: They decreed that no one should do this anymore (i.e., they publicized that no one should offer a human being), because had Jephthah gone to Phinehas or vice versa, he would have nullified his (i.e., Jephthah’s) vow (i.e., he would have instructed him what the law is in such an instance). However, they were particular about their honor, and as a result she was destroyed. Consequently, they were punished; Phinehas, by the Divine presence leaving him as it is stated in (I) Chron. (9:20) “Previously God was with him,” so we see subsequently God was not with him; and Jephthah was afflicted with boils and dismemberment as it is stated, (below 12:7) “And he was buried in the cities [pl.] of Gilead.” (His limbs were buried in the various cities.) We can also interpret “And it was a statute in Israel” as connected to the following verse.

here

Answer 5

In addition to Soldarnal's point I would like to add that there is evidence that Jephthah's dagheter's request to "mourn her virginity" was an ancient cultic rite associated with the cult of Anath and Baa'l,

The role of women in this rite is reminiscent of the part that the goddess Anat plays in mourning and searching for the dead Baal (GORDON UH 67 VI ,25-31). There is probably a reminiscence of those rites in the mourning of the virgins of Israel mentioned in the Jephthah saga (Judges xi, 37-40).

Here the author connects the weeping women of the Tammuz with the wailing virgins of Judges 37-40, for the daughter of Jephthah, as they were both supposed to re-enact the mythical death of Baal or Dumuzzi (such re-enactment was fairly common in the ANE, see here about the Sacred Marriage). It is very probable that Jephthah's daughter's request was motivated by the same desire to take part in this ancient rite to weep for the death of the Baal one last time (indeed this time she would have a good reason to cry). The author of Judges goes on to add that from then on the virgins of Israel would not only mourn the death of Baal (as they used to), but also Jephthah's daughter's death 4 times a year.

The IVP Bible Background Commentary 11:37 makes this observation,

In Canaanite mythology from Ugarit (Baal and Mot) the virgin goddess Anat roams the hills mourning for lost fertility, since Baal is dead. The motif of roaming the hills for lost fertility is therefore a possible connection with Jephthah's daughter's request.

If we suppose that this myth reflects an ancient Cannanite rite to mourn in the hills the death of Baal and the loss of Anat's virginity (in which they were supposed to re-enact their god's mythical death), then we can certainly presume that this is what Jephthah's daughter meant when she asked to let her "mourn her virginity". This will effectively explain why the daughter of Jephthah made such a fuss over her loss of virginity when she was going to be sacrificed in less than 2 months! It is not the virginity per se that she so desperately wanted to mourn, it was this ancient rite that she wanted to take part in one last time, coupled with the thought that she will not be able to bear children anymore and continue her father's family line; this time the mourning for Anat's virginity would resonate well with her.

This also explains the two month period of the weeping virgins four times a year,

The time period of two months likely correlates with one of Israel's "seasons." The Gezer calendar (tenth century) divides the year into eight periods: four of two months' length and four of one month's length. The second two-month period (for sowing) consisted of winter months when concerns about fertility would be most prominent. (The IVP Bible Commentary, Ibid)

Indeed the whole saga just reinforces the poor spiritual and moral state of the Israelites at the time; how much influenced they have become from their neighboring Cannanites, adopting their customs, and even sacrificing their children (in this case the sacrifice was to Yahweh!) and doing all that is abominable in the eyes of Yahweh.

---

Here is a copy of Wyatt's translation to the original Baal & Mot. Much thanks to David for showing it to me.

Answer 6

In addition to the above we can be certain that Jephthah did not sacrifice his daughter as a literal human sacrifice because such a thing was not practiced by true worshipers of Jehovah (Yahweh). It was a characteristic of cruel pagan worship to Baal and Chemosh but not to the true God. Jehovah's view of such sacrifices is plainly seen at Jeremiah 7:31. He describes such cruelty as "a thing that I had not commanded and that had not come up into my heart." (New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures)

Edit:

In view of the comments below, I might add the rendering in the Revised New World Translation (2013) that makes the text clearer:

Jephthah said: "'Oh no, my daughter! You have broken my heart, for you have become the one I have banished.'" (Judges 11:35)

"She then said to her father: 'Let this be done for me: Let me be alone for two months, and let me go away into the mountains, and let me weep with my friends because I will never marry.'" (Judges 11:37 ftn.)

"She never had relations with a man. And it became a custom in Israel: From year to year, the young women of Israel would go to give commendation to the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite four days in the year." (Judges 11:39, 40)

The rendering here does not suggest Jephthah had in mind a literal sacrifice, but a lifetime of devotion at the Tabernacle, similar to the devotion of Samuel and to the devotion of other women (1 Samuel 1:11, 24; Exodus 38:8). Why would Jephthah's daughter weep because she would never marry, and not rather because she would die? Also, the rendering in the Revised New World Translation here differs from others when it says that the women of Israel would give commendation to her, rather than mourn her death.

For more information on this view and interpretation, follow this link: Jephthah’s Vow

Answer 7

The Old Testament does not shy from death as seen in the Exodus description for breaking the Ten Commandments. This seems to be a similar issue. People try to find a different view that something that is clearly stated in the Bible. Human offerings were not new at the time and was practiced in other cultures. It would be unlikely for the text to have meant something else other than what was stated at the time it was written.

Answer 8

Go and read the whole of Numbers chapter 8 where God tells Moses He is now taking the Levites for service in the temple instead of the firstborn (like Jephtah's daughter was). The following are excerpts from this chapter and notice how it is said that they are dedicated to the Lord - the words 'sacrificed' and 'offer' are used:

And Aaron shall offer the Levites before the Lord for an offering of the children of Israel, that they may execute the service of the Lord.

