Jul
9
Child Sacrifice and Jephthah’s Vow to God
“The Bible’s weird, but maybe not as weird as it seems at first.” — Robby Lashua, Stand to Reason
This post is about one of those passages in the Bible that makes one say, “He did WHAT?!!” It is from Judges 11, in which the Israelites (specifically, those east of the River Jordan in the land of Gilead (see map)) convince the great warrior Jephthah — whom they had treated badly in the past due to his being the bastard son of Gilead and a prostitute — to be their chief and lead them in war against the Ammonites. He accepts, gives the Ammonite king a chance to back off (which is rejected), and prepares for battle. The most relevant part is as follows (HCSB):
“29 The Spirit of the Lord came on Jephthah, who traveled through Gilead and Manasseh, and then through Mizpah of Gilead. He crossed over to the Ammonites from Mizpah of Gilead. 30 Jephthah made this vow to the Lord: “If You will hand over the Ammonites to me, 31 whatever comes out of the doors of my house to greet me when I return in peace from the Ammonites will belong to the Lord, and I will offer it as a burnt offering.”
32 Jephthah crossed over to the Ammonites to fight against them, and the Lord handed them over to him. 33 He defeated 20 of their cities with a great slaughter from Aroer all the way to the entrance of Minnith and to Abel-keramim. So the Ammonites were subdued before the Israelites.
34 When Jephthah went to his home in Mizpah, there was his daughter, coming out to meet him with tambourines and dancing! She was his only child; he had no other son or daughter besides her. 35 When he saw her, he tore his clothes and said, “No! Not my daughter! You have devastated me! You have brought great misery on me. I have given my word to the Lord and cannot take it back.”
36 Then she said to him, “My father, you have given your word to the Lord. Do to me as you have said, for the Lord brought vengeance on your enemies, the Ammonites.” 37 She also said to her father, “Let me do this one thing: Let me wander two months through the mountains with my friends and mourn my virginity.”
38 “Go,” he said. And he sent her away two months. So she left with her friends and mourned her virginity as she wandered through the mountains. 39 At the end of two months, she returned to her father, and he kept the vow he had made about her. And she had never been intimate with a man. Now it became a custom in Israel 40 that four days each year the young women of Israel would commemorate the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite.”
Did Jephthah really do what it sounds like? Did an Israelite actually perform a human sacrifice — of his own daughter, no less — in service to Yahweh?! If so, why didn’t the girl freak out when she realized her father planned to kill her?
Jephthah may have been a “rough” man who fell in with some no-good types (Judg. 11:3). But, he seems to know the Law of Moses, at least in regards to the seriousness of vows and the importance of keeping them (Numbers 30). He also taught his daughter well, as she responds (my paraphrase): “I understand, Dad. You gave your word to God. He did His part, so you have to follow through on your promise.” It’s a safe bet that Jephthah knew the injunctions against child sacrifice, too (Lev. 18:21, 20:3; Deut. 12:31, 18:10). Would he really ignore the fact that he could be punished by stoning (Lev. 20:3) if he committed this sin? Would he disobey a clear command of God so he could obey another command of God? (More on this below.)
[As a side note, it is possible that Jephthah’s daughter was actually in her late teens or 20s, so while this would still be human sacrifice, the term “child sacrifice” would not apply.]
We know that some idolatrous Israelites were indeed guilty of child sacrifice over the years, but I don’t think this is the case here. In an article on the topic, STR’s Robby Lashua says,
“Let me be clear, if Jephthah killed his daughter, we can be sure it wasn’t something God would condone. Child sacrifice is clearly condemned in the Old Testament. In this case, the Jephthah story would be describing his atrocious acts but not prescribing what God condones. The fact that God used a man who committed such an atrocity is nothing new when it comes to Old Testament figures. David, Solomon, and Abraham were all men God used to do good but also men who greatly sinned. But is there another way to interpret Jephthah’s story?”
