The Sacrifice of the Virgin Daughter of Jephthah

Where to find the story of Jephthah's Nameless Daughter

Jephthah's daughter is found in Judges 11:1-11 and 29-40.  Her father makes a vow to God that if he is successful in battle the first person to greet him, on his return, will be sacrificed   

Jephthah's Daughter Tells Her Story

I could see him coming from a long way off. I put on my dancing skirt and picked up my tambourine. I am his only daughter, his only child and I wanted to be the first to welcome him home in victory.  

"Why have you done this to me?" he yelled.  He started tearing his clothes and throwing dirt on his head. "You have caused me great trouble!  You have brought me very low."   

All I could do was stand there and listen to him rave about what I had done to him. He blamed me for his vow, for the violence he was about to do to me.  Who did he think would come out to greet him?  My mother and I were the two most obvious choices. He had vowed to sacrifice the first person to greet him and it was me.  He must have know it would be me or my mother.  

I hated him in that moment!  I knew that he would not relent.  I was doomed and I had to get away from him.  I left for two months. I told him I was going to bewail my virginity. That was something he could understand. My life was of no consequence to him.  He had decided how I would die but I decided when.  

The women of Israel will remember me. They will lament the sacrifice of a virgin daughter to a God who does not demand human sacrifice. 

Observations on the story of Jephthah's Daughter

Abraham vows to sacrifice Isaac but God intervenes at the last moment and Isaac is saved.  No such luck for the nameless daughter of Jephthah.  Ironically, Jephthah has just defeated the Ammonites who worship the god Molech.  The Ammonites practiced the sacrifice of their children to Molech.

Leviticus 18: 21 warns the Israelites not to sacrifice their children because the act profanes the name of God.  Leviticus 20: 2-5 prescribes the punishment of stoning to death for anyone who does sacrifice a child.  Where is the justice for Jephthah's daughter?  Not only is her father not stoned he is made the head of the elders and commander of the army.

One can only wonder at the motivation of a father and husband who vows to sacrifice the first person to greet him on his return home. He seems to have his, "Look what you have done to me" blaming the victim speech, all made up.  The story of Jephthah's daughter is tragic and the male biblical writer seems to believe that the fact that she is a virgin is even more tragic.  He sends her off to bewail her virginity, not her life.  But the women know and Judges 11:39b-40 says, "So there arose an Israelite custom that for four days every year the daughters of Israel would go out to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite." NRSV