Our passage of concern this time around is one that skeptics and critics alike have supposed to be an example of human sacrifice in the Bible -- and some even say it is endorsed by God Himself. Here is our passage, Judges 11:29-40 --

Then the Spirit of the LORD came upon Jephthah. He crossed Gilead and Manasseh, passed through Mizpah of Gilead, and from there he advanced against the Ammonites. And Jephthah made a vow to the LORD: "If you give the Ammonites into my hands, whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites will be the Lord's, and I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering." Then Jephthah went over to fight the Ammonites, and the LORD gave them into his hands. He devastated twenty towns from Aroer to the vicinity of Minnith, as far as Abel Keramim. Thus Israel subdued Ammon. When Jephthah returned to his home in Mizpah, who should come out to meet him but his daughter, dancing to the sound of tambourines! She was an only child. Except for her he had neither son nor daughter. When he saw her, he tore his clothes and cried, "Oh! My daughter! You have made me miserable and wretched, because I have made a vow to the LORD that I cannot break." "My father," she replied, "you have given your word to the LORD. Do to me just as you promised, now that the LORD has avenged you of your enemies, the Ammonites. But grant me this one request," she said. "Give me two months to roam the hills and weep with my friends, because I will never marry." "You may go," he said. And he let her go for two months. She and the girls went into the hills and wept because she would never marry. After the two months, she returned to her father and he did to her as he had vowed. And she was a virgin. From this comes the Israelite custom that each year the young women of Israel go out for four days to commemorate the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite.

Here are our key questions for this passage:

1. Did the "spirit of the Lord" inspire Jephthah's vow?
2. Did Jephthah make the vow knowing a human might be involved?
3. Did Jephthah actually sacrifice his daughter?

If the answer to any of these questions is yes, then we have a very disturbing story indeed, one that suggests that God endorsed a human sacrifice -- implicity if not explicitly. Let's examine some particulars.

Then the Spirit of the LORD came upon Jephthah. He crossed Gilead and Manasseh, passed through Mizpah of Gilead, and from there he advanced against the Ammonites. And Jephthah made a vow to the LORD: "If you give the Ammonites into my hands, whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites will be the Lord's, and I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering."

The most disturbing question raised by critics supposes that this passage indicates that the spirit of the Lord Himself caused Jephthah to offer his daughter as a sacrifice. Jonathan Kirsch, for example, in his book The Harlot by the Side of the Road, uncritically accepts the view of one feminist scholar who asserts that God was ultimately and directly responsible for the very text of the vow. Does this assertion hold up under scrutiny?

To answer this question, let's look at other places where it is said that the "spirit of the Lord" influenced some person to do something.

Judges 3:9-10 But when they cried out to the LORD, he raised up for them a deliverer, Othniel son of Kenaz, Caleb's younger brother, who saved them. The Spirit of the LORD came upon him, so that he became Israel's judge and went to war. The LORD gave Cushan-Rishathaim king of Aram into the hands of Othniel, who overpowered him.

Ezekiel 11:5 Then the Spirit of the LORD came upon me, and he told me to say: "This is what the LORD says: That is what you are saying, O house of Israel, but I know what is going through your mind."

As we can see from these passages, what action or saying is inspired by the Spirit of the Lord is detailed immediately after it is said who the Spirit came upon. Therefore, if the Spirit of the Lord inspired Jephthah to do anything at all, it was to go travelling around recruiting his army and go to war with the Ammonites. The fact that the vow is reported seperately indicates that it was not something done under the Spirit of the Lord at all. The critics can't pin this one on God!

When Jephthah returned to his home in Mizpah, who should come out to meet him but his daughter, dancing to the sound of tambourines! She was an only child. Except for her he had neither son nor daughter. When he saw her, he tore his clothes and cried, "Oh! My daughter! You have made me miserable and wretched, because I have made a vow to the LORD that I cannot break."

Now the next question, the answer to which some say makes God guilty by endorsement, and Jephthah guilty in the main: Did he make this vow knowing that a human might come walking out of his house?

It is common for conservatives to appeal to Jeppie's ignorance in this case, and note that houses of the Biblical period typically had a stockyard that surrounded the house, so that Jephthah could very well have supposed that an animal would be the first thing to meet him. Kirsch, for one, again uncritically following feminist scholarship, dismisses this solid sociological data as "ingenious" and merely asserts that Jephthah "knows exactly what he is doing."

But other data indicates otherwise. First, as Glenn Miller has pointed out, there are too many "incongruities in the text/context for that":

1. Literal "burnt offerings" HAD TO BE male (Lev 22.18-19). Jephthah's daughter obviously wasn't.
2. Burnt offerings were ALWAYS associated with condemnation/evil--not thanksgiving and vows. Even the one non-literal use of it in Dt 13.16 (in which a town is offered as a burnt offering) involves abject judgment/condemnation--NOT at all in view in the Jephthah passage.

Thus, Miller concludes that Jephthah simply "does not know what a BURNT offering is, and that he is meaning an 'irredeemable vow' as a thank-offering, along the line of Hannah/Samuel...Jephthah's home life was not the best one in the world for getting a biblical education--he was the son of a prostitute, and driven away from the house by his brothers." (To this we can add that the sociological data indicates that he would not expect his daughter, his only child and family member, to come out of the house: Indications are that when the men returned victorious from war, the women met them outside the city with their music and jangles [1 Sam. 18:6,]. By that accounting, J. expected his daughter to be out with the crowd, not at home.)

The final and ultimate question is: Did Jephthah actually go through with a human sacrifice? Many commentators think so, but the text points in another direction. We note, along with the incongruities cited by Miller above, that Jeppie's daughter spent some time in the wilderness bewailing the fact that she would always be a virgin and never have children. This sounds like Temple service to me! It's either that, or a kid with wrong-headed or peculiar priorities:

J'S DAUGHTER: Oh, boo-hoo! Daddy is going to sacrifice me tomorrow!

FRIEND: How awful!

DAUGHTER: Yes, but you know what the worst part is? I'm ALWAYS going to be a virgin! BOOO-HOOOOOO!

Furthermore, Jeppie's own misery is perfectly understandable; as Miller explains: "As the only child, and if given to the priest in this fashion, Jephthah's entire estate would go to someone else." As important as this was in the ANE, small wonder Jeppie was upset! That vow cost him not only his daughter's life with him at home (and since he was thrown out of his own house, that made the companionship all the more valuable to him), but any chance he had of giving his property to a true descendant.

We therefore conclude that while Jeppie was not a particularly bright fellow, he neither promised nor committed a human sacrifice in this instance. We can surmise that there is a bit of literary "trickery" here...the abrupt ending of the account and the non-specific "he did to her as he vowed" is perhaps designed to shock the reader and make them wonder, "Hey...did he? He didn't!" This would be in perfect keeping with the purpose of Judges as a mirror of Israelite moral anarchy in this period. The reader is shown in various places how bad things got; and this story easily encourages one to wonder just indeed how bad things did get. It is yet another case of the Bible, the Word of God, forcing us to take a long, hard look at ourselves, warts and all.