Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Judges 11:31
Then it shall be, that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, shall surely be the LORD’s, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering.
31. whatsoever it shall be I will offer it up ] whosoever he shall be I will offer him up, so LXX, Vulgate, Peshitto Jephthah had in his mind a human victim 1 [44]
[44] Early Arabian religion before Mohammed furnishes a parallel: “Al-Mundhir [king of al-rah] had made a vow that on a certain day in each year he would sacrifice the first person he saw; ‘Abd came in sight on the unlucky day, and was accordingly killed, and the altar smeared with his blood.” Lyall, Ancient Arabian Poetry, p. xxviii, cf. p. xxvii.
. It is unnecessary to mention the various expedients which have been adopted in order to escape the plain meaning of the words. Nothing is said about Jephthah’s rashness; nor are we told that there was anything displeasing to Jehovah in the nature of the vow; the narrative emphasizes in the issue the grief of Jephthah and the pitiful fate of his daughter. At a crisis or under the influence of despair, when ordinary sacrifices seemed unavailing and at all costs the divine help must be secured, Semitic religion had recourse to human sacrifices. Among the Hebrews in the rude, early days such a sacrifice was possible (as here), but in time it was felt to be contrary to the spirit of the religion of Jehovah (Genesis 22); the hideous practice revived, however, in the period of Ahaz and Manasseh (2Ki 16:3; 2Ki 17:17; 2Ki 21:6 etc., Mic 6:7), and was denounced by the prophets (Jer 7:31; Jer 19:5 etc., Eze 16:20 f., Eze 23:39) and forbidden by the law (Deu 12:31; Deu 18:10, Lev 18:21; Lev 20:2). Among the neighbouring peoples, e.g. the Moabites (2Ki 3:27), the Canaanites or Phoenicians (Philo Bybl., Fragm. Hist. Gr. iii. 570; Porphyry, de Abstin. ii. 56 etc.), the Babylonians in Samaria (2Ki 17:31), the practice continued. In 1Sa 15:33, 2Sa 21:1-9 the reference is not to human sacrifice, but to a religious execution or erem. Recent excavations in Palestine (e.g. at Gezer) have revealed many remains of human sacrifices; see Stanley A. Cook, Religion of Ancient Palestine, pp. 38 ff.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
The words of this verse prove conclusively that Jephthah intended his vow to apply to human beings, not animals: for only one of his household could be expected to come forth from the door of his house to meet him. They also preclude any other meaning than that Jephthah contemplated a human sacrifice. This need not, however, surprise us, when we recollect his Syrian birth and long residence in a Syrian city, where such fierce rites were probably common. The Syrians and Phoenicians were conspicuous among the ancient pagan nations for human sacrifices, and the transfer, under such circumstances, to Yahweh of the rites with which the false gods were honored, is just what one might expect. The circumstance of the Spirit of the Lord coming on Jephthah Jdg 11:29 is no difficulty; as it by no means follows that because the Spirit of God endued him with supernatural valor and energy for vanquishing the Ammonites, He therefore also endued him with spiritual knowledge and wisdom. The Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon, but that did not prevent his erring in the matter of the ephod Jdg 8:27. Compare 1Co 12:4-11; Gal 2:11-14.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 31. Shall surely be the Lord’s, and I will offer it up for a burnt-offering.] The text is vehayah layhovah, vehaalithihu olah; the translation of which, according to the most accurate Hebrew scholars, is this: I will consecrate it to the Lord, or I will offer it for a burnt-offering; that is, “If it be a thing fit for a burnt-offering, it shall be made one; if fit for the service of God, it shall be consecrated to him.” That conditions of this kind must have been implied in the vow, is evident enough; to have been made without them, it must have been the vow of a heathen, or a madman. If a dog had met him, this could not have been made a burnt-offering; and if his neighbour or friend’s wife, son, or daughter, c., had been returning from a visit to his family, his vow gave him no right over them. Besides, human sacrifices were ever an abomination to the Lord and this was one of the grand reasons why God drove out the Canaanites, c., because they offered their sons and daughters to Molech in the fire, i.e., made burnt-offerings of them, as is generally supposed. That Jephthah was a deeply pious man, appears in the whole of his conduct and that he was well acquainted with the law of Moses, which prohibited all such sacrifices, and stated what was to be offered in sacrifice, is evident enough from his expostulation with the king and people of Ammon, Jdg 11:14-27. Therefore it must be granted that he never made that rash vow which several suppose he did; nor was he capable, if he had, of executing it in that most shocking manner which some Christian writers (“tell it not in Gath”) have contended for. He could not commit a crime which himself had just now been an executor of God’s justice to punish in others.
