Judges 11 commentary

Men ought not to be blamed for their parentage, so long as they by their personal merits roll away any reproach. God had forgiven Israel, therefore Jephthah will forgive. He speaks not with confidence of his success, knowing how justly God might suffer the Ammonites to prevail for the further punishment of Israel. Nor does he speak with any confidence at all in himself. If he succeed, it is the Lord delivers them into his hand; he thereby reminds his countrymen to look up to God as the Giver of victory. The same question as here, in fact, is put to those who desire salvation by Christ. If he save you, will ye be willing that he shall rule you? On no other terms will he save you. If he make you happy, shall he make you holy? If he be your helper, shall he be your Head? Jephthah, to obtain a little worldly honour, was willing to expose his life: shall we be discouraged in our Christian warfare by the difficulties we may meet with, when Christ has promised a crown of life to him that overcometh?

One instance of the honour and respect we owe to God, as our God, is, rightly to employ what he gives us to possess. Receive it from him, use it for him, and part with it when he calls for it. The whole of this message shows that Jephthah was well acquainted with the books of Moses. His argument was clear, and his demand reasonable. Those who possess the most courageous faith, will be the most disposed for peace, and the readiest to make advances to obtain; but rapacity and ambition often cloak their designs under a plea of equity, and render peaceful endeavours of no avail.

Several important lessons are to be learned from Jephthah's vow. 1. There may be remainders of distrust and doubting, even in the hearts of true and great believers. 2. Our vows to God should not be as a purchase of the favour we desire, but to express gratitude to him. 3. We need to be very well-advised in making vows, lest we entangle ourselves. 4. What we have solemnly vowed to God, we must perform, if it be possible and lawful, though it be difficult and grievous to us. 5. It well becomes children, obediently and cheerfully to submit to their parents in the Lord. It is hard to say what Jephthah did in performance of his vow; but it is thought that he did not offer his daughter as a burnt-offering. Such a sacrifice would have been an abomination to the Lord; it is supposed she was obliged to remain unmarried, and apart from her family. Concerning this and some other such passages in the sacred history, about which learned men are divided and in doubt, we need not perplex ourselves; what is necessary to our salvation, thanks be to God, is plain enough. If the reader recollects the promise of Christ concerning the teaching of the Holy Spirit, and places himself under this heavenly Teacher, the Holy Ghost will guide to all truth in every passage, so far as it is needful to be understood.

CHAPTER 11

Jud 11:1-3. Jephthah.

1. Jephthah--"opener."

son of an harlot--a concubine, or foreigner; implying an inferior sort of marriage prevalent in Eastern countries. Whatever dishonor might attach to his birth, his own high and energetic character rendered him early a person of note.

Gilead begat Jephthah--His father seems to have belonged to the tribe of Manasseh (1Ch 7:14, 17).

2. Thou shalt not inherit in our father's house--As there were children by the legitimate wife, the son of the secondary one was not entitled to any share of the patrimony, and the prior claim of the others was indisputable. Hence, as the brothers of Jephthah seem to have resorted to rude and violent treatment, they must have been influenced by some secret ill-will.

3. Jephthah ... dwelt in the land of Tob--on the north of Gilead, beyond the frontier of the Hebrew territories (2Sa 10:6, 8).

there were gathered vain men to Jephthah--idle, daring, or desperate.

and went out with him--followed him as a military chief. They led a freebooting life, sustaining themselves by frequent incursions on the Ammonites and other neighboring people, in the style of Robin Hood. The same kind of life is led by many an Arab or Tartar still, who as the leader of a band, acquires fame by his stirring or gallant adventures. It is not deemed dishonorable when the expeditions are directed against those out of his own tribe or nation. Jephthah's mode of life was similar to that of David when driven from the court of Saul.

Jud 11:4-11. The Gileadites Covenant with Jephthah.

4. in process of time--on the return of the season.

the children of Ammon made war against Israel--Having prepared the way by the introduction of Jephthah, the sacred historian here resumes the thread of his narrative from Jud 10:17. The Ammonites seem to have invaded the country, and active hostilities were inevitable.

5-6. the elders of Gilead went to fetch Jephthah--All eyes were directed towards him as the only person possessed of the qualities requisite for the preservation of the country in this time of imminent danger; and a deputation of the chief men was despatched from the Hebrew camp at Mizpeh to solicit his services.

7-9. Jephthah said, Did not ye hate me?--He gave them at first a haughty and cold reception. It is probable that he saw some of his brothers among the deputies. Jephthah was now in circumstances to make his own terms. With his former experience, he would have shown little wisdom or prudence without binding them to a clear and specific engagement to invest him with unlimited authority, the more especially as he was about to imperil his life in their cause. Although ambition might, to a certain degree, have stimulated his ready compliance, it is impossible to overlook the piety of his language, which creates a favorable impression that his roving life, in a state of social manners so different from ours, was not incompatible with habits of personal religion.

10-11. the elders of Israel said unto Jephthah, The Lord be witness between us--Their offer being accompanied by the most solemn oath, Jephthah intimated his acceptance of the mission, and his willingness to accompany them. But to make "assurance doubly sure," he took care that the pledge given by the deputies in Tob should be ratified in a general assembly of the people at Mizpeh; and the language of the historian, "Jephthah uttered all his words before the Lord," seems to imply that his inauguration with the character and extraordinary office of judge was solemnized by prayer for the divine blessing, or some religious ceremonial.

Jud 11:12-28. His Embassy to the King of Ammon.

12-28. Jephthah sent messengers unto the king of the children of Ammon--This first act in his judicial capacity reflects the highest credit on his character for prudence and moderation, justice and humanity. The bravest officers have always been averse to war; so Jephthah, whose courage was indisputable, resolved not only to make it clearly appear that hostilities were forced upon him, but to try measures for avoiding, if possible, an appeal to arms: and in pursuing such a course he was acting as became a leader in Israel (De 20:10-18).

Jud 11:29-31. His Vow.

29-30. Then the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah--The calm wisdom, sagacious forethought, and indomitable energy which he was enabled to display, were a pledge to himself and a convincing evidence to his countrymen, that he was qualified by higher resources than his own for the momentous duties of his office.

he passed over Gilead, and Manasseh--the provinces most exposed and in danger, for the purpose of levying troops, and exciting by his presence a widespread interest in the national cause. Returning to the camp at Mizpeh, he then began his march against the enemy. There he made his celebrated vow, in accordance with an ancient custom for generals at the outbreak of a war, or on the eve of a battle, to promise the god of their worship a costly oblation, or dedication of some valuable booty, in the event of victory. Vows were in common practice also among the Israelites. They were encouraged by the divine approval as emanating from a spirit of piety and gratitude; and rules were laid down in the law for regulating the performance. But it is difficult to bring Jephthah's vow within the legitimate range (see on Le 27:28).

31. whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me--This evidently points not to an animal, for that might have been a dog; which, being unclean, was unfit to be offered; but to a person, and it looks extremely as if he, from the first, contemplated a human sacrifice. Bred up as he had been, beyond the Jordan, where the Israelitish tribes, far from the tabernacle, were looser in their religious sentiments, and living latterly on the borders of a heathen country where such sacrifices were common, it is not improbable that he may have been so ignorant as to imagine that a similar immolation would be acceptable to God. His mind, engrossed with the prospect of a contest, on the issue of which the fate of his country depended, might, through the influence of superstition, consider the dedication of the object dearest to him the most likely to ensure success.

shall surely be the Lord's; and [or] I will offer it up for a burnt offering--The adoption of the latter particle, which many interpreters suggest, introduces the important alternative, that if it were a person, the dedication would be made to the service of the sanctuary; if a proper animal or thing, it would be offered on the altar.

Jud 11:32, 33. He Overcomes the Ammonites.

32. Jephthah passed over unto the children of Ammon ... and the Lord delivered them into his hands--He met and engaged them at Aroer, a town in the tribe of Gad, upon the Arnon. A decisive victory crowned the arms of Israel, and the pursuit was continued to Abel (plain of the vineyards), from south to north, over an extent of about sixty miles.

34-40. Jephthah came to Mizpeh unto his house, and, behold, his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances--The return of the victors was hailed, as usual, by the joyous acclaim of a female band (1Sa 18:6), the leader of whom was Jephthah's daughter. The vow was full in his mind, and it is evident that it had not been communicated to anyone, otherwise precautions would doubtless have been taken to place another object at his door. The shriek, and other accompaniments of irrepressible grief, seem to indicate that her life was to be forfeited as a sacrifice; the nature of the sacrifice (which was abhorrent to the character of God) and distance from the tabernacle does not suffice to overturn this view, which the language and whole strain of the narrative plainly support; and although the lapse of two months might be supposed to have afforded time for reflection, and a better sense of his duty, there is but too much reason to conclude that he was impelled to the fulfilment by the dictates of a pious but unenlightened conscience.

Now Jephthah - was the son of a harlot - I think the word זונה zonah, which we here render harlot, should be translated, as is contended for on Jos 2:1 (note), viz. a hostess, keeper of an inn or tavern for the accommodation of travelers; and thus it is understood by the Targum of Jonathan on this place: והוא בר אתתא פונדקיתא vehu bar ittetha pundekitha, "and he was the son of a woman, a tavern keeper." She was very probably a Canaanite, as she is called, Jdg 11:2, a strange woman, אשה אחרת ishshah achereth, a woman of another race; and on this account his brethren drove him from the family, as he could not have a full right to the inheritance, his mother not being an Israelite.

There were gathered vain men to Jephthah - אנשים ריקים anashim reykim, empty men - persons destitute of good sense, and profligate in their manners. The word may, however, mean in this place poor persons, without property, and without employment. The versions in general consider them as plunderers.

The children of Ammon made war - They had invaded the land of Israel, and were now encamped in Gilead. See Jdg 10:17.

Come, and be our captain - The Israelites were assembled in Mizpeh, but were without a captain to lead them against the Ammonites. And we find, from the conclusion of the preceding chapter, that they offered the command to any that would accept it.

Therefore we turn again to thee now - We are convinced that we have dealt unjustly by thee, and we wish now to repair our fault, and give thee this sincere proof of our regret for having acted unjustly, and of our confidence in thee.

Jepthah went with the elders - The elders had chosen him for their head; but, to be valid, this choice must be confirmed by the people; therefore, it is said, the people made him head. But even this did not complete the business; God must be brought in as a party to this transaction; and therefore Jephthah uttered all his words before the Lord - the terms made with the elders and the people on which he had accepted the command of the army; and, being sure of the Divine approbation, he entered on the work with confidence.

Jepthah sent messengers - He wished the Ammonites to explain their own motives for undertaking a war against Israel; as then the justice of his cause would appear more forcibly to the people.

From Arnon even unto Jabbok, and unto Jordan - That is, all the land that had formerly belonged to the Amorites, and to the Moabites, who it seems were confederates on this occasion.

From the wilderness even unto Jordan - From Arabia Deserta on the east to Jordan on the west.

The Lord God of Israel hath dispossessed the Amorites - Jephthah shows that the Israelites did not take the land of the Moabites or Ammonites, but that of the Amorites, which they had conquered from Sihon their king, who had, without cause or provocation, attacked them; and although the Amorites had taken the lands in question from the Ammonites, yet the title by which Israel held them was good, because they took them not from the Ammonites, but conquered them from the Amorites. So now the Lord - hath dispossessed the Amorites. - The circumstances in which the Israelites were when they were attacked by the Amorites, plainly proved, that, unless Jehovah had helped them, they must have been overcome. God defeated the Amorites, and made a grant of their lands to the Israelites; and they had, in consequence, possessed them for three hundred years, Jdg 11:26.

Wilt not thou possess that which Chemosh thy god giveth thee - As if he had said: "It is a maxim with you, as it is among all nations, that the lands which they conceive to be given them by their gods, they have an absolute right to, and should not relinquish them to any kind of claimant. You suppose that the land which you possess was given you by your god Chemosh and therefore you will not relinquish what you believe you hold by a Divine right. Now, we know that Jehovah, our God, who is the Lord of heaven and earth, has given the Israelites the land of the Amorites; and therefore we will not give it up." The ground of Jephthah's remonstrance was sound and good.

1. The Ammonites had lost their lands in their contests with the Amorites.

2. The Israelites conquered these lands from the Amorites, who had waged a most unprincipled war against them.

3. God, who is the Maker of heaven and earth had given those very lands as a Divine grant to the Israelites.

4. In consequence of this they had possession of them for upwards of three hundred years.

5. These lands were never reclaimed by the Ammonites, though they had repeated opportunities of doing it, whilst the Israelites dwelt in Heshbon, in Aroer, and in the coasts of Arnon; but they did not reclaim them because they knew that the Israelites held them legally. The present pretensions of Ammon were unsupported and unjustifiable.

The Lord the Judge be judge - between the children of Israel - If you be right, and we be wrong, then Jehovah, who is the sovereign and incorruptible Judge, shall determine in your favor; and to Him I submit the righteousness of my cause.

Then the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah - The Lord qualified him for the work he had called him to do, and thus gave him the most convincing testimony that his cause was good.

Shall surely be the Lord's, and I will offer it up for a burnt-offering - The text is והיה ליהוה והעליתיהו עולה vehayah layhovah, vehaalithihu olah; the translation of which, according to the most accurate Hebrew scholars, is this: I will consecrate it to the Lord, or I will offer it for a burnt-offering; that is, "If it be a thing fit for a burnt-offering, it shall be made one; if fit for the service of God, it shall be consecrated to him." That conditions of this kind must have been implied in the vow, is evident enough; to have been made without them, it must have been the vow of a heathen, or a madman. If a dog had met him, this could not have been made a burnt-offering; and if his neighbor or friend's wife, son, or daughter, etc., had been returning from a visit to his family, his vow gave him no right over them. Besides, human sacrifices were ever an abomination to the Lord; and this was one of the grand reasons why God drove out the Canaanites, etc., because they offered their sons and daughters to Molech in the fire, i.e., made burnt-offerings of them, as is generally supposed. That Jephthah was a deeply pious man, appears in the whole of his conduct; and that he was well acquainted with the law of Moses, which prohibited all such sacrifices, and stated what was to be offered in sacrifice, is evident enough from his expostulation with the king and people of Ammon, Jdg 11:14-27. Therefore it must be granted that he never made that rash vow which several suppose he did; nor was he capable, if he had, of executing it in that most shocking manner which some Christian writers ("tell it not in Gath") have contended for. He could not commit a crime which himself had just now been an executor of God's justice to punish in others.

It has been supposed that "the text itself might have been read differently in former times; if instead of the words והעליתיהו עולה, I will offer It a burnt-offering, we read והעליתי הוא עולה, I will offer Him (i.e., the Lord) a burnt-offering: this will make a widely different sense, more consistent with everything that is sacred; and it is formed by the addition of only a single letter, (א aleph), and the separation of the pronoun from the verb. Now the letter א aleph is so like the letter ע ain, which immediately follows it in the word עולה olah, that the one might easily have been lost in the other, and thus the pronoun be joined to the verb as at present, where it expresses the thing to be sacrificed instead of the person to whom the sacrifice was to be made. With this emendation the passage will read thus: Whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me - shall be the Lord's; and I will offer Him a burnt-offering." For this criticism there is no absolute need, because the pronoun הו hu, in the above verse, may with as much propriety be translated him as it. The latter part of the verse is, literally, And I will offer him a burnt-offering, עולה olah, not לעולה leolah, For a burnt-offering, which is the common Hebrew form when for is intended to be expressed. This is strong presumption that the text should be thus understood: and this avoids the very disputable construction which is put on the ו vau, in והעליתיהו vehaalithihu, Or I will offer It up, instead of And I will offer Him a burnt-offering. "From Jdg 11:39 it appears evident that Jephthah's daughter was not Sacrificed to God, but consecrated to him in a state of perpetual virginity; for the text says, She knew no man, for this was a statute in Israel. ותהי חק בישראל vattehi chok beyishrael; viz., that persons thus dedicated or consecrated to God, should live in a state of unchangeable celibacy. Thus this celebrated place is, without violence to any part of the text, or to any proper rule of construction, cleared of all difficulty, and caused to speak a language consistent with itself, and with the nature of God."