In addition to what I wrote above about Jephthah’s knowledge of Mosaic Law, Lashua makes a couple other observations. First, the Hebrew conjunction used at the end of verse 31 is the letter vav. It can be used for other conjunctions besides “and”; in fact, many scholars (e.g., E.W. Bullinger) have translated it here as “or”. This makes the vow, “Whatever comes out of the doors of my house… it shall be the LORD’s, or I will offer it up as a burnt offering.” (Judg. 11:31) Thus, if it’s an animal, it will be burned as a sacrifice. If it’s a person (and he may have thought it would more likely be a servant), s/he will be dedicated to the Lord, which I believe entailed service among the Levites (possibly at the Tabernacle?) and apparently never getting married.
This leads to the next observation. “It seems plausible from the fact that Jephthah’s daughter mourned her virginity that she was going to be dedicated to the Lord and live as a perpetual virgin. This idea is also reinforced by how the text emphasizes her virginity as part of her father’s vow.” She was Jephthah’s only child, so unless he fathered another later, his lineage would die with him. This would be a great sacrifice (of another kind) on Jephthah’s part. On the other hand, while the girl’s mother is not mentioned and may therefore be dead, Jephthah could certainly marry one or more other women and have children by them.
Now, let’s assume for the moment that the vav was correctly translated as “and”. Was there any other recourse Jephthah could have taken to get himself (and his daughter) out of this morally and emotionally difficult situation? Lashua’s colleague, Amy Hall, thinks there may have been. In a follow-up article to Lashua’s, Hall asks the question,
“When keeping a vow (something God greatly cares about) and not sacrificing a child (something God also greatly cares about) come into conflict, what does the Law say to do?”
Hall calls attention to two sections of Numbers 30. The first says that a father can annul a vow taken by his unmarried daughter (i.e., still living in his home), as long as he does so as soon as he becomes aware of the vow and associated obligation. The second section says that a husband may also prohibit/annul such a vow made by his wife — again, as long as he does so as soon as he becomes aware of it. (Knowingly letting the vow stand for awhile implies consent and the woman remains bound by her vow.) In either case, the Lord then releases the woman of her vow and obligation, though the man may then need to make some sort of offering.
“Notice two things: First, these laws are meant to deal with ‘rash statements’ — that is, foolish vows that should not be carried out. Second, despite the foolishness of the vow, there is still guilt involved for breaking that vow, though ‘the Lord will forgive’ that sin since submitting to the authority of the father’s (or husband’s) rejection of the vow is also a moral obligation.
So here we see two moral obligations in conflict with each other — the obligation to fulfill a vow and the obligation to submit to the authority of the father (or husband) — and it’s the obligation to submit to the father that takes precedence over fulfilling the vow (though there is still guilt for breaking the vow that needs to be forgiven by God).”
Hall then infers a moral principle: If you make a foolish vow and then learn that our Father has forbidden it, you should not continue on with fulfilling the vow. Even with the high value God places on keeping vows, you should never do something God has forbidden in order to fulfill one.
I agree with the general idea of there being higher and lower moral laws (i.e., graded absolutism), and it may indeed apply here. I also often agree with Hall in matters of Scripture, theology, and apologetics. But, I’m not totally convinced of the case she presents here, or at least not the applicability for Jephthah’s dilemma. The examples given in Numbers 30 each have to do with a woman making a potentially rash vow which is then overruled by the male figure over her in the familial structure. Jephthah, on the other hand, was the man in charge (both of the Gileadites and his own family) and he was the one who made the rash vow. It’s a bit different situation, which is why I hesitate.
There are two other Old Testament passages that discuss special vows made to Yahweh — Numbers 6 and Leviticus 27. The former centers on the Nazirite vow (which can be either temporary or permanent), while the latter deals with funding for the sanctuary and involves assessing what should be paid for different sorts of people, animals, one’s house or field, produce, and which ones may be substituted or ransomed (for a price). One particularly interesting line is Lev. 27:29: “No person who has been set apart for destruction is to be ransomed; he must be put to death.” Some things “dedicated to God” are indeed “set apart for destruction”, but I’m not sure if that could apply to Jephthah’s daughter in this situation. In fact, I’m not sure if any part of Numbers 6 or Leviticus 27 might apply to Jephthah’s problem, but it might be worth looking into (by someone with better resources than I have).
For now, I’m going to stick with the reasoning and conclusions that Lashua presented.
