Judges 11:37

37 And she said to her father, "Let this thing be done for me: Grant me two months, so that I may go and wander on the mountains, and bewail my virginity, my companions and I."

Judges 11:37 Meaning and Commentary

Judges 11:37

And she said unto her father, let this thing be done for me,
&c.] She had but one favour to ask of him, which she thought might be granted, without any breach of the vow:

let me alone two months
she desired such a space of time might be allowed her before the vow took place; and the rather she might be encouraged to expect that her request would be granted, since no time was fixed by the vow for the accomplishment of it, and since the time she asked was not very long, and the end to be answered not unreasonable

that I may go up and down upon the mountains;
or, "ascend upon the mountains" ^F8; Jepthah's house in Mizpeh being higher than the mountains; or there might be, as Kimchi and Ben Melech note, a valley between that and the mountains, to which she descended in order to go up to the mountains; see ( Judges 9:25 ) these she chose to make her abode, and take her walks in, during the time she asked, as being most fit for retirement and solitude; where she might give up herself to meditation and prayer, and conversation with her fellow virgins she would take with her, and so be wrought up to a greater degree of resignation and submission to her father's will, and to the will of God in it, as she might suppose:

and bewail my virginity, I and my fellows;
the virgins her companions; this she proposed to be the subject that she and her associates would dwell upon, during this time of solitude; and the rather, as this may be thought to be the thing contained in the vow, that as she was a virgin, so she should continue; by which means she would not be the happy instrument of increasing the number of the children of Israel, nor of being the progenitor of the Messiah; upon which accounts it was reckoned in those times to be very grievous and reproachful to live and die without issue, and so matter of lamentation and weeping.

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FOOTNOTES:

F8 (Myrhh le ytdryw) "et descendam super montes", Pagninus, Montanus; "descendamque ad montes", Tigurine version.

Judges 11:37 In-Context

35 When he saw her, he tore his clothes, and said, "Alas, my daughter! You have brought me very low; you have become the cause of great trouble to me. For I have opened my mouth to the Lord, and I cannot take back my vow."

36 She said to him, "My father, if you have opened your mouth to the Lord, do to me according to what has gone out of your mouth, now that the Lord has given you vengeance against your enemies, the Ammonites."

37 And she said to her father, "Let this thing be done for me: Grant me two months, so that I may go and wander on the mountains, and bewail my virginity, my companions and I."

38 "Go," he said and sent her away for two months. So she departed, she and her companions, and bewailed her virginity on the mountains.

39 At the end of two months, she returned to her father, who did with her according to the vow he had made. She had never slept with a man. So there arose an Israelite custom that

Footnotes

• [a]. Cn: Heb [go down]