Did Jephthah Kill His Daughter?

 

It’s one of the more puzzling passages we find in Scripture. As war loomed between Israel and her oppressors, God’s Spirit came upon the Israelite commander, Jephthah (Judg. 11:29). In the very next verse, we read, “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’” (Judg. 11:30-31).

So Jephthah and Israel crushed the Ammonites “with a very great slaughter” (v. 33). But when Jephthah returned home in triumph, “there was his daughter, coming out to meet him with timbrels and dancing; and she was his only child. Besides her he had neither son nor daughter. And it came to pass, when he saw her, that he tore his clothes, and 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’” (Judg. 11:34-35).

Now, God’s Word doesn’t explicitly state that Jephthah sacrificed his daughter, that he caused her to pass through the fire, or use any other language that’s normally associated with human sacrifice. Instead, we’re simply told, “he carried out his vow with her which he had vowed” (Judg. 11:39).

So what happened here? Did Jephthah kill his daughter and offer her to God as a burnt offering? Or did something else happen?

Just how binding is a vow? Does a vow take precedence over the rest of God’s law? Can one vow to disobey the Eternal?

Let’s take a look!

Examining the Text

The text of this passage isn’t as cut-and-dried as one might expect. Here’s how Young’s Literal Translation renders Jephthah’s vow: “And Jephthah voweth a vow to Jehovah, and saith, ‘If Thou dost at all give the Bene-Ammon [sons of Ammon] into my hand – then it hath been, that which at all cometh out from the doors of my house to meet me in my turning back in peace from the Bene-Ammon – it hath been to Jehovah, or I have offered up for it – a burnt-offering.’” (Judg. 11:30-31).

This makes it sound as if Jephthah vowed to either dedicate the first creature out of his house to God or to offer it up to Him as a burnt offering, but not necessarily both. The Concordant Literal Version reads roughly the same as Young’s.

The Hebrew prefix ו (v’), which is usually translated “and,” can also mean “or.” For example, God told Abraham, “He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised, every male child in your generations, he who is born in your house OR bought with money from any foreigner who is not your descendant” (Gen. 17:12). One couldn’t be both born in Abraham’s house and also bought with money, so this same Hebrew prefix was translated “or” instead of “and.”

But there’s more. Analyzing the Hebrew text, Adam Clarke pointed out that the passage can also be translated, “Whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me - shall be the Lord’s; and I will offer Him a burnt-offering.”

So did Jephthah vow to offer the first creature out of his house to God as a burnt offering? Or did he vow to dedicate it to God, and also to offer a burnt offering? It appears there’s room for ambiguity in the text.

But before we can answer this riddle, let’s examine the nature of vows themselves. How binding is a vow?

The Gravity of Vows

God told Moses, “When you make a vow to the LORD your God, you shall not delay to pay it; for the LORD your God will surely require it of you, and it would be sin to you” (Deut. 23:21). And again, “If a man makes a vow to the LORD, or swears an oath to bind himself by some agreement, he shall not break his word; he shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth” (Num. 30:2).

There are some exceptions to this rule.

Under God’s law, a woman lived under the authority and protection of her father until she was married. Accordingly, if an unmarried woman made a rash vow, her father could annul it: “But if her father overrules her on the day that he hears, then none of her vows nor her agreements by which she has bound herself shall stand; and the LORD will release her, because her father overruled her” (Num. 30:5).

After her father gave her in marriage, a woman no longer lived under his authority and protection, but her husband’s instead. And so, if she made a rash vow while married, her husband could annul it: “But if her husband overrules her on the day that he hears it, he shall make void her vow which she took and what she uttered with her lips, by which she bound herself, and the LORD will release her” (Num. 30:8).

But a widow or divorced woman enjoyed no such protection (Num. 30:9), nor did any man, as we already read in v. 2. There was no one to release them from their vows.

Accordingly, King Solomon warned in Eccl. 5:2, 4-6,

2 Do not be rash with your mouth, and let not your heart utter anything hastily before God. For God is in heaven, and you on earth; therefore let your words be few.