Those who assert that Jephthah did sacrifice his daughter, attempt to justify the opinion from the barbarous usages of those times: but in answer to this it may be justly observed, that Jephthah was now under the influence of the Spirit of God, Jdg 11:29; and that Spirit could not permit him to imbrue his hands in the blood of his own child; and especially under the pretense of offering a pleasing sacrifice to that God who is the Father of mankind, and the Fountain of love, mercy, and compassion.

The versions give us but little assistance in clearing the difficulties of the text. In the Targum of Jonathan there is a remarkable gloss which should be mentioned, and from which it will appear that the Targumist supposed that the daughter of Jephthah was actually sacrificed: "And he fulfilled the vow which he had vowed upon her; and she knew no man: and it was made a statute in Israel, that no man should offer his son or his daughter for a burnt-offering, as did Jephthah the Gileadite, who did not consult Phinehas the priest; for if he had consulted Phinehas the priest, he would have redeemed her with money."

The Targumist refers here to the law, Lev 27:1-5, where the Lord prescribes the price at which either males or females, who had been vowed to the Lord, might be redeemed. "When a man shall make a singular vow, the persons shall be for the Lord at thy estimation: the male from twenty years old even unto sixty, shall be fifty shekels of silver; and if it be a female, then thy estimation shall be thirty shekels; and from five years old unto twenty years, the male twenty shekels, and for the female ten." This also is an argument that the daughter of Jephthah was not sacrificed; as the father had it in his power, at a very moderate price, to have redeemed her: and surely the blood of his daughter must have been of more value in his sight than thirty shekels of silver.

Dr. Hales has entered largely into the subject: his observations may be seen at the end of this chapter.

Twenty cities - That is, he either took or destroyed twenty cities of the Ammonites, and completely routed their whole army.

With timbrels and with dances - From this instance we find it was an ancient custom for women to go out to meet returning conquerors with musical instruments, songs, and dances; and that it was continued afterwards is evident from the instance given 1Sam 18:6, where David was met, on his return from the defeat of Goliath and the Philistines, by women from all the cities of Israel, with singing and dancing, and various instruments of music.

Thou hast brought me very low - He was greatly distressed to think that his daughter, who was his only child, should be, in consequence of his vow, prevented from continuing his family in Israel; for it is evident that he had not any other child, for besides her, says the text, he had neither son nor daughter, Jdg 11:34. He might, therefore, well be grieved that thus his family was to become extinct in Israel.

And she said unto him - What a pattern of filial piety and obedience! She was at once obedient, pious, and patriotic. A woman to have no offspring was considered to be in a state of the utmost degradation among the Hebrews; but she is regardless of all this, seeing her father is in safety, and her country delivered.

I and my fellows - Whether she meant the young women of her own acquaintance, or those who had been consecrated to God in the same way, though on different accounts, is not quite clear; but it is likely she means her own companions: and her going up and down upon the mountains may signify no more than her paying each of them a visit at their own houses, previously to her being shut up at the tabernacle; and this visiting of each at their own home might require the space of two months. This I am inclined to think is the meaning of this difficult clause.

And she knew no man - She continued a virgin all the days of her life.

To lament the daughter of Jephthah - I am satisfied that this is not a correct translation of the original לתנות לבת יפתח lethannoth lebath yiphtach. Houbigant translates the whole verse thus: Sed iste mos apud Israel invaluit, ut virgines Israel, temporibus diversis, irent ad filiam Jepthe-ut eam quotannis dies quatuor consolarentur; "But this custom prevailed in Israel that the virgins of Israel went at different times, four days in the year, to the daughter of Jephthah, that they might comfort her." This verse also gives evidence that the daughter of Jephthah was not sacrificed: nor does it appear that the custom or statute referred to here lasted after the death of Jephthah's daughter.

The following is Dr. Hales' exposition of Jephthah's vow: - "When Jephthah went forth to battle against the Ammonites, he vowed a vow unto the Lord, and said, 'If thou wilt surely give the children of Ammon into my hand, then it shall be that whatsoever cometh out of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, shall either be the Lord's, or I will offer it up (for) a burnt-offering,' Jdg 11:30, Jdg 11:31. According to this rendering of the two conjunctions, ו vau in the last clause 'either,' 'or,'(which is justified by the Hebrew idiom thus, 'He that curseth his father and his mother,' Exo 21:17, is necessarily rendered disjunctively, 'His father or his mother,' by the Septuagint, Vulgate, Chaldee, and English, confirmed by Mat 15:4, the paucity of connecting particles in that language making it necessary that this conjunction should often be understood disjunctively), the vow consisted of two parts:

1. That what person soever met him should be the Lord's or be dedicated to his service; and,

2. That what beast soever met him, if clean, should be offered up for a burnt-offering unto the Lord. "This rendering and this interpretation is warranted by the Levitical law about vows. "The נדר neder, or vow, in general, included either persons, beasts, or things dedicated to the Lord for pious uses; which, if it was a simple vow, was redeemable at certain prices, if the person repented of his vow, and wished to commute it for money, according to the age or sex of the person, Lev 27:1-8 : this was a wise regulation to remedy rash vows. But if the vow was accompanied with חרם cherem, devotement, it was irredeemable, as in the following case, Lev 27:28. "Notwithstanding, no devotement which a man shall devote unto the Lord, (either) of man, or beast, or of land of his own property, shall be sold or redeemed. Every thing devoted is most holy to the Lord. "Here the three ו vaus in the original should necessarily be rendered disjunctively, or as the last actually is in our translation, because there are three distinct subjects of devotement to be applied to distinct uses, the man to be dedicated to the service of the Lord, as Samuel by his mother Hannah, 1Sam 1:11; the cattle, if clean, such as oxen, sheep, goats, turtle-doves, or pigeons, to be sacrificed; and if unclean, as camels, horses, asses, to be employed for carrying burdens in the service of the tabernacle or temple; and the lands, to be sacred property. "This law therefore expressly applied in its first branch to Jephthah's case, who had devoted his daughter to the Lord, or opened his mouth to the Lord, and therefore could not go back, as he declared in his grief at seeing his daughter and only child coming to meet him with timbrels and dances: she was, therefore necessarily devoted, but with her own consent to perpetual virginity in the service of the tabernacle, Jdg 11:36, Jdg 11:37; and such service was customary, for in the division of the spoils taken in the first Midianitish war, of the whole number of captive virgins the Lord's tribute was thirty-two persons, Numbers 31:15-40. This instance appears to be decisive of the nature of her devotement. "Her father's extreme grief on the occasion and her requisition of a respite for two months to bewail her virginity, are both perfectly natural. Having no other issue, he could only look forward to the extinction of his name or family; and a state of celibacy, which is reproachful among women everywhere, was peculiarly so among the Israelites, and was therefore no ordinary sacrifice on her part; who, though she generously gave up, could not but regret the loss of, becoming 'a mother in Israel.' And he did with her according to his vow which he had vowed, and she knew no man, or remained a virgin, all her life, Jdg 11:34-39. "There was also another case of devotement which was irredeemable, and follows the former, Lev 27:29. This case differs materially from the former. "1. It is confined to Persons devoted, omitting beasts and lands.

2. It does not relate to private property, as in the foregoing. And,

3. The subject of it was to be utterly destroyed, instead of being most holy unto the Lord.

This law, therefore, related to aliens, or public enemies devoted to destruction either by God, the people, or by the magistrate. Of all these we have instances in Scripture. "1. The Amalekites and Canaanites were devoted by God himself. Saul was, therefore, guilty of a breach of the law for sparing Agag the king of the Amalekites, as Samuel reproached him, 1Sam 15:33 : 'And Samuel hewed Agag in pieces before the Lord;' not as a sacrifice, according to Voltaire, but as a criminal, whose sword had made many women childless. By this law the Midianitish women who had been spared in battle were slain, Num 31:14-17. "2. In Mount Hor, when the Israelites were attacked by Arad, king of the southern Canaanites, who took some of them prisoners, they vowed a vow unto the Lord that they would utterly destroy the Canaanites and their cities, if the Lord should deliver them into their hand, which the Lord ratified; whence the place was called Hormah, because the vow was accompanied by cherem, or devotement to destruction, Num 21:1-3; and the vow was accomplished, Jdg 1:17. "3. In the Philistine war Saul adjured the people, and cursed any one who should taste food till the evening. His own son Jonathan inadvertently ate a honey-comb, not knowing his father's oath, for which Saul sentenced him to die. But the people interposed, and rescued him for his public services; thus assuming the power of dispensing, in their collective capacity, with an unreasonable oath. This latter case, therefore, is utterly irrelative to Jephthah's vow, which did not regard a foreign enemy or a domestic transgressor devoted to destruction, but on the contrary was a vow of thanksgiving, and therefore properly came under the former case.

And that Jephthah could not possibly have sacrificed his daughter, (according to the vulgar opinion), may appear from the following considerations: - "1. The sacrifice of children to Molech was an abomination to the Lord, of which in numberless passages he expresses his detestation, and it was prohibited by an express law, under pain of death, as a defilement of God's sanctuary, and a profanation of his holy name, Lev 20:2, Lev 20:3. Such a sacrifice, therefore, unto the Lord himself, must be a still higher abomination, and there is no precedent of any such under the law in the Old Testament. "2. The case of Isaac before the law is irrelevant, for Isaac was not sacrificed, and it was only proposed for a trial of Abraham's faith. "3. No father, merely by his own authority, could put an offending, much less an innocent, child to death upon any account, without the sentence of the magistrate, (Deu 21:18-21), and the consent of the people, as in Jonathan's case. "4. The Mischna, or traditional law of the Jews is pointedly against it; ver. 212. 'If a Jew should devote his son or daughter, his man or maid servant, who are Hebrews, the devotement would be void, because no man can devote what is not his own, or whose life he has not the absolute disposal of.' These arguments appear to be decisive against the sacrifice; and that Jephthah could not have devoted his daughter to celibacy against her will is evident from the history, and from the high estimation in which she was always held by the daughters of Israel for her filial duty and her hapless fate, which they celebrated by a regular anniversary commemoration four days in the year; Jdg 11:40." - New Analysis of Chronology, vol. iii., p. 319.

The celebrated sacrifice of Iphigenia has been supposed by many learned men to be a fable founded on this account of Jephthah's daughter; and M. De Lavaur, Conference de la Fable avec l'Histoire Sainte, has thus traced the parallel: - "The fable of Iphigenia, offered in sacrifice by Agamemnon her father, sung by so many poets, related after them by so many historians, and celebrated in the Greek and French theatres, has been acknowledged by all those who knew the sacred writings, and who have paid a particular attention to them, as a changed copy of the history of the daughter of Jephthah, offered in sacrifice by her father. Let us consider the several parts particularly, and begin with an exposition of the original, taken from the eleventh chapter of the book of Judges. "The sacred historian informs us that Jephthah, the son of Gilead, was a great and valiant captain. The Israelites, against whom God was irritated, being forced to go to war with the Ammonites, (nearly about the time of the siege of Troy), assembled themselves together to oblige Jephthah to come to their succor, and chose him for their captain against the Ammonites. He accepted the command on conditions that, if God should give him the victory, they would acknowledge him for their prince. This they promised by oath; and all the people elected him in the city of Mizpeh, in the tribe of Judah. He first sent ambassadors to the king of the Ammonites to know the reason why he had committed so many acts of injustice, and so many ravages on the coast of Israel. The other made a pretext of some ancient damages his people had suffered by the primitive Israelites, to countenance the ravages he committed, and would not accord with the reasonable propositions made by the ambassadors of Jephthah. Having now supplicated the Lord and being filled with his Spirit, he marched against the Ammonites, and being zealously desirous to acquit himself nobly, and to ensure the success of so important a war, he made a vow to the Lord to offer in sacrifice or as a burnt-offering the first thing that should come out of the house to meet him at his return from victory. "He then fought with and utterly discomfited the Ammonites; and returning victorious to his house, God so permitted it that his only daughter was the first who met him. Jephthah was struck with terror at the sight of her, and tearing his garments, he exclaimed, Alas! alas! my daughter, thou dost exceedingly trouble me; for I have opened my mouth against thee, unto the Lord, and I cannot go back. His daughter, full of courage and piety, understanding the purport of his vow, exhorted him to accomplish what he had vowed to the Lord, which to her would be exceedingly agreeable, seeing the Lord had avenged him of his and his country's enemies; desiring liberty only to go on the mountains with her companions, and to bewail the dishonor with which sterility was accompanied in Israel, because each hoped to see the Messiah born of his or her family. Jephthah could not deny her this request. She accordingly went, and at the end of two months returned, and put herself into the hands of her father, who did with her according to his vow. "Several of the rabbins, and many very learned Christian expositors, believe that Jephthah's daughter was not really sacrificed, but that her virginity was consecrated to God, and that she separated from all connection with the world; which indeed seems to be implied in the sacred historian's account: And she knew no man. This was a kind of mysterious death, because it caused her to lose all hope of the glory of a posterity from which the Messiah might descend. From this originated the custom, observed afterwards in Israel, that on a certain season in the year the virgins assembled themselves on the mountains to bewail the daughter of Jephthah for the space of four days. Let us now consider the leading characters of the fable of Iphigenia. According to good chronological reckonings, the time of the one and of the other very nearly agree. The opinion that the name of Iphigenia is taken from the daughter of Jephthah, appears well founded; yea, the conformity is palpable. By a very inconsiderable change Iphigenia makes Iphthygenia, which signifies literally, the daughter of Jephthah. Agamemnon, who is described as a valiant warrior and admirable captain, was chosen by the Greeks for their prince and general against the Trojans, by the united consent of all Greece, assembled together at Aulis in Baeotia. "As soon as he had accepted the command, he sent ambassadors to Priam, king of Troy, to demand satisfaction for the rape of Helen, of which the Greeks complained. The Trojans refusing to grant this, Agamemnon, to gain over to his side the gods, who appeared irritated against the Greeks and opposed to the success of their enterprise, after having sacrificed to them went to consult their interpreter, Chalchas, who declared that the gods, and particularly Diana, would not be appeased but by the sacrifice of Iphigenia, the daughter of Agamemnon. "Cicero, in his Offices, says that Agamemnon, in order to engage the protection of the gods in his war against the Trojans, vowed to sacrifice to them the most beautiful of all that should be born in his kingdom; and as it was found that his daughter Iphigenia surpassed all the rest in beauty, he believed himself bound by his vow to sacrifice her. Cicero condemns this, rightly judging that it would have been a less evil to have falsified his vow than to have committed parricide. This account of Cicero renders the fable entirely conformable to the history. "Agamemnon was at first struck with and troubled at this order, nevertheless consented to it: but he afterwards regretted the loss of his daughter. He is represented by the poets as deliberating, and being in doubt whether the gods could require such a parricide; but at last a sense of his duty and honor overcame his paternal affection, and his daughter, who had warmly exhorted him to fulfill his vow to the gods, was led to the altar amidst the lamentations of her companions; as Ovid and Euripides relate, see Met., lib. 13. "Some authors have thought she really was sacrificed; but others, more humane, say she was caught up in a cloud by the gods, who, contented with the intended sacrifice, substituted a hind in her place, with which the sacrifice was completed. Dictys Cretensis says that this animal was substituted to save Iphigenia. "The chronology of times so remote cannot, in many respects, but be uncertain. Both the Greeks and Romans grant that there was nothing else than fables before the first Olympiad, the beginning of which was at least four hundred and fifty years after the destruction of Troy, and two hundred and forty years after Solomon. As to the time of Solomon, nothing can be more certain than what is related in the sixth chapter of the first book of Kings, that from the going out of Egypt, under Moses, till the time in which he began to build the temple, was four hundred and eighty years. "According to the common opinion, the taking of Troy is placed one hundred and eighty years before the reign of Solomon; but his reign preceded Homer three centuries, according to some learned men, and always at least one century by those who related it lowest. Indeed, there is much uncertainty in fixing the express time in which Homer flourished. "Pausanias found so much difference concerning this in authors, that he was at a loss how to judge of it. However, it is sufficient for us that it was granted that Solomon was at least a century before Homer, who wrote more than two centuries after the taking of Troy and who is the most ancient historian of this famous siege."