It has been supposed that “the text itself might have been read differently in former times; if instead of the words , I will offer IT a burnt-offering, we read , I will offer HIM (i.e., the Lord) a burnt-offering: this will make a widely different sense, more consistent with everything that is sacred; and it is formed by the addition of only a single letter, ( aleph,) and the separation of the pronoun from the verb. Now the letter aleph is so like the letter ain, which immediately follows it in the word olah, that the one might easily have been lost in the other, and thus the pronoun be joined to the verb as at present, where it expresses the thing to be sacrificed instead of the person to whom the sacrifice was to be made. With this emendation the passage will read thus: Whatsoever cometh forth of the doors or my house to meet me – shall be the Lord’s; and I will offer HIM a burnt-offering.” For this criticism there is no absolute need, because the pronoun hu, in the above verse, may with as much propriety be translated him as it. The latter part of the verse is, literally, And I will offer him a burnt-offering, olah, not leolah, FOR a burnt-offering, which is the common Hebrew form when for is intended to be expressed. This is strong presumption that the text should be thus understood: and this avoids the very disputable construction which is put on the vau, in vehaalithihu, OR I will offer IT up, instead of AND I will offer HIM a burnt-offering.
“From Jdg 11:39 it appears evident that Jephthah’s daughter was not SACRIFICED to God, but consecrated to him in a state of perpetual virginity; for the text says, She knew no man, for this was a statute in Israel. vattehi chok beyishrael; viz., that persons thus dedicated or consecrated to God, should live in a state of unchangeable celibacy. Thus this celebrated place is, without violence to any part of the text, or to any proper rule of construction, cleared of all difficulty, and caused to speak a language consistent with itself, and with the nature of God.”
Those who assert that Jephthah did sacrifice his daughter, attempt to justify the opinion from the barbarous usages of those times: but in answer to this it may be justly observed, that Jephthah was now under the influence of the Spirit of God, Jdg 11:29; and that Spirit could not permit him to imbrue his hands in the blood of his own child; and especially under the pretence of offering a pleasing sacrifice to that God who is the Father of mankind, and the Fountain of love, mercy, and compassion.
The versions give us but little assistance in clearing the difficulties of the text. In the Targum of Jonathan there is a remarkable gloss which should be mentioned, and from which it will appear that the Targumist supposed that the daughter of Jephthah was actually sacrificed: “And he fulfilled the vow which he had vowed upon her; and she knew no man: and it was made a statute in Israel, [that no man should offer his son or his daughter for a burnt-offering, as did Jephthah the Gileadite, who did not consult Phinehas the priest; for if he had consulted Phinehas the priest, he would have redeemed her with money.”]
The Targumist refers here to the law, Le 27:1-5, where the Lord prescribes the price at which either males or females, who had been vowed to the Lord, might be redeemed. “When a man shall make a singular vow, the persons shall be for the Lord at thy estimation: the male from twenty years old even unto sixty, shall be fifty shekels of silver; and if it be a female, then thy estimation shall be thirty shekels; and from five years old unto twenty years, the male twenty shekels, and for the female ten.” This also is an argument that the daughter of Jephthah was not sacrificed; as the father had it in his power, at a very moderate price, to have redeemed her: and surely the blood of his daughter must have been of more value in his sight than thirty shekels of silver.
Dr. Hales has entered largely into the subject: his observations may be seen at the end of this chapter.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
31. whatsoever cometh forth of thedoors of my house to meet meThis evidently points not to ananimal, for that might have been a dog; which, being unclean, wasunfit to be offered; but to a person, and it looks extremely as ifhe, from the first, contemplated a human sacrifice. Bred up as he hadbeen, beyond the Jordan, where the Israelitish tribes, far from thetabernacle, were looser in their religious sentiments, and livinglatterly on the borders of a heathen country where such sacrificeswere common, it is not improbable that he may have been so ignorantas to imagine that a similar immolation would be acceptable to God.His mind, engrossed with the prospect of a contest, on the issue ofwhich the fate of his country depended, might, through the influenceof superstition, consider the dedication of the object dearest to himthe most likely to ensure success.
shall surely be the Lord’s;and [or] I will offer it up for a burnt offeringTheadoption of the latter particle, which many interpreters suggest,introduces the important alternative, that if it were a person, thededication would be made to the service of the sanctuary; if a properanimal or thing, it would be offered on the altar.