4 When you make a vow to God, do not delay to pay it; for He has no pleasure in fools. Pay what you have vowed—

5 Better not to vow than to vow and not pay.

6 Do not let your mouth cause your flesh to sin, nor say before the messenger of God that it was an error. Why should God be angry at your excuse and destroy the work of your hands?

And King David praised the righteous man who “swears to his own hurt and does not change” (Psa. 15:4).

So vows, like covenants, are very grave. Matters of life and death. God keeps His word and He requires the same of us.

What if we make a vow that violates His Word? And how does God’s law apply to Jephthah’s vow?

God’s Law and Jephthah’s Vow

Again and again, God’s Word tells us that human sacrifice disgusts Him and provokes Him to anger. He commanded Abraham to sacrifice Isaac only as a test (Gen. 22:1; Heb. 11:17), and ensured that no harm came to Isaac (Gen. 22:10-12).

God strictly commanded Israel NOT to worship Him in the way other peoples worshiped their gods: “You shall not worship the LORD your God in that way; for every abomination to the LORD which He hates they have done to their gods; for they burn even their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods. Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it; you shall not add to it nor take away from it” (Deut. 12:31-32).

Three times in the Book of Jeremiah alone, God repeated that He never commanded human sacrifice, nor did it even enter into His mind or His heart (Jer. 7:31; 19:5; 32:35). He swore vengeance against the people of Judah who “built the high places of Baal which are in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire to Molech, which I did not command them, nor did it come into My mind that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin” (Jer. 32:35).

Because of Israel’s sins, including human sacrifice, God delivered them up to captivity, plundering, and slaughter. Here’s 2 Kings 17:17-18: “And they caused their sons and daughters to pass through the fire, practiced witchcraft and soothsaying, and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the LORD, to provoke Him to anger. Therefore the LORD was very angry with Israel, and removed them from His sight; there was none left but the tribe of Judah alone.”

There are many, many more verses we could look at, but this should suffice. Human sacrifice is an abomination in God’s sight. It was part of the reason God commanded Israel to destroy the Canaanites, and part of the reason He later drove Israel and Judah into exile. He specifically commanded His people NOT to offer any such sacrifices to Him!

Do you think God would’ve been pleased if Jephthah killed his daughter and burned her up as an offering to Him, after He specifically commanded His people not to do that?

But God’s law has other factors to consider as well. Prov. 6:16-19 lists seven abominations which the Lord hates, including “hands that shed innocent blood” (v. 17).

Shedding innocent blood is a sin God doesn’t overlook. He requires a reckoning. As part of God’s covenant with all flesh after the Flood, He said to Noah, “Surely for your lifeblood I will demand a reckoning; from the hand of every beast I will require it, and from the hand of man. From the hand of every man's brother I will require the life of man” (Gen. 9:5).

And so, although God pardoned David’s sins because he repented, He still exacted punishment for the murder of Uriah (2 Sam. 12:9-15). David’s infant son, conceived through adultery, had to die, and so did several of his adult (evil) sons later on.

The story of King Manasseh illustrates this same principle. “Moreover Manasseh shed very much innocent blood, till he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another, besides his sin by which he made Judah sin, in doing evil in the sight of the LORD” (2 Kings 21:16). Because Manasseh repented, God forgave him (2 Chron. 33:10-20), but He couldn’t overlook the shedding of innocent blood. He required it at the hand of Manasseh’s wicked descendants: “Surely at the commandment of the LORD this came upon Judah, to remove them from His sight because of the sins of Manasseh, according to all that he had done, and also because of the innocent blood that he had shed; for he had filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, which the LORD would not pardon” (2 Kings 24:3-4).

So not only is human sacrifice an abomination, but so is the shedding of innocent blood in general. If Jephthah killed his innocent daughter, then God surely required it at his hand. But let’s continue.

God provided strict requirements for sacrifices. They had to be clean animals — cattle, goats, sheep, or doves — without blemish. He refused to accept other offerings, as the first chapter of Malachi details. Offering any other flesh, whether pig or human, would defile His altar.