NOW Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty man of valour, and he was the son of an harlot : and Gilead begat Jephthah.

So called, either from his Father Gilead, Ios. 17. 1, 2. or from the Mountain, or City of Gilead, the place of his birth or abode.

i. e. A Bastard; for though such were not ordinarily to enter into the Congregation of the Lord, Deut. 23. 2. Yet God can dispence with his own Laws, and hath sometimes done honour to base-born persons, so far, that some of them were admitted to be the Progenitors of the Lord Jesus Christ.

One of the Children of that Ancienter Gilead, Numb. 32. 1. Iosh. 17. 1.

Marginal references: Heb. 11. 32. called Jephte.; Heb. a woman an harlot

3 Then Jephthah fled from his brethren, and dwelt in the land of Tob : and there were gathered vain men to Jephthah, and went out with him .

The name either of the Land or Territory, or of the Man who was the Owner or Ruler of it. This place was in or near Gilead, as appears by the speedy intercourse which here was between Iephthah and the Israelites.

Idle persons, who desire to get their living rather by Spoil and Rapine, than by honest and diligent Labour. These evil minded persons Iephthah managed well, employing them against the Enemies of God, and of Israel, that bordered upon them; and particularly, upon Parties of the Ammonites, which made the Israelites more forward to chuse him for their Chieftain in this War.

When he made excursions and attempts upon his and their Enemies.

Marginal references: Heb. from the face.; Judg. 9 4. 1 Sam. 22. 2.

4 ¶ And it came to pass in process of time , that the children of Ammon made war against Israel.

Heb. after some days: or, after a year, days being oft put for a year, as hath been shewed; after that year mentioned Iudg. 10. 8. The Ammonites had vexed and oppressed them Eighteen Years, and now that the Israelites begin to make Opposition, they commence a War against them. Or, some time after Iephthah had been banish'd, and after he had taken up Arms, and given them some disturbance. Or, after the Israelites assembled together, as is said, Iudg. 10. 18.

Marginal references: Heb. after days.

5 And it was so, that when the children of Ammon made war against Israel, the elders of Gilead went to fetch Jephthah out of the land of Tob.

By direction or instinct from God, who both qualified him for, and called him to the office of a Judge. See Iudg. 12. 7. Heb. 11. 32. Otherwise they might not have chosen a Bastard, Deut. 32. 2. Unless we will say, that there being no other person among them fit for, and willing to this Work, necessity dispensed with this Law, as it did with other positive Laws, as those of the Sabbath and Sacrifices.

6 And they said unto Jephthah, Come and be our Captain , that we may fight with the children of Ammon.

They say not, our King; for the experience of Abimelech's kingship had cooled their Appetite in that particular; but our Captain.

7 And Jephthah said unto the elders of Gilead, Did not ye hate me, and expel me out of my fathers house ? and why are ye come unto me now, when ye are in distress?

And deprive me of all share in my Fathers Goods, which, though a Bastard, was due to me. This Expulsion of him was the act of his Brethren; but he here ascribes it to the Elders of Gilead; either because some of them were among these Elders, as is very probable from the dignity of this Family; or because this act, though desired and promoted by his Brethren, was executed by the decree of the Elders, to whom the determination of all controversies about Inheritances belonged; and therefore it was their fault that they did not Protect him from the Injuries of his Brethren, as their duty was.

Marginal references: Gen. 26. 27.

8 And the Elders of Gilead said unto Jephthah, Therefore we turn again to thee now , that thou mayest go with us, and fight against the children of Ammon, and be our head over all the inhabitants of Gilead.

Being sensible that we have done thee Injury, we come now to make thee full Reparations.

9 ¶ And Jephthah said unto the elders of Gilead, If ye bring me home again to fight against the children of Ammon, and the LORD deliver them before me, shall I be your head ?

If you recall me from this place where I am now setled, to the place whence I was Expelled.

Will you really make good this Promise? Iephthah was so sollicitous in this case, either from his Zeal for the publick Good, which required that he should be so; or from the Law of Self-Preservation, that he might secure himself from his Brethren; whose ill-will he had experienced, and whose iniuries he could not prevent, if, after he had served their ends, he had been reduced to his private capacity; or, there might be some Tincture of Ambition in him; for which God therefore severely, though paternally, chastiseth him, as we see afterwards.

10 ¶ And the elders of Gilead said unto Jephthah, The LORD be witness between us , if we do not so according to thy words.

They confirm their Promise by a Solemn and Sacred Oath.

Marginal references: Heb. be the hearer between us.

11 Then Jephthah went with the elders of Gilead, and the people made him head and captain over them: and Jephthah uttered all his words before the LORD in Mizpeh.

Objectively so called, i. e. All that was spoken, not onely by him, but also by the Elders of Gilead, concerning him, and concerning this whole Transaction, and the conditions of it; or, all his matters, the whole business.

i. e. Before the Publick Congregation, wherewith God was usually, and then especially present; see Exod. 20. 24. Deut. 6. 25. Mat. 18. 10. Or, before the Altar, which possibly they did erect upon this special occasion, by Gods Permission: Or, in Gods Presence, calling him to be present, as a Witness and Judge between them.

12 ¶ And Jephthah sent messengers unto the king of the children of Ammon, saying, What hast thou to do with me , that thou art come against me, to fight in my land ?

i. e. Ambassadors, to prevent Blood-shed, and make Peace; as far as in him lay; that so the Israelites might be acquitted before God and men from all the sad consequences of this War; Herein he shewed great Prudence, and no less Piety.

What pretence, or reasonable cause hast thou for this Invasion?

He speaks this in the Name of all the People, whose the Land was.

13 And the king of the children of Ammon answered unto the messengers of Jephthah, Because Israel took away my land , when they came up out of Egypt, from Arnon even unto Jabbok, and unto Jordan: now therefore restore those lands again peaceably.

i. e. This Land of Gilead, which was mine, but unjustly taken from me, by Sihon and Og, the Kings of the Amorites; and the injury perpetuated by Israel's detaining it from me. This Land, before the Conquests of Sihon and Og, belonged partly to the Ammonites, as is affirmed, Ios. 13. 25. and partly, and principally, to the Moabites, as appears from Numb. 21. 24, 26. Deut. 3. 11. And indeed, Moab and Ammon did for the most part join their Interests and their Forces, as appears from Scripture-Story; and as Balak the King of the Moabites acted for the Ammonites, so now the King of Ammon seems to act for the Moabites, either as being now his Subjects; or, as his Confederates; whence it comes to pass that Moab and Ammon are here promiscuously mentioned, as v. 15, 17, 18, 25. and Chemosh the known god of the Moabites, Numb. 21. 29. 1 King. 11. 33. 2 King. 23. 13. Ier. 48. 13, 46. is here called the god of the Ammonites, v. 24. though to speak strictly, Moloch or Milchom was their god, 1 King. 11. 5, 7, 33. and 2 King. 23. 13.

Marginal references: Numb. 21. 13.

16 But when Israel came up from Egypt, and walked through the wilderness unto the red-sea , and came to Kadesh:

Unto which they came three times; once, Exod. 13. 18. again, a little after their passage over it, Exod. 15. 22. and a third time, long after, when they came to Ezion-Gaber, Numb. 33. 35. Deut. 2. 8. which was upon the Shoar of the Red-Sea, 1 King. 9. 26. 2 Chron. 8. 17. from whence they went to Kadesh, Numb. 20. of this time he speaks here.

Marginal references: Num. 14. 25.; Num. 20. 1.

17 Then Israel sent messengers unto the king of Edom, saying, Let me, I pray thee, pass through thy land: but the king of Edom would not hearken thereto: and in like manner they sent unto the king of Moab: but he would not consent: and Israel abode in Kadesh .

Peaceably, and did not revenge their unkindness and inhumanity, as they could have done.

Marginal references: Numb. 20. 14.

19 And Israel sent messengers unto Sihon king of the Amorites, the king of Heshbon, and Israel said unto him, Let us pass, we pray thee, through thy land unto my place .

i. e. Unto the Land of Canaan, which God hath given to me.

Marginal references: Deut. [illegible: 1+ letters] ▪ [illegible: 1+ letters].

20 But Sihon trusted not Israel to pass through his coast: but Sihon gathered all his people together, and pitched in Jahaz, and fought with Ifrael .

So Sihon was the aggressor or beginner of the War; and the Israelites were forced to it for their own Defence.

22 And they possessed all the coasts of the Amorites, from Arnon even unto Jabbok, and from the wilderness even unto Jordan.

Or Borders; together with all the Land included within those Borders; for so that word is oft used, as Exod. 8. 2. Psal. 147. 14. Ier. 15. 13. and 17. 3.

To wit, the Desert of Arabia.

Marginal references: Deut. [illegible: 1+ letters]

23 So now the LORD God of Israel hath dispossessed the Amorites from before his people Israel, and shouldest thou possess it?

God, the Soveraign Lord of all Lands, hath given us this Land; This he adds, as a further and a convincing reason; because otherwise it might have been alledged against the former Argument, that they could gain no more Right to that Land from Sihon, than Sihon himself had; and he had but an unjust Claim to it.

24 Wilt not thou possess that which Chemosh thy god giveth thee to possess ? so whomsoever the LORD our God shall drive out from before us, them will we possess.

He speaks according to their fond and absurd Opinion: The Ammonites and Moabites got their Land by right of War, and Conquest of the old Inhabitants, whom they cast out; and this Success, though given them by the true God, for Lot's sake, Deut. 2. 9, 19. they impiously and ridiculously ascribe to their god Chemosh, whose Gift they owned to be a firm and sufficient Title.

25 And now art thou any thing better than Balak , the son of Zippor king of Moab? Did he ever strive against Israel, or did he ever fight against them?

Art thou wiser than he? or hast thou more right than he had? Balak though he Plotted against Israel, in defence of his own Land, which he feared they would Invade and Conquer, Numb. 22. 4. yet he never contended with them about the restitution of those Lands which Sihon took from him or his Predecessors, after the Israelites had Conquered them.

Marginal references: Num. [illegible: 1+ letters] ▪ [illegible: 1+ letters] Deut. 23. [illegible: 1+ letters] Josh. 24. 9.

26 While Israel dwelt in Heshbon, and her towns, and in Aroer, and her towns, and in all the cities that be along by the coasts of Arnon, three hundred years ? why therefore did ye not recover them within that time?

Not precisely, but about that time, either from their coming out of Egypt; or, from their first Conquest of those Lands; and thus numbers are oft expressed, see Numb. 1▪ 46. and 2. 32. and 11. 21. Iudg. 20. 46. He urgeth Prescription▪ which is by all men reckoned a just Title, and it is fit it should be so for the good of the World, because otherwise the Door would be opened both to Kings, and to private Persons, for infinite Contentions and Confusions.

Marginal references: Heb. [illegible: 1 word] ters.; Heb. [illegible: 1 word] ters.

27 Wherefore I have not sinned against thee , but thou doest me wrong to war against me: the LORD the judg, be judg this day between the children of Israel, and the children of Ammon.

I have done thee no wrong.

Let him determine this Controversy by the success of this day and War.

29 ¶ Then the Spirit of the LORD came upon Jephthah , and he passed over Gilead and Manasseh , and passed over Mizpeh of Gilead , and from Mizpeh of Gilead he passed over unto the children of Ammon.

Indued with a more than ordinary Courage and Resolution.

i. e. Bashan, which the half Tribe of Manasseh, beyond Iordan, inhabited, Ios. 20. 8. and 21. 6.

So called, to distinguish from other Cities of that name: Having gathered what Forces he suddenly could, he came hither to the borders of the Ammonites.

Marginal references: Chap. 3. 10.

30 And Jephthah vowed a vow unto the LORD, and said, If thou shalt without fail deliver the children of Ammon into mine hand:

Of this and the following Verse, see the Notes on ver. 39.

33 And he smote them from Aroer, even till thou come to Minnith , even twenty cities; and unto the plain of the vineyards, with a very great slaughter: thus the children of Ammon were subdued before the children of Israel.

A place not far from Rabbah, the chief City of the Ammonites.

Marginal references: Or, Abel.

34 ¶ And Jephthah came to Mizpeh unto his house, and behold his daughter came out to meet him, with timbrels and with dances , and she was his onely child: beside her he had neither son nor daughter.

In Confort with other Virgins, as the manner was, See Exod. 15. 20. 1 Sam. 18. 6.

Heb. of himself, i. e. Proceeding from his own body; which may imply, that he had other Children, either by Adoption, or in right of his Wife, who had them by a former Husband.

Marginal references: Or, he had not of his own either son or daughter.; Heb. of himself.

35 And it came to pass when he saw her, that he rent his clothes, and said, Alas, my daughter, thou hast brought me very low, and thou art one of them that trouble me : for I have opened my mouth unto the LORD, and I cannot go back .

Before this, I was troubled by my Brethren; and since, by the Ammonites; and now most of all, though but occasionally, by thee.

i. e. I have Vowed, which was done by Words, Numb. 30. 2, 6.

i. e. Not retract my Vow; I am indispensably obliged to perform it.

36 And she said unto him, My father, if thou hast opened thy mouth unto the LORD, do to me according to that which hath proceeded out of thy mouth : forasmuch as the LORD hath taken vengeance for thee of thine enemies , even of the children of Ammon.

Do not for my sake make thy self a Transgressor; I freely give my consent to thy Vow; wherewith, and with the Success of his Arms he had now acquainted her, though it be not here expressed.

I am willing to bear my Burthen; being abundantly satisfied with the great Deliverance which God hath given to his People by thy hands.

37 And she said unto her father, Let this thing be done for me: let me alone two months, that I may go up and down upon the mountains , and bewail my virginity , I, and my fellows.

Which she chose as a solitary place, and therefore fittest both for Lamentations, and for her Preparation for her approaching Calamity.

That I shall Die Childless, which was esteemed both a Curse and a Disgrace for the Israelites, Gen. 30. 23. 1 Sam. 1. 6, 7. Isa. 4. 1. Because such were excluded from that great Priviledg of increasing the Holy Seed, and contributing to the Birth of the Messiah, who was to be Born of an Israelitish Woman.

