We wrap up our look at the book of Judges here. This week, it's time to look over one of the more atrocious stories of the Bible - the story of the Judge Jephthah.
Judg 11:30-39a - And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord, and said, "If you will give the Ammonites into my hand, then whoever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return victorious from the Ammonites, shall be the Lord's, to be offered up by me as a burnt offering." So Jephthah crossed over to the Ammonites to fight against them; and the Lord gave them into his hand. He inflicted a massive defeat on them from Aroer to the neighborhood of Minnith, twenty towns, and as far as Abel-keramim. So the Ammonites were subdued before the people of Israel. Then Jephthah came to his home at Mizpah; and there was his daughter coming out to meet him with timbrels and with dancing. She was his only child; he had no son or daughter except her. 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." 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." 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." "Go," he said and sent her away for two months. So she departed, she and her companions, and bewailed her virginity on the mountains. 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.
OK. Not only is this story disturbing in its own right, it's also interesting in that the writer of Hebrews named this person as a role model for faithful people. I've read some Bible commentaries about this passage: one says that Jephthah's promise, in Hebrew, states that he will offer "the first thing that comes out of his door" in case of a victorious return. This sounds rather disingenuous to me - unless this fellow was quite used to having goats and such roaming in and out of his front door, to the exclusion of humans.
Another odd aspect that I'm curious about is the cross-cultural aspect of this story. I need some help here. I once purchased a copy of the Mozart opera "Idomineo, King of Crete." In reading the libretto, I found that it had a plot almost exactly like this story from the Bible. What I'm wondering is - was the story of Idomineo an actual Greek myth, or was the opera something made up to present a Biblical story in a different context for some reason?
Comments?
