Judges 11:40

The daughters of Israel took up a custom of going four days each year to the mountains to lament for her. One may be the victim of an unfair action, and we can do nothing about it. At least we can remember this injustice in self-judgment before the Lord. This is different from raising an indignant outcry against injustice, which is common today. Learning to judge ourselves will bear much more good fruit than judging others.

Some maintain that she was not sacrificed, but the text is too clear to admit of this interpretation. But there is stronger evidence of her sacrifice than even the plain words of the vow. It lies in the distress of the father, in the noble resignation of the daughter, and in the yearly commemoration and lamentation of the daughters of Israel. Above all, it lies in the account of the historian himself. He cannot describe clearly the terrible scene he looks at with both admiration and horror. The Law certainly forbade human sacrifice as the worst of all heathen abominations. But the age of the judges had sunk far below the high position of the Law.

Most recent commentators agree, and believe that his daughter was simply consecrated to God, to live an unmarried life. Verses 37-39 seem plainly to show it. But Jephthah's words to the king of Ammon show that he knew the law; and by the law such an offering was forbidden as an abomination. No altar could have been found for it. No priest would have performed it. And the two months of mourning on the mountains would have given plenty of time for news of the intended sacrifice to spread far in Israel.

After all, in Hebrew the word does not mean "burnt offering." It means simply an "offering that ascends" — all ascends — to God. And this makes a great difference. Jephthah did not pledge that the offering would be burnt, though that was how an animal sacrifice would "ascend."

Scripture does not throw a veil, as man loves to do, over what is ugly and distressing in those who bear the Lord's name. That is because the very thing the Spirit of God has in view here is to show the frightful results of a vow so little weighed before God, and not drawn from His guidance at all... As the vow was made without God, so an outcome was allowed that was deeply offensive to the Holy Spirit.

"The Spirit of Jehovah came upon Jephthah." How often the flesh shows itself in us, as it did in him. He was not content with divine grace and power. He did not know the true character of God. He "vowed a vow to Jehovah" and made an arrangement with God on the basis of a mutual agreement. Binding himself before Him in a legal way, he fell into Israel's error in the wilderness of Sinai.

Our Lord now forbids such vowing outright. He said: "You have heard that it was said to those of old, 'You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.' But I say to you, Do not take an oath at all." God's will does not need man's will to add to it, only to obey it. To undertake obedience that was never asked for is only to put oneself in bondage to one's own weakness.

Abraham offered up his son "by faith" at God's command. Jephthah offered his daughter by an act of his own will, which was simply a lack of faith... When faith was lacking in the father, it shone out brightly in his poor child. This only daughter... is seen submitting herself, instead of rebelling or blaming her father.