Marginal references: [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1 word], [illegible: 1 word] go down.

39 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 castom in Israel.

Qu. What was it which Iepthah Vowed and Performed concerning his Daughter? Ans. Many, especially of Modern Writers, conceive, that Iephtha's Daughter was not Sacrificed, but only Devoted to perpetual Virginity; which then was esteemed a great Curse and Reproach: This they gather, 1. From v. 37, 38. where we read, that she bewailed not her Death, which had been the chief Cause of Lamentation, if that had been Vowed, but her Virginity▪ 2. From this, v. 39. where, after he had said, that he [illegible: 1+ letters]id with her according to his Vow; he adds, by way of declaration of the matter of that Vow, and she knew no Man. But for the first, there may be a fair reason given, That she could not with Honour bewail her Death, which she had so generously and chearfully accepted of▪ because it was attended with, and occasioned by the Publick Good, and her Fathers Honour and Happiness, v. 36. and was a kind of Martyrdom; and moreover, an act of Religion, the payment of a Vow, which ought to be done chearfully; but onely bewailed the circumstance of her Death, that it was in some sort accursed and opprobrious; she having had no Husband to take away her reproach, as they speak, Isa. 4. 1. and leaving no Posterity to her Fathers Comfort, and the Increase of Gods People: And for the second, that Clause, and she knew no man, is plainly distinguished from the Execution of his Vow, which is here mentioned before; and this is added, not as an Explication of the Vow, but as an aggravating Circumstance, that this was executed when she had not yet known any man. Besides, this Opinion seems liable to weighty Objections; 1. There is no Example in all the Scripture, of any Woman that was obliged to perpetual Virginity by any Vow of her own, much less by the Vow of her Parents; nor have Parents any such Power over their Children, either by the Law of Nature, or by the Holy Scripture. 2. The express words of the Vow, v 31. mention nothing of her Virginity, but onely, that she should surely be the Lords; i. e. Devoted to the Service of the Lord, which might be without any obligation to perpetual Virginity; for, even Samuel, who was as fully devoted to the Lord by his Parents, as she could be, 1 Sam. 1. 11. and Sampson, who was Devoted not onely by his Parents, but by God himself, and that in the highest degree, even to be a perpetual Nazarite, Iudg. 13. 5, 7. yet were not prohibited Marriage; nor were any of the most Sacred Persons, Levites, or Priests, or High Priests, though they were the Lords in a singular manner, obliged to perpetual Virginity; and therefore if she was not Offered up for a Burnt-Offering, as the Authors of this Opinion say, but onely was Consecrated to God, there was no occasion to bewail her Virginity, which, for any thing that appears, she was not tied to. 3. If this were all, here was no sufficient cause, why so wise and valiant a man as Iepthah should so bitterly and passionately lament over himself or his Daughter. And therefore it may seem most probable, that Iepthah did indeed Sacrifice his Daughter, as he had Vowed to do; which was the Opinion of Iosephus the Jew, and of the Chaldee Paraphrast, and of divers of the Iewish Doctors, and almost all the Ancient Fathers, and many eminent Writers; and this best agrees with the words of the Vow, delivered v. 31. Whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me—shall surely be the Lords, and I will offer it for a Burnt-Offering. Nor is there one word in all the following Verses, which denies that she was thus offered; onely the execution of the Vow is delivered in more ambiguous and general terms, v. 39. which in all reason, and by the Laws of good Interpretation, ought to be limited and explained by the more plain and particular description of it: It is true, these words may seem capable of another interpretation; the conjunctive Particle, and, may be here par for the disjunctive, or, as it often is, as Exod. 21. 16, 17. Levit. 6. 3, 5. 2 Sam. 2. 19, & [illegible: 1+ letters]. and so the meaning is, that what I first meet shall sure [illegible: 1+ letters] be the Lords, or, I will offer it up for a Burnt-Offering; to wit, if it be a Creature [illegible: 1+ letters]it to be so offered; Otherwise, [illegible: 1+ letters]y they, if a Dog or an Ass should have met him first, he should have been obliged to offer them, which was against the Law: But it is sufficiently evident, that he speaks of [illegible: 1 word] Humane person, from the very Phrase of coming forth to meet him at his return; which plainly argues a design to meet him, purposely to Congratulate his Return; this phrase of going to meet a person coming, being very oft used in Scripture, and constantly of one person meeting another, as Gen. 14. 17. and 18. 2. and 24. 17, &c. and never of any bruit Creature: And although and is sometimes put for or, yet it is not to be so used without necessity, which seems not to be in this place; nor is it very proper to distinguish two Sentences in this manner, where the one is more general, and the other being more special, is comprehended within it, which is the case here; for it shall surely be the Lords, is the general; and its being offered up for a burntoffering, is the particular way or manner how it was to be the Lords; as it were very improper to say, This is either a man, or it is my servant Iohn; because the latter branch is contained in the former: and therefore in all the alledged instances where and is put for or, they are two distinct persons or things, and not one comprehended within another, as Exod. 21. 17. Father or Mother, 2 Sam. 2. 19. right hand or left. But the great objection against this Opinion is this, That it seems a most horrid Act, directly contrary to the Law of Nature, and to plain Scripture, thus to Sacrifice his own Daughter; and that it seems altogether incredible, either that such a man as Iepthah, so eminent for Piety, and Wisdom, and Zeal, and Faith, should either make so Barbarous a Vow, or pursue it for above two Months space; and that none of the Priests of that time should inform him of the unlawfulness of executing so Wicked a Vow, and of the liberty he had to redeem such a Vow, by vertue of Levit. 27. 2, 3. &c. or that Iepthah would not willingly receive information, especially where it was so agreeable to his own interest and natural affection; or, that the Priests and People would suffer him to execute his own Daughter, and not rather hinder him by force, as they afterwards did Saul, when he had sworn the Death of Ionathan. These and other such difficulties I confess there are in the case; but something may be truly and fairly said to allay the seeming Monstrousness of this fact. 1. These were times of great and general ignorance and corruption of Religion, wherein the Israelites had Apostatized from God, and learnt and followed the practises and worships of the Heathen Nations, Iudg. 10. 6. whereof this was one, to offer up Humane Sacrifices to Moloch; and although they seem now to have repented and forsaken their Idols, Iudg. 10. 16. yet they seem still to have retained part of the old Leaven, and this among the rest, That they might offer Humane Sacrifices, not to Moloch, as they had done, but unto the Lord. And whereas some of the Iewish Writers pretend that Phinehas was alive at this time; and tell a fine Story concerning him and Iepthah, That both stood upon their Terms, and neither would go to the other to advise about the matter; yet it is more than probable that Phinehas was dead long before this time; and whosoever was the High-Priest then, he seems to be guilty either of gross ignorance or negligence; so that a late Learned Writer concieves, that this was the reason why the Priesthood was taken from him, and from that line, and translated to the line of Ithamar, which was done in the time of the Judges, as may be gathered from 1 Sam. 2. 35, 36. Moreover, Iepthah, though now a good man, may seem to have had but a rude and barbarous Education; having been banished from his Fathers House, and forced to wander and dispose himself in the utmost Borders of the Land of Gilead, beyond Iordan, at a great distance from the place of Worship and Instruction; Nor is it strange, That the Priests and People did not resist Iepthah in this Enterprise; partly, because many of them might lye under the same ignorance and mistake that Iepthah did; and partly, because they knew Iephtha to be a stout, and resolute, and boisterous man, and were afraid to oppose him in a matter wherein he seemed to be so peremptory, and their Persons and Families were not much concerned. 2. This mistake of Iepthah's, and of the rest of that Age, was not without some plausible appearance of Warrant from the Holy Text, even from Levit. 27. 28, 29. wherein it is expresly provided, That no Devoted thing, whether Man or Beast, should be redeemed, but should surely be put to Death; a place, which it is not strange that a Soldier in so ignorant an Age should mistake, seeing even some Learned Divines, in this knowing Age, and Capellus amongst the rest, have fallen into the same error, and justified Iepthah's action from that place; and though I doubt not they run into the other extreme, as men commonly do, those words being to be otherwise understood than they take them; of which see my Notes on that place; yet it must be granted that place gave Iepthah a very colourable pretext for the Action; and being pushed on by Zeal for God, and the Conscience of his Vow, he might easily be induced to it; and though this was a Sin in him, yet it was but a Sin of Ignorance; which therefore was overlooked by a gracious God, and not reproved by any Holy men of God. It is probably conceived, that the Greeks, who used to steal Sacred Histories, and turn them into Fables, had from this History their relation of Iphigenia (which may be put for Iephtigenia) Sacrificed by her Father Agamemnon, which is described by many of the same circumstances wherewith this is accompanied.

To wit, carnally, she died a Virgin.

Marginal references: Or▪ o[illegible: 1+ letters] ▪ [illegible: 1 word] ▪

40 That the daughters of Israel went yearly to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite four days in a year.

To a place appointed for their meeting to this end, possibly to the place where she was Sacrificed.

To express their Sorrow for her loss, according to the manner. Or, to Discourse of (so the Hebrew Lamed is sometimes used) the Daughter of Jepthah, to celebrate her Praises, who had so willingly yielded up her self for a Sacrifice.

Marginal references: Heb. i[illegible: 1+ letters] days to days▪; Or, to [illegible: 1 word] with.

Jephthah Elected as Prince; Negotiations with the Ammonites; Victory, Vow, and Office of Judge - Judges 11-12:7On the nature of the sources from which the author drew this tolerably elaborate history of Jephthah, all that can be determined with certainty is, that they sprang from some contemporary of this judge, since they furnish so clear and striking a picture of his life and doings. Bertheau's hypothesis, that the section extending from Jdg 11:12 to Jdg 11:28 is founded upon some historical work, which is also employed in Num 21; Deut 2:1-3:29, and here and there in the book of Joshua, has really no other foundation than the unproved assumption that the Pentateuch and the book of Joshua were written towards the close of the period of the kings. For the marked agreement between Jephthah’s negotiations with the king of the Ammonites concerning the possession of the land to the east of the Jordan, and the account given in the Pentateuch, especially in Num 20-21, may be explained very simply and very perfectly, on the supposition that the author possessed the Pentateuch itself. And the account which is wanting in the Pentateuch, namely, that Israel petitioned the king of Moab also for permission to go through his land (Jdg 11:17), may have bee added from oral tradition, as those glorious victories gained by Israel under Moses were celebrated in verse by contemporaneous poets (see Num 21:14, Num 21:17, Num 21:27); and this certainly contributed not a little to keep alive the memory of those events in the nation for centuries long.

Election of Jephthah as Prince and Judge of Israel. - Jdg 11:1-3. The account begins with his descent and early mode of life. “Jephthah (lxx Ἰεφθά) the Gileadite was a brave hero” (see Jdg 6:12; Jos 1:14, etc.); but he was the son of a harlot, and was begotten by Gilead, in addition to other sons who were born of his wife. Gilead is not the name of the country, as Bertheau supposes, so that the land is mythically personified as the forefather of Jephthah. Nor is it the name of the son of Machir and grandson of Manasseh (Num 26:29), so that the celebrated ancestor of the Gileadites is mentioned here instead of the unknown father of Jephthah. It is really the proper name of the father himself; and just as in the case of Tola and Puah, in Jdg 10:1, the name of the renowned ancestor was repeated in his descendant. We are forced to this conclusion by the fact that the wife of Gilead, and his other sons by that wife, are mentioned in Jdg 11:2. These sons drove their half-brother Jephthah out of the house because of his inferior birth, that he might not share with them in the paternal inheritance; just as Ishmael and the sons of Keturah were sent away by Abraham, that they might not inherit along with Isaac (Gen 21:10., Gen 25:6).

Jdg 11:3

Jephthah departed from his brothers into the land of Tob, i.e., according to 2Sa 10:6, 2Sa 10:8, a district in the north-east of Perea, on the border of Syria, or between Syria and Ammonitis, called Τώβιον in 1 Macc. 5:13, or more correctly Τουβίν, according to 2 Macc. 12:17, where loose men gathered round him (cf. Jdg 9:4), and “went out with him,” viz., upon warlike and predatory expeditions like the Bedouins.

Jdg 11:4-6

But when the Ammonites made war upon Israel some time afterwards, the elders of Gilead (= “the princes of Gilead,” Jdg 10:18) went to fetch Jephthah out of the land of Tob, to make this brave warrior their leader. In Jdg 11:4 the account of the war between the Ammonites and Israel, which is mentioned in Jdg 10:17, is resumed, and its progress under Jephthah is then more fully described. “In process of time” (מיּמים, a diebus, i.e., after the lapse of a long period, which cannot be more precisely defined), sc., after the expulsion of Jephthah from his home (see Jdg 14:8; Jdg 15:1; Jos 23:1). קצין signifies a leader in war (Jos 10:24), and is therefore distinguished in Jdg 11:11 from ראשׁ, a chief in peace and war.

Jdg 11:7

Jephthah expressed to the elders his astonishment that they had formerly hated and expelled him, and now came to him in their distress, sc., to make him their leader in time of war. Thus he lays his expulsion upon the shoulders of the elders of Gilead, although it was only by his brethren that he had been driven away from his father’s house, inasmuch as they had either approved of it, or at all events had not interfered as magistrates to prevent it. We cannot indeed infer from this reproach, that the expulsion and disinheriting of Jephthah was a legal wrong; but so much at all events is implied, namely, that Jephthah looked upon the thing as a wrong that had been done to him, and found the reason in the hatred of his brethren. The Mosaic law contained no regulation upon this matter, since the rule laid down in Deu 21:15-17 simply applied to the sons of different wives, and not to a son by a harlot.

Jdg 11:8

The elders replied, “Therefore (לכן, because we have formerly done thee wrong) we have now come to thee again to make thee our head, if thou comest with us and fightest against the Ammonites.” The clauses והלכתּ, ונלהמתּ, and והיית, which are formally co-ordinate, are logically to be subordinated to one another, the first two expressing the condition, the third the consequence, in this sense, “If thou go with us and fight, ... thou shalt be head to us, namely, to all the inhabitants of Gilead,” i.e., to the two tribes and a half on the east of the Jordan.

Jdg 11:9

Jephthah assented to this: “If ye will take me back to make war upon the Ammonites, and Jehovah shall give them up to me (lit. 'before me,' as in Jos 10:12; Deu 2:31, etc.), I will be your head.” “I” is emphatic as distinguished from he; and there is no necessity to regard the sentence as a question, with which the expression in Jdg 11:10, “according to thy words,” which presuppose an affirmative statement on the part of Jephthah, and not a question, would be altogether irreconcilable.

Jdg 11:10

The elders promised this on oath. “Jehovah be hearing between us,” i.e., be hearer and judge of the things concerning which we are negotiating; “truly according to thy word so will we do” (לא אם, a particle used in connection with an oath).

Jdg 11:11

Then Jephthah went with the elders of Gilead, “and the people (i.e., the inhabitants of Gilead) made him head and captain, and Jephthah spoke all his words before Jehovah at Mizpeh:” i.e., he repeated in a solemn assembly of the people, before God at Mizpeh, the conditions and obligations under which he would accept the honour conferred upon him. “Before Jehovah” does not necessarily presuppose the presence of the ark at Mizpeh; nor can we possibly assume this, since the war was resolved upon primarily by the eastern tribes alone, and they had no ark at all. It merely affirms that Jephthah performed this act, looking up to God, the omnipresent head of Israel. Still less do the words warrant the assumption that there was an altar in Mizpeh, and that sacrifices were offered to confirm the treaty, of which there is not the slightest indication in the text. “'Before Jehovah' implies nothing more than that Jephthah confirmed all his words by an oath” (Hengstenberg, Diss. ii. pp. 35, 36).

