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.