Conclusion of the Vow
The Lord accepts the terms of the vow, since the words “the LORD delivered them into his hands” (Jdg 11:32)1 are the same words that Jephthah uttered (v30). This point is not to be missed. Since God accepts the vow and fulfils His side of the deal, He will proceed to claim His payment. Jephthah has opened his house to God, and God claims his daughter.
The key to interpreting Jephthah’s daughter coming out to meet him and the fulfilment of the vow (vv34-40) lies in the preamble to the Jephthah narrative (10:6-16). The unfaithfulness, apostasy and whoredom of the nation stand in stark contrast to the faithfulness and pure devotion of Jephthah’s daughter.
The purity of Jephthah’s daughter is easy to prove – she is a virgin. A cursory glance
shows that the fulfilment of the vow is that her life is devoted to God in perpetual virginity: “Let me … bewail my virginity … she … bewailed her virginity … she knew no man” (11:37-39). The Judges author is at pains to make the point.
This vestal virgin stands in stark contrast to harlot-Israel. Like an adulterous wife, Israel had forsaken the Lord (10:6-16). The sevenfold description of Canaanite gods shows Israel had wedded herself to paganism (v6). Israel’s apostasy is repeatedly emphasised as they deceitfully “served” other gods (vv6,10,13). Her apostasy had reached fever pitch, and she confessed as much: “We have forsaken our God, and served Baalim” (v10). Forsaking the Lord and whoredom are equated elsewhere (Jer 5:7; Hos 4:10). It had been predicted through Moses, “This people will rise up, and go a whoring after the gods of the strangers of the land … and will forsake me, and break my covenant which I have made with them” (Deu 31:16). As a result, the Lord sold them to their enemies (Jdg 10:7), an act that echoes a bill of divorcement (Isa 50:1). Their covenant unfaithfulness brings them into oppression, and it is only after a period of distress that they “put away the strange gods from among them” (Jdg 10:16).
However, the narrative doesn’t turn as it usually does in the book of Judges. We expect a deliverer to be raised up immediately after repentance, but instead, unique in the Judges record, we read that the Lord’s “soul was grieved” (v16). The grief of God and repentance of the nation are left hanging. We are left puzzling because it does not follow the normal rebellion / repentance / rescue cycle of Judges.
Israel had also said, “Do thou unto us whatsoever seemeth good unto thee; deliver us only [from Ammon]” (v15). This is an unresolved tension. Israel has said, “Do thou unto us,” but what exactly will the Lord do? When Jephthah’s daughter learned of her father’s vow, she said, “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” (11:36). The word and concept links are unmissable. Both say that the Judge is free to do what He pleases – “do to me / us,” based on victory over Ammon – “hath taken vengeance / deliver us only.” Israel had given their word that the Lord could do as He pleased in order to deliver them. Jephthah’s daughter accepted the terms of the vow for the judge to do with her as he had vowed. The harlot and the virgin both accept the words and actions of their respective judges.
Israel said “Do to us” and Jephthah’s daughter said “Do to me”; she was about to bear the penalty for their sin.
This unresolved tension – that God could do anything to Israel because of their sin, and that their repentance awaited a deliverer – is resolved in Jephthah’s daughter. At first, they seem contradictory – Israel needs a rescuer, but deserves death. How can God justify the guilty, in other words? However, Jephthah’s daughter becomes the sacrifice, the spiritual burnt offering, the one who forfeits her life by becoming a perpetual virgin. She experiences the death that Israel deserved and, in paying their penalty, simultaneously provides rescue for them. Sin is only ever removed on the basis of sacrifice, and this is why Jephthah’s daughter dies in type. Jephthah’s daughter becomes the deliverer herself. In this act, she joins Achsah, Deborah, Jael and Manoah’s wife as heroines in the book of Judges.
Just as Jehovah grieved at the loss of the nation, Jephthah embodies that grief in tearing his clothes at the loss of his daughter (11:35). His words “Thou hast brought me very low” (v35) are not his blaming his daughter, but an expression of pain and sorrow. Jephthah grieved the loss of his darling daughter, just as God was grieved at Israel. It is not the first time that the judge on earth mirrors the Judge in heaven (cf. v27). Since Jephthah mirrors the actions of the Lord so often in this narrative, he becomes a type of sorts. The judge on earth reflects the Judge in heaven. The Judge in heaven, in order to deliver a harlot nation, worked through his representative, Jephthah, to offer up his virgin daughter as a sacrifice.
To be continued …
1 Bible quotations in this article are from the KJV.
