Jephthah's Vow, and his Campaign against Ammon.
Judges 11:29 b is probably an editorial note, a somewhat unskilful attempt to fasten the new cloth (Judges 11:12-28) into the old garment (Moore.) Jephthah's vow was made at the holy place of Mizpah in Gilead, like Jacob's at Bethel (Gen. 28:24f., Genesis 31:13). In hope of victory, or dread of disaster, men vowed, or devoted, to Yahweh something very precious it might even be a human life believing they would thus propitate His favour and secure His aid.
Judges 11:31. Whatsoever is entirely wrong; read whosoever (mg.). Jephthah intended a human sacrifice. To suggest that he thought of an animal say a sheep or a goat crossing his path when he neared his home, is to trifle with tragedy.
Judges 11:33. Aroer is not the city of that name on the Arnon (Judges 11:26), but another near the ancient Rabbah, which is the modern Ammâ n (Joshua 13:25). Minnith was probably near Heshbon. Abel-cheramim, Vineyard-meadow, is unknown.
Judges 11:34. Read came to his home at Mizpah. Like Miriam at the Red Sea (Exodus 15:20), and the women who welcomed home Saul and David (1 Samuel 18:6), Jephthah's daughter came forth to meet her father with timbrels and dances. This implies that she had companions (cf. Judges 11:37), but the poignant fact was that she, as the conqueror's daughter, was leading the dance.
Judges 11:34 b is unsurpassable in its pathos; equalled only by Genesis 22:2. The sacrifice of an only child what sorrow can compare with that? (cf. Jeremiah 4:26; Amos 8:10; Zechariah 12:10). What is a victory, what are triumphal arches, and the praise of all creation, to a lonely man? (Mark Rutherford).
Judges 11:35. Read thou hast stricken me, thou (emphatic) art one that bringeth disaster upon me.
Judges 11:36. The pure and innocent maiden whose life was to be sacrificed is known only as Jephthah's Daughter, and she was worthy, more than worthy, of that name. With her father's heroic spirit, she had a still nobler nature There is nothing in all literature finer than her answer in this verse. No wonder that her words have inspired poets. Tennyson paraphrases them in My God, my land, my father, and Byron in Since our country, our God oh, my sire.
Judges 11:37. She asks for a respite of two months. Life is sweet, brothers, who would wish to die?
Judges 11:39. But Jephthah did to her as he had vowed to do. That is the last act of the tragedy. It is only suggested. No angel of the Lord interposed, as in the story of Isaac, with an injunction Lay not thine hand on the maiden (cf. Genesis 22:12). No prophet had yet arisen to ask, Shall I give the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? (Micah 6:7). From the Christian point of view we may, with Dante, think Jephthah was wrong
Blindly to execute a rash resolve,
Whom better it had suited to exclaim
- I have done ill,-' than to redeem his pledge
By doing worse.
But his blindness detracts nothing from the heroism of his daughter, who gave herself, without a murmur, to her people and her God; who was led to the altar, not as a bride adorned for her husband, but as a virgin-martyr; whose love of life was less than her love of her country and its freedom. Did not Byron rightly divine that she smiled as she died? [The view that she was not put to death but doomed to remain unwedded, is almost certainly incorrect, though it has been recently revived by Benzinger. A. S. P.]