What did Jephthah do to his daughter? That, for many readers, is the crux of his story, and given the debate about the correct answer we can hardly avoid considering it. In light, however, of the way in which the narrator has focused our attention on the importance of Jephthah’s speech, it is likely that the real key to his story lies not so much in what he does but in what he says, in the content and character of his vow. In this article we will examine the content of his vow before looking, in our next instalments, at its character and consequences. As a preliminary, however, we must begin by thinking briefly about the role of vows in Scripture.
Perhaps the first thing to note is the frequency of scriptural references to vows: just under a hundred in the Old Testament. In addition to the regulations about vows and their associated offerings in the Law (Lev 7,22,23; Num 6,15,29,30), they span all periods of Old Testament history, from the patriarchs (Gen 28:20), to the exodus (Num 21:2), the judges (Jdg 11:30-31; 1Sa 1:11) and the monarchy (2Sa 15:8). Reference is made to vows in Job (22:27), Psalms (22:25; 50:14; etc.), Proverbs (7:14; 20:25; 31:2) and Ecclesiastes (5:4). A range of prophets, too, refer to vows: Isaiah (19:21), Jeremiah (44:25), Nahum (1:15) and Malachi (1:14). So, while narrative accounts of vows are relatively few (Gen 28; Num 21; Jdg 11; 1Sa 1; 2Sa 15), there is nothing inherently aberrant about Jephthah’s making a vow.
The fact that we have such a range of biblical data about vows allows us to identify some of their key features. Vows are addressed to God: “In the Hebrew Bible, one may swear to another person, but may vow only to God.”1 This means that vows are expressed as prayers and, according to one scholar, “in biblical usage, vows are always conditional promises to God, to be fulfilled only when and if God answers the petitioner’s request.”2 In narrative, they have an “if … then” structure, with a petition and a promise.3
Jephthah’s vow fits this template: “And Jephthah vowed a vow unto the LORD, and said, If thou shalt without fail deliver the children of Ammon into mine hands, 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” (Jdg 11:30-31).4 A number of details about this vow are worth noting. Firstly, some commentators have rendered Jephthah’s promise as “shall surely be the LORD’s, or I will offer it up for a burnt offering.” This change is clearly motivated by a desire to avoid the conclusion that Jephthah actually sacrificed his daughter, but “it is far more likely that the Hebrew construction… specifies how the subject will become the Lord’s, that is, by being offered up as a sacrifice. For similar constructions … see Genesis 34:15-16; Exodus 18:16” (11:31, NET note).5 There is little room to doubt that Jephthah had in mind the offering of a burnt offering.
That leads to another question: what did Jephthah intend to offer? Here, a measure of ambiguity arises from the fact that Hebrew has no gender-neutral participial form. So, while in English we have the option of saying whoever or whatever, in the Hebrew, Jephthah unavoidably has to say “whoever comes out to meet me.” This does not necessarily mean that he had a person in mind, and most translations use “whatever” (Darby renders the phrase as “that which cometh forth from the door of my house”). The ambiguity is further compounded by the fact that Jephthah uses masculine verb forms throughout: that might “mean something specifically male, but the masculine form may also be inclusive of females.”6 It is very obvious from verse 35 that Jephthah did not expect to offer his daughter, but the fact that he did not exclude her from his vow because she was female indicates that he understood the terms of his vows broadly, at least as far as the sex of his offering was concerned.
What is less clear is whether he conceived of a human sacrifice or not. In this regard, a key phrase is “cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me,” and the verb rendered “to meet me” is especially crucial. The offering would not just be the first animal that Jephthah encountered as he entered his home – it would purposefully come out to meet him. That involves a sense of volition and purpose not easily associated with a goat or a sheep (animals which might have been found in Jephthah’s house). It is true that in Judges 14 a young lion will come to meet Samson, and it is also true that a returning dog lover today might well hope that his canine friend would greet him enthusiastically. But Jephthah is unlikely to have imagined that he would be greeted by a predator intent on his prey and it is exceedingly improbable that his home would have contained an unclean animal like a dog. This is emphasised by the fact that the combination of the verbs “cometh forth … to meet,” which occurs 35 times in the Old Testament, unambiguously refers to people on almost every other occasion where it appears (the other exception is Job 39:21, but that poetic description of a war horse going purposefully to battle strengthens, rather than weakens, the point).
What, then, did Jephthah expect to happen? “Surely [he] was aware of the custom that maidens traditionally came out to greet returning visitors.”7 His vow seems to anticipate an exceptional offering: even an ox, the largest and most valuable animal likely to wander out of his house, would hardly constitute anything special in the way of offerings. Jephthah has already revealed himself as a man who understands the power of speech. Given his expertise with words, and the way in which his vow is expressed, it seems unlikely that the idea of a human sacrifice never crossed Jephthah’s mind.
That is not to suggest that he contemplated the sacrifice of his daughter – he very clearly did not – nor is it necessarily to suggest that he planned to sacrifice a human being other than his only daughter. Jephthah’s cynicism is on display as he attempted to negotiate with God, just as he had with his brethren and the king of Ammon. He made an impressive sounding offer, seemingly secure in the belief that, at worst, he might have to offer an ox or a sheep. Despite what is often said, his vow was not rash but carefully calculated. But Jephthah’s craft would turn against him, and he would learn the tragic folly of attempting to bargain with God.
1 Tony W. Cartledge, Vows in the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement series 147 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1992), 12.
2 Cartledge, Vows, 12. The Nazarite vow, as outlined in Numbers 6, would seem to be the exception to this. However, Cartledge points out how little information we really have about the mechanics of the Nazarite vow and argues that the Nazarite vow may have been what the individual promised to God – the ‘then’ of an ‘if … then’ prayer. It is certainly true that our information about the Nazarite vow is sparse; it is also the case that it is not very significant for our understanding of Jephthah’s vow.
3 Technically, in this structure, the petition is the protasis and the promise the apodosis.
4 Bible quotations in this article are from the KJV unless otherwise noted.
5 It is an index of the implausibility of the ‘or’ rendering that, with the exception of Young’s Literal Version, no other translation has adopted it.
6 Mark J. Boda and Mary L. Conway, Judges: Longing for a Leader; Faltering in Faithfulness (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 2022), 543.
7 Cartledge, Vows, 179. Cf. 1Sa 18:6.
