Judges 11 Footnotes

11:34-39 According to vv. 30-31, Jephthah paid his vow to the Lord. He offered him the first thing that came out of his house to greet him after the battle—his beloved daughter. Did Jephthah literally sacrifice his daughter as a burnt offering to the Lord, or did he dedicate her to temple service? Until the Middle Ages, interpreters generally held to the first possibility. Subsequently both views have had their advocates. A difficulty with the former view is that God abhors human sacrifice (Jr 32:35); as for the latter view, there is no direct biblical evidence of a group committed to lifelong virginity serving the Lord at the temple in Shiloh. The plain reading of the text supports the conclusion that Jephthah did, in fact, offer his daughter as a burnt offering to the Lord as great an abomination as that would have been. This did not mean that the Lord accepted or approved of that offering (Is 1:10-15; Am 5:22).