Jdg 11:12-28

Jephthah’s Negotiations with the King of the Ammonites. - Jdg 11:12. Before Jephthah took the sword, he sent messengers to the king of the Ammonites, to make complaints to him of his invasion of the land of the Israelites. “What have we to do with one another ('what to me and thee?' see Jos 22:24; 2Sa 16:10), that thou hast come to me to fight against my land?” Jephthah’s ambassadors speak in the name of the nation; hence the singulars “me” and “my land.”

Jdg 11:29

In the power of the Spirit of Jehovah which came upon him (see Jdg 3:10), he passed through Gilead (the land of the tribes of Reuben and Gad between the Arnon and the Jabbok) and Manasseh (northern Gilead and Bashan, which the half tribe of Manasseh had received for a possession), to gather together an army to battle, and then went with the assembled army to Mizpeh-Gilead, i.e., Ramoth-mizpeh, where the Israelites had already encamped before his call (Jdg 10:17), that he might thence attach the Ammonites. עבר (to pass over) with an accusative signifies to come over a person in a hostile sense.

Jdg 11:30-31

Before commencing the war, however, he vowed a vow to the Lord: “If Thou givest the Ammonites into my hand, he who cometh to meet me out of the doors of my house, when I return safely (in peace, shalom) from the Ammonites, shall belong to the Lord, and I will offer him for a burnt-offering.” By the words אשׁר היּוצא, “he that goeth out,” even if Jephthah did not think “only of a man, or even more definitely still of some one of his household,” he certainly could not think in any case of a head of cattle, or one of his flock. “Going out of the doors of his house to meet him” is an expression that does not apply to a herd or flock driven out of the stall just at the moment of his return, or to any animal that might possibly run out to meet him. For the phrase לקראת יצא is only applied to men in the other passages in which it occurs.Augustine observes in his Quaest. xlix. in l. Jud.: “He did not vow in these words that he would offer some sheep, which he might present as a holocaust, according to the law. For it is not, and was not, a customary thing for sheep to come out to meet a victorious general returning from the war. Nor did he say, I will offer as a holocaust whatever shall come out of the doors of my house to meet me; but he says, 'Whoever comes out, I will offer him;' so that there can be no doubt whatever that he had then a human being in his mind.”

Moreover, Jephthah no doubt intended to impose a very difficult vow upon himself. And that would not have been the case if he had merely been thinking of a sacrificial animal. Even without any vow, he would have offered, not one, but many sacrifices after obtaining a victory.“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!' Parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus!” - Pfeiffer, dubia vex. p. 356.

If therefore he had an animal sacrifice in his mind, he would certainly have vowed the best of his flocks. From all this there can be no doubt that Jephthah must have been thinking of some human being as at all events included in his vow; so that when he declared that he would dedicate that which came out of his house to meet him, the meaning of the vow cannot have been any other than that he would leave the choice of the sacrifice to God himself. “In his eagerness to smite the foe, and to thank God for it, Jephthah could not think of any particular object to name, which he could regard as great enough to dedicate to God; he therefore left it to accident, i.e., to the guidance of God, to determine the sacrifice. He shrank from measuring what was dearest to God, and left this to God himself” (P. Cassel in Herzog's Real-encycl.). Whomsoever God should bring to meet him, he would dedicate to Jehovah, and indeed, as is added afterwards by way of defining it more precisely, he would offer him to the Lord as a burnt-offering. The ו before העליתיהוּ is to be taken as explanatory, and not as disjunctive in the sense of “or,” which ו never has. But whether Jephthah really thought of his daughter at the time, cannot be determined either in the affirmative or negative. If he did, he no doubt hoped that the Lord would not demand this hardest of all sacrifices.

Jdg 11:32-33

After seeking to ensure the help of the Lord by this vow, he went against the Ammonites to fight against them; and the Lord delivered them into his hand, so that Jephthah smote them in a very great slaughter “from Aroër (or Nahr Ammân; see Jdg 11:26) to the neighbourhood of ('till thou come to;' see at Gen 10:19) Minnith, (conquering and taking) twenty cities, and to Abel Keramim (of the vineyards).” Minnith, according to the Onom. (s. v. Mennith), was a place called Manith in the time of Eusebius, four Roman miles from Heshbon on the road to Philadelphia, with which the account given by Buckingham of the ruins of a large city a little to the east of Heshbon may be compared (see v. Raum. Pal. p. 265). The situation of Abel Keramim (plain of the vineyards: Luther and Eng. Ver.) cannot be determined with the same certainty. Eusebius and Jerome mention two places of this name (Onom. s. v. Abel vinearum), a villa Abela vinetis consita (κώμη ἀμπελοφόρος Ἄβελ) seven Roman miles from Philadelphia, and a civitas nomine Abela vini fertilis twelve Roman miles to the east of Gadara, and therefore in the neighbourhood of the Mandhur. Which of the two is referred to here remains uncertain, as we have no precise details concerning the battle. If the northern Abela should be meant, Jephthah would have pursued the foe first of all towards the south to the neighbourhood of Heshbon, and then to the north to the border of Bashan. Through his victory the Ammonites were completely subdued before the Israelites.

Jdg 11:34-35

Jephthah’s Vow. - Jdg 11:34, Jdg 11:35. When the victorious hero returned to Mizpeh, his daughter came out to meet him “with timbrels and in dances,” i.e., at the head of a company of women, who received the conqueror with joyous music and dances (see at Exo 15:20): “and she was the only one; he had neither son nor daughter beside her.” ממּנּוּ cannot mean ex se, no other child of his own, though he may have had children that his wives had brought him by other husbands; but it stands, as the great Masora has pointed it, for ממּנּה, “besides her,” the daughter just mentioned-the masculine being used for the feminine as the nearest and more general gender, simply because the idea of “child” was floating before the author’s mind. At such a meeting Jephthah was violently agitated. Tearing his clothes (as a sign of his intense agony; see at Lev 10:6), he exclaimed, “O my daughter! thou hast brought me very low; it is thou who troublest me” (lit. thou art among those who trouble me, thou belongest to their class, and indeed in the fullest sense of the word; this is the meaning of the so-called בּ essentiae: see Ges. Lehrgeb. p. 838, and such passages as 2Sa 15:31; Psa 54:6; Psa 55:19, etc.): “I have opened my mouth to the Lord (i.e., have uttered a vow to Him: compare Psa 66:14 with Num 30:3., Deu 23:23-24), and cannot turn it,” i.e., revoke it.

Jdg 11:36-37

The daughter, observing that the vow had reference to her (as her father in fact had, no doubt, distinctly told her, though the writer has passed this over because he had already given the vow itself in Jdg 11:31), replied, “Do to me as has gone out of thy mouth (i.e., do to me what thou hast vowed), since Jehovah has procured the vengeance upon thine enemies the Ammonites.” She then added (Jdg 11:37), “Let this thing be done for me (equivalent to, Let this only be granted me); let me alone two months and I will go,” i.e., only give me two months to go, “that I may go down to the mountains (i.e., from Mizpeh, which stood upon an eminence, to the surrounding mountains and their valleys) and bewail my virginity, I and my friends.” בּתוּלים does not mean “youth” (נעוּרים), but the condition of virginity (see Lev 21:13). The Kethibh רעיתי is a less common form of רעותי (Keri).

Jdg 11:38

The father granted this request.

Jdg 11:39-40

At the end of two months she returned to her father again, “and he did to her the vow that he had vowed, and she knew no man.” I consequence of this act of Jephthah and his daughter, “it became an ordinance (a standing custom) in Israel: from year to year (see Exo 13:10) the daughters of Israel go to praise the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite four days in the year. תּנּה does not mean θρηνεῖν, to lament or bewail (lxx, Chald., etc.), but to praise, as R. Tanchum and others maintain.

With regard to Jephthah's vow, the view expressed so distinctly by Josephus and the Chaldee was the one which generally prevailed in the earlier times among both Rabbins and fathers of the church, viz., that Jephthah put his daughter to death and burned her upon the altar as a bleeding sacrifice to Jehovah. It was not till the middle ages that Mos. and Dav. Kimchi and certain other Rabbins endeavoured to establish the view, that Jephthah merely dedicated his daughter to the service of the sanctuary of Jehovah in a lifelong virginity. And lastly, Ludov. Cappellus, in his Diatriba de voto Jephtae, Salm. 1683 (which has been reprinted in his Notae critic. in Jud. xvi., and the Critici Sacri, tom. i.), has expressed the opinion that Jephthah put his daughter to death in honour of the Lord according to the law of the ban, because human beings were not allowed to be offered up as burnt-sacrifices. Of these different opinions the third has no foundation in the text of the Bible. For supposing that Jephthah had simply vowed that on his return he would offer to the Lord whatever came to meet him out of his house, with such restrictions only as were involved in the very nature of the case - viz., offering it as a burnt-offering if it were adapted for this according to the law; and if it were not, then proceeding with it according to the law of the ban, - the account of the fulfilment of this vow would certainly have defined with greater precision the manner in which he fulfilled the vow upon his daughter. The words “he did to her his vow which he had vowed,” cannot be understood in any other way than that he offered her as עולה, i.e., as a burnt-offering, to the Lord. Moreover, the law concerning the ban and a vow of the ban could not possibly give any individual Israelite the right to ban either his own child or one of his household to the Lord, without opening a very wide door to the crime of murder. The infliction of the ban upon any man presupposed notorious wickedness, so that burnt-offering and ban were diametrically opposed the one to the other. Consequently the other two views are the only ones which can be entertained, and it is not easy to decide between them. Although the words “and I offer him as a burnt-offering” appear to favour the actual sacrifice so strongly, that Luther's marginal note, “some affirm that he did not sacrifice her, but the text is clear enough,” is perpetually repeated with peculiar emphasis; yet, on looking more closely into the matter, we find insuperable difficulties in the way of the literal interpretation of the words. Since יצא אשׁר היּוצא cannot be taken impersonally, and therefore when Jephthah uttered his vow, he must at any rate have had the possibility of some human being coming to meet him in his mind; and since the two clauses “he shall be the Lords,” and “I will offer him up for a burnt-offering,” cannot be taken disjunctively in such a sense as this, it shall either be dedicated to the Lord, or, if it should be a sacrificial animal, I will offer it up as a burnt-offering, but the second clause simply contains a more precise definition of the first-Jephthah must at the very outset have contemplated the possibility of a human sacrifice. Yet not only were human sacrifices prohibited in the law under pain of death as an abomination in the sight of Jehovah (Lev 18:21; Lev 20:2-5; Deu 12:31; Deu 18:10), but they were never heard of among the Israelites in the early times, and were only transplanted to Jerusalem by the godless kings Ahaz and Manasseh.“Human sacrifices do not even belong to heathenism generally, but to the darkest night of heathenism. They only occur among those nations which are the most thoroughly depraved in a moral and religious sense.” This remark of Hengstenberg (Diss. iii. p. 118) cannot be set aside by a reference to Euseb. praep. ev. iv. 16; Baur, Symb. ii. 2, pp. 293ff.; Lasaulx, Sühnopfer der Griechen und Römer, 1841, pp. 8-12; Ghillany, die Menschenopfer der alten Hebräer, 1842, pp. 107ff., as Kurtz supposes, since the uncritical character of the proofs collected together in these writings is very obvious on a closer inspection, and Eusebius has simply taken his examples from Porphyry, and other writings of a very recent date.

If Jephthah therefore vowed that he would offer a human sacrifice to Jehovah, he must either have uttered his vow without any reflection, or else have been thoroughly depraved in a moral and religious sense. But what we know of this brave hero by no means warrants any such assumptions, His acts do not show the slightest trace of impetuosity and rashness. He does not take to the sword at once, but waits till his negotiations with the king of the Ammonites have been without effect. Nor does he utter his vow in the midst of the confusion of battle, so that we might fancy he had made a vow in the heat of the conflict without fully weighting his words, but he uttered it before he set out against the Ammonites (see Jdg 11:30 and Jdg 11:32). So far as the religious training of Jephthah was concerned, it is true that he had led the life of a freebooter during his exile from his country and home, and before his election as the leader of the Israelites; but the analogous circumstances connected with David’s life preclude us from inferring either moral depravity or religious barbarism from this. When David was obliged to fly from his country to escape from Saul, he also led a life of the same kind, so that all sorts of people came to him, not pious and virtuous people, but all who were in distress and had creditors, or were embittered in spirit (1Sa 22:2); and yet, even under these circumstances, David lived in the law of the Lord. Moreover, Jephthah was not destitute of the fear of God. This is proved first of all by the fact, that when he had been recalled from his exile he looked to Jehovah to give him the victory over the Ammonites, and made a treaty with the elders of Gilead “before Jehovah” (Jdg 11:9 and Jdg 11:10); and also by the fact, that he sought to ensure the help of God in war through the medium of a vow. And again, we have no right to attribute to him any ignorance of the law. Even if Kurtz is correct in his opinion, that the negotiations with the king of the Ammonites, which show the most accurate acquaintance with the Pentateuch, were not carried on independently and from his own knowledge of the law, and that the sending of messengers to the hostile king was resolved upon in the national assembly at Mizpeh, with the priests, Levites, and elders present, so that the Levites, who knew the law, may have supplied any defects in his own knowledge of the law and of the early history of his people; a private Israelite did not need to study the whole of the law of the Pentateuch, and to make himself master of the whole, in order to gain the knowledge and conviction that a human sacrifice was irreconcilable with the substance and spirit of the worship of Jehovah, and that Jehovah the God of Israel was not a Moloch. And again, even if we do not know to what extent the men and fathers of families in Israel were acquainted and familiar with the contents of the Mosaic law, the opinion is certainly an erroneous one, that the Israelites derived their knowledge of the law exclusively from the public reading of the law at the feast of tabernacles in the sabbatical year, as enjoined in Deu 31:10.; so that if this public reading, which was to take place only once in seven years, had been neglected, the whole nation would have been left without any instruction whatever in the law. The reason for this Mosaic precept was a totally different one from that of making the people acquainted with the contents of the law (see the commentary on this passage). And again, though we certainly do not find the law of the Lord so thoroughly pervading the religious consciousness of the people, received as it were in succum et sanguinem, in the time of the judges, that they were able to resist the bewitching power of nature-worship, but, on the contrary, we find them repeatedly falling away into the worship of Baal; yet we discover no trace whatever of human sacrifices even in the case of those who went a whoring after Baalim. And although the theocratical knowledge of the law seems to have been somewhat corrupted even in the case of such men as Gideon, so that this judge had an unlawful ephod made for himself at Ophrah; the opinion that the Baal-worship, into which the Israelites repeatedly fell, was associated with human sacrifices, is one of the many erroneous ideas that have been entertained as to the development of the religious life not only among the Israelites, but among the Canaanites, and which cannot be supported by historical testimonies or facts. That the Canaanitish worship of Baal and Astarte, to which the Israelites were addicted, required no human sacrifices, is indisputably evident from the fact, that even in the time of Ahab and his idolatrous wife Jezebel, the daughter of the Sidonian king Ethbaal, who raised the worship of Baal into the national religion in the kingdom of the ten tribes, persecuting the prophets of Jehovah and putting them to death, there is not the slightest allusion to human sacrifices. Even at that time human sacrifices were regarded by the Israelites as so revolting an abomination, that the two kings of Israel who besieged the king of the Moabites - not only the godly Jehoshaphat, but Jehoram the son of Ahab and Jezebel - withdrew at once and relinquished the continuance of the war, when the king of the Moabites, in the extremity of his distress, sacrificed his son as a burnt-offering upon the wall (2Ki 3:26-27). With such an attitude as this on the part of the Israelites towards human sacrifices before the time of Ahaz and Manasseh, who introduced the worship of Moloch into Jerusalem, we cannot, without further evidence, impute to Jephthah the offering of a bloody human sacrifice, the more especially as it is inconceivable, with the diametrical opposition between the worship of Jehovah and the worship of Moloch, that God should have chosen a worshipper of Moloch to carry out His work, or a man who was capable of vowing and offering a human-being sacrifice. The men whom God chose as the recipients of His revelation of mercy and the executors of His will, and whom He endowed with His Spirit as judges and leaders of His people, were no doubt affected with infirmities, faults, and sins of many kinds, so that they could fall to a very great depth; but nowhere is it stated that the Spirit of God came upon a worshipper of Moloch and endowed him with His own power, that he might be the helper and saviour of Israel.