He would accept no offering which didn’t meet these requirements, not even in payment of a vow (Lev. 22:18-25). “Whatever man of the house of Israel, or of the strangers in Israel, who offers his sacrifice for any of his vows… you shall offer of your own free will a male without blemish from the cattle, from the sheep, or from the goats. Whatever has a defect, you shall not offer, for it shall not be acceptable on your behalf” (Lev. 22:18, 19-20).

Neither could one offer anything to God “from a foreigner’s hand… because their corruption is in them, and defects are in them. They shall not be accepted on your behalf” (Lev. 22:25). Nor would God accept the wages of sin: “You shall not bring the wages of a harlot or the price of a dog [sodomite] to the house of the LORD your God for any vowed offering, for both of these are an abomination to the LORD your God” (Deut. 23:18).

Moreover, after God instituted the Levitical priesthood, He permitted no one to perform sacrifices without the priests. The first seven chapters of Leviticus offer great detail about sacrifices acceptable to God in the Old Testament, and they all include duties for the priests to perform. As we read in Lev. 17:1-9,

1 And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying,

2 “Speak to Aaron, to his sons, and to all the children of Israel, and say to them, ‘This is the thing which the LORD has commanded, saying:

3 “Whatever man of the house of Israel who kills an ox or lamb or goat in the camp, or who kills it outside the camp,

4 “and does not bring it to the door of the tabernacle of meeting to offer an offering to the LORD before the tabernacle of the LORD, the guilt of bloodshed shall be imputed to that man. He has shed blood; and that man shall be cut off from among his people,

5 “to the end that the children of Israel may bring their sacrifices which they offer in the open field, that they may bring them to the LORD at the door of the tabernacle of meeting, to the priest, and offer them as peace offerings to the LORD.

6 “And the priest shall sprinkle the blood on the altar of the LORD at the door of the tabernacle of meeting, and burn the fat for a sweet aroma to the LORD.

7 “They shall no more offer their sacrifices to demons, after whom they have played the harlot. This shall be a statute forever for them throughout their generations.” ’

8 “Also you shall say to them: ‘Whatever man of the house of Israel, or of the strangers who dwell among you, who offers a burnt offering or sacrifice,

9 ‘and does not bring it to the door of the tabernacle of meeting, to offer it to the LORD, that man shall be cut off from among his people.

Even the Passover sacrifice could no longer be offered without the priests at the sanctuary. In Deut. 16:5-6 (LITV), we find, “You may not sacrifice the Passover offering inside any of your gates, which Jehovah your God gives you. But at the place which He shall choose to cause His name to dwell there, you shall sacrifice the Passover offering at evening, at the going of the sun, at the time when you came out of Egypt.”

Many, many more passages show the same. Sacrifices required priests to officiate, and only the Levites could be priests. There are also several examples of men who disobeyed God’s instructions.

King Saul disqualified himself as king by offering a burnt offering on his own, without Samuel the prophet (1 Sam. 13:8-14). We learn elsewhere that Samuel was not only a prophet and judge, but also a Levite (1 Chron. 6:28, 33) who had been reared at God’s tabernacle by the high priest (1 Sam. 2-3).

Later, King Jeroboam of Israel rejected both Almighty God and His priests, dooming his whole family to destruction. “He made shrines on the high places, and made priests from every class of people, who were not of the sons of Levi” (1 Kings 12:31).

And still later, King Uzziah of Judah brought God’s wrath upon himself by offering incense in the temple. As the priests warned him, “It is not for you, Uzziah, to burn incense to the LORD, but for the priests, the sons of Aaron, who are consecrated to burn incense. Get out of the sanctuary, for you have trespassed! You shall have no honor from the LORD God” (2 Chron. 26:18). Because he disobeyed, God struck him with leprosy and he lived out the rest of his life “in an isolated house” and “cut off from the house of the LORD” (2 Chron. 26:21).

All this means that Jephthah could legally offer no offering without a Levite priest. Doing so would bring God’s judgment upon him. Unless the priests at this time were corrupt and depraved beyond imagination, they would never consent to or officiate over a human sacrifice, nor any other sacrifice that would defile God’s altar.

Finally, the whole purpose of God’s law, and every instruction in it, is to teach us how to love Him and how to love others. “Jesus said to him, ‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets’” (Mat. 22:37-40).

