JEPHTHAH’S DAUGHTER

The Book of Judges introduces us to an unusual leader by the name of Jephthah. He is presented as follows:

Jephthah the Gileadlite was an able warrior, who was the son of a prostitute. Jephthah’s father was Gilead; but Gilead also had sons by his wife, and when the wife’s sons grew up, they drove Jephthah out. They said to him, “You shall have no share in our father’s property, for you are the son of an outsider.” So Jephthah fled from his brothers and settled in the Tob country. Men of low character gathered about Jephthah and went out raiding with him. (Judges 11:1-3)

Jephthah’s exploits are then recounted. Despite his shaky beginnings, son of a marginal woman and very vulnerable, he is portrayed as a successful warrior who with the help of the Almighty vanquishes the Amonites. In the tradition of the Judges, he is precisely the unlikely leader^[1]We frequently find in biblical theology that it is precisely the strong who find themselves powerless and the “powerless”, the weaker vessels, who demonstrate strength. In our website, Women and Wonder, we show how unlikely, “weaker” female characters, such as Judith, the woman who kills Abimelech and the wise woman of Abel Bet Maacha, take on the roles and the strength of the men. who against the odds makes good. Jephthah attempts political negotiations with his enemies but is unsuccessful and must go out to battle. Before waging his momentous battle Jephthah makes a powerful and fateful vow unaware of its dreadful implications:

Then the spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah. He marched through Gilead and Manasseh, passing Mizpeh of Gilead; and from Mizpeh of Gilead he crossed over to the Ammonites. And Jephthah made the following vow to the Lord: “If you deliver the Ammonites into my hands, then whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me on my safe return from the Ammonites shall be the Lord’s and shall be offered by me as a burnt offering”…

When Jephthah arrived at his home in Mizpah there was his daughter coming out to meet him, with timbrel and dance!^[2]Another biblical woman famous for her song and dance is Miriam the prophet, who “took a timbrel in her hand; and all the women went out after her with music and dancing” after the miracle of the parting of the Red Sea. For further insight on Miriam, see Miriam’s Rhythms. She was an only child; he had no other son or daughter. On seeing her, he rent his clothes and said, “Alas, daughter! You have brought me low; you have become by troubler! For I have opened my mouth and uttered a vow to the Lord I cannot retract.” “Father, she said, “you have uttered a vow to the Lord; do to me as you have vowed, seeing that the Lord has vindicated you against your enemies, the Ammonites.” She further said to her father, “Let this be done for me; let me be for two months, and I will go with my companions and lament upon the hills and there bewail my maidenhood.”… After two months time, she returned to her father, and he did to her as he had vowed. She had never known a man. So it became a custom in Israel for the maidens of Israel to go every year, for four days in the year, and chant dirges for the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite. (Judges 11:29-31, 34-40)

In her commentary on the book of Judges Yaira Amit^[3]Yairah Amit, The book of Judges: The Art of Editing, Leiden; Brill, 1999, translated from the Hebrew by Jonathan Chipman. Volume 38 of the Biblical Interpretation Series. points out that the story dedicates little to the description of the victory and a great deal to the tragic vow.^[4]Phyllis Trible (in Phyllis Trible, “A Daughter’s Death: Feminism, Literary Criticism and the Bible”, Michigan Quarterly Review, 22:3 (1983), pg. 183) contrasts the story of Jephthah’s Daughter to that of Abraham and the binding of Isaac. She shows how Jephthah’s words show no compassion towards his daughter (“I have opened my mouth to God, I cannot turn back”), whereas Abraham evasively yet faithfully assured Issac “God will provide himself the lamb… my son”. She continues to compare the behavior and words of the two children as well. Scripture intensifies the tragedy by informing us that she was Jephthah’s only child. Jephthah rents his garments and cries out in mourning realizing too late what he has done to his child.

Notice the grandeur of Jephthah’s daughter. Whereas her father in his anger and pain lashes out at her “Alas, daughter! You have brought me low; you have become my troubler!” she, the child and the “victim”, not only accepts her fate with dignity, she remarkably, fully aware of her fate, turns to God and praises Him. “Father, she said, “you have uttered a vow to the Lord; do to me as you have vowed, seeing that the Lord has vindicated you against your enemies, the Ammonites.”

