The Return of Jephthah / Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini (ca. 1700-1725)

The writer of Hebrews devotes much of the 11th chapter to illustrating heroes of the faith from Abel to Joshua. Then, in verse 32, he writes, “And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson and Jephthah, about David and Samuel and the prophets” (NIV). Jephthah is best known for apparently offering a human sacrifice. Where’s the faith?

It’s interesting, by the way, that the writer doesn’t mention the four men from Judges in chronological order, but in their order of importance. The other judges (before Samuel) rate only brief mentions even there. Jephthah gets two chapters (Judges 11-12).

The order in Judges seems to show a progression of deterioration in society. Jephthah and Samson may have lived at about the same time. Samson never raised an army. All his exploits seem to have been to further his own ends. Jephthah won a great battle and never sought military leadership.

Geography and social structure late in the period of the Judges

Samson lived in the Philistine stronghold that includes the present city of Gaza. It is south of the Promised Land and near the sea.

Jephthah lived far from there, on the east side of the Jordan River. Philistine influence already reached there, but they hardly figure in his story.

Israelite society was supposedly a confederation of tribes, but by this time, they felt little family relationship with each other. The whole social structure was on the verge of collapse. Judges 10 shows them once again worshiping all the gods of their neighbors. So God sent the Ammonites, a culture closely related to Israel, to oppress them.

After 18 years, the people cried out to God. He as much as told them that he was out of the deliverance business. They should pray to all the gods they had abandoned him for. But then they put away the foreign gods and did their best to serve their own.  He couldn’t bear to watch their misery anymore.

Jephthah the outcast turned leader

Landscape with the Story of Jephthah’s Daughter / Jacob Savery, 1580 – 1589

Jephthah was the son of a harlot. His father Gilead had legitimate children, and they drove Jephthah out, vowing that he would not share in their inheritance. He gathered a bunch of other malcontents around him, and they became a marauding band of bandits. Generations later, David gathered similar men around him when he fled from Saul.

The elders of Jephthah’s clan must have noticed his courage and leadership ability. They swallowed their pride and asked him to be their leader. Always before, God had appointed the deliverer. Here, the men of Gilead recruited their own.

After determining that they intended him to remain their leader after the conflict was over, Jephthah agreed. And he went to Mizpah, an important site for the worship of God, to ratify the agreement in the Lord’s presence.

Instead of immediately gathering an army, Jephthah attempted to negotiate with the king of Ammon. He sent them a carefully reasoned history lesson to demonstrate that they had no claim on Israel’s territory. But the negotiation failed.

At that time, the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah. That should have been enough to assure him of victory, but no one in his society knew God very well. They probably offered all the prescribed sacrifices but had little knowledge of their covenant with him, let alone his character. So Jephthah acted towards him as he would have acted towards any of the other gods who had gotten his society in so much trouble.

He made a vow to sacrifice whatever came out of his door after he returned victorious. The Hebrew for “whatever” can also mean “whoever.”

Jephthah’s vow

Jephthah Welcomed by His Daughter / Heinrich von München, book illumination, 1375-1400

The Bible gives Jephthah’s military victory only a cursory description. When he returned home, his daughter came rushing out of the house, celebrating by dancing with a tambourine. Now, we might think that “whatever” would not include a human person, but that’s not how Jephthah had meant his vow. The victory celebration turned to horror.

Apparently, all commentators until the Middle Ages thought that Jephthah intended a human sacrifice from the start. It’s easy to see why someone in his position would offer a human sacrifice. They didn’t know any better.

But why would God accept it? He asked Abraham to offer up Isaac, then provided a substitute. But then, Abraham knew God and his voice. When he saw the ram, he knew it was a gift from God. Who knows how God might have tried to show Jephthah another way? Jephthah didn’t know how to listen.

Some commentators suggest that “burnt offering” can be taken as a metaphor. On this view, Jephthah took his daughter to the tabernacle and offered her for service there as a virgin. Most likely, though, she mourned with her friends for four months, then willingly submitted to being killed and burned.

I would suggest that whether he offered her as a literal or figurative burnt offering, it made no difference for how he experienced the rest of his life. He never saw her again.

His sacrifice had several practical consequences. First, he had no son. His only hope for posterity would have come through his daughter’s children. And now she would never have any. Second, she may have been the only person who ever loved him. He lived the rest of his life as a lonely and embittered man. Judges 12 describes a particularly cruel act of vengeance against another Israelite tribe.

Where is the faith?

Jephthah worshiped the Lord when he accepted leadership. He invoked the name of the Lord in his negotiation with the king of Ammon. He was certainly a more conventionally religious man than Samson ever was.

Jephthan and his daughter both recognized that when someone makes a vow to the Lord, it must be kept. She submitted to her fate without hesitation. How could a man with no faith raise a daughter who exhibited such self-sacrificial faith herself?

Psalm 15 honors people who “keep their promises even when it hurts.  They do not change their mind.”

Besides that, he showed great humility and submission when he received the elders of Gilead. We see no bitterness or vindictiveness in him on that occasion.

I started this post by quoting Hebrews 11:32. That verse introduces the conclusion of the chapter, which describes both the triumphs suffering of the heroes of faith. The world mocked and scorned them. And, in verse 38, it says that the world didn’t deserve to have such people living in it.

Is there even a suspicion that anyone else offered human sacrifice thinking to honor the living God? Besides biblical villains and possibly Samson, does the Bible offer a worse role model for godly behavior than Jephthah? But the world wasn’t worthy of him. God has very low standards for whom he will accept as his own. He enshrined Jephthah as a hero of faith. That should give us all assurance that, if we turn to him, he will accept us, too.