Though God deems Sabbath-breaking to be worthy of death under normal circumstances (Ex. 31:14-15; 35:2), He also expects His servants to do whatever is necessary to save life or alleviate suffering, even for their animals (Mark 3:4; Luke 6:9; 13:15; 14:5).

Could a vow be binding, then, if it requires one to hurt or kill an innocent person? That would violate the whole purpose of God’s law.

In fact, certain types of vows are simply illegitimate — precisely because they violate God’s law!

God punished the people of Judah for keeping their vows to worship foreign gods (Jer. 44:24-28). He warned “All the men of Judah who are in the land of Egypt shall be consumed by the sword and by famine, until there is an end to them…. And all the remnant of Judah, who have gone to the land of Egypt to dwell there, shall know whose words will stand, Mine or theirs” (Jer. 44:27, 28).

Jesus Christ condemned the Jewish leaders for allowing people to dedicate property to God instead of caring for their parents: “But you say, ‘If a man says to his father or mother, “Whatever profit you might have received from me is Corban”—’ (that is, a gift to God), then you no longer let him do anything for his father or his mother, making the word of God of no effect through your tradition which you have handed down” (Mark 7:11-13).

In short, one cannot vow to sin against God. One cannot vow to dishonor one’s parents, to worship false gods, to murder, to commit adultery, or to do anything else which violates God’s instructions. No such vow can possibly please God, and is wholly and completely invalid.

Let’s summarize and apply all these principles to Jephthah’s vow.

Jephthah could not lawfully vow to kill his daughter and burn her as an offering to God. That would be an abomination.

He could not lawfully shed innocent blood.

He could not lawfully offer any ineligible sacrifice, not even in payment of a vow.

He could not lawfully offer any sacrifice without the presence of one of God’s priests, who would never consent to an ineligible offering.

He could not lawfully make a vow to disobey any part of God’s law.

As Samuel told Saul, “Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams” (1 Sam. 15:22).

 

Dedication and Redemption

However, one could make a vow to dedicate property, livestock, and even people to God. Lev. 27 deals with such scenarios.

Under normal circumstances, a person dedicated to God could also be redeemed with money. Lev. 27:1-8 explain the process for doing so.

But verses 28-29 give us another difficulty. Here they are in the Concordant Literal Version: “Every devoted thing which a man may devote to Yahweh, of all which is his of human and beast and of the field of his holding, it shall not be sold nor redeemed. Every devoted thing, it will be holy of holies to Yahweh. Every doomed one which is doomed of humanity shall not be ransomed; he shall be put to death, yea death” (Lev. 27:28–29).

The Hebrew words translated “devoted” and “doomed” are two closely related words: kherem (Strong’s # H2764) and kharam (H2763).

Kharam is found in Num. 21:2-3: “So Israel made a vow to the LORD, and said, ‘If You will indeed deliver this people into my hand, then I will utterly destroy [kharam] their cities.’ And the LORD listened to the voice of Israel and delivered up the Canaanites, and they utterly destroyed [kharam] them and their cities.”

Compare this vow to Jephthah’s: “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…’” (Judg. 11:30-31).

We know that Jephthah couldn’t lawfully offer an ineligible offering. But did he instead vow to destroy whatever came first out his house to meet him, and also to offer up a separate burnt offering to God?

Everywhere we find these two Hebrew words used for things dedicated to God for destruction, it appears they apply to unrepentant sinners condemned to death. The Canaanites in Num. 21:2-3 serve as one example. The city of Jericho is another: “Now the city shall be doomed by the LORD to destruction, it and all who are in it” (Josh. 6:17). Here, kherem is translated “doomed to destruction.”

Through Samuel the prophet, God told King Saul, “Go, and utterly destroy [kharam] the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are consumed” (1 Sam. 15:18). Even the Amalekites’ livestock was condemned to destruction. But Saul disobeyed God and spared King Agag, as well as the livestock. And though he sacrificed that livestock (or at least some of it) to God, he had still disobeyed. God didn’t command sacrifice; He commanded total destruction.

It takes us back to the fact that one cannot lawfully condemn an innocent person to death. Only unrepentant sinners could be devoted to utter destruction. And, of course, they couldn’t be sacrificed!

