Whatsoever cometh forth. — The true rendering undoubtedly is, Whosoever cometh forth (LXX., ὁ ἐκπορευόμενος; Vulg., quicunque). Nothing can be clearer than that the view held of this passage, from early Jewish days down to the Middle Ages, and still held by nearly all unbiased commentators, is the true one, and alone adequately explains the text: viz., that Jephthah, ignorant as he was — being a man of semi-heathen parentage, and long familiarised with heathen surroundings — contemplated a human sacrifice. To say that he imagined that an animal would “come forth of the doors of his house to meet him” on his triumphant return is a notion which even St. Augustine ridicules. The offer to sacrifice a single animal — even if we could suppose an animal “coming forth to meet” Jephthah — would be strangely inadequate. It would be assumed as a matter of course that not one, but many holocausts of animals would express the gratitude of Israel. Pfeiffer sensibly observes (Dub. vexata, p. 356): “What kind of vow would it be if some great prince or general should say, ‘O God, if Thou wilt give me this victory, the first calf that meets me shall be Thine?’” Jephthah left God, as it were, to choose His own victim, and probably anticipated that it would be some slave. The notion of human sacrifice was all but universal among ancient nations, and it was specially prevalent among the Syrians, among whom Jephthah had lived for so many years, and among the Phœnicians, whose gods had been recently adopted by the Israelites (Judges 10:6). Further than this, it was the peculiar worship of the Moabites and Ammonites, against whom Jephthah was marching to battle; and one who had been a rude freebooter, in a heathen country and a lawless epoch, when constant and grave violations of the Law were daily tolerated, might well suppose in his ignorance that Jehovah would need to be propitiated by some offering as costly as those which bled on the altars of Chemosh and Moloch. Human sacrifice had been “the first thought of Balak in the extremity of his terror” (Micah 6:7), and “the last expedient of Balak’s successor” (2 Kings 3:27) — Stanley, i. 358. If it be urged that after the great lesson which had been taught to Abraham at Jehovah-jireh the very notion of human sacrifice ought to have become abhorrent to any Israelite, especially as it had been expressly forbidden in the Law (Leviticus 18:21; Deuteronomy 12:31, &c), one more than sufficient answer is that even in the wilderness Israel had been guilty of Moloch-worship (Ezekiel 20:26; Jeremiah 49:1; Melcom, Amos 5:26; Acts 7:43). The Law was one thing; the knowledge of it and the observance of it was quite another. During this period we find the Law violated again and again, even by judges like Gideon and Samson; and the tendency to violate it by human sacrifices lasted down to the far more enlightened and civilised days of Ahaz and Manasseh (2 Chronicles 28:3; 2 Chronicles 33:6). Indeed, we find the priests expressly sanctioning, even in the palmiest days of David’s reign, an execution which, to the vulgar, would bear an aspect not far removed from human sacrifice, or (rather) which might easily be confused with the spirit which led to it (2 Samuel 21:1-9). If, again, it be said that the possibility of Jephthah’s being guilty of so rash and evil a vow is excluded by the phrase that “the Spirit of the Lord came upon him,” such reasoning is to substitute idle fancies for clear facts. The Spirit of the Lord “clothed” Gideon, yet he set up an illegal worship. The “Spirit of the Lord” came upon Saul (1 Samuel 19:23), yet Saul contemplated slaying his own son out of regard for no less foolish a vow (1 Samuel 14:44). The “Spirit of the Lord” came upon David “from that day forward” on which Samuel anointed him (1 Samuel 16:13), yet he could sink into adultery and murder. The phrase must not be interpreted of high or permanent spiritual achievement, but of Divine strength granted for a particular end.
And I will offer it up for a burnt offering. — The margin gives the alternative reading or instead of and. This is due to the same feeling which made our translators adopt the rendering “whatsoever.” They are practically following R. Kimchi in the attempt to explain away, out of deference to modern notions, the plain meaning of the Bible. It is true that vau, “and,” is sometimes practically disjunctive (or, rather, is used where a disjunctive might be used), but to take it so here is to make nonsense of the clause, for if any person or thing was made “a burnt offering” it was necessarily “the Lord’s” (Exodus 13:2, &c.), so that there can be no alternative here. The “and” is exactly analogous to the “and” between the two clauses of Jacob’s (Genesis 28:21-22) and of Hannah’s vow (1 Samuel 1:11). The “it will I offer” ought to be, “I will offer him.”