And it came to pass at the end of two months, that she returned unto her father, who did with her according to his vow which he had vowed: and she knew no man. And it was a custom in Israel,
She returned unto her father who did with her according to his vow which he had vowed But how or She returned unto her father, who did with her according to his vow which he had vowed. But how or what did he do with her? Certainly he did not offer her in sacrifice. The immolation of a human victim had never been made by any Israelite who was a worshipper of the true God; and supposing the case of Jephthah was an exception, the offering of his daughter must either have been made at Shiloh, where the tabernacle, the only appointed place of sacrifice, was established, or at some place east of Jordan. But the sacrifice could not have been offered at Shiloh, not only because Jephthah was not likely to go to Shiloh, having a bitter feud with the Ephraimites, within whose territory it lay, but because no Levitical priest would have lent his services to put a human victim upon the altar of God; and if Jephthah himself had immolated her at his own home, he would have incurred the triple guilt of the impious assumption of the priestly office, of offering at an unaccepted place, and presenting a sacrifice abhorrent to the law and character of God. Jephthah, who appears to have been a pious man (Judges 11:11), and from his despatch to the Ammonite king (Judges 11:14-27), well acquainted with the Mosaic history, would not have perpetrated any of these presumptuous sins; and hence, we conclude that no sacrifice of the kind was made.
Dropping, therefore, the alternative part of the vow, and accepting the first part of it as that which Jephthah performed-namely, that whatsoever came forth of the doors of his house to meet him, when he returned in peace from the children of Ammon, should surely be the Lord's-we believe that his daughter was consecrated for life to the service of the sanctuary. This view is strengthened both by the significant clause, "she knew no man," being doomed to live unmarried-a disappointment particularly severe to a Hebrew damsel-and by the annual custom, which was thenceforth adopted by her female associates, of celebrating her deed of public devotion.
It was a custom in Israel,