Jdg 11:32;Jdg 11:33. HEOVERCOMES THE AMMONITES.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Then it shall be, that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me,…. If this phrase, “to meet me”, is meant intentionally, then no other than an human creature can be meant; a child, or servant, or any other of mankind; for none else could come forth with a design to meet him: but if this is to be understood eventually, of what might meet him, though not with design, then any other creature may be intended; and it must be meant what came forth first, as the Vulgate Latin version expresses it, or otherwise many might come forth at such a time:
when I return in peace from the children of Ammon: safe in his own person, and having conquered the Ammonites, and restored peace to Israel:
shall surely be the Lord’s; be devoted to him, and made use of, or the price of it, with which it is redeemed, in his service: and I will offer it for a burnt offering; that is, if it is what according to the law may be offered up, as an ox, sheep, ram, or lamb; some read the words disjunctively, “or I will offer it”, c. it shall either be devoted to the Lord in the manner that persons or things, according to the law, are directed to be or it shall be offered up for a burnt offering, if fit and proper for the service; so Joseph and David Kimchi, Ben Melech, and Abarbinel, with others, interpret it; but such a disjunction is objected to as improper and ridiculous, to distinguish two sentences, when the one is more general, and the other more special.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
(31) Whatsoever cometh forth.The true rendering undoubtedly is, Whosoever cometh forth (LXX., ; Vulg., quicunque). Nothing can be clearer than that the view held of this passage, from early Jewish days down to the Middle Ages, and still held by nearly all unbiased commentators, is the true one, and alone adequately explains the text: viz., that Jephthah, ignorant as he wasbeing a man of semi-heathen parentage, and long familiarised with heathen surroundingscontemplated a human sacrifice. To say that he imagined that an animal would come forth of the doors of his house to meet him on his triumphant return is a notion which even St. Augustine ridicules. The offer to sacrifice a single animaleven if we could suppose an animal coming forth to meet Jephthahwould be strangely inadequate. It would be assumed as a matter of course that not one, but many holocausts of animals would express the gratitude of Israel. Pfeiffer sensibly observes (Dub. vexata, p. 356): What kind of vow would it be if some great prince or general should say, O God, if Thou wilt give me this victory, the first calf that meets me shall be Thine? Jephthah left God, as it were, to choose His own victim, and probably anticipated that it would be some slave. The notion of human sacrifice was all but universal among ancient nations, and it was specially prevalent among the Syrians, among whom Jephthah had lived for so many years, and among the Phnicians, whose gods had been recently adopted by the Israelites (Jdg. 10:6). Further than this, it was the peculiar worship of the Moabites and Ammonites, against whom Jephthah was marching to battle; and one who had been a rude freebooter, in a heathen country and a lawless epoch, when constant and grave violations of the Law were daily tolerated, might well suppose in his ignorance that Jehovah would need to be propitiated by some offering as costly as those which bled on the altars of Chemosh and Moloch. Human sacrifice had been the first thought of Balak in the extremity of his terror (Mic. 6:7), and the last expedient of Balaks successor (2Ki. 3:27)Stanley, i. 358. If it be urged that after the great lesson which had been taught to Abraham at Jehovah-jireh the very notion of human sacrifice ought to have become abhorrent to any Israelite, especially as it had been expressly forbidden in the Law (Lev. 18:21; Deu. 12:31, &c), one more than sufficient answer is that even in the wilderness Israel had been guilty of Moloch-worship (Eze. 20:26; Jer. 49:1; Melcom, Amo. 5:26; Act. 7:43). The Law was one thing; the knowledge of it and the observance of it was quite another. During this period we find the Law violated again and again, even by judges like Gideon and Samson; and the tendency to violate it by human sacrifices lasted down to the far more enlightened and civilised days of Ahaz and Manasseh (2Ch. 28:3; 2Ch. 33:6). Indeed, we find the priests expressly sanctioning, even in the palmiest days of Davids reign, an execution which, to the vulgar, would bear an aspect not far removed from human sacrifice, or (rather) which might easily be confused with the spirit which led to it (2Sa. 21:1-9). If, again, it be said that the possibility of Jephthahs being guilty of so rash and evil a vow is excluded by the phrase that the Spirit of the Lord came upon him, such reasoning is to substitute idle fancies for clear facts. The Spirit of the Lord clothed Gideon, yet he set up an illegal worship. The Spirit of the Lord came upon Saul (1Sa. 19:23), yet Saul contemplated slaying his own son out of regard for no less foolish a vow (1Sa. 14:44). The Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward on which Samuel anointed him (1Sa. 16:13), yet he could sink into adultery and murder. The phrase must not be interpreted of high or permanent spiritual achievement, but of Divine strength granted for a particular end.