Her wisdom and clarity are astounding^[5]Yairah Amit compares it to the wife of Manoah, who, in Judges 13:23 says to her husband: “If God had wanted to kill us, He would not have taken from us our sacrifices, and would not have showed us all these [wonders]…” and make the loss all the more tragic. She is a young woman of great understanding and compassionately reinforces her father’s resolve. She does not hide her pain and sorrow and her sisters give expression to this tragic loss every year for four days. Her compromise solution is also touching in its profundity. But not in its finality since bnot zion made a tradition^[6]

The Talmud in its discussion of the case of Amnon and Tamar says:

“And Tamar put ashes on her head, and rent her garment of many colors that was on her; and she laid her hand on her head, and went her way, crying aloud as she went” (II Sam 13:19) “A great fence Tamar created at that time. They said: If for daughters of kings it is so, then for daughters of plain people all the more so! If for modest women it is so, then for harlot women, all the more so! (Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin, 21a)

Rashi comments on this passage saying that Tamar created a precedent, a custom for other woman. By her tears and cries, and shaming herself, the other woman learned from her, thinking; “If Tamar, a princess, is acting so, we, regular women, all the more so.”

In our story, we have a similar situation, where the women who go to mourn with Jephthah’s daughter begin a precedent, a tradition and a minhag– returning for four days every year in memory of the daughter of Jephthah. 

The medieval ritual of tekufah, the practice of refraining four times a year from drinking water from wells and rivers during a certain number of hours of the equinox and the solstice, marking the changing of the seasons, was observed fairly strictly by Jews throughout medieval Germany and Northern France. The explanation and source given for this ritual, come from the custom of the women who went to mourn with Jephthah’s daughter. For an illuminating survey of this tradition, it’s roots and context, see: Elisheva Baumgarten, “‘Remember that glorious girl’: Jephthah’s Daughter in Medieval Jewish Culture“, Jewish Quarterly Review, 97:2 (2007), pg. 180-209. of going to mourn her for four days every year.

Yaira Amit asks why scripture saw fit to expand on the story of the vow and not the war? She asserts that the story is intended as a polemic against human child sacrifice,^[7]Compare to the story of the Binding of Isaac. See Visions and Voices-Piercing the Silence. and the image of Jephthah as a judge.^[8]

The focus of the story on Jephthah’s vow, rather than on his battle, could be seen as an insight into Jephthah’s character. The bible goes to great lengths to prohibit child sacrifice and to stress the connection between going in the ways of God and abstaining from sacrificing children, in clear juxtaposition to the traditions of the surrounding nations. Perhaps the focus on Jephthah’s vow is meant to allude to this strong recurring theme.

In the book of Exodus, we see the underlying concept of redeeming the first born:

All that opens the womb is Mine; and of all your cattle you shall sanctify the males, the firstlings of ox and sheep. And the firstling of an ass you shall redeem with a lamb; and if you will not redeem it, then you shall break its neck. All the first-born of your sons you shall redeem. And none shall appear before Me empty. (Exodus 34:19-20)

Later, in the prophets, there are many examples of connecting the evil ways of the leaders with the practice of child sacrifice. Of King Ahaz it is written: 

Twenty years old was Ahaz when he began to reign; …and he did not that which was right in the eyes of the Lord his God, like David his father. He walked in the way of the kings of Israel, and made his son to pass through the fire, according to the abominations of the nations… (IIK 16:2-3)

In IIK 17:31 it states:

…and the Sepharvites burnt their children in the fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim.

In contradiction, it is told of the good King Josiah that he abolished the practices of the nations, amongst which:

…he defiled Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, that no man might make his son or his daughter to pass through the fire to Molech. (IIK 23:10)

And of King Manasseh:  

Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to reign; …And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, after the abominations of the nations, whom the Lord cast out before the children of Israel… And he made his son to pass through the fire, and practiced soothsaying, and used enchantments… he wrought much evil in the sight of the Lord, to provoke Him. (IIK 21:1-6)

Later on, the prophet Jeremiah laments:

And they have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire; which I commanded not, neither came it into My mind. (Jer. 7:31)

…because they have forsaken Me, and have estranged this place, and have offered in it unto other gods, whom neither they nor their fathers have known, nor the kings of Judah; and have filled this place with the blood of innocents; and have built the high places of Baal, to burn their sons in the fire for burnt-offerings unto Baal; which I commanded not, nor spoke it, neither came it into My mind. (Jer. 19:4-5)

And they built the high places of Baal, which are in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to set apart their sons and their daughters unto Molech; which I commanded them not, neither came it into My mind, that they should do this abomination; to cause Judah to sin. (Jer. 32:35)

And the prophet Ezekiel says in the name of God:

And when, in offering your gifts, in making your sons to pass through the fire, you pollute yourselves with all your idols, unto this day (Ezekiel 20:31)

Indeed, Josh Berman points out that the midrashic exegetical tradition affirmed with one voice, that Jephthah’s vow was a commitment to sacrifice the first creature that greeted him upon his victorious return from battle and that even when that creature proved to be his one daughter, Jephthah carried out his vow and offered her as a sacrifice.