Jephthah’s Character

All that we’ve seen so far shows that Jephthah could not lawfully sacrifice his daughter, nor could he put her to death unless she had done something to merit the death penalty. If he did so, he would bring innocent blood on his head and God would avenge her.

But the Bible is full of examples of people disobeying God’s laws. Even King David, a man after God’s own heart, committed terrible sins.

So did Jephthah kill his daughter, even though it was against God’s law to do so? Was he perhaps ignorant of God’s laws on the matter? Let’s see what the Bible tells us about his character.

Nowhere does the Bible condemn Jephthah for any of his actions. David’s sins are sternly condemned. So are Saul’s, Solomon’s, Moses’, and many other figures’. God’s Word tells us many sins of both the righteous and the wicked.

The Bible also records the punishments for many such sins. Because of David’s sins, several of his sons perished. Saul lost his throne and his life. Moses couldn’t enter the Promised Land. Samson paid for his lust and fornication, among other sins, by having his eyes put out and spending the remainder of his life in a Philistine prison. Yet the Bible speaks of no punishment for any supposed sin of Jephthah’s.

He is, however, listed in the faith chapter alongside many other righteous, but flawed, servants of God. Here’s Heb. 11:32-34:

32 And what more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah, also of David and Samuel and the prophets:

33 who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions,

34 quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of the aliens.

Jephthah doesn’t seem to have been an ignorant man, either. His discourse in the earlier portions of Judges 11 indicates a detailed knowledge of Israel’s history and of God’s promises. And let’s not forget, God’s Spirit came upon him before he made his vow and went into battle (Judg. 11:29-30).

So what conclusion are we left with?

Conclusion

Let’s turn back to the account in Judges 11, picking up the story in verse 34:

34 When Jephthah came to his house at Mizpah, there was his daughter, coming out to meet him with timbrels and dancing; and she was his only child. Besides her he had neither son nor daughter.

35 And it came to pass, when he saw her, that he tore his clothes, and 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.”

36 So she said to him, “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.”

37 Then she said to her father, “Let this thing be done for me: let me alone for two months, that I may go and wander on the mountains and bewail my virginity, my friends and I.”

38 So he said, “Go.” And he sent her away for two months; and she went with her friends, and bewailed her virginity on the mountains.

39 And it was so at the end of two months that she returned to her father, and he carried out his vow with her which he had vowed. She knew no man. And it became a custom in Israel

40 that the daughters of Israel went four days each year to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite.

First, this passage emphasizes to us that Jephthah had no other offspring. His family line would die out with her. Many passages show that the people of the Bible viewed childlessness as a terrible calamity. A curse.

Upon being informed of her father’s vow, Jephthah’s daughter’s first thought was that she would never be married and never have children. She asked her father for two months, not to bewail an impending death, but to bewail her virginity.

Next, we’re told, not that Jephthah killed her and sacrificed her, but that “he carried out his vow with her which he had vowed.” And what did that mean? “She knew no man.” He had vowed to give her to the Lord, and so he couldn’t give her in marriage. She would die childless, and his family line would die with her.

Finally, the passage informs us “that the daughters of Israel went four days each year to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite.” The Hebrew word translated “lament” is tanah (Strong’s # H8567). It’s seldom used in the Bible, but neither it nor its root word are ever translated as “lament” anywhere else in the Bible. Instead, Gesenius defines it as “to give presents, to distribute gifts.” The root word, H8566, means “to hire.”

Using this definition of the word, the passage now reads, “the daughters of Israel went four days each year to give gifts to the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite.” And so it appears that, as long as Jephthah’s daughter remained alive, the women of Israel went each year to honor her and give gifts to her.

Jephthah’s vow remains as a cautionary tale. One should be very careful not to make rash promises or vows. As the apostle James, echoing the words of our Savior, cautioned, “But above all, my brethren, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or with any other oath. But let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No,’ lest you fall into judgment” (Jam. 5:12).

Nevertheless, no one can vow to disobey our Creator and sin against Him. In such a case, as God warned Judah, all “shall know whose words will stand, Mine or theirs” (Jer. 44:28).