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sacrificed his daughter point to this as evi- that the stipulations of Leviticus 27:29
dence that her fate was perpetual virginity preclude the redemption of Jephthah’s
rather than death. However, this reading daughter: “None devoted, which shall be
fails to give due weight to the fact that “in devoted of men, shall be redeemed; but
Israelite society progeny was a precious shall surely be put to death.” However, it
legacy that every person hoped to leave is not at all clear that this exception does
after their life on earth ended.” And that apply to Jephthah’s daughter. The word
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general importance is heightened by the translated “devoted” is the word hērem.
fact – which is fundamental to this series This is sometimes translated “cursed”
– that Judges is a book that is preoccupied and is used to describe those enemies
with the transition from one generation of God’s people who were devoted to
to another and, as we have seen, by the destruction; it is used of Jericho in Joshua
bookending of Jephthah’s narrative with 6:17, for example, or of the Amalekites
those of Jair, and his thirty sons (10:4), in 1 Samuel 15. This terminology is con-
Ibzan, with his thirty sons and daugh- spicuously absent from Jephthah’s vow.
ters, and Abdon who, with his forty sons Jephthah did not have to make his vow.
and thirty grandsons, is the only person Having made it, he did not have to carry
in the book of Judges to produce a third it through. He could have made the pre-
generation. The true tragedy of Jephthah scribed offering to redeem his vow, rescu-
is not just that he sacrificed his daugh- ing at once his daughter and his progeny.
ter but that he sacrificed the future too. But he did not do so, and we have failed
The heartbreak of his actions is deep- to feel the impact of this tragic narrative if
ened by the fact that he did not need to we are not crying “Why?” I think we find
make his grisly sacrifice. Although mak- the answer in the words of the late A.M.S.
ing a vow was a solemn business (as Eccle- Gooding: “You ask me what I think he
siastes 5:4-5 makes very clear), the Law did? From the type of man I see Jephthah
did make provision for the redemption to be in Judges chapters 11 and 12, I be-
of a vow. Leviticus 27 provides a compre- lieve he sacrificed his daughter. You see,
hensive list of ways in which a vow, once he is a legal man, a self-important man;
made, could be redeemed. And there is and a legal man mustn’t lose face. He must
not only legislation but example too: In 1 not appear before the people of God as a
Samuel 14:45, following Saul’s rash vow man who changed his mind. … Many a
and his determination to put Jonathan to legal man has destroyed his own wife and
death, we are told that "the people ran- family and by his hardness of heart has
somed Jonathan” (ESV). The word trans- lost his family for God, rather than admit
lated “ransomed” here is the same word that he was wrong and that in the past he
used repeatedly in Leviticus 27 for the had been too hard. Rather than lose face
redemption of a vow: Jonathan was deliv- Jephthah sacrificed his daughter.”
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ered from the consequences of Saul’s fool- Mr. Gooding’s penultimate sentence
ish vow by the payment of the required bears emphasis. In many ways, the story
price. Admittedly, it has been argued of Jephthah seems immeasurably remote
from our own experience. Brigand bands,
3 Mark J. Boda and Mary L. Conway, Judges:
Longing for a Leader; Faltering in Faithfulness
(Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 4 A.M.S. Gooding, The Thirteen Judges (Glasgow:
2022), 553. Gospel Tract Publications, 1986), 163.
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