The Midrash Tanhuma on Parashat Behutkotay, 7 says:

And so you find with Jephthah the Gileadite, since he was not a man of Torah, he lost his daughter. When? During the time that he fought the Ammonites and made a vow… At that time, the Holy One Blessed be He, was angry with him saying: ‘If a dog or a pig or a camel will come out of his house, he will sacrifice them before me.’ God summoned his daughter to come towards him… and when he saw her, Pinheas, the Priest was there and he said ‘I cannot return’, but Pinheas said: ‘I am the great priest, son of a great priest. I will humiliate myself and go to the simple people?!’, and Jephthah said: ‘I am the leader of the tribes of Israel, the army commander, I will humiliate myself and go to a lay person?!’ And because of the two of them, she was lost. And they both were responsible and punished for her death- Pinhas lost the divine spirit of prophecy and Jephthah’s bones were dispersed…

She (Jephthah’s daughter) said; ‘Father, it is written in the Torah about the sacrifices “When a person brings an offering to the Lord, you shall bring your offering of an animal, of the herd or of the flock…”. Of an animal, and not of a human?!” And he said to her: ‘Daughter, I have made a vow…’ and she answered him: ‘Jacob our forefather vowed “and of all that You shall give me I will surely give a tenth to You’, and God gave him twelve tribes- did he sacrifice one of them?!”, and also Hannah, when she made her vow to give her son to the Lord all the days of his life, did she sacrifice him?!’

All these things she said unto him, and he did not listen. She said: ‘Let me go to a court, perhaps they will find a flaw in your words [of the vow], as it is written: “Let this thing be done for me: let me alone two months, that I may depart and go down upon the mountains”… And she went to the Sanhedrin, and they did not find any leeway to annul his vow… and of him it is said that he was poor in Torah, and therefore they couldn’t see the way to annul his vow. And so she was sacrificed and the Divine Spirit was screaming: “I did not ask you to sacrifice human souls before me, I didn’t command it and didn’t speak it, and it didn’t come into my heart. I didn’t command Abraham to sacrifice his son… and I didn’t tell Jephthah to sacrifice his daughter…”

And what was the reason that Jephthah lost his daughter? Because he didn’t read Torah, for if he had, he would not have lost her…

In this midrash, we see that the rabbis see Jephthah not only as an ignoramus but also as an arrogant fool- two strong judgments of his character.

Joshua Berman states that later exegetes found it difficult to fathom how Jephthah could commit child immolation and yet receive no explicit censure. Within the commentaries of Abraham Ibn Ezra (1089-1164) and R. David Qimhi (c.1160-c.1235), two of the leading rabbinic exegetes of their age, a different interpretation of the vow was offered: Were the first creature to greet him be a person, then that person would indeed be dedicated to God, not in the form of a sacrifice, but through a life of devotion to God through seclusion.

Uriel Simon has suggested that this interpretation reflects the influence of medieval monasticism. Simon points to the remark of R. David Qimhi to Jgs 11:40 that in fulfilling the vow “she secluded herself as do the ascetics enclosed in the cells”. Similarly, observed Simon, Don Isaac Abarbanel (1437-1508) wrote concerning her life of solitude, “This is the basis from which the Kingdom of Edom (i.e. the Church) derived the practice to establish houses of seclusion for women, that they should enter and not leave at all for their entire lives, nor see another person for the rest of their lives.” Simon notes that Gersonides (1288-1344) rounds out the list of medieval rabbinic exegetes who were exposed to Latin Christendom and adopted this non-sacrificial interpretation of the vow.

Non Jewish Parallels:

Apparently, Jephthah was not the only hero in the Mediterranean to make this same foolish vow about “the first”. King Idomeneus of Crete was another.  Encountering a storm on his return from the Trojan wars, he vowed that if he got home safely, he would sacrifice to Poseidon the first one who came out to meet him. General Meander took a similar battle- a vow to the Mother of the Gods. Both these vows led to tragedies. The first to greet Idomeneus was his son; and as for Meander, he was greeted by his son Archelos and by his mother and sister. After sacrificing them all, he jumped into the river that bears his name.

There may have been other stories with this tragic but traditional motif.

At the height of his power, Jephthah comes home. And then is defeated by his daughter’s alacrity and his own stupid vow.

(Tikva Frymer Kensky, Reading the Women of the Bible: A New Interpretation of their Stories, Schocken; 2002 (New York), pg. 107