Judges 11:39-40

Amplified Bible, Classic Edition

³⁹At the end of two months she returned to her father, who ^[a]did with her according to his vow which he had vowed. She never mated with a man. This became a custom in Israel—

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

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Footnotes

Judges 11:39 Scholars fail to agree as to what Jephthah really did. For example, “This plain and restrained statement that ‘he did with her according to his vow’ is best taken as implying her actual sacrifice. Although human sacrifice was strictly forbidden to Israelites, we need not be surprised at a man of Jephthah’s half-Canaanite antecedents following Canaanite usage in this matter” (F. Davidson, ed., The New Bible Commentary). 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 fulfillment by the dictates of a pious but unenlightened conscience” (Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset and David Brown, A Commentary). And, “The religious system of Israel had fallen into suspension. From the days of Phinehas (Judg. 20:28) to the time of Samuel, we hear nothing of the high priest, the ark or the tabernacle” (The Cambridge Bible). On the other hand, J.P. Lange (A Commentary) articulates the position of many scholars when he calls attention to stories in Greek mythology in which the virginity of a goddess was celebrated by Greek maidens with song and dance. Summing up, Lange says, “At all events, it does not ‘stand there in the text,’ as Luther wrote, that she was offered in sacrifice.” And the fact that the maidens mourned her virginity and not her death seems to prove that she did not die.