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I’m not one to shy away from controversial passages, so why not tackle the elephant in the room, right? After reading this, it seems that Jephthah made a bone-headed vow and followed through with it by sacrificing his only daughter to the Lord. Couple this with the fact that Jephthah is mentioned in Hebrews 11 as a “great man of faith,” we are left with a lot of questions.
Sidebar – this chapter is often isolated as a particularly useful passage to atheists (such as Richard Dawkins) to try and prove that the Lord is bloodthirsty or desirous of human sacrifice. This could not be further from the truth.
First, I think it is important to state that biblical narratives should be read as narratives. There are stories in the Bible that are reported but not necessarily prescribed. When you flip on the evening news, you may see and hear a lot of horrific stories, but it doesn’t necessarily mean the news station condones that behavior.
Second, if Dawkins (and other skeptics) took time to read about what God actually desired, they would see how the behavior in this chapter is inconsistent with His nature. God’s law clearly and explicitly prohibited child sacrifice (Lev 20:1-5; Deut. 12:29-32; Deut. 18:10). God’s law did not approve of unwise or thoughtless vows, and actually calls it sin (Lev. 5:4-13).
There are horrific events going on today (due to our sinful rebellion) that God, in His sovereignty, allows to take place. I want to emphatically state that this does not mean God condones it! We know this to be true by His consistent nature and ultimately by His act of grace in sending Christ to bear all sin.
Third, we do not know with certainty that Jephthah sacrificed his daughter. The passage does not clearly state that she was killed, only that Jephthah fulfilled his vow. One of my favorite commentators, Adam Clarke, builds a compelling interpretation for this passage. He writes that the most knowledgeable Hebrew scholars have said the vow contained the conjunction “or” rather than “and,” meaning that Jephthah was vowing to either offer it up to the Lord, or sacrifice it, depending on what the “it” was that came to greet him.
This would make sense if we read the passage to mean that he offered his daughter up to celibacy as a “sacrifice.” This is the view that many people take. He was upset because he was forced to give up his daughter to work for the Lord in the Temple and she would never marry or bear children. Hence, the two months of mourning her virginity.
Whatever the case, I believe we should always focus on what we know instead of what we do not know. We know that Jephthah had great faith. However, we also know that the people of great faith had great moral failures (i.e. David, Samson, Gideon). We know that Jephthah made a seemingly hasty vow, and followed through with that vow. We know from many biblical passages that God does not condone child sacrifice or rash vows, therefore if Jephthah did either of those, God did not like it.