And I will offer it up for a burnt offering.The margin gives the alternative reading or instead of and. This is due to the same feeling which made our translators adopt the rendering whatsoever. They are practically following R. Kimchi in the attempt to explain away, out of deference to modern notions, the plain meaning of the Bible. It is true that vau, and, is sometimes practically disjunctive (or, rather, is used where a disjunctive might be used), but to take it so here is to make nonsense of the clause, for if any person or thing was made a burnt offering it was necessarily the Lords (Exo. 13:2, &c.), so that there can be no alternative here. The and is exactly analogous to the and between the two clauses of Jacobs (Gen. 28:21-22) and of Hannahs vow (1Sa. 1:11). The it will I offer ought to be, I will offer him.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
31. Whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me Rather, whosoever comes forth. It is hardly possible to avoid the conviction that Jephthah had a human being in his mind. For what else could he expect to come out of the doors of his house to meet him? Surely not a cow, nor a sheep, nor a goat, nor a herd of these animals, for their place was not in his house, or else, as Hengstenberg remarks, “the house of the Gileadite chieftain must have been a kind of Noah’s Ark cattle and men in one room, going out and in at the same door, stall-fed alike a thing surely not to be seriously thought of. Every thing that we know of the arrangements of houses among the Hebrews is against it.” And surely not a dog, or any unclean animal. No animal, clean or unclean, would be dignified with such lofty emphasis, for “how strange it would be,” says Pfeiffer, “if some great prince or general should say, ‘O God, if thou wilt grant me this victory, the first calf that comes to meet me shall be thine!’” If he meant to offer an animal, would he not have selected the best of his flocks, and have offered, not a single victim, and the first he found, but many sacrifices? Every feature of the passage indicates that Jephthah consciously vowed the sacrifice of a human being, and the tremendous force and awful solemnity of the vow appear in the very fact that not a common but an uncommon offering is pledged, and the victim is to be taken from the members of his own household. And as the most loving and affectionate would be likely to be the first to come and meet him, he hazards even that contingency, holding nothing back, but leaving it, as it were, for the Lord to select the victim.
When I return in peace Having conquered the enemy, and thus secured a lasting peace.
Shall surely be the Lord’s, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering Some have construed this passage so as to give the suffix pronoun it or him ( ) a dative sense, and refer it to the Lord. Thus, I will offer HIM (that is, to Jehovah) a burnt offering. In this case the vow is made to contemplate two distinct things, (1) a person to be consecrated to Jehovah, and (2) the additional offering of a burnt sacrifice. But such a construction would be a solecism in Hebrew. Were the sense dative, as above indicated, , to him, would have been used, for the suffix to the verb is always the accusative. In 2Ki 3:27, where it is said the king of Moab took his son and offered him a burnt offering upon the wall, we have precisely the same construction. Compare also 1Sa 7:9. This explanation must therefore be rejected as critically untenable.
The marginal reading, OR I will offer, etc., is also untenable. According to this reading the import of the vow would be, as Kimchi and others have paraphrased it, “I will offer it for a burnt offering if it be fit for such a purpose, or, if not fit, I will consecrate it to the Lord.” But every passage in which Vav ( ) is supposed to be used disjunctively is capable of a different explanation. The notion that the Hebrew language is so destitute of connecting particles that Vav must be often used in a disjunctive sense is an almost inexcusable blunder, especially when it is brought to bear on the simple and positive phraseology of Jephthah’s vow. It does not appear that this vow was uttered in the heat of battle or in a moment of confusion. If Jephthah contemplated divers methods of fulfilling it, the Hebrew language did not lack words by which to express precisely his intention. If he meant to say or, there was the proper disjunctive , which is used more than a hundred times in the Old Testament in the sense of or.
Another attempt to escape the obvious import of the vow is to take the word , burnt offering, in a figurative or spiritual sense. But such a deep spiritual sense of burnt offerings as this passage would involve was alien to the age of the Judges, and no passage in the whole Old Testament can be found where the word in question has such a meaning. Every passage cited in Hengstenberg’s essay on this subject fails most signally to help his argument. Hos 14:2; Psa 40:7-9; Psa 51:17; Psa 119:108. Take, for instance, the passage oftenest quoted, Psa 51:16-17, where the spiritual idea of sacrifices in general is expressed, and the sacrifice of a broken and contrite heart, so far from being identified with burnt offering, is put in direct opposition to it. The whole attempt to put a figurative or spiritual sense upon the word , especially in our text, is a manifest striving after something which the Scriptures nowhere offer, and a prodigious effort to get rid of the common meaning of an oft-recurring word.