We cannot therefore regard Jephthah as a servant of Moloch, especially when we consider that, in addition to what has already been said, the account of the actual fulfilment of his vow is apparently irreconcilable with the literal interpretation of the words עולה והעליתיהוּ, as signifying a bleeding burnt-offering. We cannot infer anything with certainty as to the mode of the sacrifice, from the grief which Jephthah felt and expressed when his only daughter came to meet him. For this is quite as intelligible, as even the supporters of the literal view of these words admit, on the supposition that Jephthah was compelled by his vow to dedicate his daughter to Jehovah in a lifelong virginity, as it would be if he had been obliged to put her to death and burn her upon the altar as a burnt-offering. But the entreaty of the daughter, that he would grant her two months’ time, in order that she might lament her virginity upon the mountains with her friends, would have been marvellously out of keeping with the account that she was to be put to death as a sacrifice. To mourn one’s virginity does not mean to mourn because one has to die a virgin, but because one has to live and remain a virgin. But even if we were to assume that mourning her virginity was equivalent to mourning on account of her youth (which is quite untenable, as בּתוּלים is not synonymous with נעוּרים), “it would be impossible to understand why this should take place upon the mountains. It would be altogether opposed to human nature, that a child who had so soon to die should make use of a temporary respite to forsake her father altogether. It would no doubt be a reasonable thing that she should ask permission to enjoy life for two months longer before she was put to death; but that she should only think of bewailing her virginity, when a sacrificial death was in prospect, which would rob her father of his only child, would be contrary to all the ordinary feelings of the human heart. Yet, inasmuch as the history lays special emphasis upon her bewailing her virginity, this must have stood in some peculiar relation to the nature of the vow. When a maiden bewails her virginity, the reason for this can only be that she will have to remain a bud that has not been allowed to unfold itself, prevented, too, not by death, but by life” (P. Cassel, p. 473). And this is confirmed by the expression, to bewail her virginity “upon the mountains.” “If life had been in question, the same tears might have been shed at home. But her lamentations were devoted to her virginity, and such lamentations could not be uttered in the town, and in the presence of men. Modesty required the solitude of the mountains for these. The virtuous heart of the maiden does not open itself in the ears of all; but only in sacred silence does it pour out its lamentations of love” (P. Cassel, p. 476).

And so, again, the still further clause in the account of the fulfilment of the vow, “and she knew no man,” is not in harmony with the assumption of a sacrificial death. This clause would add nothing to the description in that case, since it was already known that she was a virgin. The words only gain their proper sense if we connect them with the previous clause, he “did with her according to the vow which he had vowed,” and understand them as describing what the daughter did in fulfilment of the vow. The father fulfilled his vow upon her, and she knew no man; i.e., he fulfilled the vow through the fact that she knew no man, but dedicated her life to the Lord, as a spiritual burnt-offering, in a lifelong chastity. It was this willingness of the daughter to sacrifice herself which the daughters of Israel went every year to celebrate-namely, upon the mountains whither her friends had gone with her to lament her virginity, and which they commemorated there four days in the year. And the idea of a spiritual sacrifice is supported not only by the words, but also most decisively by the fact that the historian describes the fulfilment of the vow in the words “he did to her according to his vow,” in such a manner as to lead to the conclusion that he regarded the act itself as laudable and good. But a prophetic historian could never have approved of a human sacrifice; and it is evident that the author of the book of Judges does not conceal what was blameable even in the judges themselves, from his remarks concerning the conduct of Gideon (Jdg 8:27), which was only a very small offence in comparison with the abomination of a human sacrifice. To this we have to add the difficulties connected with such an act. The words “he did to her according to his vow” presuppose undoubtedly that Jephthah offered his daughter as עולה to Jehovah. But burnt-offerings, that is to say bleeding burnt-offerings, in which the victim was slaughtered and burnt upon the altar, could only be offered upon the lawful altar at the tabernacle, or before the ark, through the medium of the Levitical priests, unless the sacrifice itself had been occasioned by some extraordinary manifestation of God; and that we cannot for a moment think of here. But is it credible that a priest or the priesthood should have consented to offer a sacrifice upon the altar of Jehovah which was denounced in the law as the greatest abomination of the heathen? This difficulty cannot be set aside by assuming that Jephthah put his daughter to death, and burned her upon some secret altar, without the assistance and mediation of a priest; for such an act would not have been described by the prophetic historian as a fulfilment of the vow that he would offer a burnt-offering to the Lord, simply because it would not have been a sacrifice offered to Jehovah at all, but a sacrifice slaughtered to Moloch.Auberlen's remarks upon this subject are very good. “The history of Jephthah’s daughter,” he says, “would hardly have been thought worth preserving in the Scriptures if the maiden had been really offered in sacrifice; for, in that case, the event would have been reduced, at the best, into a mere family history, without any theocratic significance, though in truth it would rather have been an anti-theocratic abomination, according to Deu 12:31 (cf. Jdg 18:9; Lev 18:21; Lev 20:1-5). Jephthah’s action would in that case have stood upon the same platform as the incest of Lot (Gen 19:30.), and would owe its adoption into the canon simply to genealogical considerations, or others of a similar kind. But the very opposite is the case here; and if, from the conclusion of the whole narrative in Jdg 11:39-40, the object of it is supposed to be simply to explain the origin of the feast that was held in honour of Jephthah’s daughter, even this would tell against the ordinary view. In the eye of the law the whole thing would still remain an abomination, and the canonical Scriptures would not stoop to relate and beautify an institution so directly opposed to the law.”

All these circumstances, when rightly considered, almost compel us to adopt the spiritual interpretation of the words, “offer as a burnt-offering.” It is true that no exactly corresponding parallelisms can be adduced from the Old Testament in support of the spiritual view; but the germs of this view, as met with in the Psalms and the writings of the prophets, are contained in the demand of God addressed to Abraham to offer Him his only son Isaac as a burnt-offering, when compared with the issue of Abraham’s temptation-namely, that God accepted his willingness to offer up his son as a completed sacrifice, and then supplied him with a ram to offer up as a bleeding sacrifice in the place of his son. As this fact teaches that what God demands is not a corporeal but a spiritual sacrifice, so the rules laid down in the law respecting the redemption of the first-born belonging to the Lord, and of persons vowed to Him (Exo 13:1, Exo 13:13; Num 18:15-16; Lev 27:1.), show clearly how the Israelites could dedicate themselves and those who belonged to them to the Lord, without burning upon the altar the persons who were vowed to Him. And lastly, it is evident, from the perfectly casual reference to the women who ministered at the tabernacle (Exo 38:8; 1Sa 2:22), that there were persons in Israel who dedicated their lives to the Lord at the sanctuary, by altogether renouncing the world. And there can be no doubt that Jephthah had such a dedication as this in his mind when he uttered his vow; at all events in case the Lord, to whom he left the appointment of the sacrifice, should demand the offering up of a human being. The word עולה does not involve the idea of burning, like our word burnt-offering, but simply that of going up upon the altar, or of complete surrender to the Lord. עולה is a whole offering, as distinguished from the other sacrifices, of which only a part was given up to the Lord. When a virgin, therefore, was set apart as a spiritual עולה, it followed, as a matter of course, that henceforth she belonged entirely to the Lord: that is to say, was to remain a virgin for the remainder of her days. The fact that Nazarites contracted marriages, even such as were dedicated by a vow to be Nazarites all their lives, by no means warrants the conclusion that virgins dedicated to the Lord by a vow were also free to marry if they chose. It is true that we learn nothing definite from the Old Testament with regard to this spiritual sacrificial service; but the absence of any distinct statements upon the subject by no means warrants our denying the fact. Even with regard to the spiritual service of the women at the tabernacle we have no precise information; and we should not have known anything about this institution, if the women themselves had not offered their mirrors in the time of Moses to make the holy laver, or if we had not the account of the violation of such women by the sons of Eli. In this respect, therefore, the remarks of Clericus, though too frequently disregarded, as very true: “It was not to be expected, as I have often observed, that so small a volume as the Old Testament should contain all the customs of the Hebrew, and a full account of all the things that were done among them. There are necessarily many things alluded to, therefore, which we do not fully understand, simply because they are not mentioned elsewhere.”

Jephthah's Promotion. (b. c. 1143.)

1 Now Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty man of valour, and he was the son of a harlot: and Gilead begat Jephthah. 2 And Gilead's wife bare him sons; and his wife's sons grew up, and they thrust out Jephthah, and said unto him, Thou shalt not inherit in our father's house; for thou art the son of a strange woman. 3 Then Jephthah fled from his brethren, and dwelt in the land of Tob: and there were gathered vain men to Jephthah, and went out with him.

The princes and people of Gilead we left, in the close of the foregoing chapter, consulting about the choice of a general, having come to this resolve, that whoever would undertake to lead their forces against the children of Ammon should by common consent be head over all the inhabitants of Gilead. The enterprise was difficult, and it was fit that so great an encouragement as this should be proposed to him that would undertake it. Now all agreed that Jephthah, the Gileadite, was a mighty man of valour, and very fit for that purpose, none so fit as he, but he lay under three disadvantages:—1. He was the son of a harlot (v. 1), of a strange woman (v. 2), one that was neither a wife nor a concubine; some think his mother was a Gentile; so Josephus, who calls him a stranger by the mother's side. An Ishmaelite, say the Jews. If his mother was a harlot, that was not his fault, however it was his disgrace. Men ought not to be reproached with any of the infelicities of their parentage or extraction, so long as they are endeavouring by their personal merits to roll away the reproach. The son of a harlot, if born again, born from above, shall be accepted of God, and be as welcome as any other to the glorious liberties of his children. Jephthah could not read in the law the brand there put on the Ammonites, the enemies he was to grapple with, that they should not enter into the congregation of the Lord, but in the same paragraph he met with that which looked black upon himself, that a bastard should be in like manner excluded, Deut. xxiii. 2, 3. But if that law means, as most probably it does, only those that are born of incest, not of fornication, he was not within the reach of it. 2. He had been driven from his country by his brethren. His father's legitimate children, insisting upon the rigour of the law, thrust him out from having any inheritance with them, without any consideration of his extraordinary qualifications, which merited a dispensation, and would have made him a mighty strength and ornament of their family, if they had overlooked his being illegitimate and admitted him to a child's part, v. 2. One would not have thought this abandoned youth was intended to be Israel's deliverer and judge, but God often humbles those whom he designs to exalt, and makes that stone the head of the corner which the builders refused; so Joseph, Moses, and David, the three most eminent of the shepherds of Israel, were all thrust out by men, before they were called of God to their great offices. 3. He had, in his exile, headed a rabble, v. 3. Being driven out by his brethren, his great soul would not suffer him either to dig or beg, but by his sword he must live; and, being soon noted for his bravery, those that were reduced to such straits, and animated by such a spirit, enlisted themselves under him. Vain men they are here called, that is, men that had run through their estates and had to seek for a livelihood. These went out with him, not to rob or plunder, but to hunt wild beasts, and perhaps to make incursions upon those countries which Israel was entitled to, but had not as yet come to the possession of, or were some way or other injured by. This is the man that must save Israel. That people had by their idolatry made themselves children of whoredoms, and aliens from God and his covenant, and therefore, though God upon their repentance will deliver them, yet, to mortify them and remind them of their sin, he chooses to do it by a bastard and an exile.

4 And it came to pass in process of time, that the children of Ammon made war against Israel. 5 And it was so, that when the children of Ammon made war against Israel, the elders of Gilead went to fetch Jephthah out of the land of Tob: 6 And they said unto Jephthah, Come, and be our captain, that we may fight with the children of Ammon. 7 And Jephthah said unto the elders of Gilead, Did not ye hate me, and expel me out of my father's house? and why are ye come unto me now when ye are in distress? 8 And the elders of Gilead said unto Jephthah, Therefore we turn again to thee now, that thou mayest go with us, and fight against the children of Ammon, and be our head over all the inhabitants of Gilead. 9 And Jephthah said unto the elders of Gilead, If ye bring me home again to fight against the children of Ammon, and the Lord deliver them before me, shall I be your head? 10 And the elders of Gilead said unto Jephthah, The Lord be witness between us, if we do not so according to thy words. 11 Then Jephthah went with the elders of Gilead, and the people made him head and captain over them: and Jephthah uttered all his words before the Lord in Mizpeh.

Here is, I. The distress which the children of Israel were in upon the Ammonites' invasion of their country, v. 4. Probably this was the same invasion with that mentioned, ch. x. 17, when the children of Ammon were gathered together and encamped in or against Gilead. And those words, in process of time, refer to what goes immediately before of the expulsion of Jephthah; many days after he had been thus thrust out in disgrace was he fetched back again with honour.

II. The court which the elders made to Jephthah hereupon to come and help them. They did not write or send a messenger to him, but went themselves to fetch him, resolving to have no denial, and the exigence of the case was such as would admit no delay. Their errand to him was, Come, and be our captain, v. 6. They knew none among themselves that was able to undertake that great trust, but in effect confessed themselves unfit for it; they know him to be a bold man, and inured to the sword, and therefore he must be the man. See how God prepared men for the service he designs them for, and makes their troubles work for their advancement. If Jephthah had not been put to his shifts by his brethren's unkindness, he would not have had such occasion as this gave him to exercise and improve his martial genius, and so to signalize himself and become famous. Out of the eater comes forth meat. The children of Israel were assembled and encamped, ch. x. 17. But an army without a general is like a body without a head; therefore Come, say they, and be our captain, that we may fight. See the necessity of government; though they were hearty enough in the cause, yet they owned they could not fight without a captain to command them. So necessary is it to all societies that there be a pars imperans and a pars subdita, some to rule and others to obey, that any community would humbly beg the favour of being commanded rather than that every man should be his own master. Blessed be God for government, for a good government.

