Christological Significance
Jephthah’s daughter yields her life by adopting a life of perpetual virginity. A childless existence and death are equated in the Bible (Gen 30:1). By forfeiting her life for the deliverance of the nation, she ultimately points forward to the cross, and is a gospel message in picture. Israel, in her unfaithfulness, deserved judgement. And yet a spotless, pure sacrifice is offered so that a rebellious people can go free. Here we see the vow of a father and the work of the only begotten dealing with sin. In the gospel we see the Father and the Son working for the salvation of sinners.
The Judges author also weaves into the account words and images from Genesis 22 with the offering of Isaac by Abraham. This further adds to the idea that Jephthah’s daughter is a type of Christ. Just as Isaac was the only son of Abraham (Gen 22:2), Jephthah’s daughter was his “only child” (Jdg 11:34).1 The word for “only” and “child” in these verses is the same. The Judges author presses home the uniqueness of Jephthah’s daughter by saying, “Beside her he had neither son nor daughter” (v34). Isaac as well as Jephthah’s daughter are both painted as unique, beloved and only-begotten, prefiguring the only-begotten Son of God.
The conversation between Jephthah and his daughter (“my daughter … my father”) echoes Abraham and Isaac’s conversation while ascending the mount (“my father … my son,” Gen 22:6,8). The filial and paternal love between both pairs typifies the archetypical Father-Son relationship.
Just as Isaac submitted to the will of his father, Jephthah’s daughter, in her radiant feminine submission, accepts the word of her father: “Do to me according to that which hath proceeded out of thy mouth” (Jdg 11:36). She prefigures the supreme submission of the Son of God, when He was obedient to the extent of death, even death on a cross.
Isaac was laid on the altar, which was a death in type. Jephthah’s daughter dies in type as well. She is left alone – “let me alone two months” (v37). We can almost hear the echo of her being “forsaken” (Mat 27:46). Just as Isaac was on the mountains of Moriah, and skull hill was the mount where Christ was left alone, Jephthah’s daughter weeps and sorrows on the mountains with her fellows. They were all involved in the funeral procession. Grief, sorrow, seclusion and anguish were the experience that marked the funeral train. This is the death in type of the daughter. She forfeits her life, is forsaken and judged for sins not her own. Israel had been unfaithful, was defiled by idols and was obstinately rebellious. And yet, it was the faithful, pure, submissive virgin that experienced abandonment and judgement so that the nation could be saved.
Just as Isaac did not suffer a literal death, the same happens here. The fact that Jephthah’s daughter bewails her virginity is proof of this. He “did with her according to his vow” (Jdg 11:39) has already been explained in terms of a spiritual sacrifice. The Judges author also explains the fulfilment of Jephthah’s vow as “she knew no man” (v39). Jephthah devotes his daughter to the Lord. Just as Samuel was lent to the Lord, the daughter here experiences the same. Life-long celibacy is the stereotypical image in Scripture of a life laid down in complete consecration to God (Isa 56:4-5; Mat 19:12). “She knew no man” confirms that this is what Jephthah’s daughter experienced.
If she was a literal sacrifice, the repeated emphasis on her virginity would be redundant. The point of focus would be on her death, not her virginity. Note carefully that the narrative says she bewailed her virginity proper, not that she would die a virgin. The Judges author has no problem recording gory details elsewhere in the book, but does not do so here, since there is no human sacrifice.
In our day of tragic anti-natalism, where feminist ideology has mixed with climate alarmism to tell us that having children is a bad thing, a life of perpetual virginity might not seem much of an issue. However, the Bible shatters such western ignorance. “Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. … Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them” (Psa 127:3,5). Fruitfulness in children was a blessing; barrenness was a curse (Exo 23:26; Deu 7:14; 28:4; Psa 78:63; Jer 7:34). Jephthah’s daughter would never be a mother; Jephthah, never a grandfather; the family name would die. This was a sadness beyond words.
Another reason for the grief of Jephthah was that his name, inheritance and family line would be lost and forgotten in Israel. Again, we have little notion in the west of the importance of passing on the family heritage and line, but in Israel it was of vital importance (Deu 25:6; Rut 4:10; Psa 109:13). It is only the grace of God, the faith of this judge, and the devotion of his daughter that have ensured that their name has not been blotted out. Jephthah’s daughter had sisters in the tribe of Manasseh. They were the only progeny of their father Zelophehad (Num 27:1) and had received inheritance among their brethren. Jephthah’s only daughter stood to receive the same, but the vow forfeited all this.
Celebration of the Vow
The final statement shows that God is no man’s debtor and that He amply repays Jephthah and his daughter for keeping the vow: “It became a fixed custom in Israel … from year to year the daughters of Israel go to celebrate the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite four days in the year” (Jdg 11:39-40 JND). She is praised and celebrated here because she is alive and present. The Israelites would not have gone to celebrate a human sacrifice offered from the hands of a semi-pagan judge. One translation renders the final verse as follows: “From time to time the daughters of Israel go to talk to the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite, four days in a year” (v40 YLT). The word celebrate (tana) is only used twice in the Old Testament. The other time, “there shall they rehearse [tana] the righteous acts of the LORD, even the righteous acts toward the inhabitants of his villages in Israel” (5:11), shows again that the word means praise or celebrate. The word according to most lexicons has the idea of attributing honour and praise by speaking well of a person. Jephthah’s daughter is therefore celebrated, not mourned over.
Vows often turn out like this. Humanly speaking, Jephthah, his daughter and the family name should have been consigned to distant memory, never to be spoken of again. Instead, the name is not blotted out but is vindicated, remembered and adored. The obscure virgin daughter, through her submission and sacrifice, is celebrated every year in Israel. Her passion gives way to praise, her barrenness to blessing, her curse to celebration, and although her name should have been blotted out, it is forever recorded in the eternal pages of holy writ. Just like the nameless woman who anointed the head of Christ (Mar 14:3) has her name recorded for time immemorial (v9), Jephthah’s daughter fits into the same category.
The main point of this narrative, therefore, is to show in the book of deliverances that salvation is not ultimately by heroes and battles but in sacrifice. It is only the death of a sinless substitute that can remove sin. This small-scale narrative points forward to the ultimate meta-narrative of Scripture. God would send the Saviour, who would deal with the sin of the world, not by sword or battle but by substitution and sacrifice. The vow (the determinate counsel of God) had been declared in eternity past, and the only-begotten Son humbly obeyed that word and suffered for sinners.
The man impaled on a cross in utter disgrace should have been forgotten forever. And yet, God has supremely vindicated the name of His Son. The Welsh hymn writer2 put it best: “He can never be forgotten, throughout Heav’n’s eternal days.”
1 Bible quotations in this article are from the KJV unless otherwise noted.
2 William Rees (1802–1883)
