Judges 11 Chapter Introduction

Structure and Formatting

The account of Jephthah continues in this chapter.

Religious and Cultural Concepts in This Chapter

Why did Jephthah sacrifice his daughter?

The story of Jephthah defeating the Ammonites has a tragic ending. He vows that if Yahweh will give him victory, upon his return, he will sacrifice the first person who comes out of his house as a burnt offering. This person turns out to be his daughter, his only child. But he fulfills his vow anyway and sacrifices her. Part of the explanation for this is that Jephthah’s half-brothers drove him away from their home in Israel so that he had to live in Syria. The Syrians practiced human sacrifice, and Jephthah apparently came to regard it as a way of influencing a deity. The rest of the explanation is that Jephthah did not know the provisions of the law of Moses. In [Leviticus 27:1–8](../lev/27/01.md), Yahweh tells Moses that if someone dedicates a person, he must redeem that person by paying a certain amount of silver shekels. That is what Jephthah was supposed to do. It was all right for him to devote a family member to Yahweh as long as he then redeemed that person. The author of Judges is using this story to show what happens when, as he says in [17:6](../17/06.md) and [21:25](../21/25.md), everyone does what is right in his own eyes, rather than what Yahweh has commanded. This supports the overall argument of the book that Israel should have a good king who makes sure that the Israelites follow the law of Moses.