III. The objections Jephthah makes against accepting their offer: Did you not hate me, and expel me? v. 7. It should seem that his brethren were some of these elders, or these elders by suffering his brethren to abuse him, and not righting him as they ought to have done (for their business is to defend the poor and fatherless, Ps. lxxxii. 3, 4), had made themselves guilty of his expulsion, and he might justly charge them with it. Magistrates, that have power to protect those that are injured, if they neglect to redress their grievances are really guilty of inflicting them. "You hated me and expelled me, and therefore how can I believe that you are sincere in this proposal, and how can you expect that I should do you any service?" Not but that Jephthah was very willing to serve his country, but he thought fit to give them a hint of their former unkindness to him, that they might repent of their sin in using him so ill, and might for the future be the more sensible of their obligations. Thus Joseph humbled his brethren before he made himself known to them. The particular case between the Gileadites and Jephthah was a resemblance of the general state of the case between Israel and God at this time. They had thrust God out by their idolatries, yet in their distress begged his help; he told them how justly he might have rejected them, and yet graciously delivered them. So did Jephthah. Many slight God and good men till they come to be in distress, and then they are desirous of God's mercy and good men's prayers.

IV. Their urgency with him to accept the government they offer him, v. 8. "Therefore because we formerly did thee that wrong, and to show thee that we repent of it and would gladly atone for it, we turn again to thee now, to put such an honour upon thee as shall balance that indignity." Let this instance be, 1. A caution to us not to despise or trample upon any because they are mean, nor to be injurious to any that we have advantage against, because, whatever we think of them now, the time may come when we may have need of them, and may be glad to be beholden to them. It is our wisdom to make no man our enemy, because we know not how soon our distresses may be such as that we may be highly concerned to make him our friend. 2. An encouragement to men of worth that are slighted or ill-treated. Let them bear it with meekness and cheerfulness, and leave it to God to make their light shine out of obscurity. Fuller's remark on this story, in his "Pisgah Sight," is this: "Virtue once in an age will work her own advancement, and, when such as hate it chance to need it, they will be forced to prefer it," and then the honour will appear the brighter.

V. The bargain he makes with them. He had mentioned the injuries they had formerly done him, but, perceiving their repentance, his spirit was too great and generous to mention them any more. God had forgiven Israel the affronts they had put upon him (ch. x. 16), and therefore Jephthah will forgive. Only he thinks it prudent to make his bargain wisely for the future, since he deals with men that he had reason to distrust. 1. He puts to them a fair question, v. 9. He speaks not with too much confidence of his success, knowing how justly God might suffer the Ammonites to prevail for the further punishment of Israel; but puts an if upon it. Nor does he speak with any confidence at all in himself; if he do succeed, it is the Lord that delivers them into his hand, intending hereby to remind his countrymen to look up to God, as arbitrator of the controversy and the giver of victory, for so he did. "Now if, by the blessing of God, I come home a conqueror, tell me plainly shall I be your head? If I deliver you, under God, shall I, under him, reform you?" The same question is put to those who desire salvation by Christ. "If he save you, will you be willing that he shall rule you? for on no other terms will he save you. If he make you happy, shall he make you holy? If he be your helper, shall he be your head?" 2. They immediately give him a positive answer (v. 10): "We will do according to thy words; command us in war, and thou shalt command us in peace." They do not take time to consider of it. The case was too plain to need a debate, and the necessity too pressing to admit a delay. They knew they had power to conclude a treaty for those whom they represented, and therefore bound it with an oath, The Lord be witness between us. They appeal to God's omniscience as the judge of their present sincerity, and to his justice as an avenger if afterwards they should prove false. The Lord be a hearer, so the word is. Whatever we speak, it concerns us to remember that God is a hearer, and to speak accordingly. Thus was the original contract ratified between Jephthah and the Gileadites, which all Israel, it should seem, agreed to afterwards, for it is said (ch. xii. 7), he judged Israel. He hereupon went with them (v. 11) to the place where they were all assembled (ch. x. 17), and there by common consent they made him head and captain, and so ratified the bargain their representatives had made with him, that he should be not only captain now, but head for life. Jephthah, to obtain this little honour, was willing to expose his life for them (ch. xii. 3), and shall we be discouraged in our Christian warfare by any of the difficulties we may meet with in it, when Christ himself has promised a crown of life to him that overcometh?

VI. Jephthah's pious acknowledgment of God in this great affair (v. 11): He uttered all his words before the Lord in Mizpeh, that is, upon his elevation, he immediately retired to his devotions, and in prayer spread the whole matter before God, both his choice to the office and his execution of the office, as one that had his eye ever towards the Lord, and would do nothing without him, that leaned not to his own understanding or courage, but depended on God and his favour. He utters before God all his thoughts and cares in this matter; for God gives us leave to be free with him. 1. "Lord, the people have made me their head; wilt thou confirm the choice, and own me as thy people's head under thee and for thee?" God justly complains of Israel (Hos. viii. 4), they have set up kings, but not by me. "Lord," said Jephthah, "I will be no head of their making without thee. I will not accept the government unless thou give me leave." Had Abimelech done this, he might have prospered. 2. "Lord, they have made me their captain, to go before them in this war with the Ammonites; shall I have thy presence? Wilt thou go before me? If not, carry me not up hence. Lord, satisfy me in the justice of the cause. Assure me of success in the enterprise." This is a rare example, to be imitated by all, particularly by great ones; in all our ways let us acknowledge God, seek his favour, ask counsel at his mouth, and take him along with us; so shall we make our way prosperous. Thus Jephthah opened the campaign with prayer. That was likely to end gloriously which began thus piously.

The War with the Ammonites. (b. c. 1143.)

12 And Jephthah sent messengers unto the king of the children of Ammon, saying, What hast thou to do with me, that thou art come against me to fight in my land? 13 And the king of the children of Ammon answered unto the messengers of Jephthah, Because Israel took away my land, when they came up out of Egypt, from Arnon even unto Jabbok, and unto Jordan: now therefore restore those lands again peaceably. 14 And Jephthah sent messengers again unto the king of the children of Ammon: 15 And said unto him, Thus saith Jephthah, Israel took not away the land of Moab, nor the land of the children of Ammon: 16 But when Israel came up from Egypt, and walked through the wilderness unto the Red sea, and came to Kadesh; 17 Then Israel sent messengers unto the king of Edom, saying, Let me, I pray thee, pass through thy land: but the king of Edom would not hearken thereto. And in like manner they sent unto the king of Moab: but he would not consent: and Israel abode in Kadesh. 18 Then they went along through the wilderness, and compassed the land of Edom, and the land of Moab, and came by the east side of the land of Moab, and pitched on the other side of Arnon, but came not within the border of Moab: for Arnon was the border of Moab. 19 And Israel sent messengers unto Sihon king of the Amorites, the king of Heshbon; and Israel said unto him, Let us pass, we pray thee, through thy land into my place. 20 But Sihon trusted not Israel to pass through his coast: but Sihon gathered all his people together, and pitched in Jahaz, and fought against Israel. 21 And the Lord God of Israel delivered Sihon and all his people into the hand of Israel, and they smote them: so Israel possessed all the land of the Amorites, the inhabitants of that country. 22 And they possessed all the coasts of the Amorites, from Arnon even unto Jabbok, and from the wilderness even unto Jordan. 23 So now the Lord God of Israel hath dispossessed the Amorites from before his people Israel, and shouldest thou possess it? 24 Wilt not thou possess that which Chemosh thy god giveth thee to possess? So whomsoever the Lord our God shall drive out from before us, them will we possess. 25 And now art thou any thing better than Balak the son of Zippor, king of Moab? did he ever strive against Israel, or did he ever fight against them, 26 While Israel dwelt in Heshbon and her towns, and in Aroer and her towns, and in all the cities that be along by the coasts of Arnon, three hundred years? why therefore did ye not recover them within that time? 27 Wherefore I have not sinned against thee, but thou doest me wrong to war against me: the Lord the Judge be judge this day between the children of Israel and the children of Ammon. 28 Howbeit the king of the children of Ammon hearkened not unto the words of Jephthah which he sent him.

We have here the treaty between Jephthah, now judge of Israel, and the king of the Ammonites (who is not named), that the controversy between the two nations might, if possible, be accommodated without the effusion of blood.

I. Jephthah, as one having authority, sent to the king of Ammon, who in this war was the aggressor, to demand his reasons for invading the land of Israel: "Why hast thou come to fight against me in my land? v. 12. Had I come first into thy land to disturb thee in thy possession, this would have been reason enough for fighting against me, for how must force be repelled but by force? but what hast thou to do to come thus in a hostile manner into my land?" so he calls it, in the name both of God and Israel. Now this fair demand shows, 1. That Jephthah did not delight in war, though he was a mighty man of valour, but was willing to prevent it by a peaceable accommodation. If he could by reason persuade the invaders to retire, he would not compel them to do it by the sword. War should be the last remedy, not to be used till all other methods of ending matters in variance have been tried in vain, ratio ultima regum—the last resource of kings. This rule should be observed in going to law. The sword of justice, as well as the sword of war, must not be appealed to till the contending parties have first endeavoured by gentler means to understand one another, and to accommodate matters in variance, 1 Cor. vi. 1. 2. That Jephthah did delight in equity, and designed no other than to do justice. If the children of Ammon could convince him that Israel had done them wrong, he was ready to restore the rights of the Ammonites. If not, it was plain by their invasion that they did Israel wrong, and he was ready to maintain the rights of the Israelites. A sense of justice should guide and govern us in all our undertakings.

II. The king of the Ammonites now gives in his demand, which he should have published before he had invaded Israel, v. 13. His pretence is, "Israel took away my lands long since; now therefore restore those lands." We have reason to think the Ammonites, when they made this descent upon Israel, meant no other than to spoil and plunder the country, and enrich themselves with the prey, as they had done formerly under Eglon (ch. iii. 13) when no such demand as this was made, though the matter was then fresh; but when Jephthah demanded the cause of their quarrel, and they could not for shame own what was their true intent and meaning, some old musty records were searched, or some ancient traditions enquired into, and from them this reason was drawn to serve the present turn, for a colourable pretence of equity in the invasion. Even those that do the greatest wrong yet have such a conviction in their consciences of justice that they would seem to do right. Restore those lands. See upon what uncertain terms we hold our worldly possessions; what we think we have the surest hold of may be challenged from us, and wrested out of our hands. Those that have got to the heavenly Canaan need not fear having their titles questioned.

III. Jephthah gives in a very full and satisfactory answer to this demand, showing it to be altogether unjust and unreasonable, and that the Ammonites had no title to this country that lay between the rivers Arnon and Jabbok, now in the possession of the tribes of Reuben and Gad. As one very well versed in the history of his country, he shows,

1. That Israel never took any land away either from the Moabites or Ammonites. He puts them together because they were brethren, the children of Lot, near neighbours, and of united interests, having the same god, Chemosh, and perhaps sometimes the same king. The lands in question Israel took away, not from the Moabites or Ammonites (they had particular orders from God not to meddle with them nor any thing they had, Deut. ii. 9, 19, and religiously observed their orders), but they found them in the possession of Sihon king of the Amorites, and out of his hand they took them justly and honourably, as he will show afterwards. If the Amorites, before Israel came into that country, had taken these lands from the Moabites or Ammonites, as it should seem they had (Num. xxi. 26; Josh. xiii. 25), Israel was not concerned to enquire into that or answer for it. If the Ammonites had lost these lands and their title to them, the children of Israel were under no obligation to recover the possession for them. Their business was to conquer for themselves, not for other people. This is his first plea, "Not guilty of the trespass."

2. That they were so far from invading the property of any other nations than the devoted posterity of cursed Canaan (one of the branches of which the Amorites were, Gen. x. 16) that they would not so much as force a passage through the country either of the Edomites, the seed of Esau, or of the Moabites, the seed of Lot; but even after a very tedious march through the wilderness, with which they were sadly tired (v. 16), when the king of Edom first, and afterwards the king of Moab, denied them the courtesy of a way through their country (v. 17), rather than give them any offence or annoyance, weary as they were, they put themselves to the further fatigue of compassing both the land of Edom and that of Moab, and came not within the border of either, v. 18. Note, Those that behave themselves inoffensively may take the comfort of it, and plead it against those that charge them with injustice and wrong doing. Our righteousness will answer for us in time to come (Gen. xxx. 33) and will put to silence the ignorance of foolish men, 1 Pet. ii. 15.

3. That in that war in which they took this land out of the hands of Sihon king of the Amorites he was the aggressor, and not they, v. 19, 20. They sent a humble petition to him for leave to go through his land, willing to give him any security for their good behaviour in their march. "Let us pass (say they) unto our place, that is, to the land of Canaan, which is the only place we call ours, and to which we are pressing forward, not designing a settlement here." But Sihon not only denied them this courtesy, as Edom and Moab had done (had he only done so, who knows but Israel might have gone about some other way?) but he mustered all his forces, and fought against Israel (v. 20), not only shut them out of his own land, but would have cut them off from the face of the earth (Num. xxi. 23, 24), aimed at nothing less than their ruin, v. 20. Israel therefore, in their war with him, stood in their own just and necessary defence, and therefore, having routed his army, might justly, in further revenge of the injury, seize his country as forfeited. Thus Israel came to the possession of this country, and doubted not to make good their title to it; and it is very unreasonable for the Ammonites to question their title, for the Amorites were the inhabitants of that country, and it was purely their land and their coasts that the Israelites then made themselves masters of, v. 21, 22.

4. He pleads a grant from the crown, and claims under that, v. 23, 24. It was not Israel (they were fatigued with their long march, and were not fit for action so soon), but it was the Lord God of Israel, who is King of nations, whose the earth is and the fulness thereof, he it was that dispossessed the Amorites and planted Israel in their room. God gave them the land by an express and particular conveyance, such as vested the title in them, which they might make good against all the world. Deut. ii. 24, I have given into thy hand Sihon and his land; he gave it to them, by giving them a complete victory over the present occupants, notwithstanding the great disadvantages they were under. "Can you think that God gave it to us in such an extraordinary manner with design that we should return it to the Moabites or Ammonites again? No, we put a higher value upon God's favours than to part with them so easily." To corroborate this plea, he urges an argument ad hominem—directed to the man: Wilt not thou possess that which Chemosh thy god giveth thee? He not only appeals to the common resolutions of men to hold their own against all the world, but to the common religion of the nations, which, they thought, obliged them to make much of that which their gods gave them. Not that Jephthah thought Chemosh a god, only he is thy god, and the worshippers even of those dunghill deities that could do neither good nor evil yet thought themselves beholden to them for all they had (Hos. ii. 12, These are my rewards which my lovers have given me; and see Judg. xvi. 24) and made this a reason why they would hold it fast, that their gods gave it to them. "This thou thinkest a good title, and shall not we?" The Ammonites had dispossessed those that dwelt in their land before them; they thought they did it by the help of Chemosh their god, but really it was Jehovah the God of Israel that did it for them, as is expressly said, Deut. ii. 19, 21. "Now," says Jephthah, "we have as good a title to our country as you have to yours." Note, One instance of the honour and respect we owe to God, as our God, is rightly to possess that which he gives us to possess, receive it from him, use it for him, keep it for his sake, and part with it when he calls for it. He has given it to us to possess, not to enjoy. He himself only must be enjoyed.

5. He pleads prescription. (1.) Their title had not been disputed when they first entered upon it, v. 25. "Balak who was then king of Moab, from whom the greatest part of these lands had been taken by the Amorites, and who was most concerned and best able to oppose us, if he had had any thing to object against our settlement there, yet sat still, and never offered to strive against Israel." He knew that for his own part he had fairly lost it to the Amorites and was not able to recover it, and could not but acknowledge that Israel had fairly won it of the Amorites, and therefore all his care was to secure what was left: he never pretended a title to what was lost. See Num. xxii. 2, 3. "He then acquiesced in God's way of disposing of kingdoms, and wilt not thou now?" (2.) Their possession had never yet been disturbed, v. 26. He pleads that they had kept this country as their own now about 300 years, and the Ammonites in all that time had never attempted to take it from them, no, not when they had it in their power to oppress them, ch. iii. 13, 14. So that, supposing their title had not been clear at the first (which yet he had proved it was), yet, no claim having been made for so many generations, the entry of the children of Ammon, without doubt, was barred for ever. A title so long unquestioned shall be presumed unquestionable.