It follows, then, that the only translation of this verse that will bear the test of criticism is substantially the following: “Whosoever comes forth from the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the sons of Ammon, shall be for Jehovah, and I will offer him for a burnt offering.” The last sentence is not tautological nor superfluous, but epexegetical of what immediately precedes, and shows the manner in which he meant to consecrate to the Lord the first person that came to meet him on his return home. So the language of Jephthah’s vow, according to the only defensible meaning of the words, clearly involved a human sacrifice.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Jdg 11:31. Shall surely be the Lord’s; and I will offer it up for a burnt-offering Shall be consecrated to the Lord, or I will offer it, &c. Waterland.
It is very evident, that this translation by Dr. Waterland must be right; because it was impossible that Jephthah should mean to offer for a burnt-offering whatever came forth of the doors of his house to meet him, since it was possible for him to have been met by several things which it would be sacrilegious for him to have offered to the Lord; and, indeed, the event sufficiently proves the propriety of this interpretation, since he was met by that which no vow, however solemn, could justify him in offering up.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Jdg 11:31 Then it shall be, that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, shall surely be the LORD’S, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering.
Ver. 31. Shall surely be the Lord’s, and I will offer it up.] Or, Or I will offer it up; for Fau is sometimes a conjunction disjunctive, as Gen 26:11 Exo 21:10 ; Exo 21:15 ; as if he should say, I will sacrifice it, if lawfully I may; or consecrate it unto God howsoever, if it be not fit for sacrifice.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
whatsoever. This is masculine. But the issuer from his house was feminine. Thus his rash vow was impossible of fulfillment, and was to be repented of.
and = or. The Hebrew (Vav) is a connective Particle, and is rendered in many different ways. It is also used as a disjunctive, and is often rendered “or” (or, with a negative, “nor”). See Gen 41:44. Exo 20:4; Exo 21:15, Exo 21:17, Exo 21:18. Num 16:14; Num 22:26 (Revised Version “nor”); Deu 3:24. 2Sa 3:29. 1Ki 18:10, 1Ki 18:27. With a negative = “nor”, “neither”. Exo 20:17. Deu 7:25. 2Sa 1:21. Psa 26:9. Pro 6:4; Pro 30:3, &c. See note on “but”, 1Ki 2:9. Here, Jephthah’s vow consisted of two parts: (1) He would either dedicate it to Jehovah (according to Lev 27); or (2) if unsuitable for this, he would offer it as a burnt offering. He performed his vow, and dedicated his daughter to Jehovah by a perpetual virginity (verses: Jdg 11:36, Jdg 11:39, Jdg 11:40); but he did not offer her as a burnt offering, because it was forbidden by Jehovah, and could not be accepted by Him (Jdg 18:21; Jdg 20:2-5).
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
whatsoever: etc. Heb. that which cometh forth, which shall come forth
shall surely: Lev 27:2, Lev 27:3, Lev 27:28, Lev 27:29, 1Sa 1:11, 1Sa 1:28, 1Sa 2:18, 1Sa 14:24, 1Sa 14:44, Psa 66:13, Psa 66:14
and I will: or, or I will, etc. Wehaaleetheehoo olah, rather, as Dr. Randolph and others contend, “and I will offer Him (or to Him, i.e., Jehovah) a burnt offering;” for hoo may with much more propriety be referred to the person to whom the sacrifice was to be made, than to the thing to be sacrificed. Unless understood in this way, or as the marginal reading, it must have been the vow of a heathen or a madman. If a dog, or other uncleaned animal had met him, he could not have made it a burnt offering; or if his neighbour’s wife, sons, etc., his vow gave him no right over them. Lev 27:11, Lev 27:12, Deu 23:18, Psa 66:13, Isa 66:3
Reciprocal: Gen 22:2 – and offer Gen 28:20 – vowed Gen 28:21 – I come Lev 5:4 – to do evil Num 30:2 – vow a vow Deu 23:23 – That which Jdg 11:39 – did with Jdg 21:1 – There 2Ki 3:27 – offered him Mic 6:7 – shall Mat 14:9 – the oath’s
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Jdg 11:31. Shall surely be the Lords, and I will offer it up for a burnt- offering Dr. Waterland translates it, shall be consecrated to the Lord, or, I will offer it, &c. It is very evident, says Dr. Dodd, that this translation of Dr. Waterland must be right, because it was impossible that Jephthah should mean to offer for a burnt-offering whatever came forth of the doors of his house to meet him, since it was possible for him to have been met by several things which it would have been sacrilegious for him to have offered to the Lord; and indeed the event sufficiently proves the propriety of this interpretation, since he was met by that which no vow, however solemn, could justify him in offering up. This is Mr. Lockes opinion, in his gloss upon the place. See the note on Jdg 11:39-40.