And thou shalt set the Levites before Aaron, and before his sons, and offer them for an offering unto the Lord.

And after that shall the Levites go in to do the service of the tabernacle of the congregation: and thou shalt cleanse them, and offer them for an offering.

Notice why God used such strong language:

16 For they are wholly given unto me from among the children of Israel; instead of such as open every womb, even instead of the firstborn of all the children of Israel, have I taken them unto me.

17 For all the firstborn of the children of Israel are mine, both man and beast: on the day that I smote every firstborn in the land of Egypt I sanctified them for myself.

18 And I have taken the Levites for all the firstborn of the children of Israel.

19 And I have given the Levites as a gift to Aaron and to his sons from among the children of Israel, to do the service of the children of Israel in the tabernacle of the congregation, and to make an atonement for the children of Israel: that there be no plague among the children of Israel, when the children of Israel come nigh unto the sanctuary. Num. 8:16-19

In light of such clear testimony from Scripture it is easy to understand what Jephtah was doing. There was no stronger way for him to say 'thank you' to God than to dedicate his firstborn to God's service which used to be the custom before God changed it here in Num. 8. I believe there is more depth of meaning as to why Jephtah did this, but that might be more in the realm of homiletics.

Answer 9

Interesting question!

I first read this passage in BPT09 (portuguese) which states

Dois meses decorridos, voltou para junto de seu pai. Ele fez como tinha prometido ao Senhor e ela morreu sem se ter casado. Assim teve origem o costume, que existe em Israel, de as jovens saírem quatro dias por ano, para chorarem a má sorte da filha de Jefté, de Guilead.

which translates literally to

Two months later, she returned to her father. He did as he had promised the Lord, and she died without being married. Thus originated the custom, which exists in Israel, for young girls to go out four days a year, to mourn the bad luck of Jephthah's daughter from Guilead.

So it's clear in that translation that she died.

Then, from reading Judges 11:39-40 (NASB)

39 And at the end of two months she returned to her father, who did to her what he had vowed; and she had no relations with a man. And it became a custom in Israel, 40 that the daughters of Israel went annually to commemorate the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite for four days in the year.

it's unclear as to what is meant with the vow. Even though she could've been sacrificed (even though that was forbidden), the other possibility would be forbidding her to marry and hence the virginity from Judges 11:37.

Answer 10

This is an intriguing segment of the Scriptures.

One. Only Holy Scripture can assist us, at this time.

It is possible to defend both positions from Scriptures. However, as of right now, it is not possible to defend any position from outside Scripture.

The rabbinical text quoted by Bob Jones was written many centuries after the fact, and the author of that rabbinical text makes several grave errors. One such error is placing Jephthah in the same generation as Phinehas. Phinehas was from the time of Moses and Joshua. Jephthah lived some 300 to 400 years later.

We have no extra-biblical evidence or commentary from the days of the Judges, so far, which leaves us reliant on the Scriptures for clues to figure out what happened.

Two. Times of Renewal not Corruption.

I've read in many places that Jephthah lived in a very corrupt time-period, and that in his ignorance, or perhaps in his semi-pagan understanding, it was feasible that he might've killed his daughter.

Unfortunately for that line of argumentation, the Scriptures do not support it. On the contrary, Israel had just repented and turned to the Lord in a powerful way. Just 3 verses before Jephthah is introduced, we read this:

And the sons of Israel said to the LORD, We have sinned. Do You to us whatever is good in Your eyes; only deliver us, we pray You, today. And they put away the strange gods from among them, and served the LORD. And His soul was moved by the misery of Israel.* (Judges 10:15,16)

Finally, Jephthah's immense knowledge of Moses' and Joshua's writings lead to no other conclusion than that he knew very well that sacrificing (to death) a human would not in any way please God, and that he could offer an alternative sacrifice as provisioned in the Law (Lev. 27). His correspondence to the Ammonites in Judges 11 show his mastery of the Scriptures.

I don't claim to know what really happened, but it seems to me that he did not kill his daughter. There may have been another practice -- which involved virginity -- of which we are not aware today.

That Jewish writers, many centuries later, wrote that Jephthah did indeed kill his daughter only shows those writers' thought-patterns, not Jephthah's. Some Jewish authorities from intertestamental times made claims that the Torah existed before God and is more powerful than God, etc. It was against such people and ideas that Jesus stood against.

Conclusion

I hope this helps, or at least guides us in the right direction.

I personally believe the answer must be found in the Mosaic Law or in customs of the day that are unfamiliar to us. Lev. 27:2-8 seem to speak of sanctifying or dedicating people (humans), through a "special vow." This seems to indicate tabernacle service. (Yet, Samuel was sanctified in this way, and he married.) Could this be what Jephthah did, combined with some other practice of his day?

In contrast, Lev. 27:29 seems to speak of things and humans that are "devoted." And they cannot be redeemed, but put to death. Many commentators firmly believe that this is referring to pagan prisoners of war, in which case Jephthah's daughter would not qualify.

Arguments for both sides look for clues in the Hebrew of Judges 11 to know if it was a vow of "sanctifying" or "devoting."

Regardless, it seems obvious to me that something else is going on. We are missing a piece of the puzzle that is not given us. I believe she was not killed, but she was sanctified in a way that she could never be married. And this was celebrated or commemorized by Jewish women for some generations.