6. By these arguments Jephthah justifies himself and his own cause ("I have not sinned against thee in taking or keeping what I have no right to; if I had, I would instantly make restitution" ), and condemns the Ammonites: "Thou doest me wrong to war against me, and must expect to speed accordingly," v. 27. It seems to me an evidence that the children of Israel, in the days of their prosperity and power (for some such days they had in the times of the judges) had conducted themselves very inoffensively to all their neighbours and had not been vexatious or oppressing to them (either by way of reprisal or under colour of propagating their religion), that the king of the Ammonites, when he would seek an occasion of quarrelling with them, was forced to look 300 years back for a pretence. It becomes the people of God thus to be blameless and harmless, and without rebuke.

7. For the deciding of the controversy, he puts himself upon God and his sword, and the king of Ammon joins issue with him (v. 27, 28): The Lord the Judge be judge this day. With this solemn reference of the matter to the Judge of heaven and earth he designs either to deter the Ammonites from proceeding and oblige them to retire, when they saw the right of the cause was against them, or to justify himself in subduing them if they should go on. Note, War is an appeal to heaven, to God the Judge of all, to whom the issues of it belong. If doubtful rights be disputed, he is hereby requested to determine them. If manifest rights be invaded or denied, he is hereby applied to for the vindicating of what is just and the punishing of wrong. As the sword of justice was made for lawless and disobedient persons (1 Tim. i. 9), so was the sword of war made for lawless and disobedient princes and nations. In war therefore the eye must be ever up to God, and it must always be thought a dangerous thing to desire or expect that God should patronise unrighteousness.

Neither Jephthah's apology, nor his appeal, wrought upon the king of the children of Ammon; they had found the sweets of the spoil of Israel, in the eighteen years wherein they had oppressed them (ch. x. 8), and hoped now to make themselves masters of the tree with the fruit of which they had so often enriched themselves. He hearkened not to the words of Jephthah, his heart being hardened to his destruction.

Jephthah's Vow. (b. c. 1143.)

29 Then the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah, and he passed over Gilead, and Manasseh, and passed over Mizpeh of Gilead, and from Mizpeh of Gilead he passed over unto the children of Ammon. 30 And Jephthah vowed a vow unto the Lord , and said, If thou shalt without fail deliver the children of Ammon into mine hands, 31 Then it shall be, that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, shall surely be the Lord 's, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering. 32 So Jephthah passed over unto the children of Ammon to fight against them; and the Lord delivered them into his hands. 33 And he smote them from Aroer, even till thou come to Minneth, even twenty cities, and unto the plain of the vineyards, with a very great slaughter. Thus the children of Ammon were subdued before the children of Israel. 34 And Jephthah came to Mizpeh unto his house, and, behold, his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances: and she was his only child; beside her he had neither son nor daughter. 35 And it came to pass, when he saw her, that he rent his clothes, and said, Alas, my daughter! thou hast brought me very low, and thou art one of them that trouble me: for I have opened my mouth unto the Lord , and I cannot go back. 36 And she said unto him, My father, if thou hast opened thy mouth unto the Lord , do to me according to that which hath proceeded out of thy mouth; forasmuch as the Lord hath taken vengeance for thee of thine enemies, even of the children of Ammon. 37 And she said unto her father, Let this thing be done for me: let me alone two months, that I may go up and down upon the mountains, and bewail my virginity, I and my fellows. 38 And he said, Go. And he sent her away for two months: and she went with her companions, and bewailed her virginity upon the mountains. 39 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, 40 That the daughters of Israel went yearly to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite four days in a year.

We have here Jephthah triumphing in a glorious victory, but, as an alloy to his joy, troubled and distressed by an unadvised vow.

I. Jephthah's victory was clear, and shines very brightly, both to his honour and to the honour of God, his in pleading and God's in owning a righteous cause. 1. God gave him an excellent spirit, and he improved it bravely, v. 29. When it appeared by the people's unanimous choice of him for their leader that he had so clear a call to engage, and by the obstinate deafness of the king of Ammon to the proposals of accommodation that he had so just a cause to engage in, then the Spirit of the Lord came upon him, and very much advanced his natural faculties, enduing him with power from on high, and making him more bold and more wise than ever he had been, and more fired with a holy zeal against the enemies of his people. Hereby God confirmed him in his office, and assured him of success in his undertaking. Thus animated, he loses no time, but with an undaunted resolution takes the field. Particular notice is taken of the way by which he advanced towards the enemy's camp, probably because the choice of it was an instance of that extraordinary discretion with which the Spirit of the Lord had furnished him; for those who sincerely walk after the Spirit shall be led forth the right way. 2. God gave him eminent success, and he bravely improved that too (v. 32): The Lord delivered the Ammonites into his hand, and so gave judgment upon the appeal in favour of the righteous cause, and made those feel the force of war that would not yield to the force of reason; for he sits in the throne, judging right. Jephthah lost not the advantages given him, but pursued and completed his victory. Having routed their forces in the field, he pursued them to their cities, where he put to the sword all he found in arms, so as utterly to disable them from giving Israel any molestation, v. 33. But it does not appear that he utterly destroyed the people, as Joshua had destroyed the devoted nations, nor that he offered to make himself master of the country, though their pretensions to the land of Israel might have given him colour to do so: only he took care that they should be effectually subdued. Though others' attempting wrong to us will justify us in the defence of our own right, yet it will not authorize us to do them wrong.

II. Jephthah's vow is dark, and much in the clouds. When he was going out from his own house upon this hazardous undertaking, in prayer to God for his presence with him he makes a secret but solemn vow or religious promise to God, that, if God would graciously bring him back a conqueror, whosoever or whatsoever should first come out of his house to meet him it should be devoted to God, and offered up for a burnt-offering. At his return, tidings of his victory coming home before him, his own and only daughter meets him with the seasonable expressions of joy. This puts him into a great confusion; but there was no remedy: after she had taken some time to lament her own infelicity, she cheerfully submitted to the performance of his vow. Now,

1. There are several good lessons to be learnt out of this story. (1.) That there may be remainders of distrust and doubting even in the hearts of true and great believers. Jephthah had reason enough to be confident of success, especially when he found the Spirit of the Lord come upon him, and yet, now that it comes to the settling, he seems to hesitate (v. 30): If thou wilt without fail deliver them into my hand, then I will do so and so. And perhaps the snare into which his vow brought him was designed to correct the weakness of his faith, and a fond conceit he had that he could not promise himself a victory unless he proffered something considerable to be given to God in lieu of it. (2.) That yet it is very good, when we are in the pursuit or expectation of any mercy, to make vows to God of some instance of acceptable service to him, not as a purchase of the favour we desire, but as an expression of our gratitude to him and the deep sense we have of our obligations to render according to the benefit done to us. The matter of such a singular vow (Lev. xxvii. 2) must be something that has a plain and direct tendency either to the advancement of God's glory, and the interests of his kingdom among men, or to the furtherance of ourselves in his service, and in that which is antecedently our duty. (3.) That we have great need to be very cautious and well advised in the making of such vows, lest, by indulging a present emotion even of pious zeal, we entangle our own consciences, involve ourselves in perplexities, and are forced at last to say before the angel that it was an error, Eccl. v. 2-6. It is a snare to a man hastily to devour that which is holy, without due consideration quid valeant humeri, quid ferre recusent—what we are able or unable to effect, and without inserting the needful provisos and limitations which might prevent the entanglement, and then after vows to make the enquiry which should have been made before, Prov. xx. 25. Let Jephthah's harm be our warning in this matter. See Deut. xxiii. 22. (4.) That what we have solemnly vowed to God we must conscientiously perform, if it be possible and lawful, though it be ever so difficult and grievous to us. Jephthah's sense of the powerful obligation of his vow must always be ours (v. 35): "I have opened my mouth unto the Lord in a solemn vow, and I cannot go back," that is, "I cannot recall the vow myself, it is too late, nor can any power on earth dispense with it, or give me up my bond." The thing was my own, and in my own power (Acts v. 4), but now it is not. Vow and pay, Ps. lxxvi. 11. We deceive ourselves if we think to mock God. If we apply this to the consent we have solemnly given, in our sacramental vows, to the covenant of grace made with poor sinners in Christ, what a powerful argument will it be against the sins we have by those vows bound ourselves out from, what a strong inducement to the duties we have hereby bound ourselves up to, and what a ready answer to every temptation! "I have opened my mouth to the Lord, and I cannot go back; I must therefore go forward. I have sworn, and I must, I will, perform it. Let me not dare to play fast and loose with God." (5.) That it well becomes children obediently and cheerfully to submit to their parents in the Lord, and particularly to comply with their pious resolutions for the honour of God and the keeping up of religion in their families, though they be harsh and severe, as the Rechabites, who for many generations religiously observed the commands of Jonadab their father in forbearing wine, and Jephthah's daughter here, who, for the satisfying of her father's conscience, and for the honour of God and her country, yielded herself as one devoted (v. 36): "Do to me according to that which hath proceeded out of thy mouth; I know I am dear to thee, but am well content that God should be dearer." The father might disallow any vow made by the daughter (Num. xxx. 5), but the daughter could not disallow or disannul, no, not such a vow as this, made by the father. This magnifies the law of the fifth commandment. (6.) That our friends' grievances should be our griefs. Where she went to bewail her hard fate the virgins, her companions, joined with her in her lamentations, v. 38. With those of her own sex and age she used to associate, who no doubt, now that her father had on a sudden grown so great, expected, shortly after his return, to dance at her wedding, but were heavily disappointed when they were called to retire to the mountains with her and share in her griefs. Those are unworthy the name of friends that will only rejoice with us, and not weep with us. (7.) That heroic zeal for the honour of God and Israel, though alloyed with infirmity and indiscretion, is worthy to be had in perpetual remembrance. It well became the daughters of Israel by an annual solemnity to preserve the honourable memory of Jephthah's daughter, who made light even of her own life like a noble heroine, when God had taken vengeance on Israel's enemies, v. 36. Such a rare instance of one that preferred the public interest before life itself was never to be forgotten. Her sex forbade her to follow to the war, and so to expose her life in battle, in lieu of which she hazards it much more (and perhaps apprehended that she did so, having some intimation of his vow, and did it designedly; for he tells her, v. 35, Thou hast brought me very low) to grace his triumphs. So transported was she with the victory as a common benefit that she was willing to be herself offered up as a thank-offering for it, and would think her life well bestowed when laid down on so great an occasion. She thinks it an honour to die, not as a sacrifice of atonement for the people's sins (that honour was reserved for Christ only), but as a sacrifice of acknowledgment for the people's mercies. (8.) From Jephthah's concern on this occasion, we must learn not to think it strange if the day of our triumphs in this world prove upon some account or other the day of our griefs, and therefore must always rejoice with trembling; we hope for a day of triumph hereafter which will have no alloy.

2. Yet there are some difficult questions that do arise upon this story which have very much employed the pens of learned men. I will say but little respecting them, because Mr. Poole has discussed them very fully in his English annotations.

(1.) It is hard to say what Jephthah did to his daughter in performance of his vow. [1.] Some think he only shut her up for a nun, and that it being unlawful, according to one part of his vow (for they make it disjunctive), to offer her up for a burnt-offering, he thus, according to the other part, engaged her to be the Lord's, that is, totally to sequester herself from all the affairs of this life, and consequently from marriage, and to employ herself wholly in the acts of devotion all her days. That which countenances this opinion is that she is said to bewail her virginity (v. 37, 38) and that she knew no man, v. 39. But, if he sacrificed her, it was proper enough for her to bewail, not her death, because that was intended to be for the honour of God, and she would undergo it cheerfully, but that unhappy circumstance of it which made it more grievous to her than any other, because she was her father's only child, in whom he hoped his name and family would be built up, that she was unmarried, and so left no issue to inherit her father's honour and estate; therefore it is particularly taken notice of (v. 34) that besides her he had neither son nor daughter. But that which makes me think Jephthah did not go about thus to satisfy his vow, or evade it rather, is that we do not find any law, usage, or custom, in all the Old Testament, which does in the least intimate that a single life was any branch or article of religion, or that any person, man or woman, was looked upon as the more holy, more the Lord's, or devoted to him, for living unmarried: it was no part of the law either of the priests or of the Nazarites. Deborah and Huldah, both prophetesses, are both of them particularly recorded to have been married women. Besides, had she only been confined to a single life, she needed not to have desired these two months to bewail it in: she had her whole life before her to do that, if she saw cause. Nor needed she to take such a sad leave of her companions; for those that are of that opinion understand what is said in v. 40 of their coming to talk with her, as our margin reads it, four days in a year. Therefore, [2.] It seems more probable that he offered her up for a sacrifice, according to the letter of his vow, misunderstanding that law which spoke of persons devoted by the curse of God as if it were to be applied to such as were devoted by men's vows (Lev. xxvii. 29, None devoted shall be redeemed, but shall surely be put to death), and wanting to be better informed of the power the law gave him in this case to redeem her. Abraham's attempt to offer up Isaac perhaps encouraged him, and made him think, if God would not accept this sacrifice which he had vowed, he would send an angel to stay his hand, as he did Abraham's. If she came out designedly to be made a sacrifice, as who knows but she might? perhaps he thought that would make the case the plainer. Volenti non sit injuria—No injury is done to a person by that to which he himself consents. He imagined, it may be, that where there was neither anger nor malice there was no murder, and that his good intention would sanctify this bad action; and, since he had made such a vow, he thought better to kill his daughter than break his vow, and let Providence bear the blame, that brought her forth to meet him.

(2.) But, supposing that Jephthah did sacrifice his daughter, the question is whether he did well. [1.] Some justify him in it, and think he did well, and as became one that preferred the honour of God before that which was dearest to him in this world. He is mentioned among the eminent believers who by faith did great things, Heb. xi. 32. And this was one of the great things he did. It was done deliberately, and upon two months' consideration and consultation. He is never blamed for it by any inspired writer. Though it highly exalts the paternal authority, yet it cannot justify any in doing the like. He was an extraordinary person. The Spirit of the Lord came upon him. Many circumstances, now unknown to us, might make this altogether extraordinary, and justify it, yet not so as that it might justify the like. Some learned men have made this sacrifice a figure of Christ the great sacrifice: he was of unspotted purity and innocency, as she a chaste virgin; he was devoted to death by his Father, and so made a curse, or an anathema, for us; he submitted himself, as she did, to his Father's will: Not as I will, but as thou wilt. But, [2.] Most condemn Jephthah; he did ill to make so rash a vow, and worse to perform it. He could not be bound by his vow to that which God had forbidden by the letter of the sixth commandment: Thou shalt not kill. God had forbidden human sacrifices, so that it was (says Dr. Lightfoot) in effect a sacrifice to Moloch. And, probably, the reason why it is left dubious by the inspired penman whether he sacrificed her or no was that those who did afterwards offer their children might not take any encouragement from this instance. Concerning this and some other such passages in the sacred story, which learned men are in the dark, divided, and in doubt about, we need not much perplex ourselves; what is necessary to our salvation, thanks be to God, is plain enough.